12 July 2009

Again its ages since I have written so as always I’ll start with an apology! If you keep coming back and seeing the same old rubbish, I’m sorry! There are several reasons for this. I have been really busy with school work and unfortunately that has to be a priority. We have started a June to June timetable at the same time as new GCSE specifications, as well as having no department to teach in!

We have also been busy with the car as well and the whole tale is below.

When I wrote last in the diary we were waiting to refit the steering. These were adjusted by Pat and Gordon at Claro (thanks guys!). The problem was that the steering had been reversed but then this affected the Ackerman angle. The angle of the bar was changed so it was pointing towards the tyre and hopefully this will now give us the angle we need. The track rods also had to be remade which is harder than it sounds when you do not have access to a workshop. Thanks to my friend Willo who lent me a M8 die and stock to get this done.

Another job which turned into a nightmare was when we tried to fit the pressure switch into the brake line. The supplied olives would not go over the line without opening up way beyond what seemed sensible, and then they would not close enough to allow the nut to fit over the top. The solution was really simple and was worked out by Radar, although I did not believe him and needed confirmation from Robin at Hope. We also had a leak from one of the fixed adaptors and this needed a second washer to sort this problem out.

It was about this time that we were confident enough to confirm our entry. We decided that we would rename the car. This is because we initially started calling the cars Crag Rat, with the second car CR2 etc, however as we started to modify cars and reuse some of the main components, there was some confusion about what was what! So to give our car a unique name and so it would be recognisable from the other cars we have built, the new car is called Crag Rat Blade!

Dave from Marell came into school on a Saturday morning at the end of June to do some more on the electronics. He fitted the panels and made up the wires to the correct lengths, fitted some of the plugs and did as much as possible in the time. He then took the panels away again for some more fine tuning.

We took the car along to Engineering Inspirations at Elvington in early July. Because the car was not finished, we did not enter for any of the awards but just put it on display. We had loads of positive comments which was nice! I talked to quite a few ‘rival’ schools who are considering building their own GP cars. We are extremely proud of what we have done and The Blade is the culmination of  eight years of hard work, rebuilds, modifications, planning, heartache, expense etc etc! Although I gave some of our ‘secrets’ away, anyone considering building a GP car will find that they will learn as they go along! Read the Greenpower A-Z which is on the GP website and you will not go far wrong!

The Blade was moved from reception into a corridor near the staffroom. Not the ideal place to do the work but we had so few options it was the only suitable place we could use. We rechecked the car from front to back and did all the final preparation for the race. The tracking, chain tension and fitting of the impact foam were the main jobs. The planned visit on Saturday to finish the electronics did not happen as Dave was going through massive problems with part of the circuit. Hopefully this would be sorted out over the weekend but time was running short with only Monday evening (and Tuesday evening in an emergency!).

Dave arrived on Monday night but unfortunately it was not good news. Part of the circuit would not work and although the car would run, it would have to be a compromise on what we had planned. All the ancillaries were sorted and so we had a working brake light, horn and fan. Again we were beaten by time, Tuesday evening arrived and we knew this would be make or break to whether we would be racing the following day. Eventually the car was wheeled out into the school car park, and dodging the seemingly hundreds of cars, with Dave sat on the side protection bars, The Blade ran for the first time! A little more fine tuning and the car was finally ready for its first race. We finished at 8.30 which was a little close for comfort and something I don’t want to do again in the future! The current draw was set at a safe setting and we would be stuck with this as we had no way of adjusting this during the race.