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4th MARCH 2004 CLAIRE GET A COVIN
First
main event of this year has to be selling my Sierra Cosworth that I built way
back in 1994 to fund an irresistible opportunity. The purchase of another Covin
for my wife Claire. Ahh the things you have to do..... Here's a couple of
pictures of Claire's new Covin that still requires considerable work to put right..
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The advert from way back in February 2000 |
As I mentioned
earlier the Covin I bought for Claire's this year (2004) was actually the
very first Covin I tried to buy when I was first looking for one, here's the
very advert from February 2000.
This Covin has
sure had a hard life since then, but the strangest thing I discovered was
that the Beetle front beam had been modified at some time and lowered by
such a huge amount that the Covin actually sat on the fully closed shock
absorber resulting in NO suspension at all and every bump sent shockwaves
and bangs through the car... STRANGE ? The amount of problems are vast and mainly due
to many failed attempts at repairs making things go from bad to worse until the
car was barely driveable. But that's all about to change as I intend to put
it all right and Claire is then going to use it as her everyday car.
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Looks can be
deceiving. This Covin has bags of potential but unfortunately
inside, mechanical, electrical & bodywork are all problem areas that
require lot's of time to put right.
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It's my hope to get enough
work carried out for Claire to be able to take her Covin to all the shows in
2005 but we'll have to see how it goes. |
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2nd & 3rd MAY STONELEIGH SHOW 2004
Once
again another great show with a good turnout on both days of the show,
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Main story was Mark
Turner awarded Best Covin 2004
MARK TURNER WAS AWARDED
"BEST COVIN 2004"
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| Quite a few Covin's on
display. |
My good friend
Mark Turner announced to me at the show he'd carried out a little mod to his
Covin but when he lifted his engine lid the "little mod" turned out to be a
Porsche 993 3.6 engine change.... The little tinker.
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25th May 2004 COOLING
system MODIFICATION number 4
Following two full
seasons of testing I was still not fully satisfied with the cooling system
so in the quest for better cooling at high speed when the turbo is under
load I decided to fit a bigger radiator from the RS Turbo. This was a bit of
a tight squeeze and required considerable pipe work modifications but I was
sure it would all be worth it. |
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| The old Fiesta radiator left
and the bigger RS Turbo item right |
Old radiator removed and
preparation for the new RS Turbo one underway. |
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| The new RS Turbo radiator in
position. |
Looking down you can see how
tight it was to fit in this space available. |
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The Results Of Radiator Mod 4
The day
for testing new cooling system 4 came so off I went with high hopes of "cool
running"..... WRONG.... The temperature was worse than ever and within a very
short time was rising to a dangerous level so back to the drawing board. I
traced the problem down to the radiator core being partially blocked and was
unable to clear it so I decided
to remove the whole lot and convert everything back to how it was, with the old
Fiesta radiator back in to enable me to get to the Newark show...Talk about a waste of time and effort....
A new
plan of action was being formed though and needed looking into.
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19th
& 20th June NEWARK SHOW 2004
THE NEWARK EXPERIENCE
The Newark show
was a good event that included, Large autojumble, Large craft fair, Robot
wars, Model car racing, Live Queen tribute band for entertainment on the Sat
evening plus all the usual kit car displays and trade stands. I really think
these extra activities help to make the Newark show one of the best shows of
the year.
Following 3 weeks
of HOT & SUNNY weather (even here in the North East) we decided to travel to
Newark on the Friday evening and set up the tents and club stand ready for
the weekend show. However, all was not to be as we had hoped. Unfortunately
for us a very COLD weather front was sweeping across the country with Newark
high on It's hit list with temperatures of below 3'C and torrential
rain, hail, high winds and local flooding which was not ideal camping
weather, to say we were cold and wet is an understatement. We had to sleep
fully clothed with 2 sleeping bags and Andy Devlin even made himself a bin
bag survival suit to wrap himself in on the night time as he didn't think
he'd survive the night.... We managed to rough it out and there were some
small spells through the day when the rain stopped so it could have been
worse... I think.... We have high hopes of next year being nice and warm so
fingers crossed. |
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| Slightly damp weather you
might say |
Strewth... A dry spell . . . |
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14th
& 15th August HARROGATE SHOW 2004
Time for the
Harrogate show and with the weather not looking to good, we feared another
"Newark experience " could be on the cards, but to our amazement the sun
came out and we all suffered sun burn. Great show, good turnout and a great
night camping. |
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| Covins with owners Darren
Parker, Andy Devlin, James Latcham, Mark Turner & Alan Jones. |
Covins from the NORTH, Darren
Parker, Andy Devlin, James Latcham, Mark Turner, Alan Jones & Dean Laidler |
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16th
to 26th August Radiator Mod 5
Following the very
hot weekend at Harrogate the journey home saw my Covin running a little on
the warm side so the day after the show in a fit of rage and fury I decided
enough was enough and removed the complete cooling system from my Covin and
prepared to start from scratch by fitting the radiator in another location
away from the turbo.
I decided to locate the new radiator on the left hand side of
engine bay to eliminate picking up heat from the Turbo that is on the right
hand side. The main problem on the left hand side is space. Tight is not the word
but after moving a few parts and re-routing pipes, electrics etc I managed to create
just enough space within 10mm to fit cooling system number 5 that came from a
Ford Sierra 1800 and has a much thicker core. |
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| The latest radiator required
fan and housing in picture to be scrapped due to clearance problems. So
modified unit had to be made to fit. |
This is the space I managed to
create to fit the new radiator. |
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| Looking from underside with
the exhaust removed for access. Notice how tight a fit it was. I also had to
fabricate some aluminium tubing to go from water pump to radiator. |
New radiator fitted FLAT in
the engine bay complete with modified fan & housing. There is a much bigger
air flow here but more important it's all cool ambient air and not heated by
the Turbo so it should make a big change to running temperatures. |
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Results Of Radiator Mod 5 ..Did
it work ?
I Managed to get
the radiator modification 5 finished a couple of days before Castle
Donington show so I was only able to give my Covin a small test drive and
everything seemed fine so I decided to do the full testing on route to
Donington show which was 180 mile trip each way.... I had faith... |
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4th
to 5th September CASTLE DONINGTON SHOW 2004
The trip to
Donington was trouble free and cooling system working fine (success) This years
Donington show was a very badly organised event and many other clubs all
took it upon themselves to get all clubs to rally together and complain
about the state of the place and if no improvement is seen next year 2005
clubs will NOT be attending the Donington show of 2006....so we shall
see.... |
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| Day one, notice the nice lumpy
field that has not been cut for about 2 months |
You can see how rough the
ground was by the angle of Mark Turners Covin. |
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The Journey Home From DONINGTON SHOW 2004
I know your all expecting
something to have gone wrong.. Come on, be honest... Well your wrong... All
was fine on the journey home and the new cooling system was working much
better, but still not good enough. The temperature did still creep up a
little at higher engine loads and while this did not rise as high as before
I still knew something was just not right and the cooling system might not
actually be the problem. That's when I thought of
something completely different that just might be the problem and it required further investigation
when I got home. Those of
you who have read my article in issue 20 of Covin news will know what this
is all about so for those of you who don't follow this link....
AERODYNAMICS & COOLING
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