Boys and their toys

They say that men never stop playing with toys, the toys just get bigger and more expensive. This may be true. I have just acquired another car. But this time instead of a daily driver, or a classic this time it's a racing car......in my mind.

It's an MOT failure Nissan Micra, bought off Ebay for the princely sum if £100. The plan is to turn this into a Class One Autograss racer for me and my son Thomas to play in. This will be done on a very limited budget, hence our temporary team name of Budget Autograss. I'll probably think of a better name later.
If you are new to the Autograss racing world, as I am, then a simple explanation is as follows.
Class one is entry level racing and the cheapest way into motorsport I can think of for a Dad and his soon to be 12 year old son. In a Class one car Dad can race in the seniors, and son can race (from age 12) as a Junior, using the same car, which has to be of a certain type and built to rigid specifications. The choice includes the original Mini, the Micra, Citroen Ax, Toyota Yaris and some small peugeot or other, I forget which, all of which have a 1.0 litre engine.
Racing takes place on an oval 1/4 mile dirt track, so whilst a 1 litre motor might not sound fast, it is fast enough, I doubt the cars ever go beyond second gear, and because the cars are so evenly matched it's close racing. I have watched for a couple of seasons, and no Thomas is old enough to join in, we've decided to give it a go.
Having spoken with a few drivers they all advised as a novice, I should buy a car ready built. Well I looked around and watched a while on ebay with cars coming and going, but they were either prohibitively expensive, or tired looking wrecks. So I ignored all advice and bought a car to build myself. And hence this blog, a diary of the trials and tribulations of a first time racer building his own car from scratch, and hopefully going on to race it in the 2015 season. That gives me around 7 months to build it, and as part of the team building exercise Thomas will be helping too.

The first hurdle was obtaining a reasonable size and reasonable price trailer - ebay again. A trailer was located and purchased for a bargain £200, but needed new brakes, a new jockey wheel, a lighting board and corner steadies to stop it tilting or putting excess strain on the tow car when the race car is loaded. It also needed some lashing hooks welding on and new mudguards fabricating. All of that plus a set of four wheel straps to hold the car on burst Mays budget, totally up to just over £350 all in. This is a recoverable expense however, as the trailer would now sell for much more, and will always hold it's value.

For the car I spoke with a couple of friends in the motor trade and asked them to keep an eye out for any MOT failures or trade ins, of the right sort of car. I could expect to pay £150 they said, as that is scrap weight value. I was well chuffed to get the bargain £100 Micra then, even if I did have to drive to Manchester to collect it.

Striping the non essential parts of the car comes next, and the lights mirrors and various other parts were immediately put back on Ebay. So far both rear lights have sold, plus a door mirror and the number plate plinth, recouping a few quid (although postage eats the profits) I could have got more for the parts I suppose, but I priced them to sell quickly, and so far parts to the value of £35 have sold. Coins to the value of 65 pence also turned up in the car, so it now stands me just £66.15.

So far, the seat and interior have been stripped out, lights and wipers removed along with their motors. I am slowly stripping back the wiring harness, which is an incredible weight, to the bare essentials. Without a wiring diagram it is slow work - I feel like a bomb disposal officer every time I cut a wire. Once that's done the glass can come out. I'm trying to keep it water tight as long as possible, as it's more pleasant to work in the dry. Then there will be a couple of welding jobs to do before the build starts. More soon.