The Wishbone Alley Gazette
September, 2001
Club
News
Woody's Grill and Bar. 14450 Woodinville-Redmond Rd, Woodinville
WA, 98072; phone: 425-483-6633. It is located at the corner of
Woodinville-Redmond Rd and SR 202, just east of the Red Hook brewery. Kids are
allowed.
Rally News
- Wild West Pro-Rally.
Sept 7-8.
-by Mark Nolte
Some of the circus is
in town already- the Subaru team rented some roads from Simpson, via the
NWR-SCCA - to do some testing prior to the rally. 50 entries firm, 10 more
"nibbles".
The route remains a
secret. Not sure if this is to escape penalties for rallyists who want to
wander the woods, and would be penalized for pre-running, or just the way
things are organized. Pretty sure
"Mason Lakes" stage on Friday night (when we did it, it was foggy!),
and my guess of "Taylor Town" was confirmed.
In any case, the
workers should be in the stages, not doing "parking attendant" duties
at the Controls. I hope the spectating
maps lead the spectators elsewhere than to my stage!
Saturday will feature
FCO at 9:31, to a 29-mile stage made up of the popular roads east of California
road, and north of the Simpson Sort Yard.
Although it gives bragging rights to "longest stage", it'll be
only run once if a 2 minute "dust window" spacing is required.
The RASC stage, at 13 miles, is a shorter
version of Cranberry Marsh, with a fairly good Spectator Corner. Working a stage rally is no longer a
"red circle" date on most calendars; at WAG deadline, the stage was
mostly covered. Tom Palidar is manning the Finish end with his Torque Steerer's
"Timing Experts".
Workers get T-shirts.
- Friday Niter-
September 14.
Called "Don't Go There", Rallymaster Eric
Horst has spent his time in south King County- he mentioned "Green
River". Checkout is on the 7th
("Y'all invited!") Dash plaques are nearly in hand, so it's all ready
to go.
- August
Meeting minutes -Pete Shelton, Secretary
NWRC Friday Niter- approx.
28-29 cars (17 novices!) slight instructional errors caused some lost
souls. Joel and Steve ran the
rally-Rainier ran a checkpoint. Ok event.. Good attendance
Previous Friday Niter- No
Traps, 22-25 cars. No big traps, not anything super exciting , but standard
rally. Good consistent attendance of
events recently
"Don’t Go There"-
The Rainer Friday Niter, Eric stated will be a conservative rally traveling
through the likes of Renton, Tukwila, Kent, Green River area. Not a really fast paced rally.. approx.
finish time - 9:45 at a Pizza joint.
The club discussed purchasing
Mark’s Timing Lights. After much discussion the majority of people decided
timing clocks such as Alfa checkpoints or Timewise clocks would be money better
spent. Jerry Hines promised to get prices on several used clocks (that don’t
work well for the Alcan in frigid temperatures?) The discussion was tabled
until more information could be obtained.
Kirk and Terry brought their
two Foster Children to the meeting who behaved very well during the 2-hour
meeting
Much to the disappointment of
everyone at RASC, SCCA will now use the SCCA Pro-rally timing system instead of
FISA rules. Will likely make a long
spread out event.
Alcan Report- Jerry brought
an entry list for the upcoming event with 19 competitors, 16 of which pre-paid.
Meeting adjourned…
The speedometer is pegged at
135, on the freeway, in traffic… Not
likely!
I’ve had a large and varied collection of
cars and not had the pleasure of “cleaning” a speedometer until now, until
Subaru.
The first symptom came on the
Sportwagon, our chase-car, parts-car, service vehicle, and TSD rally car. Gradually the speedometer needle indicated
higher and higher speeds on the freeway, although the tachometer remained
steady at 3500 RPM. Soon, 60 MPH became
70 indicated, then 80 and climbing.
Another instrument cluster was installed and freeway speeds came back
close to normal-- Unfortunately I found, after the swap, that older Subaru
speedometer heads are gear-ratio-specific (as opposed to different senders at
the transmission). Our Turbo-motor 3.7
ratio now had a non-turbo 3.9 speedometer.
We were rally types, we could live with a correction factor, and we did
until the replacement failed.
It failed on the Totem 2000
Rally, in the snow, where 33 MPH actual speed rapidly climbed to 45 indicated
and eventually peeked at 120-plus. In a
rally, in the snow, in the middle of British Columbia, is not the time to have
a speedometer failure. I had to get
creative. I had to drive by the
tachometer! We created a
gear-to-rpm-to-speed table, and rallied on, but... Something about our Subaru speedometer had to change.
Technically the speedometer
needle is not “connected” to the speedometer cable. The needle is connected to a “cup”; the cable is connected to a
“cone”, which fits inside the cup with a magnetic field causing the cone to
drive the cup, against a very specific resistance spring. When all is right, the two are not
connected, except that Subaru speedometer cables often fill with transmission
oil and as it creeps further up the cable it eventually works around the cone
and fills the cup and the rest of the speedometer cluster with oil, grease,
lint, etc. and the connection is as good as solid.
Removing the speedometer from
the instrument cluster is the easy part-- The cluster from the dashboard is the
hard part. Not wanting to make this a
life’s work, and not wanting to undergo repeated expense I did some research. Subaru recommends a new seal at the
transmission and a thorough cleaning of the cable. A new seal means removing the tranny. Since both failures occurred after 130,000 miles I thought I’d
take another less costly route. An
ex-Subaru employee said to just take the speedometer apart and clean away the
goo. It should last another 100,000 or
so… Great!
Once the speedometer head is
in hand, use a "plastic safe" cleaner (e.g. CRC non-CFC electronic
cleaner) and thoroughly remove all traces of grease and goo. Clean any residue off the face and odometer
wheels and re-install. This is a good
opportunity to help nighttime views of the trip odo. Carefully lift out the little black window bars in front of the
trip odo wheels, allowing more illumination and easier reading. You may also want to remove the colored
vinyl covers on the speedometer illumination bulbs, thus making them brighter.
The speedometer on the
replacement RX was pegged too (125,000 miles), with grease coating the entire
backside of the dash, the radio, and the ashtray. After removing the dash for roll cage installation, a cleaned
speedometer was installed. I still have
cleaned 3.70 and 3.90 speedometer clusters on the shelf… Just in case.
Subaru RX Rally Team 10835 SE 170th Street, Renton,
WA 98055 ronsorem@hotmail.com
(Ron will be piloting the
"new" RX at Wild West club rallys this weekend. - MN)
Trivia
- Steve Richards took delivery of a new Subaru Outback Sport (the
Impreza version of the Outback line). Succumbing to the horrid commuter
traffic, he got an automatic.
- Changes: Steve Wiley is spending the weekend with boxes and
movers.
- Roy Ward is changing ISP's.
- Ron Barker is deliveryman for the Aberdeen furniture store where
his wife works (much more profitable than cranberry farming). It's going out of
business- the final days are on Wild West weekend.
- Peter Linde has 3 big radios, suitable for Alcan, that he is
thinking about selling. No antennas
(they don't come back like loaner radios do).
- Ron Johnson has too many cars. (What's new, you think) He's
getting ready to sell the Gran Tourisimo. The blue car has the bugs worked out.
FOR SALE
- 1992 Audi S4 Quattro Red/Blk leather, 90k miles, Hoppen/MTM Stage
2+ engine enhancement, RS2 manifold (290+ hp), CD changer, all else stock. $14,900.
Call Steve at (425) 337-0232 or email smrdcatman@juno.com for pics and details.
- Ed Millman got a '97 Taurus, wants to sell the '91 white Taurus
wagon. 150K mi. $2000 (206) 361-7389
- Mike Jones still has the collection of parts in his garage that
could make somebody a dandy Fire Arrow. Make an offer. (425) 823-8329
- '87 Audi 4000
Quattro needs a home. It's gold, with 4
new tires and 140,000 miles. Needs either a new timing belt, or a new motor=
PRICE REDUCED to $400. Call Jerry at (206) 227-6343 or
(425) 823-6343.
- Colleen wants a
convertible. The pearl white (with
white 17" wheels and new tires)
'89 Corvette is offered at $9900 Call Jerry or Colleen at (206) 227-6343 or
(425) 823-6343.
- 94 white Plymouth
Grand Voyager LE, AWD, 3.8 motor, new transmission, seats 7, dual A/C, custom
wheels, 140K miles. $5900 Call Jerry or Colleen at (206) 227-6343 or
(425) 823-6343.
- Three (3) Checkpoint
Timing lights. These are "Pat Biggar Special" timing line tubes with
the "delay" module so you don't get 4 flashes for 4 tires. I
purchased them thinking RASC would upgrade timing techniques. I'll keep one. $80 each.
mnolte@qwest.net
- Subaru Impreza Wheels
and tires: 15" rims don't fit over WRX brakes. Hakka H1 studs on 4 (gold) American Racing wheels. $650 Four 15" Legacy wheels. No tires.
Just one weekend of TSD on them. Make offer. mnolte@qwest.net
- '88 Cavalier 4 dr, 4
cylinder, auto. $750. Ran out of parking space. …But wants a Audi/Passat wagon
(Amy is tired of trying to parallel park the Suburban) Pete /Amy Shelton
206-783-5681
RASC Calendar
Call the NWRC
Hotline (206) 256-9627 for latest info on Puget Sound TSD events
- 9/7-8 - Wild West Rally weekend- 2 Club rallys and Wild
West National.
- 9/14-
Friday Niter by RASC
- 9/15-16 – Pacific Forest
stage rally, B.C.Two separate locations:
the Scotty Creek area north of Cache Creek as well as the Battle Creek area
northeast of the town. The PFR will begin with a night stage on Friday,
the rest of the event will be run on Saturday.
- 9/22-23 - "Mountain to Waikiki" TSD,
Cascade SCC, $55. Starts in Portland, 8:30am. Overnight/end Ocean Park, WA
(Long Beach peninsula) Sunday includes go-carts and a gimmick rally (503)
844-6664 or m2c@cascadescc.com
- 9/30 - Maryhill
Hillclimb by SOVREN, Goldendale,entry by invitation only, 35 or so cars.
Fun to spectate. .
- 10/6 - Nite on Bald Mountain by ORCA . Brisk gravel
TSD Rally. It begins before dark / ends in the late evening NO NOVICE CLASS.
Competitors who have not participated in a previous gravel TSD should contact
the Rally Master.
- Start : Snoqualmie Pass. Registration: 2:00pm ,FCO at 3:01pm.
$35US with a $5 discount for NWRC club members.
- 10/5-6 -
Prescott Forest (PRORally)
- 10/12 –
Friday Niter by ORCA, Bellevue, WA
- 10/21 -
Armegeddon TSD by Chuckanut. Start in Bellingham, noonish, 4-5 hours.
Might have some gravel, but Healey, Miata, Mitsubishi "OK".
- 10/27 – Ghoul’s Gambol (TSD)
- 10/28 - Litter Clean-up
(MP 99-101)
- 11/ 24-25 – Totem TSD (B.C.)
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