Neil
Supporter
The Can-Am Adventure Continues
The previous year, 1972, had been my introduction to world- class racing and it was exciting! The 1973 Can- Am season was probably the high point and effectively the end of this Series, although no one knew it at the time. The Porsche 917/30 of Roger Penske, driven by Mark Donohue, was so dominant that interest began to wane and the final 1974 season became a pitiful last gasp of a once- great racing series.
We had the usual crew members back supporting Bob Peckham and his McLaren M8C. I was not able to travel back East for the races at Mid-Ohio and others but two races in California still remained to finish the 1973 racing season- Laguna Seca and Riverside. We all set off for Laguna Seca, a nice race track located between the farming community of Salinas and the lovely seaside town of Monterrey. I again rode with Dave Eggleston in his Chevy van on the long drive but without the drama of the previous year.
We arrived at the track, unloaded the car, and started preparing it. There are lots of little things that must be checked and each one is important- tire pressure, engine oil & coolant level, take the car to the fuel truck, etc. Bob liked to add sodium dichromate to his coolant as a corrosion inhibitor so we added a handful of the orange crystals to the radiator and started the engine to warm it up and mix the coolant solution. New tires were purchased from the Goodyear truck and expertly mounted and balanced by their technicians. That morning, Saturday, there was a practice session scheduled for Can-Am Cars and we needed to take advantage of it.
Early morning was cool and pleasant but the weather predictions for this weekend were for hot weather. This was going to be hard on both the cars and drivers. Bob suited up, put on his helmet and we belted him tight in the McLaren's cockpit. A short push and the car rolled out on the pit row and with a gloved finger on the starter button, the 8 liter Chevrolet burst to life. These were special aluminum-block engines cast by Chevrolet for racing; originally a 427 cubic inch option in Corvettes but now enlarged and popular with other racers. Bob had two, built by the noted George Bolthoff in his Engine Systems Development shop in Irvine, CA. One engine developed 666 horsepower on the dynamometer, the other, a spare, recorded 665 horsepower. George valued reliability over peak power. “You can't win if you don't finish.”
Waved on by a flagman, Bob eased out on to the track and accelerated away. After the new tires were scrubbed in and up to temperature- about 290F for peak performance- Bob started pushing the car hard. Things looked good, times were improving and no problems cropped up. A visitor came over to our pit and introduced himself- it was George Bolthoff. He had been watching Bob and listening to the sound of his engine (George was deaf as a post but he could hear engines!) and he thought it needed a slight tweak to its fuel injection system. He was certainly the expert so I signaled Bob to pull into the pit on his next lap.
In the pit, Bolthoff took a small screwdriver from his shirt pocket and turned a screw in the Lucas timed injection pump. This British fuel injection system was a mystery to us, a definitely “Do Not Touch” but George had built this engine so there was no one more qualified to make adjustments. I waved Bob back out for a few laps and George was pleased- now it sounded right. However, “Pride goeth before the fall” it says in The Book of Proverbs in the Bible...
Just before we thought we would wind up our practice session, out on the track there was a bang from the engine and then quiet. Never a good sign in a race car. A wrecker was dispatched and brought the car into the paddock, ignominiously hanging from its roll bar. Back on the ground, we quickly saw that something had damaged the engine internally so continuing with it was not possible and our spare engine was back in Tucson. Bolthoff was still with us and he offered to tear down the engine back in his shop but that was down in Irvine, in the LA area, 6 1/2 hours away! Without any other choice, we set about removing the engine from the chassis and unbolting the Hewland LG600 transaxle. Time was ticking away...
While we used a hoist to lift the engine out of the car, Dave backed his van up to the paddock door and cleared a space in the back for the engine. George left in his car and would meet us there at his shop in Irvine. I jumped in with Dave and we left Bob and the others there to wait. Since it was now early afternoon on Saturday the traffic was not too bad and we made it to Irvine in about what we had estimated -6 1/2 hours or so. George met us at his shop, not far off the freeway, and we unloaded the hurt engine. Under his guidance Dave and I helped tear down the engine. We could quickly see what had caused the problem- the timing chain had broken.
Since a timing chain connects the crankshaft to the camshaft, a break allows things to get seriously out of sync- pistons come up and hit valves that are still open, driving them closed and bending pushrods and breaking rocker arms. One pushrod was even driven up through the end of a rocker arm. Fortunately the engine had stopped abruptly so there was not as much debris in the engine as there might have been. Nevertheless everything had to be disassembled, cleaned, and inspected. A new timing chain assembly was found in George Bolthoff's spare parts bin as well as a few pushrods. All pushrods were rolled across a piece of glass to find the straight ones.
It was now late at night so no speed shops were open at this hour or even ordinary auto parts shops. In George's stock we found enough roller rocker arms to rebuild the valve train, with the exception of two. We crossed our fingers, hoping to find two more somewhere. Pistons, rings, rods, crank, bearings, everything was inspected and re-installed or replaced. The TRW forged aluminum pistons passed Georges eagle-eyed inspection so they were re-used. With everything re-assembled and re-timed and re-adjusted, the engine was hoisted back into Dave's van and we left on the freeway to go North, back to Laguna Seca. The sun was breaking into a clear late October sky as we left Irvine.
The drive back was boring but we needed to not waste any time if we had any chance at all of getting everything back together in time for the race. We were dog tired but we pushed on. Finally arriving back in Laguna Seca, we showed our passes to the track officials and were permitted to drive to the paddock. The crew met us and we all wrestled the rebuilt engine out of the van and onto a hoist to re-install it in the car. While The crew dropped the engine back in, I cruised up and down the paddock garage, asking other race teams if they might have a couple of spare Chevy roller rocker arms that we could buy.
The guys on the UOP Shadow team were kind enough to lend us just what we needed, an act of true sportsmanship on their part. After all, we were competitors. The engine was back in the chassis and we hurriedly bolted the clutch back on the flywheel and bolted the transaxle to the block. The axle CV joints were re-installed as were the cooling system hoses, fuel and oil lines and electrical connections. We had collected quite a crowd of onlookers by now, curious as to what was going on as other cars were now taking their places on the starting grid. By now Bob had changed into his fire suit and had his helmet on, ready to jump in as the last pieces were re-installed. By now the race was scheduled to start and we were still in our paddock. The good Lord must be a fan of the underdog- the organizers held up the start of the race for a couple of minutes- just enough time for Bob to get in and fire up the engine for the first time since yesterday.
