A little "peek" at Line Mtn.

[x-bird]

Came across this today thanks to FB. I'll be racing here Saturday morning if all goes as planned. Always wondered just how much model A the Lenig's had in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJlt...e_gdata_player


Always wondered just how much model A the Lenig's had in it

[Masteryota]

Thats awesome. The track looks pretty diverse, some tight trails, little bit of mud, up and down hills, and some straight aways. Should really put the old buggy through its paces.

I'm surprised he kept it all Ford, anyone else would have went the easy route and put it on a K5 or C10 platform.

[4pullingGM]

Looks like a cool place to ride!

[x-bird]

Success! Well sort of Made it through all 6 laps, total of a little over 30 miles.

Very dry dusty day with temps in the 90s. Total ATV/UTV field of 78 racers, ran with a commander, and two razors in the UTV class.
Had the hole shot off the starting line only to shift the wrong way and go from first back to neutral . and go from first to last. First lap was going to be a mellow one anyway to see what the engine/transmission could do, so i wasn't bothered by it too much.

Got to the hillclimb gulch and had a motorcycle park right in my line at the bottom, which was the only dry way through, so not knowing if it would pull the climb without a run i punched it through the mudhole and promptly covered myself with muddy water--no tear-offs, = prescription glasses and eyes fubared and engine a little bogged out from the bath.

Once i got the engine to rev again, it pulled the hill in first pretty well.

about 1/4 mile after that came the dusty field runs from hell. Visibility was about zero and already getting lapped and massively dust roosted by the bikes and 4 stroke quads. slow going. (several big collision wrecks out there in the jeep/truck classes and one ATV rider missed a corner at the fastest part and went off in a big way. He wasn't found until he woke from the wreck and rode out about 15-20 minutes later.) It took 3 laps til i had a visible run through that section and was able to go at speed (probably in the 40s) through that 1/2 mile or so. rest of the woods/rock gardens went well.

broke 2 of my aluminum break-off tie rod bolts on separate laps (punched a tree dead on with the left tire and one "fast-in" deeply rutted right turn in particular heavily loaded the left side tire sideways every lap until it popped the bolt) I had spares with nuts so i fixed those--took longer getting out and belted back in the buggy than the fix.

Also ran the gas tank down out of the "main" feed to the reserve portion. On the last lap right at the start I had intermittent power/revs as the pickup tube kept getting uncovered. Didn't know if clutch was shot or what, so i crawled most of the last lap in 1st. got stalled out 3/4s up the hill climb and had to torture the clutch with 1st gear rev dumps until i got it turned and was able to angle off onto another path up the last part. --brakes wouldn't hold me from rolling back down, so i had to go to neutral, rev while i rolled back then bang it in gear--took about 4 hits to get it. Should have started off with the petcock in the reserve position

best lap was 11 minutes, including stopping in the field to wait for visibility. rest of the class ran mid 10s, should have no problem at all matching those times in the future. out of 78 in the ATVs/UTVs, ended up in 48th.

really happy with the results, brakes sucked--I used engine braking for the most part and i need tear offs in a big way --that probably cost me the most time. I'd planned to change the tire rod design with the shear bolts, have a setup in mind that will get done before the 7 miler as the aluminum can't take the constant pounding this place dishes out. for recreational riding , they work, they're just too weak for this place.


when i get the chance i'll pop up some vid highlights and pics.

Oh, took home $20 (half the race fee) they lost the trophy though LOL

[2SlickNick]

Sounds like it was a blast. I live for that stuff, but will live vicariously through your post for the time being LOL. Congratulations on finishing.

[x-bird]

drove through while they were still working on this guy, lap 1 he got rolled over by his own atv and run over by two others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmEzTMsLHGU

[Masteryota]

That was hard to watch, and it played over and over, but he seemed to be somewhat ok at the end. This is the part that scares me about competitions like that, only takes one incident or person to really ruin your day/days/life.

Otherwise, it sounds like you had a blast even with all the issues you had, but they are lessons learned. I was concerned with the aluminum fasteners when you mentioned them, but now I think I might opt for something a little stronger. When you got home, did you notice any engine issues or other components that might need reexamined?

[ckau]

What a great day for you! 48th out of 78 ain't too shabby by any standard! Especially when there's enough of a challenge just to survive the course.
That guy took a heck of a dump and then gets run over.. twice? Talk about insult to injury! Glad to hear he'll live to ride another day. A good example of why I prefer a roll cage and 5 point belts.

[x-bird]

Funny you should mention that .... Discovered a not so little error i made during the race while pressure washing it down today. I got about 1/2 a lap further along after hitting the tree, including the roughest section of rocks. It broke in the high-load corner (off camber, rutted, then berm banked steeply up on the outside). I didn't look for the old bolt, just hopped out, slapped a new one in, ran to a nearby campsite for some paper towels to wipe my glasses (LOL) and got on with it. Turns out i forgot about my high misalignment spacers that go on either side and into the heim. i just cranked the nuts to the shank and got rolling again. that left about 1 inch of up down movement of the heim on the bolt, slop through the heim bore (made up by the spacer normally) and it lasted all of 2 laps before snapping in the same spot on the track. I did the same with the second one, slapped it in and went. I was hearing some contact noise up front and kept hammering anyway--steering was not going full lock to the right either and i overshot a fast corner and almost rolled it. witness marks on the lower control arm show the bolt hanging out the bottom of the steering arm was hitting it when i turned right. Now i know why i had a "wee" bit of a moment. That last bolt is presently bent pretty well.

Overall, it's still a sound theory, I'm using 10 mm diameter. if you can go up to around 12 or 7/16ths diameter they will last and save the heim or steering arm in a big hit. with the spacers, i don't think No. 2 would have broken like i commented before. I would have likely been out of commission from the tree hit with a bent steering arm or tie rod had i not had the shear point. about 60-80 percent of the DNFs at Line are from front tie rod/balljoint/arm/hub damage from tree and rock hits. Nobody has put something together like this and it is getting a good amount of interest from other teams i describe it to. over a dozen quads went out with bent tie rods or broken ball joints--and this is the "easy" race. likewise in the trucks/jeeps/buggy classes. Almost always the front corner torn off in some way.

Next change to it will be to go to a vertical heim position, a beefed up arm and cone spacers with 1/2" bore heims and much shorter overall aluminum connection bolts.

Otherwise everything else on the buggy checks out. chain runs are good, sprockets didn't move. centrifugal clutch--well that is a question, but i'm going to buy up several used ones for spares as nothing new is available. and i didnt' have my two front seat bolts tightened )))))

BTW, on that vid--they cut out me going down between the guy in the orange and the next quad that flashes by when the comment "after four minutes " figures ... i had been talking to him at the start, nice guy, understand he definitely had busted ribs and possible pelvis or femur fracture. Those were the utility class quads that started 2 min. before us.

[Masteryota]

That track looks pretty brutal for any vehicle, let alone a garage build, not that we don't overbuild in certain areas. I would like to try out something like that once I get mine running, but I doubt it will be anything like line mountain.

[x-bird]

"Yaaay" I've got a cheering section LMAO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkb3V_aWb3U

having issues yet again with my go pro--my computer has had it, or is that my noggin ... LOL no disk space/working memory left ... got about 2/3rds of the race file and videopad is hanging up adding the file. plays fine on tv.

[2SlickNick]

Nice you made it!

[x-bird]

Rather than open up another thread, i'll put this in here ....

I've got to get a roll bar mount for the go pro, my roof gets in the way a bit.

http://youtu.be/wx8ofQ3mleM

Ran with a 4.67 final gear. Choice was OK for this race, but grabbing second on any of the mild to moderate uphills resulted in some bogging down and slippage.

Had the fan on the entire race. It definitely improved the "backside comfort" level and i'm sure it helped the engine with not only cooling , but airflow to the air filter/intake area. It drops the revs by about 50 rpm when on.

carb jetting still needs some work. the jets i ordered weren't big enough and my twist drill selection has a gap in sizes right where i needed one. After drilling a couple out to went from bogging condition to not getting any tan on the plug. It's also difficult to plug test this engine since there's no manual neutral and cutting off at full load in one of the higher gears results in no-fired fuel "overun" into the chamber.