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Where are all the regularity rally drivers, here? "Show your cockpit"-PHOTO-THREAD


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My 62 TR4 dash was also turned, only concession to timing is the strip of double sided velcro for stopwatch.

I may also have attached a pic of my recently flocked escort dash as there was quite a lot of glare from the windscreen.This only cost a bit of time making paper templates and less than £10 for sticky backed velour.....hopefully removable at some point.

DSCN0448.JPG

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2 hours ago, trevor said:

This is my office for next Sunday mornings  2nd  12 car Regularity of the Blackpalfrey Winter series.

Have a great day and best of luck Trevor.

We'll be out around Somerset/Devon on Saturday on HERO Challenge 3. But Rally of the Tests next month has just been cancelled - not a huge surprise but very disappointing.

Nigel

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17 hours ago, Bleednipple said:

Have a great day and best of luck Trevor.

We'll be out around Somerset/Devon on Saturday on HERO Challenge 3. But Rally of the Tests next month has just been cancelled - not a huge surprise but very disappointing.

Nigel

Thanks very much , do you  compete in any of the HRCR rounds as we also organise The Hughes rally in May?

Sadly the Beaujolais Rally in Montreal -sur-mer which were hoping to do has been postponed to next March 

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18 minutes ago, trevor said:

Thanks very much , do you  compete in any of the HRCR rounds as we also organise The Hughes rally in May?

Sadly the Beaujolais Rally in Montreal -sur-mer which were hoping to do has been postponed to next March 

Have been keeping an eye on HRCR website for events but everything seems to have been on hold. Thanks for the intel on the Hughes Rally - 29 May? Deffo on our list in that case.

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  • 3 weeks later...
16 hours ago, pheaney said:

IMG_0964.thumb.jpeg.1fecbfc9cd789d34a57b0873af2ae1dc.jpeg

This is our initial setup with Brantz units. and have since added driver display and fortunately a second distance sensor,as the right-angle speedo drive failed last time out. keeping our fingers cross that the Hero rally in December can still go ahead.

Nice setup. And yes, everything crossed for 19 December!

Nigel

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Hi all

My own view is that the less is more approach definitely works better in anger, but less impressive in the pictures.

in BST82B we normally just run a Brantz clock and twin readout tripmeter. Both are LED and self illuminating which is a big advantage at night but requires daytime shading as the displays are difficult to read in direct sunlight. Pretty much ever navigator that sat in the left seat over getting on for 25 years had at least one handheld stopwatch and Richard Lambley in particular had another velcroed to the dash.

If we had to run on period kit (which used to be the case on Rally of the Tests etc) I just substituted a HALDA’s Twinmaster instead if the electronic trip meter to comply with the regs. Arguably they were equally accurate if calibrated well. I rarely changed the clock because period mechanical clocks simply are not as accurate and are harder to read at speed and on bumpy roads in particular. 

On the 2000 Mk 1 AHP1B which Peter Barker now owns I fitted a pair of Brantz driver displays, primarily because the gear was too far away across the car for me to see and I tend to drive on the Rev counter and clock on regularities, but the trip on TC sections when I get an instruction for example that we are left in 1/4 mile etc and I need my eyes on the road. These were a big advantage especially when going quickly and I fitted the same set in our Golf GTI to good effect.

In period the TR4’s didn’t have to run to the second, rather the minute, and so the Speedpilot was the kit of choice and when well calibrated I can get mine to be within 10 to 15 seconds of ideal of a long distance, which is very good and close to the performance of a twinmaster (which of course wasn’t available until the late 1960’s as far as I am aware). The Jaeger Le Coulture ‘Bomber’ clocks were very accurate in the day but certainly now are a bit baggy due to wear unless you have one that’s hardly been used. I have a Heuer Rallymaster and it is bang on and rivals the accuracy of the Brantz clock, just harder to read when going along.

When 5VC made it back to the UK it had a few of the fitments left on the dash back, hubs and gearbox including the dead wheel drive fittings on one of the front wheels and also a double speedo cable head (ie they obviously ran a second odometer directly off either the speedo or rev counter, independent of the trip meter). I’m pretty sure from the remains of the glovebox lid that it had a Speedpilot fitted at some point and a larger panel attached which presumably was home to a few other gizmo’s.

I’m told that as we got toward the late 60’s (maybe before I don’t know) the USA / Canada Rally scene got very technical for navigators especially and the TSD events meant that navigators had to place cars to within a 1/5th of a second at controls to win, so the gear got mind bogglingly complicated - I’ve seen such a thing called a ‘Tommy-box’ and combined with a Curta Calculator, speed tables and calculators. Something like this was probably strapped to 5VC’s dash as the car rallied until the 70’s up and down the east coast.

5VC is going back together with both an interchangeable Speedpilot / Twinmaster and bomber clock plate so that I can swap them round and I dare say once it’s been scuffed a but I’ll end up with a set of Brantz or similar kit in too. Those arrangements have proven reliable and practicable over getting on for 200k road rally miles so I’ll stick with them.

The last point worth noting is that technically by today’s UK rules you need to run a trip meter off the gearbox, ie not off a non driven wheel, so that’s why you don’t tend to see many dead wheel drives around any more. That doesn’t mean you don’t see sensor driven trip meters running off all sorts of parts of the car such as hubs, propshafts and optical chopper driven arrangements. 

Reliability is what you need and that’s what the TR4 with especially a HALDA fitted suffers from as the speedo cable line breaks, usually in the dark and wet and most often  due to bad routing, or being pulled around as you throw the car about and the cables get pulled or pinched. To get round this I have a bigger access chamber into the gearbox and three sets of cables fitted at any given time, clipped together and run up to the dash. That’s a 3 to 5 minute change in the lanes so well worth doing as you can lose lots of time by the roadside on competitive sections.

Hope that’s all useful.

All the best and stay safe.

Tony 

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EBW in LHD form with Brantz and an early Twinmaster

FE9563B2-0747-4303-926F-8F971D484FF1.jpeg

838A67A1-7BB6-49D7-BFAC-DC171EF96D16.jpeg

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3VC as used on Rally of the Tests etc and UK road rallies. Later twin master with correcting buttons on both displays (early metal cased twinmaster only has this on one display and JLC / Smiths  ‘Bomber’ clock

CDF4BFD0-9ACA-4AD0-A45A-29A89E2FA274.jpeg

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Triumph 2000Mk1 ... this eventually worked after a few attempts - I had to rip it all out and reroute the wiring to avoid water related shorts etc so something else to consider is waterproofing 

EB3F6BFA-D796-4BAA-8784-88FAC795EA9E.jpeg

5FDFF9B2-6F54-4BB7-A2D1-EFB166FAC67B.jpeg

Edited by TR4Tony VC
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Great post Tony. Interested that you say no sensors allowed on non-driven wheels, I assume that's only on certain rallies now, it's not stipulated for Rally of the Tests (HERO Standard Regs), but maybe still is on some HRCR events? (My car's Brantz only has sensors on speedo and a rear wheel, ie all off driven wheels, but just asking for a friend... :D).

Speaking of Curtas, I recently bought one as a pressie for my son who collects pre-electronic calculators. They were amazing little pieces of precision engineering but still, huge respect to any poor rally nav who's managed to use one in a car, in anger! 

(And here's a snapshot for anyone too young to ever have seen a Curta. Sorry nothing to show scale in the photo but they're very dinky and fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. They were invented by a Jewish engineer called Curt Herzstark in a Nazi concentration camp, and produced after the war by a Liechtenstein company.)

image.thumb.png.54a551af9005562373dbe97f8ec2dc98.png

Nigel

 

Edited by Bleednipple
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Hi all

im struggling with larger pictures for some reason. It took me ages to get this lot on !

if there are specific thing you want help with please ask. I’ve done most, learnt lots of lessons. Lots of failures amongst the successes.

I love the Curta ... I found one years ago and tried it but too stupid to read a map, spin it up, read off the speed table, speak and repeat !amazingly people do this !

Regards

Tony

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One other thing, and harder to find the room for on the dash of a TR, is a second clock. Very useful for speed changes where you can run one clock on speed A, one on speed B. Obviously the distance travelled doesn’t change. Usually means that you get the change right as you start the new clock exactly on the correct distance as you zero the inter on the trip, then reset the old clock for the next change.

Also,  I’ve learnt that an on / off switch for each of the bits of gear is worthwhile, even for those with an integral switch. It means you can do a hard reset on the clocks if the voltage spikes (the Brantz stuff is very voltage sensitive and TR voltage can move about particularly when things get wet, hot or more likely a combination of both). Very cold running can also have this effect as can a draining battery when it starts to get below 11.5volts. A warning for those with heated screens, big spot lamps, heaters, high speed wiper motors and piddly little 40 amp alternators!

regards

Tony

243B9307-DDCE-49AF-952A-F10FC1C53E00.jpeg

56753D44-56CF-46E7-A106-0CEBA954E26F.jpeg

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On 10/29/2020 at 5:26 PM, Tony_C said:

Name that car?................ (10 Points)

Name that rally.................(100 Points)

Name that stage..............(1000 Points)

Name the actual position at time........................ (nb the navigator and driver at time never even got close!)

 

CC964B03-C40E-40DA-8EA0-F738D1C0D9CD.thumb.jpeg.738ef67e8d0f4387320b78df2fc29bec.jpeg

I’ve just packed that Speedpilot away !

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On 10/29/2020 at 6:26 PM, Tony_C said:

Name that car?................ (10 Points)

Name that rally.................(100 Points)

Name that stage..............(1000 Points)

Name the actual position at time........................ (nb the navigator and driver at time never even got close!)

 

CC964B03-C40E-40DA-8EA0-F738D1C0D9CD.thumb.jpeg.738ef67e8d0f4387320b78df2fc29bec.jpeg

Good to hear from you TR Tony, this was 3 VC glovebox up close circa 1990

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This is our set up. It’s neatly tucked away inside the glovebox. Photo credit to Steve McKelvie - RIP - a fellow competitor and ace navigator on the 2017 Paris-Prague Rally. https://stevemckelvie.wordpress.com/category/paris-to-prague-rally/
 

57A12167-9BFA-4B30-BE4D-0E0F8015AE40.thumb.jpeg.f0434c07f036a8bcccdcfb14a00c718e.jpeg

 

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1 hour ago, Ben Freer said:

This is our set up. It’s neatly tucked away inside the glovebox. Photo credit to Steve McKelvie - RIP - a fellow competitor and ace navigator on the 2017 Paris-Prague Rally. https://stevemckelvie.wordpress.com/category/paris-to-prague-rally/
 

57A12167-9BFA-4B30-BE4D-0E0F8015AE40.thumb.jpeg.f0434c07f036a8bcccdcfb14a00c718e.jpeg

 

Very neat. I miss Steve too. Such a fabulous man.

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On 11/3/2020 at 3:55 PM, TR4Tony VC said:

Hi all

My own view is that the less is more approach definitely works better in anger, but less impressive in the pictures.

in BST82B we normally just run a Brantz clock and twin readout tripmeter. Both are LED and self illuminating which is a big advantage at night but requires daytime shading as the displays are difficult to read in direct sunlight. Pretty much ever navigator that sat in the left seat over getting on for 25 years had at least one handheld stopwatch and Richard Lambley in particular had another velcroed to the dash.

If we had to run on period kit (which used to be the case on Rally of the Tests etc) I just substituted a HALDA’s Twinmaster instead if the electronic trip meter to comply with the regs. Arguably they were equally accurate if calibrated well. I rarely changed the clock because period mechanical clocks simply are not as accurate and are harder to read at speed and on bumpy roads in particular. 

On the 2000 Mk 1 AHP1B which Peter Barker now owns I fitted a pair of Brantz driver displays, primarily because the gear was too far away across the car for me to see and I tend to drive on the Rev counter and clock on regularities, but the trip on TC sections when I get an instruction for example that we are left in 1/4 mile etc and I need my eyes on the road. These were a big advantage especially when going quickly and I fitted the same set in our Golf GTI to good effect.

In period the TR4’s didn’t have to run to the second, rather the minute, and so the Speedpilot was the kit of choice and when well calibrated I can get mine to be within 10 to 15 seconds of ideal of a long distance, which is very good and close to the performance of a twinmaster (which of course wasn’t available until the late 1960’s as far as I am aware). The Jaeger Le Coulture ‘Bomber’ clocks were very accurate in the day but certainly now are a bit baggy due to wear unless you have one that’s hardly been used. I have a Heuer Rallymaster and it is bang on and rivals the accuracy of the Brantz clock, just harder to read when going along.

When 5VC made it back to the UK it had a few of the fitments left on the dash back, hubs and gearbox including the dead wheel drive fittings on one of the front wheels and also a double speedo cable head (ie they obviously ran a second odometer directly off either the speedo or rev counter, independent of the trip meter). I’m pretty sure from the remains of the glovebox lid that it had a Speedpilot fitted at some point and a larger panel attached which presumably was home to a few other gizmo’s.

I’m told that as we got toward the late 60’s (maybe before I don’t know) the USA / Canada Rally scene got very technical for navigators especially and the TSD events meant that navigators had to place cars to within a 1/5th of a second at controls to win, so the gear got mind bogglingly complicated - I’ve seen such a thing called a ‘Tommy-box’ and combined with a Curta Calculator, speed tables and calculators. Something like this was probably strapped to 5VC’s dash as the car rallied until the 70’s up and down the east coast.

5VC is going back together with both an interchangeable Speedpilot / Twinmaster and bomber clock plate so that I can swap them round and I dare say once it’s been scuffed a but I’ll end up with a set of Brantz or similar kit in too. Those arrangements have proven reliable and practicable over getting on for 200k road rally miles so I’ll stick with them.

The last point worth noting is that technically by today’s UK rules you need to run a trip meter off the gearbox, ie not off a non driven wheel, so that’s why you don’t tend to see many dead wheel drives around any more. That doesn’t mean you don’t see sensor driven trip meters running off all sorts of parts of the car such as hubs, propshafts and optical chopper driven arrangements. 

Reliability is what you need and that’s what the TR4 with especially a HALDA fitted suffers from as the speedo cable line breaks, usually in the dark and wet and most often  due to bad routing, or being pulled around as you throw the car about and the cables get pulled or pinched. To get round this I have a bigger access chamber into the gearbox and three sets of cables fitted at any given time, clipped together and run up to the dash. That’s a 3 to 5 minute change in the lanes so well worth doing as you can lose lots of time by the roadside on competitive sections.

Hope that’s all useful.

All the best and stay safe.

Tony 

Likewise Tony said, i have made a access to the angledrive on the gearbox cover for easy changes.....

IMG_6400 tunnelcover.JPG

IMG_6402 tunnelcover.JPG

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Interesting information thanks Tony, I saw EBW at the Silverstone auction this week it looks a very nice motor indeed though a well oiled chassis, the new owner hasn't kept it long at all. It was actually looking a lot better that the Lancia I had gone to see. On the hunt for a car with a cage to keep my navigator safe on events that are not on flat terrain. I want to keep the 6 open but will probably add a roll-bar. 

With the 2 clock method you outlined are you swapping clocks at  the time you should be at that speed change ?

I've included an updated photo of our dashboard, I added a second clock to help with timing on the HRCR events and the navigators light as we hoped to make it on to the Rally of the Tests. None of which we have had the chance to try out of course. Now mulling over whether I can afford the Winter Challenge as a couple of spaces available. Should be a real challenge for us.

From previous posts looks like a navigators horn is required - she will like that :-) 

Paul

 

 

 

IMG_0772.jpeg

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Paul I like your multi-function zero-ing box! Which button/switch goes with which device? (Sorry, super-geeky question!). My nav likes having a hand-held button for the trip interval, but a nice clear master control box for everything does look neat, and a great idea to put it all in an IP box rather than having to run everything behind the dash.

Nigel

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