Axle Shafts

Today we stripped and took apart the left axle shaft which surprisingly was in excellent condition. The bearings and seating surfaces hardly showed any wear which confirms (just as the transaxle) that our Lola did not see allot of track time. Over the weekend also spoke to the previous owner who told us that he held the track record with this car at Bridgehampton and Watkins Glenn race tracks.

Stripped side panels

Both side panels have been stripped of the old dark blue paint. We used special aircraft paint remover, scotch bride pads and good old fashioned - hours of muscle grunt to remove 36 years of paint. Now we have two beautiful satin polished aluminum panels ready to be mounted. Good news: the 4 Dunlop tires arrived which will be mounted next week. 

Instruments

The dash, basically an aluminum plate with wrinkle finish contains the centrally mounted mechanical Jones tachometer which is flanked by a Smiths water temperature and Smiths oil pressure gauge. All was disassembled and taken apart. We will see what we can clean/salvage and what gauge needs replacement. There is a spiders nest visit in the water temp gauge...so not sure about that one. We will take each gauge apart clean and test them. If you think that the mechanical tach takes up to one horsepower (roughly 1% of the entire power of the car) - it is worth considering switching to am electronic tach.

In the mean time we rebuilt the forward SU carburetor of our Peerless. Now she does not leak anymore fuel. Nice !

Webster Gearbox

Today we took apart our Webster gearbox and surprisingly found oil in the casing (whihc prevented rust) and no gear teeth missing or badly worn. These robust 4 speed Webster transmissions became the first product for the public, which utilized the magnesium alloy case of the Beetle transaxle to house 5 pairs straight-cut constant mesh spur gears with dog rings operated by custom-made brass shift forks. Gear selector shaft was located in the nose housing, unmodified as in the Beetle set up, facing rear-ward at the tail end of the box in the front-side-back position on a midships engine racing cars.

These transmissions are non-synchronized, meaning - that with practice and skill you can flick them into gear without declutching making fast up and downshifts possible.

My new neighbor

Everyone who is a bit of a car nut knows who J.J. Letho is. He was a Formula 1 race car driver of the early 90's who mixed it up with Senna, Prost and Schumacher in the top 10. For 1991 he was signed by the ambitious Scuderia Italia team with a Dallara chassis, Judd V10 engines and Emanuele Pirro in the second car. Due to poor results in 1990 the cars had to prequalify but soon established themselves as decent midfield runners.

The car next to our Lola is this very Dallara F1. Increadible.

Oil tank

Pictures show cleaning and polishing of aluminum oil tank - before and after. 

Valve springs

Peter sent me some photos today of the engine. As soon as he can get someone to help him lift my engine out of his basement he will bench test it. Plan is to install the power unit next Tuesday....lets see. Photo shows him checking the installed height of the valve springs.