Project Rally Car – Ford Fiesta, Part 6

Mounting of the shock canisters, spare wheel mount, co-driver footrest and other similar jobs were completed in time.

We mounted a motorsport heater and ran the piping to the windscreen to help reduce the chance of it fogging up on stage. At this point, we were going without a heated windscreen, deciding that it was not 100% essential at this point in the car's life.

One job we did do properly, though, was one we started months ago – mounting a fire bomb. We picked up a secondhand but in-date fire bomb to be plumbed in from fellow North-East Victorian rally man, Jason Lennane, and I had the interior parts mounted and hoses connected.

With the plumbing continued into the engine bay, and nozzles mounted, the car was now fire-safe, something that all post-2000 built rally cars need to be.

Any chassis manufactured after the turn of the century is required to have an operational fire bomb plumbed in for state championship events.

In mounting the shock canisters, I found that one of the adjuster knobs was not rotating as it should.

Being such a vital part, and a part foreign to me, I was cautious with trying to fix it myself. I phoned Lane Heenan, Reiger’s Australian distributor, as well as MCA Suspension, to work out what the fix was.

I ordered some parts from Lane and a week later they arrived and were fitted. The same problem was apparent, though. The ‘clicker’ was not moving, so no adjustment was possible.

The internal ball and spring were not moving as they should, so Lane suggested I remove the ball and spring for the time being. This meant I could still get adjustments in them but on the dial position, not on a ‘click’ measure.

This is something to fix in the future, as it wasn't necessary to fix right away.

We continued with the tasks elsewhere.

The doors were also put on, and as soon as we did, there was an obvious problem.

When the standard door cards were pushed shut, they hit the roll cage and therefore would not close.

A simple fix was sought. After some freehand tracing, we attacked it with a hacksaw, a grinder, and then a file to fit the standard door cards around the intrusion bars.

We were pleasantly surprised with our efforts!

One benefit of cutting the factory door cards instead of making our own was the ability to leave all the door and window mechanisms standard.

Because of this, our car would still have the luxury of power windows!

While we could have removed them and saved some weight, it was decided that weight was not a priority at this point, and we could use our time more wisely.

Tyres were the next thing on our purchase list, and with plenty of options on the market it was a relatively difficult choice. From Hoosier, Pirelli, Dunlop, MRF and Zestino, we ran through all our the potential options.