Another tunning attempt in the garage thwarted

18th Feb 2006

I returned to the garage after changing my carburetor linkage the following day. I was full of expectation as I hoped that if I could get the carburetors ticking over that tuning would also be possible. I opened up the garage and started up the buggy and was pleased to hear the most wonderful puring noise at 900 r.p.m . One of my friends John had come over with his buggy and it was nice to show him my progress. A short demonstration ride , however brought to my attention another problem that was getting worse on a daily basis. My gear changes where becoming impossible and reverse was giving the most awful grinding noise.

I suspected this to be the clutch and hoped it was just the adjustment as I had about 3" on the pedal. I knew this procedure was fairly long winded as it involved removing one of the large rear wheels to gain access. The wheel came off fairly easily and gave access to the clutch lever under the body work. The cable had been shortened with a shortening kit and looked like it had worked loose. The nut that held the cable in place was loose and was not trapping the cable correctly. I took the shortening kit of and after lubricating it , checked to see if the nuts went up and down on the threads easily.

The shortening kit fitted back on to the cable easily I had bent the cable with two pairs of pliers the shortening kit sat in this new loop. I was able to tighten the nut onto the cables by holding the cable in the pliers whilst doing up the 19mm spanner. The shortening kit was then slotted back into the clutch arm and the butterfly nut was tightened down to allow 1/2 - 3/4" pedal travel.

I then had to replace the rear wheel. This is always a difficult task as it means the car must be jacked at exactly the right height to facilitate the wheel being aligned with the bolt threads. This took me over an hour to achieve and with having to lift the wheel a little to get one then all four nuts started. I tightened the bolts down hard and then took the car of the jack.

I needed to run the car out to straighten the suspension so the wheels settled back down. The clutch was working fine.

Unfortunately I had used up my petrol allowance for this week and therefore could not tune the tune the car I locked up and went home.