allo

As my signature says my names Andrew. I don't rally, nor will I for probably another 4 years or so. I am working towards building a Targa car that I might thrash in some other events. Generally I'm into crappy 60s cars. When I still lived in the country I liked big assed Mopars and the like. Now that I'm in the city, I like just about any old car that will fit in my garage with enough room for me to work on it. For the past 4-5 years that's been 140 series Volvos. I'm not exclusive to any brand by any means, but since I've got a basement and garage full of 140 series parts and a mortgage, I like to keep it simple.

Right now I'm working on my clapped out 68 145 road car. This summer however I'm going to be doing an 8 month work term and god willing and if I have any cash after putting a new roof on this place I'll get a mig welder and start working on my other car.. So I will probably have a bunch of stupid questions at somepoint not too far in the future and if you people don't mind fielding basic mechanical/electrical questions I'll have some stoopid qustions sooner.

Cheers,

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

Hallelujah, another northern brother!

Sounds like you're on the right track in becoming a volvo perv, you can have a lot of fun with a brick car. See Kevin's site below for a WRC (way rad cool) 240:

http://students.washington.edu/khawki02/

Welcome Canajian, we come in Peace!

Hey, you hit the nail there--- don't get all brand fixated!!
When the tme comes, I think you might find its getting thin out there for really rust free cars, where out here in the SALT FREE Pacific Coast we GIVE cars away to Canajians as a sort of CARE package (Canajians About to Rally Encouragement).
I gave a straight rust-free 240 non sunroof 2 door to a kid that works (if you call it that) for Pat Richard, and all he had to do was answer the question "Why should I give You the WRC Volvo"

The correct answer was "I broke, but have access to everthing needed and I want to build it up and STOMP SOME SUBARUS INTO LIFELESS, DRIPPING, MASSES OF DEAD PROTOPLASM."

So plan a trip 'dune souf' to get a pristine starter car.

And don't be shy, PLANNING HELPS!!!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Cars are cars as far as I'm concerned. I like how Volvos are generally super cheap and rear wheel drive. Horsepower is not so cheap though.

I've always wanted to take a car hauler down south and pick up a couple neet cars for myself and a car or two I could flip for good cash up here to pay for the trip. That's not going to be anytime soon tho.

Rust free 60's and early 70's cars are basically non existent here. My 68 145 originally came from California and my 71 142 came from West Virginia. Neither are completely rust free, but good enough.

My biggest problem right now is comming up with enough cash to even begin to do a head right. I also have a lot to learn about valvetrain.

About Subarus.. way too common here. Must be a pretty good car since everyone and their brother either has one or wants one. But definitely no style or originality points IMO.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2006 02:59PM by hudson.

Hey nice to meet ya Pat. I guess being under 30 and having owned 3 140 series cars qualifies you as a Volvo perv, but I'd like a Saab 96 as well

I've seen a few XR4Ti/Sierra cars around and at shows with cages in them.. any chance one was yours?

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

hudson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey nice to meet ya Pat. I guess being under 30
> and having owned 3 140 series cars qualifies you
> as a Volvo perv, but I'd like a Saab 96 as well
>
> I've seen a few XR4Ti/Sierra cars around and at
> shows with cages in them.. any chance one was
> yours?
>
>
> Andrew McNally
> Hamilton ON
> 26

Well don't drive a 96, you'll never go back to fuckin Svensson Containers and their "Steering oar" method of turning...what is is 14 turns lock to lock in the 140s???

Now 240s can maybe be lucky enough to graft the Xratty (and the Oafish-al spelling is X-R-a-t-t-y, and "Oafish-al is the oafish-al Rallyanarchy spelling for "official"----don't make me remind you again or Paddy'll kick your Ovlov in the 'slutrör') ZF 2.6 turns power rack, but nearly every Xratty comes with a nice rack, so nyah nyah!!

Naw I think the ones at shows with cages are show cars with cages.
Lot of that goin round.

Is that why he has the weird engine mounts on his 240? Clearance for the steering rack? Or is that half shafts I am seeing? I've never spent much attention looking at 240 engine bays and mechanicals before.

I'm pretty sure the cars I saw wern't "show only" cages. I've seen bolt in cages zip tied in before.. the one car I got a good look at was at least a fairly serious track car.

Yeah the steering is kinda slow in 140s.. but if you wanted to, I'm sure you could change it. Either a faster box or put in rack and pinion.

hudson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is that why he has the weird engine mounts on his
> 240? Clearance for the steering rack? Or is that
> half shafts I am seeing? I've never spent much
> attention looking at 240 engine bays and
> mechanicals before.

Well go to the site that Skye was nice enough to set up for illustrating junk'n'stuff www.jvab.f4.ca and look at the Capri photos and the Xratty photos.
I showed Kevin how Ford did their mounts in the 70s and then how they did better in the 80s.
With the "chassi rail mount set up", you can whack your steering/crossmember/control arms and with a couple of bolts drop the whole assembly down and swap in fresh WITHOUT dinking with the motor which normally sits on the crossmember.
>
> I'm pretty sure the cars I saw wern't "show only"
> cages. I've seen bolt in cages zip tied in
> before.. the one car I got a good look at was at
> least a fairly serious track car.

Well "serious" and "tack car" don't occur in the same sentance.
Track days are like masturbating: may be plenty of fun to do, but it ain't serious and you don't want to watch your friends doing it!!!

Hell gravel rally is far more challengining and who the fuck could take it seriously!
Remember: we're serious about what pays the rent, the rest is playing.
>
> Yeah the steering is kinda slow in 140s.. but if
> you wanted to, I'm sure you could change it.
> Either a faster box or put in rack and pinion.

Back when I statrted importing things full time in 1984, I had a couple of Ovlov pervies asking me about "quick boxes", well I tracked down the machine shop way down south nearly in Denmark which HAD made the internals before and he just laughed, hadn't made any in nearly 15 years.

And as for a rack, yeah there's a boy here in town I probably will give a hand with grafting in a rack if we cant't hold his arms behind him and take turns punchin the stuffing out of him and then when he's all delerious, then we'll tell him 240 FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john vanlandingham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Well go to the site that Skye was nice enough to
> set up for illustrating junk'n'stuff
> www.jvab.f4.ca and look at the Capri photos and
> the Xratty photos.
> I showed Kevin how Ford did their mounts in the
> 70s and then how they did better in the 80s.
> With the "chassi rail mount set up", you can whack
> your steering/crossmember/control arms and with a
> couple of bolts drop the whole assembly down and
> swap in fresh WITHOUT dinking with the motor which
> normally sits on the crossmember.

I see the logic now. Not too different to what mopar guys would refer to as elephant ears for when they didn't have the right cross member for their big block V8. They didn't mount off of the chassis rails though.

Sure would make changing front suspension/steering assemblies a whole lot quicker.

> Well "serious" and "tack car" don't occur in the
> same sentance.
> Track days are like masturbating: may be plenty of
> fun to do, but it ain't serious and you don't want
> to watch your friends doing it!!!
>
> Hell gravel rally is far more challengining and
> who the fuck could take it seriously!
> Remember: we're serious about what pays the rent,
> the rest is playing.

I laughed a bit when I read that.. to each their own opinion. I don't forsee any car related activity paying the rent for myself. Just being able to drive fast and occasionally wreck without having to worry about license/insurance repercussions is good enough for me. Is making money at the national level much of a possibility? (excuse my ignorance)

> Back when I statrted importing things full time in
> 1984, I had a couple of Ovlov pervies asking me
> about "quick boxes", well I tracked down the
> machine shop way down south nearly in Denmark
> which HAD made the internals before and he just
> laughed, hadn't made any in nearly 15 years.
>
> And as for a rack, yeah there's a boy here in town
> I probably will give a hand with grafting in a
> rack if we cant't hold his arms behind him and
> take turns punchin the stuffing out of him and
> then when he's all delerious, then we'll tell him
> 240 FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!

Theres got to be some quick ratio boxes lying around in Sweden. A rack would be better though. If you ever do get around to helping him put a rack in his 140 I'd be interested in seeing pictures, etc. If he's not competing in a vintage class of some kind a 240 would probably be a lot cheaper/better in the long run.. even if they are uglier.

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

hudson Wrote:
> Is making money at the national level much of a possibility?

It's a lot more likely in Canada than the USA, believe it or not. But it won't come close to covering the cost of the car, so "making money" ie covering costs and then some is not gonna happen.

Skye

---

www.rallyrace.net

Skye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's a lot more likely in Canada than the USA,
> believe it or not. But it won't come close to
> covering the cost of the car, so "making money" ie
> covering costs and then some is not gonna happen.

Sounds a lot like my 6 year club dj career where I did a little better than covering my costs, got quite drunk and got some other perks. (and that was a lot more successful than most)

Too bad Speed television has such abismal rally coverage.

Once I have any car at all on the road again I should make a point of getting out to an event or two. I'm waiting for another speeding ticket to come off my abstract and to get the engine back in my 68 145. It appears as though I have a line on an R-Sport Stage IV head for it. I don't know if I can afford it yet however and it's of dubious practicality for a road car, but I'm getting tired of being practical.

Cheers

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

Ah yes, I've done some DJing as well, great career, as long as you don't mind living on other people's couches, not owning a car, being poor, etc etc. But like going "pro" with a lot of things, it requires a lot of sacrifice and there's no guarentee you'll make it to the top 5% or 1% that get paid mad loot. If you want to "make it" in rally that's pretty much what you have to do - and move to Europe, or maybe Australia - and simply live to rally.

It's good to have dreams but you have to be a little realistic too, or you're not going to last long. I've been building my car for 2 years (+ 1 year break while I was travelling) and I've seen people come and go already. I've decided my goal is to win national Gp5, and when that's done re-evaluate. I have no illusions about being famous or making back any money. I'm also probably on the limit of being too old to take the move-and-live-to-rally path, and I'm not sure if I'd even want to do that.

Here's the thing though:

There is no shame in being a Club Rally guy

It makes me puke when I see all these posers who think they're going to be in the WRC and be famous and have lots of h0t chix!! when in reality they don't know shit about their cars (research is for geeks) and drive really slow and brag about who they know.

Look into the Finland Group F club guys. They are the real heroes. They don't give a shit about fancy paint jobs, they just drive like maniacs. Any of those guys would wipe the floor over here. And they are club guys, not professionals, they just do it because they love it.

I'm trying to start my own small ISP business, so I can have flexibility to take time off and travel to rallies. One of the big disadvantages of North American rally is the distances between events is massive. Plus the USA scene is fractured with the demise of SCCA rally into Rally America and NASA and FSM-knows what else.

Speed isn't going to show any WRC at all in 2006 from what I heard. Subaru must have pulled their ad money, I guess.

I'm in a ranting mood today

Skye

---

www.rallyrace.net

Skye:

As you, I've learned something from DJing, mainly that making the top percentile while remotely possible is not always worth the sacrifices it would take to do so. Besides, everything ends up being a job at some point.

I don't follow the rally scene well enough to know anything about these posers you talk about, but can well imagine, they are pretty much the same everywhere.

I have no illusion of being anything more than a club rally guy. I'm doing my second post secondary degree as we speak and have bought a house. Money is really tight right now. I just want to have fun driving a car, winning would be nice.. but not getting tickets is enough for me.

I've been in the planning mode for around 4 years now. Slowly buying parts, researching, etc. Progress isn't blindingly fast, but I've got a couple chassis, lights, spares, etc, etc. I've had to start from scratch.. ie get a place to work on these cars, get the tools to do it and slowly learn how to do work on them and so on.

I just want to build a car that will be fairly competitive in its class (whatever that is going to end up being) at the Targa Newfoundland.. and after that I might enter a few rallies that don't require a week of traveling time.

I hear you about the size of North America being a major problem, it effects a lot of things. Also I've heard about the fracture in the States, can't really comment, but it's probably not a good thing.

Speed will suck even more if it's not going to cover WRC.

Oh, I want to be champion of the world and have lots of chicks!

Maybe someday... voi vittu

---

www.rallyrace.net

Making the 240 turbo have some yank is pretty easy and affordable compared with any manner of N/A thing.

Give it fast steering and good suspension.

You'll love it.

---

JohnLane

Volvo 260turbo AKA The Fire Breathing Monster
Overkill is consistently more fun