A Right Proper British Gentleman Never Raises His Voice

Pop quiz:

It's 1pm on a fine springtime Saturday afternoon and your beloved wife reminds you that not only is the always-excellent Frederick Celtic Festival today, but that Frederick Maryland's very own Clustered Spires British Car Club is hosting a car show at the festival!

But... your loud and obnoxious race exhaust (note purposeful omission of the word 'muffler') would no doubt scare the populous away. What to do?


Introducing Gormless Racing's Emergency Shut The Hell Up Exhaust Hack, in 7 easy steps:

1) Drill a few holes near the end of the exhaust:

 2) Scrounge some hardware cloth or any metal screening:

 3) Professionally fabricate a 'catch basket' to hold the material

 4)  Acquire some all copper rust proof scrubbies, the more the merrier; stainless steel will do in a pinch but they will rust eventually and take your exhaust pipe with them:

 5) Stuff It (TM):

:

 6) Stuff in the catch basket:

 7) Use safety wire / stainless steel wire / long cotter pins to capture the catch basket to the exhaust pipe:

Ah... much better!

We made it to the show, and there was much rejoicing.

Safety Wired all drain plugs, except the most important one, naturally.

Drilling a hole in the MGB Differential Drain Plug for the safety wire:

 

 Here is the differential drain and filler plug safety wired to the axle housing:

 

...and here is the transmission drain plug safety wired to... I have no idea what that piece is, but it moves with the transmission, so it's not just good, it's good enough. 

  

 Somehow when doing the oil change, I forgot to drill a hole to safety wire the oil drain plug. D'OH!

Here is a pic of the MGB differential plug removal tool Scot & I hacked up one late winter night in 2011.\; it's a 3/8th to 1/2 inch drive adapter which we attacked with a grinder to fit the square hole in the drain and filler plug.

Safety Wired the Wheels

Got one wheel safety wired before my CheapAss™ drill jig lamed out and f’ed up. Most auto racers do not safety wire lug nuts (it takes longer to change tires during pit stops (like we care)), however I decided it’s a really good idea because:

1) we do it in bike-race land, 

2) the BMW race team actually took off on a test day one time with the lug nuts loose and the guy went two laps before coming in complaining the steering was all screwed up (!!! Uh yeah, the wheel was falling off)), and

3) the bus has had some drama with loose lugs. 

Notice the wire is wrapped so that it ‘pulls’ the lug in the ‘tighten’ direction. Perhaps the most important role of the wire: if you see it on the lugs, you KNOW the nuts were torqued on correctly – if you don’t see the wire – you better check if the lugs are tightened at all… it’s a good simple visual cue…