Tag Archives: engine

Race 4: another forward step

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This weekend was our final outing of the year – at the Clay Pigeon Kart Club Turkey Trot. A weekend of 6am starts for one final time this year! You know how I hate it when the kart gets soaked enroute? Let’s just say you wouldn’t know I had cleaned it the week before from the dirt it was covered in by the time I arrived at a sunny Clay.

Saturday was a really good day – we had a mixture of damp and dry tracks so a bit more much needed wet practice but, as the track got grippier in the afternoon, we looked pretty decent (especially after moving up to the gold restrictor – Junior could really feel the difference in bottom-end power). When the track was at it’s quickest, we were just over 0.5s off the pace but it was the first time Junior had been overtaken by one of the quicker drivers and then stuck with them rather than watching him sail away – he even looked like he was going to have a go back!!! 🙂 We’ve had a few false dawns so I didn’t get too excited – race day often reveals the starker truth. The kart got soaked again on the way home which meant I spent the evening drying it 🙁

I really didn’t want to hear the alarm ring but I kicked myself out of bed at the usual time. We had our clearest ever run to Clay – a grand total of 2 cars were in front of us during the entire journey. And it didn’t rain 🙂

The warm-up was good – the track was easily too wet for slicks even though there had been no rain for some time. If it’s going to be slippy, I would much rather there wasn’t a dry line so that the tyre choice is easy. For us, with used wets, we don’t have the risk of writing off a £160 set tyres so the borderline calls can sometimes play in our favour. It was only a warm-up though. Heat 1 was ok too; disappointingly there were only three of us racing – two of this season’s front runners and Junior! We were continually losing ground but only finished 15s and 10s behind over the 12 laps. Heat 2 was probably the one that was a little disappointing although it was probably my fault –  we were losing over a second a lap pretty much the whole way through although Junior’s race wasn’t helped by his fuel tank bolt falling off and then him completing the final laps holding the tank between his knees!!! I normally wrap velcro around the tank to stop if moving but, for some reason, the velcro had spent the weekend in the boot. I think the biggest problem though was me running a much higher pressure than was called for – the tyres had gained 3.5-4PSI during the race and you could see that we weren’t using as much of the tyre as we should have been. Tyre pressures are the hardest thing for me to gauge – especially in the cold/damp conditions. One to put down to experience…

The track was now dry so we switched to a full dry setup and I thought I would move down a couple of teeth just to experiment – we were going to finish last anyway so I wanted to see if Junior felt a difference. Then it rained! Although the track did dry by the time of the final, I didn’t have time to replace the sprocket so we had a lower gearing on a damp track, slicks on a wet setup. My reasoning was it wasn’t dry enough for a full dry setup but slicks were essential so I did what I thought was right. It didn’t turn out too badly though – we lost under a second a lap, so although we were 19s and two thirds of a lap adrift at the end of the 20-lap race, it represented a decent step forward over the weekend, especially compared with our last race. We’d learned a bit more about setups (with a lot of thanks to my rival TKM Dads, who took pity on me on probably shared a lot more information than they would normally!), Junior had been able to improve his lines a little, the Alpha Timing system’s lap stats were very useful and we’d had an enjoyable weekend.

So our season is over. The engine is in for a rebuild. The kart will be completely stripped as soon as I get a chance and we’ll take 6 weeks off. Unless I get the chance of a drive with a few of the other TKM Dads early in the New Year… 🙂

Cost of weekend: £24 petrol, £13 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee, £49 race fee

Total spent so far: £4,376

Practice 12: Engine test

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I picked up the engine from the builders on Friday: he had had good look at the electrical side and could find no issues – the thing sparked every time. The crank misalignment had been resolved and some bearings replaced. My wallet was £138 lighter but more concerning was the uncertainty this left us with over the state of the engine and it left me with a decision: practice this weekend so that I could check the engine out or next weekend on the practice Saturday before we race. No really a choice, huh? It meant that the kart, which I’m a little bit ashamed to say had gone untouched since Dunks (I know… but you know I am usually *very* prompt at cleaning up), was going to need a fair bit of work done to get it ready. In the evening. In my dingy garage. With minimal lighting (even the street light outside my garage was broken!). Fours hours later and we were pretty much good to go – it was bedtime and I had barely seen the family although that seems to happen a lot since we bought this thing 🙁

Saturday – we were two miles from Clay when I realised I hadn’t actually checked to see if the track was open for practice!!! *Never* do this! Luckily, they were only two vans there when we arrived: there definitely was no event on 🙂 The track was bathed in the kind of glorious sunshine for which Clay is renowned:

If view when arriving at Clay October through April!

The view when arriving at Clay anytime from October through April!

There were two problems to begin with: when you are wanting to test a motor that has a suspected electrical issue, you really want to be able to test the spark. And for that, your starter really needs it’s battery, which I had left the battery at home on charge! Next problem was the flat tyre on our trolley: I hadn’t sorted it out which meant I’d be spending the day pumping up the trolley tyre between sessions. Ho hum – on with engine testing…

The kart started first time and we kept the kart to below 12,000rpm for the first session. That went smoothly and I pulled Junior in after ten minutes to let the engine cool and make sure all was well. The second session was hampered by a ‘feeling’. Junior has these from time to time and will drive straight into the pits and report them! Sometimes I really wish he’d just spend another lap trying to identify these ‘feelings’ although there are times when I wish he would just STOP THE KART IMMEDIATELY!!! You can’t have it both ways I guess 😉 It was time for slicks anyway so we took the kart off to check it out. I couldn’t find any real issues although the chainguard was knocking on the finger guard and he has objected to his side pods being too loose before so I tightened those a little. Typically, by the time our next session started it was starting to rain. Junior stuck in a handful of laps before coming in complaining about revs again. This was becoming a pretty big issue – he had reported it at Dunks last week and I really could have done without it becoming a persistent issue. It was raining pretty heavily now so we covered up the kart and sat in the car for an early lunch (scoff all you like – I bet you have an awning! ;)). Keen not miss two session, I got my waterproofs on an got the kart set up for the wet. The sun was shining by the time I had finished :-]

Anyway….we looked a little off the pace in the wet. I think fundamentally Junior doesn’t have the confidence to push as hard as he needs to. It’s one of things that comes practice I guess. It was a pretty windy day so, once the rain stopped, the track dried quite quickly. Junior was never going to be setting any PBs today and his revs never really got much above 15,000rpm but his lines *really* improved over the course of the afternoon – he clearly had a lot more confidence when the grip was there and I couldn’t really fault what he was doing (consistency excepted!). He looked pretty quick, which was really encouraging to see. I’ll be doing a Sun Dance on Saturday evening in a bid to keep the rain away – I am quite keen to see where were are in the overall scheme of things (I’ll be going by how many seconds off the penultimate finisher we are!). We had the odd problem – Junior came straight back in complaining something wasn’t right and, when we looked at it on the trolley, the engine mount bolts were loose and the chain had much more slack than it should. I think I may have only hand tightened the engine restraining bolt – I should be above this now 🙁 but at least I didn’t lose the mount brackets and bolts. The revs issue also raised it’s ugly head again although I think we might have solved this one – after changing the carb, he said it was fine for 15 laps before it happened again and he came in. At this point I noticed that the fuel was pretty low and, running a 3l tank, I am wondering if the fuel is moving from side to side around bends and we are starting to get air into the system. We kept the tank topped up and had no problems thereafter. Consider this a tip 😉

Of course it had to rain when we were 20 minutes from home, just to ensure I spend three hours rather than one tomorrow cleaning up :/

Cost of day: £12 petrol, £9 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee

Costs since last post: £138 engine repairs

Total spent so far: £4,140 (Ouch – we’ve broken £4k!!! If you see my missus, don’t mention this blog!)

Engine repairs

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Following our Dunkeswell woes, I took the engine into John at Revolution Racing Engines to have the ignition stator checked out. The good news was that the stator looked fine and sparked consistently. The bad news was that the stator looked fine and sparked consistently! John is going to give a thorough examination but I could find we’ll be heading into the unknown at the next Clay race meeting. Could do with a practice session before I enter but money (especially karting money) is pretty tight. Our crank is also out of alignment and that will necessitate the engine to be stripped down.

I await news. And the bill… :/

Race weekend 2: Rescued from the depths of despair!!!

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I’ve walked the valley of despair – it’s a long, thin piece of tarmac; big fence on one side, grass on the other, tyres dotted around to slow speeding karts and a big white coach halfway down with ‘Mansell Raceway‘ written on the side. Just like the pit entrance at Dunkeswell 😉 As I pushed Junior’s kart off the track for the fourth or fifth time of the weekend, I had reached my lowest point as a karting Dad so far. There are plenty of observant folk around the paddock and I wondered what they would be thinking of my inability to keep my lad on track. My embarrassment was complete.

Practice Saturday was a day when, pound for ounce of enjoyment, I lost out even though the day was free because of a Dunkeswell offer for novices!!! It was one of those days when you were continually setting the kart up for one weather condition and then changing it back again and nothing whatsoever went right.

We’d luckily found three spaces for myself and two other Dads who we were travelling down with, avoiding parking at the far end of the top car park where it would have been a 10-minute walk to the pit lane. We missed the first couple of sessions setting up the awning and the kart. It went south from there on – Junior broke down at Hangar Bend (the furthest part of the track from the pits!) on the out lap of his first session. I got to him and got him going again before immediately cutting out again. Back at the pits, I was about to whip the carb off before I got the advice to check the spark first. I would urge you always make this your first troubleshooting step! We had no spark. This first problem was a loose wire on the PVL coil – easily fixed but our day was hampered by Junior constantly complaining of the kart not picking up from low revs and frequent failures of one type or another – we had a chain snap which, on investigation appeared to be caused by the front and rear sprockets being inexplicably out of alignment (they were definitely aligned at the start of the day and there was no sign that the axle or the rear sprocket had moved – none of those tell-tale dirty circles where something has moved on the axle). I couldn’t explain that one. We then lost a front wheel in front of everyone stood at the pit exit (I had negated to check the wheel nuts that Junior had tightened). And our misery was completed by the engine going pop and Junior losing revs once again. Again, I could find no explanation – I took the kart back to the pits to give it a thorough examination but could see nothing wrong and it started on the trolley immediately. It capped off a pretty rotten day and I had a plan of work for the evening which involved replacing the ‘new’ exhaust, the airbox filter and checking carbs and really just hoping things were going to be better in the morning although we did have the offer of an engine loan from one of the other Dads (who would be our friendly rivals on race day) should my overnight efforts come to nothing.

Sunday was a chance to start anew. The English countryside looked pretty spectacular as we made our way through Devon to Dunkeswell. It almost seemed a shame we’d be spending the day driving a noisy kart in it. And that, if the forecast was correct, it was going to be raining heavily in a couple of hours! I’d told Junior to take the positives from yesterday and assume that the kart would work properly given the efforts to rectify the problem. There were only two Junior TKMs in the grid so I was a little uncertain what to expect even ignoring the questions over my ability to keep the kart running. We got there nice and early but still managed to find ourselves rushing to make the warm-up (there is no tannoy system at Dunks). Then the kart failed to start on the trolley with the remote starter! Again, we had no spark although my expert advisor (the other TKM Dad) quickly sussed that the electrical cable running into the ignition stator had an intermittent problem (you know one of those that you wiggle and they go away). We bunged it in place with a bit of rubber and it sparked and started fine. We lined up for the warm-up; there were 6 or 8 MiniMaxs and a Junior Blue in front of the two Direct Drive TKMs. You don’t need a crystal ball to figure out who was the only one not to start 🙁 There was no sign of the engine starting and we stopped as soon as we were off the Bottom Bend, I pulled the kart behind the barrier and crouched out of sight – partly to regain my breath, partly just to hide for a moment. The weekend was very quickly becoming a nightmare.

We got back and, together with the other TKM Dad (although make no mistake, he was in charge), set about putting their engine and carb on – we needed to get this turned around fast if we were to make Heat 1. It was a good job one of us had a kart that more or less maintained itself! We made it with a few minutes to spare. We had very generously been loaned their former race engine – having roped me into going to Dunks in the first place, it appears he felt some compassion towards my plight! So Junior took his place in the first heat: it was a bit odd seeing the Minimax grid charge past and then, 10 seconds behind, a Junior Blue and a pair of Junior TKMs – it would have nicer to see them a little closer and more involved in the wider race but there we go. Junior’s start was ok but, on cold slicks, he was caught out in the second corner and span, stalling the engine. He wouldn’t have lost quite as much time had he given me a chance to get out into the midfield from the pits! I got him going again and off he went, with me hoping he managed to keep it clean for the rest of the race, if only to appease the novice assessor! A few laps later somebody took a huge run-up and kicked me square in the b*****ks. Or they might as well have: the kart lost power gain, Junior looked over at me and held up a questioning hand as he pulled in right under the viewing area. The other Dad could not believe it and, if I had a pound for every time the other Dad uttered the words “I can’t believe it broke down”, I would have recouped my entry fee! 😉 Did we have another issue? I was thinking perhaps we had a fuel problem – maybe the filter or something. As I pushed the kart off track again, I started to think about what other mechanics were thinking of me – they are a pretty observant bunch and I’m sure my weekend troubles weren’t passing unnoticed. Every mechanic will have their lows but this left me pretty close to rock bottom. We got back and, would you believe it? One of the wires had come off of the coil. Different engine, different coil, same problem as the previous day! Then something happened that I had never before experienced: the racing stopped for an hour to observe the local church service. I don’t know what others made of this but I thought it was fantastic! How typically English 🙂

You can put the handkerchiefs away now, things took a *massive* turn for the better in Heat 2; in fact I’d go as far as to say it was my most enjoyable moment in karting so far. Both TKMs were on wets and Junior got a fantastic start – he could only have been centimetres behind the pole man as they cross the start line, denying the leader the opportunity of moving over to avoid the puddles on the inside of the track. Junior managed to undercut and take the lead! THAT’S RIGHT – WE LED A RACE 🙂 (I know there were only two karts but please humour me if you will – there hadn’t been many highs over the weekend). Not only that but we lost it and regained several times over the next couple of laps – it really great to see Junior racing in a manner that I’d not seen since his last arrive/drive karting exploits. It put a massive smile on my face although there were one or two occasions where I feared Junior would commit the cardinal sin and take out the person who had loaned us an engine and spent *a lot* of time trying to help fix our kart (and not only this weekend either!). It didn’t last long though – Junior’s excitement got the better of him, he didn’t quite lose the back end but did lose an awful lot of revs and the lead and that was pretty much that. His pace was decent though and we were only 12 seconds behind and our fastest lap 1.3s slower.

Heat 3 and the Final were both run on slicks; we didn’t get such great starts in those and Junior said he was caught out by some underhand accelerating early tactics (I jest, I am sure this happens all the time although our opponent was definitely mixing it up now!). Junior did pretty well though: we were 8 seconds off in Heat 3 and, although Junior really got put in his place in the final – finishing 21s adrift, his lines were still improving and his lap times were still coming down.

Not the most exciting grid ever to have adorned a kart track!

I have to be honest: I’ve seen more exciting Junior TKM grids!

So that was that. We handed back our loan engine (which turned out to be the one used to set the Junior TKM lap record at Dunkeswell!). Unfortunately, Junior said it felt a lot quicker than ours so I await all sorts of ‘my engine is not quick enough’ comments next time we are out :/ The enjoyment of watching Junior race (I mean really race) and visibly improve his lines on the Sunday afternoon had eradicated the pain of Saturday and Sunday morning. We had a decent amount of wet practice and Junior was never more than 1.5s off the pace so that was encouraging. Although the engine may have played the part, I think it will only have shown Junior’s true pace – I am kind of hoping our engine isn’t significantly slower but I guess time will tell. I have to thank my good buddy and fellow TKM Dad for all of his help, never mind his engine, over the weekend – we’d have been finished without the help of both him and his lad. I owe you many, many beers 😉

Now I have a poorly engine to get sorted… :O

Cost of weekend: £40 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart, £46 race fee, £23 chain, £5 marshal’s bib

Total spent so far: £3,946

The kart… it works (I think)

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I had been meaning to investigate the cause of the problem that caused an early end to our day at Dunkeswell the following day. I needed Junior to be home to help me get the kart off the trailer lid and onto the trolley (the wife refuses after hurting her back the only other time she tried – I won’t take that one any further!) and I had the kart all ready for his teatime arrival so that I could replace the fuel tank and try starting the kart. It was pretty dark when he got home at 9:30pm!!! Barely light enough to get everything replaced/checked never mind starting at 2-stroke go-kart in the front garden at such an unsociable hour. It had to be done though although a couple of quick starting attempts proved fruitless and I quickly threw in the towel.

Ten days passed (is it just me or is the kart easy to ignore when you know you have a problem to resolve?) and I mustered just enough enthusiasm to try again. The carb was holding the fuel ok but the kart just wasn’t firing up. I rested the plug on top of the engine and tried starting again to gauge the health (or otherwise) of the spark – there was no spark! I replaced the spark plug with a couple of the spares although one of the few pitfalls in buying a retirement package is that you’ve no idea as to the quality of the spares. Could three spark plugs all be bad? I made a note to myself to buy a new plug just to keep for troubleshooting and wondered what I could next. I’m still not great at engine problems but the only things I could test were the PVL coil and the ignition HT lead – both of which I had 🙂 The HT lead was the quicker win so that got replaced first. I was very pleasantly surprised to see a spark and then subsequently hear the engine fire up. I couldn’t run it for very long but it started a couple of times. The HT lead did suffer some damage when Junior had a Rotax drive over him but it had been fine until now. Ho hum…

Our race plans have been set back though – we need another good practice day now so it’s looking likely that we’ll head to Clay this week and hope for the best.

Practice 8: a step backwards :(

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Just when it looked like our issues were behind us too! I blame Junior – he was the one who commented on how we had run trouble-free last time as we were enroute to Dunkeswell. We left at 7:20am; 20 minutes later than I was hoping and got to the track just before practice started at 9:00am. It took a while to get our ‘new’ awning up, on which I had gone ‘halves‘ with another Dad and which we were using for the first time. Once the awning was up, tyre pressures set (annoyingly, I had forgotten to do over-inflate the tyres the night before), fuel added, carb primed and the kart started on the trolley I had missed not only the first session but there wasn’t enough of the second session left to make it worthwhile going out.

As it happened, I wish we had: we lasted only one lap of the third session as Junior came in reporting that the engine wouldn’t rev over 8,000rpm. What do I do about that? I’ve learnt a lot in five months of ownership but troubleshooting is an area where I really need to improve. I started the kart again on the trolley and it seemed ok but I wasn’t keen on trying to rev it excessively to see whether it would get into the upper range. Changing the carb seemed like a reasonable option and that appeared to do the trick as we ran for the whole of the next session – our only real track time (a whopping 10 minutes) in the first three hours! Things then took another turn for the worse as Junior crashed in the next session, running wide as he accelerated out of a corner, hitting the plastic barriers and putting a nice bend into a track rod. My spares package saved me once again 🙂 I had what I needed to fix the kart although during the repair a helping Dad noticed we had a fuel leak. I had semi-noted this earlier but put it down to fuel being spilt when it was being poured into the tank without checking it out properly. Note to self: investigate everything unusual – you’ve done this before!!! The fuel was leaking from a hairline crack in the tank which appeared to have been caused by my previously refitting the tank without a spacer between chassis and tank and then over tightening the tank fixing bolt. Without a replacement, I ran the fuel below the fixing bolt to minimise any spillage – I did have a spare fuel tank at home but hadn’t envisaged any scenarios where I would need it trackside!

It was 2:00pm by the time we were back on track. With only 23 laps in the bag we then managed to string back-to-back sessions together although our day ended at around 3:30 when Junior lost power and pulled off the track (at the far end of the track too!). The carb wasn’t holding fuel – you could see it was just running back into the tank. My good buddy/advisor and fellow Karting Dad tested the carb with a pop-off tester – it didn’t look great. My other carb (replaced in the morning) had a loose spring although that might have been a result of my botched attempt at checking it out earlier in the day. With some tweaking, we got one decent carb together but the engine still would not start on the trolley and we concluded that we were losing pressure because of the crack in the tank. And with that, our day was done 🙁

There were a few positives: I took the camera and got some decent pictures of Junior and some of the other lads who ran with us (I was one of four Dad/lad JTKM combos who had headed down for the day), we ran the Action Pro for a few sessions (although suffered from some pretty bad vibration on the nassau) and I also started to make session notes so that I could gauge the effect of any setup changes (I was experimenting with different exhaust flex lengths). They were mostly outweighed by the negatives though: only 55 laps done, 0.8s slower than our only other visit to the track, a fuel issue to take home to troubleshoot and the realisation that we definitely aren’t ready to race at Clay next month. I was also bothered by my reliance on others to help me get to the bottom of the problems which, I felt on at least one session, meant their lads were sitting out as they tried to help (if you read this – sorry, mate!).

I need to work on my understanding of the carb and engine workings. I know you only really learn when you encounter a problem but I really want reduce my dependency on others generosity in helping. Mechanically inept? That is pretty much still the case – I’ve a still long way to go!

Cost of day: £18 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart (still plenty left from last time), £40 practice fee

Bits and pieces bought since last update: hose clips for exhaust end can: £2.50, 4mm self tapping screws for end can: £5, file for getting rid of deposits on axle (especially around my sprocket carrier!): £6, half-share of 6m x 3m awning: £30

Total spent so far (ouch – we’ve just passed £3k): £3,086

Practice 7: Engine run-in and new fastest lap (not at the same time, of course…)

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Today was our eagerly awaited practice day at Clay: having weighted the kart at Junior’s race weight and added the black restrictor (which is actually silver but, hey – it was a 99p eBay purchase and I took a punt, then subsequently discovered it wasn’t MSA legal having lost it’s anodised colouring!), I was really keen to see how Junior managed having picked up some good pace when unweighted last time. I awoke early as I seem to on every kart day – 4:55am this time, brain fully switched on running over the things I needed to remember to take and then all of the things to remember when we got to the track. Up at 6:10, out the door by 7:45 (just in case we hit Glastonbury traffic) and at the track at 9:15 – in plenty of time to get things sorted 🙂

Before we could really get going, our first business was to run-in the engine. This was our first session as a licensed driver 🙂 but Junior was driving up to 8,000rpm (or dangerously slow as it seemed) and there were a couple of close calls in our ten minutes on track. Afterwards one of the stewards suggested we continue running-in the engine with the cadets, which I was more than happy to do. This worked in the second session,when he moved up to 11,000rpm (and I bravely ignored a broken toe to resume bump starting duties ;)), but not in the third session where we were getting up to 15,000rpm and he got told off for racing cadets (and breaking my 40s lap rule!). Our job was done at that point though and, although he was still on a ‘not above 15k’ brief when back out with the adults, we could focus on the more intriguing part of the day.

It didn’t start too well – for the first time in our ownership the kart didn’t start and I was shattered, having ran myself into the ground well past The Kink! I am not sure Junior fully knows what he needs to when we are starting although, if I am honest, I probably didn’t fully understand either. It had just worked nicely previously. With some tips from friendly Dads (don’t pump the pedal, wait for the engine to spark then slowly and gradually accelerate), we got out again for three laps before the end of the session but, most importantly, it started fine.

After that things went just about as well as we could have hoped – the kart ran, we had no mechanical problems *at all* 🙂 (although Junior did spin into the tyres exiting the Top Bend), he was happy with the kart and preferred the handling with the extra weight on board (the back end seemed much less inclined to hop out as he accelerated out of the corner) and he knocked 0.7s off his previous best and recorded a 36.21. He was a little disappointed not to break the 36.0s mark although my biggest concern was the kart’s weight – Junior stood no chance of lifting the kart off the floor and I was reliant upon friendly faces to help me get the kart back onto the trolley. I don’t really want to keep putting on others so I might need to look at the self-loading trolley options. Chances are though, he’ll start growing by the time I finally get something sorted! All-in-all, it was a really good day; I think Junior is quick enough to race now (without being lapped!) although we have a lot on next month and I have promised him we’ll go to Dunkeswell for a practice day. August’s race meeting at Clay is the target 🙂

Cost of day: £12 petrol, £10 petrol for 7l super unleaded for the kart (session was free as we had a credit note after our accident).

Purchases since my last post: used set of slicks from the forums: £30

Total spent so far: £2,977

Warning: motorsports can be dangerous!

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Sorry for not having posted recently – as you’ll soon see things have ‘interesting’ of late :S I’d been spending quite a bit of time on the kart: I needed to put the engine back on following it’s rebuild and, whilst the engine was off, I had wanted to give the back end a good clean but had trouble removing the sprocket carrier so I was keen to put that right.

I spent three successive evenings working on the kart last week (when it comes to kart maintenance one thing invariably leads to another), firstly tackling the sprocket carrier: it was a little awkward as the sprocket protector was still in place on the brake side of the carrier but tap by tap, I managed to knock it with a hammer (lubing, hitting each arm of the sprocket carrier in turn and repeating until free – all whilst I had a pair of screwdrivers carefully tapped into the slots on the carrier to help free it from the axle. I got there in the end!

Whilst cleaning the back end, I noticed that the chassis was running at it’s lowest setting:

Tonykart chassis height

This is how you would set up a kart in hot weather, where you had too much rear end grip (you would typically raise the axle in the wet when you want to raise the centre of gravity) but this was not how I wanted the kart set up whilst Junior is still learning to drive so I removed the axle and set it to the standard (middle) height. And of course, I took the opportunity to clean the chassis around the bearings whilst I had the chance 😉

I then decided to adjust the seat as my measurements were some way from the Tonykart recommendations. With hindsight this might not have been a great idea: it took a long time, Junior got hacked off holding the seat in place and I don’t think I ended up much more ‘optimal’ than I had started out. And I forgot about the weights when putting the seat back on.

Ah, the weights… the highlight(?) of last week!!! Having weighed Junior at Llandow I reckoned we needed 7kg of lead and the black restrictor to put us at the correct race weight. I already had 3kg that came with the kart and I bought a 4kg lump for £15 from the forums, it just needed fitting – 3kg went on the side of the seat (low on the brake side to offset the engine weight). After hammering the lead weights flat so as to fit flush to the seat, it was pretty straightforward. The 4kg weight had other ideas – I hit it flat and held it in position to mark the drill holes. My marking pencil had disappeared so I went off to fetch it, holding the lead in place against the seat in one hand. As I went back outside the lead slipped and I instinctively (and stupidly) put my foot out to break the fall!!!!!!!! Painful was an understatement.

I got back from hospital just before 2am with very swollen, very sorry looking broken toe. Funnily enough, I haven’t done anything on the kart since! I have a injured toe photo that I took in A&E that was very popular with my Facebook friends but I’ve decided not to post it here 😉 I am hoping to be fit enough to run Junior at Clay on Saturday but push starting is an obvious concern. Fingers crossed…

Cost of an especially damaging 4kg lead weight: £15

Total spent so far: £2,925

Engine rebuild

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I’d been considering getting the engine rebuilt for some time; I bought the engine with ~3 hours on it prior to our test/purchase day (onto which I added a couple of hours just in case) and we had put 6 hours on it following the ARKS test. Given the recommended rebuild time of 8-10 hours I thought it best to err on the side of caution and book a rebuild.

The big question was who to use? The previous owner had had both his race and this practice engine (I bought the latter) rebuilt by Dave Litchfield – one of the best know engine builders in the country but I didn’t think I was really in a position to justify the additional cost of posting the engine for it to be rebuilt by the man lots of race teams use (not to mention I think I might have been a little out of my depth in any service discussion!). Looking at the numerous local options, I had heard good things about all three of the builders I was considering. I assumed that the quality of rebuild would be pretty much the same given the limited amount that can be done with a TKM engine so in the end it came down to convenience: I’d just finished a day at Clay and it was easy for me to leave it with Lee Rennison, the ARKS examiner at Clay (no conflict of interest here I hasten to add – I didn’t mention the rebuild until *after* the test!). He offers a rebuild service and I figured it would a) save me cleaning the engine when I got home, b) save me having to take or send it anywhere and c) potentially offer some local support if I ran into any engine issues at the track. And he’s a really nice bloke too!

The rebuild took a week and I picked it up today. The engine was in really good shape so I could probably have gotten another couple of hours in. Had I not lost the receipt at the track I could have told you exactly what I had done but it included new top and bottom-end kits, gaskets, bearings, a piston and three carb rebuilds for a [relatively] palatable £230. I am sure Junior will enjoy running it in later this month!

Whilst we were there I attempted to make Junior watch the drivers practising ahead of tomorrow’s race fixture and make some mental notes of the race lines. He never seems to listen to me, nor anybody else for that matter but I really hope watching a constant stream of drivers taking a decent chunk of kerb through The Esses might sink in. We’ll see…

Cost of engine rebuild: £230

Total spent so far: £2,910 (starting to regret keeping a running total now…)

The importance of having a Plan B

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I’d left my bro’s 40th birthday part early (and avoided alcohol) so that I could get up early. I was up at 6:00am adding plastic packing foam to my trailer lid to minimise the kart jumping when we hit a bump. I approached Clay just after 9:00am, in plenty of time to get things set and in glorious sunshine. And then I turned into the car park… as soon as I saw the trailers, lavish awnings and motorhomes, I knew it was game over – this weekend, as it turned out, was round 2 of the 2013 Easykart championship!!! I swear it wasn’t on the calendar when I checked the Clay schedule two weeks ago and the lesson for today is ALWAYS PHONE THE CIRCUIT THE DAY BEFORE HEADING ANYWHERE FOR A PRACTICE DAY! I instantly thought of Dunkeswell, which is some way west of Clay but I had no idea if there was an open practice day, or whether they would entertain non-license holders. Unfortunately, Mansell Raceway, who run the track, only have an answerphone and didn’t return my call in the 30 mins I waited outside Clay. Having been so well prepared (it’s all relative, of course), I was hugely disappointed at the prospect of missing out. We headed back towards Yeovil, giving us the time it would take to reach the A303 to find out if Dunkeswell was going to be an option. There was no reply from the club secretary, nor from my good buddy who was off racing at Llandow. Two miles before the point at which we would head back to Bristol, I got the call from the aforementioned buddy – Dunkeswell was on!!!

Now things were about to get a little more difficult – we were following another Dad with Satnav which resulted in us leaving the A303 prematurely and heading into some farm lanes (reversing a Clio with trailer in farm lanes is not something I enjoy doing). Then we switched to Junior’s iPhone as he had the route mapped and could see the track at the end of the journey. Somewhere between here and there however, the destination changed and we found ourselves routed to a forest in East Devon. Lessons two and three for the day – never trust Satnav and never trust a 14 year old who has no awareness of direction other than following a blue line on his phone!

It was around noon when we reached Dunkeswell and I was immediately struck by how big it was compared with Clay. With nothing else on which to base an opinion, Clay had previously looked fine but Dunkeswell just has something else about it. Maybe it’s just those extra corners and a decent sized straight but looked like a proper Grand Prix track for karts (at least to a noob). We wanted to get ready quickly so I left on my 82 sprocket from our last cold and dire practice at Clay. I ran the slicks at 13psi, then double and triple checked the wheel nuts, hubs and engine mount brackets. My mission for the day was threefold: not to lose any wheels, not to lose any engine mounts and not to burn myself on the exhaust! At the end of the first session Junior jumped out with a huge grin on his face – it would be fair to say he was instantly a big fan of the track. You could see he was starting to attack the track much harder in the next couple of sessions, getting his times into the 51s and the engine revs up to 15.9k rpm. I wanted to change down a sprocket but this would mean touching those bloody engine mounts – I had to do it but there was some trepidation having run so well since our issues at Clay. Eight minutes into the ten minute stint he backed off but proceeded to drive a lap before it slowed and the engine revved wildly many more times than I would like to have heard as the chain was clearly off. He pulled off and I picked up the engine mount bracket and bolt that was on the kerb next his kart. My worst fear for the day was realised. I still don’t really know what is causing this – I am certain the bolts were tight. Were they really not tight enough, or too tight? The engine mount bracket thread seems worn at the lower end of the thread but it bites and fits tightly once it reaches the upper part of the thread. I think a new engine mount might be my next step. There is more investigative work to be done here and I might end up calling in the A-Team. Still… with everything replaced, tightened and quadruple-checked the final session ran smoothly.

All in all it was a very good day – Junior’s best time was a 50.2 and he really seemed to up his pace over the initial sessions. He was still easing off far too soon down the back straight, whereas the other drivers would hits the brakes much harder and far later into the corner, but it was a very positive day. The only other issue we had run into was when he came in reporting a ‘hissing’ sound and saying he thought it was fuel or tyres. The starter battery had died so I couldn’t fire it up on the stand to investigate and it was only then that I wondered if the excess fuel I had wiped from around the carb earlier in the afternoon could have been relevant. As it turned out, the mechanic had not fitted one of the carb gaskets correctly – it was only mounted on one bolt and had slid down under the carb. Another item to add the list of mistakes not to make again. Lesson four for the day – trust the feedback your lad gives us, he knows what it feels like far more than you do!

It’s a shame that the JTKM grid at Dunkeswell is  poor to non-existent (the only other TKMs at the track were a junior and a senior – both from Clay!) but we’ll definitely come back. The only thing that I forgot to bring was the sun cream! It may only have been 12 degrees but that was more than enough for me…

Cost of day: £25 petrol (it was something of a road trip!), £4 petrol for the kart (still plenty left from last time), £25 practice fee (half day)

Total spent so far: £2,348