Well, I continue to use the bug as much as possible! Over the past two weekends I've done 3,496km on the bug...plus whatever I drove during the week. Last weekend I did half of that in just 30.5 hours, including sleep, while I setup the route for Classic Car Adventure's "Fall Freeze Adventure".
The event itself was just over 1400km, but with the start 5 hours from my house, and the finish 3 hours away, the kilometers added up pretty quick. Prep for the event was supposed to be pretty simple, but quickly escalated into a long list of to-do items. First up, was tearing out the front suspension to figure out why the front strut was loose. A broken top spacer (likely caused by a loosened strut cap) was swapped out and everything put back into place.
I also decided not to risk another event without a jack, having had to wait for Sweep to arrive with one on the Rush to Gold Bridge. A temporary mount was worked out, and later this week I'll figure out how to make it permanent in the car. It would be easy if I was willing to wreck the paint with welding...
I was doing work on the rear suspension and ended up removing the skid plate. I was curious to know what the relationship between engine/oil heat and the skid plate would be, so I left it off for the first weekend of driving. Interestingly there was a significant difference. With the skid plate the engine reaches operating temperature much quicker, and runs between 200 and 220 deg F depending on how hard you're pushing the engine. I was seeing temps as high as 240 before I moved and insulated the oil lines (as per a previous post). Pulling the skid plate results in oil temps 15-30deg cooler, depending on the ambient air temperature. More testing is required to determine if I will need to change the plate shape, but going into the colder weather I don't think I will worry about it until spring.
I also took care of some more simple items, like grip tape on the floorboards.
The Sparco seat has funny story. The last job on my list of preparation was to swap out one of my Cobra Imola2 seats for a wider seat. My dad was flying in from Toronto to co-drive the event for me, and I knew my seats would be uncomfortable for him. On his 60th birthday I called him up and told him he needed to go "race seat shopping" to find one that fits! A Sparco seat list arrived in my email box, and I went and snagged one out of a buddies rally car. Only after I had it all fitted, did I actually
read the list that dad sent me. "Sparco Corsa - too tight (nasty!)" Well, crap. I ended up doing an emergency run down to Vancouver to borrow a Pro2000 out of another buddies rally car. By the dimension charts they are almost identical...but hey, whatever makes Dad happy. On Thursday I picked him up at the airport and we made our way off to the start location in Kamloops. I was pretty sure dad wasn't going to survive in the car for the whole weekend, it's bloody loud inside and he was commenting before we even left the airport! To make matters worse, the intercom stopped working Thursday night as we neared the hotel. I bought a butane powered soldering iron, foam earplugs and hoped for the best!
The event started with about an hour of 'normal' roads, nothing too twisty, or where it was twisty it was populated so speeds are heavily controlled. Soon we were out into the unpopulated areas, and as the first set of twisty corners were fast approaching, I figured it was a good time to test how well Dad was going to do as co-driver. I lifted, so that we were dropping in at about 60% of what I would have normally done, and without brakes drove into the first corner. "Uh, David, these things
do roll."
First corner, fail.
Second corner, onto the gas and drop it in faster...maybe Dad will be impressed with the cornering ability of the bug build? (Dad has owned over 30 beetles, but all of them bone stock)...."daaaVID!!"
Hmmm, second corner? Fail.
I drove conservatively until our lunch stop, where I proceeded to swap the Driver's seat for the Passenger seat so that dad could take a turn at the wheel. I figured that since I had driven all the roads the weekend before, it was easier to just let Dad drive at a pace that made him comfortable vs. trying to convince him I was being perfectly safe. He drove for some of the afternoon, and when the noise was finally too much he jumped into one of the other entrant's BMW 2002. I took the opportunity to jump into John Hinde's 2010 Intermeccanica Roadster, and instantly realized that my next bug is going to need a 2.3L engine like Johns!
Dad and I finished up day one together in the Bug, and were having a quite a bit of fun by the end of the day. I was text messaging my best friend from the passenger seat, and they're pretty funny:
2:30pm
45km into dad driving and he's starting to get comfortable with the car. "Don't lift! It will corner at that speed" ... "Whoa, it sure does."
2:45pm
60km into his stint and he's finding the light side of the limit. "Oops, that was a bit too fast."
3:15pm
"Dad, I think you're one of us now". "That didn't take long, did it?!"
I left the seats as they were for day two and day three. Dad lives on the other-side of the country and hasn't driven any of these mountain roads before. Day two was full of left foot braking, and discovering just how well a beetle can handle. By day three, dad was dropping into corners and making ME grab for the 'oh s%&# handles'! It was an absolute blast. He was pretty impressed with the build, and the bug held up trouble free. And, really, what better way to spend a weekend with your father???
Checking the oil level in Greenwood BC
About to test the traction circle...
Father and Son driving team
The group lined up on the Kootenay Lake Ferry, morning of Day 2
Group dinner at Tin Horn Creek winery
Dad/John with the bug
-Dave