Today was another lovely spring day, but I spent a fair amount of it indoors.
Work has been way busy these days, I could use a rest. As I mentioned to some
folks in recent personal mail, the basic situation is this. At the beginning
of the school year, there was a facility director and 5 sys admins in the
Department of Computer Science here at the U of Utah. As of the last week,
there is basically me and another guy, when he shows up. This bit of whining
is meant mostly for those of you still waiting to hear back from me on parts
orders, don't write me off as a complete flake just yet. I've been busy.
But not so busy that I've had to miss the first couple of autocrosses of the
season. My co-driver, Pugs, has provided first his '68 Spitfire to run, with
the original spring in the rear. We took it easy, wary of just falling right
over as the axles jack the car around. Last Sunday, we took his '64 Mark 1
Spit, with a later swing spring and a 7/8" front sway bar installed. Much
better, and we did fairly well considering the tall skinny tires. We'll be
trying that car out again this weekend. Killer is coming along, though, and
it could now be merely weeks before the debut.
A couple of times last year I drove my '65 Mark 1 in a couple of autocrosses.
The last time the poor thing started spewing oil all over the place, and I
didn't take my last runs as I didn't want to grease the course for everyone
else. I nursed it home, stopping every 10 or 15 miles on the 35 mile drive
home to add another quart. I figured the cheesy repair I made to the leaky
front plate gasket blew out, and I'd get to it AnyDayNow. The thing to do
was obviously pull the motor and do it right. This was maybe August of 1996.
So to improve things on Pugs' Mark 1, we're going to use the 185/60 tires off
my Mark 1. After getting back from whacking on the undergrad file server, I
jacked up my dusty, neglected Spitfire and took off the front tires. And I
thought that since I was in the neighborhood, I'd take another look at that
oil leak, see if it really required pulling the motor. I wiped off the front
of the oil pan, the bottom of the front cover, and the general area around the
suspected leak. Fired up the motor, and amazingly enough it wheezed into life
with little effort, after sitting over the winter.
Yep, a couple blips on the throttle and the oil starts pooling up under the
car. Uh, wait a minute, the front plate is still clean, the oil is spraying
out from *behind* the lip on the edge of the oil pan.
The verdict? My little Mark 1 has been off the road for close to a year
because one of the front oil pan screws fell out. Had I checked a bit more
closely at that autocross last year, it could have been a 5 minute or less
repair. Sometimes I am *such* a twit.
Oh well, I'll trailer it down to the shop, clean up a few things, slap in a
Heli-coil to fix the loose threads, replenish vital fluids, and be on the
road soon. It will be nice to be driving a Triumph again.
mjb.
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