- NEC Success!
Posted: 7:36am, 20 November 2009
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An excellent show and a rebuilt Tatra engine. The 2009 Classic Motor Show was a powerful showcase of the vibrancy of the UK classic car scene. The 50,000+ characters and 1000+ vehicles in attendance made for a weekend of ceaseless entertainment. Plus, our scheme to rebuild my Tatra 603 engine live on the Practical Classics stand was a roaring success. Tatra Register UK chairman Ian Tisdale, Tatra legend Simon Redrup and my bad self achieved great things over the course of the weekend. With the exception of fitting the twin scavenge fans - which I forgot to pack - priming the oil system and fine-tuning the timing, the very lovely engine is ready to slot into the rear of my car. Many thanks to Draper Tools for providing almost everything we needed, the lovely chaps on the Leeds City College stand for lending us everything else, and to BeerHere.co.uk for plying us with country-specific lubrication. But most of all thanks to Simon and Ian for their heroic efforts, and to everyone who visited the PC stand to entertain us. Our achievements in statistical form: Number of Tatra engines rebuilt: 1 Litres of beer consumed whilst doing so: 49.66 Both impressive. Here's a short digest of the rebuild in the words of Mr Redrup: "Just as promised, we managed to fully re-build a bare block Tatra 603H into a finished engine over a period of three days in front of a crowd of over 50,000 show visitors. TRUK chairman Ian Tisdale was both foreman and time and motion man, I was spannering and general technical engineer, and Sam Glover was entertainment and special tools manager. Friday started slowly with just the crankshaft and camshaft being fitted and a demonstration of the valve gear without cylinders or heads - just the head bolts with the rockers and cam follower tubes mounted on No.1 and No.8 of the engine block, minus both cylinder and cylinder heads. See Sam's pics to make sense of this. Saturday's pace picked up with Ian and myself re-building all eight unleaded converted cylinder heads (fitting the valves in: horrid job) and fitting the timing chain, the left bank of cylinder/piston/rod assemblies, the oil coolers and their related air duct panels. Sam was occasionally seen to pick up a spanner. Sunday came and limited time to finish became a factor. On Friday, Sam had placed a nice sign on the wall of the Practical Classics stand that read: "Tatra V8 rebuild... will it be ready by Sunday?" No pressure then! Sam, Neil Campbell and I really rather do like a beer or ten, resulting in us showing up at the stand at 10.15 after an entertaining and informative evening in Birmingham. A less than pleased Ian's greeting was "what time do you call this then?" We just held our heads down and shuffled around at this point. However - somewhat magically - Ian, myself and Sam managed to get the engine into one single piece during the course of the Sunday session, despite a schoolboy error from myself spotted by our chairman. This involved the accidental absence of two small but vital air-chanelling panels, and resulted in the entire right bank of heads having to be removed. Special thanks to a very special Tatra club chairman Ian Tisdale: you are indeed a chairman who walks the talk!" Click here to see the process in full photographic form.         Words: Sam Glover and Simon Redrup Pictures: Sam Glover |
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