RW774 and the XKs at historic Silverstone

[RW774]

Hi all, hope you like the pics hurriedly taken at Silverstone in between working on my mates XK 120 FHC. This is a car that has been raced virtually all its life, yet has been pensioned off for the last 37 years.After working hurriedly before the race and ironing out the issues, the bloody car had a fire ! still it was a great weekend and I thorougly enjoyed it.
One of the issues was over brakes. After much testing I found the pushrods too short, together with too smaller bore masters( in a bias pedal box)
We were getting too much pad knock off resulting in no brakes.Try as we could I could not simulate the problem, so Dave took me up the M40 after practice,I won`t tell you at what speed , but we did get the problem after much working of the brakes, coming off the motorway up to a roundabout.
Back round the roundabout sideways joining the motorway going back to silverstone, the door came open ! Still got that and the brakes sorted the following day when we found replacement pushrods and masters, then it stopped charging, thanks to guy Broad who lent me a dynamo alternator look alike. Wired in so sorted that, overheating, sorted that. Still after all these problems were sorted , in practice Dave Coyne managed 4th fastest and was 7th on the grid . He was picking his through the pack ,then it was all over.Much the same for Graham Bull, having lost a wheel when the axle shaft sheered off.
Enjoy the pics.

Edited by RW774 on Friday 21st August 18:27

Edited by RW774 on Friday 21st August 18:37

[Firefox1]

Brige is not the place that you want to loose a rear wheel. I hope my band of marshals didn't damage it too much dragging it out of the gravel trap. It then took about 10-15 minutes to get it attached to the breakdown to take it back to the paddock. It looked like it sheared the drive shaft was it an original part?

[RW774]

Hi Firefox,It was Graham`s paddle clutch that caused the problems, the throttle jammed wide open , we think damaging the clutch pressure plate grip. The car wouldn`t change gear properly after that and the box finally locked up, locking the drive train .That in turn sheered of the hub. No damage done mate, great work well done.

[a8hex]

I missed Graham's incident, I was watching just up the track at the time from the holding area. Chris' battle with the Mk2 was a lot of fun to watch.
I've been on hols since Silverstone and so haven't had a chance to go all the way through my pictures of the Saturday. I shot well over a thousand pictures that day (doesn't take too long at 6FPS) most will end up being binned. Lowdrag probably has much better ones of the track action, I don't have a press pass and couldn't find anywhere where I could get too good a view of the track without looking through bloody wire fencing.

I just can't find one of your 120.

[RW774]

Never mind Ken, it will be at the open day on the 12th Sept with the owner and Dave Coyne hopefully.

[a8hex]

Ah, found it now.



and I'd spotted her before at the Phoenix


This is Graham's poor car