Peking Paris Rally 2007

The Peking to Paris Motor Challenge 2007 is an adventure-rally in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the first-ever trans-continental motor-marathon.
Italian Prince Borghese and his Itala, his rival Dutchman and three other cars set out in 1907 on the first-ever trans-continental marathon, driving the greatest distance between two capital cities.
The route will be totally authentic, in terms of driving conditions and places visited, taking cars northwards through the Great Wall of China, through the Gobi Desert into Outer Mongolia, crossing the Steppes and vast grassy plains of Asia, into Russia and southern Siberia and on to Moscow....then it’s northwards to St. Petersburg, and on into Europe to a party in Paris.
(taken from www.pekingparis.com , the official website).

Amoung the over 100 entries there is at least one Magnette, prepared by José Romão de
Sousa from Portugal. herte are the first pictures.

This is how the car looked before preparations began:


Shell was spot welded (over 600 additional spots all together…) See the Aston-type fuel inlet on C pilar	The ATL fuel cell (80 liters, dimensions 86 x 45 x 25 cm) will fit above the rear axle, and will allow the cage roll to be welded to the rear horizontal frames in the trunk.

The change on the trunk bottom will allow us to carry two spare wheels partially under the ATL petrol tank.	Aluminium sealing panel instead of the rear seat looks neat…	Aston-type fuel inlet on C pilar

Room for starter	More clearance was needed...	Aluminium OD gearbox cover

This is how the clearance was made... Extra leaf and stronger rear springs. Checking ground clearance. About 4 inches higher, simulating full-load. Assessing needed change on the position of spring mount.	Front brakes and antirollbar	But with even the “best” possible work planning some things always pop up: for instance I just decided on a new ss exhaust manifold and pipe and we will later need to do more welding to find room for it when the engine is in place…

MGB engine and OD gearbox are done and ready to install	Dashboard: Rather than use the original mixture of solid wood and veneered parts, we went for a full walnut burl veneering. This should also look good on the dashboard and on the door wooden trimmings (even for a “rally” car), especially over a black body…

I have also now acquired a local LHD wreck (chassis nº 2592) as parts donor, including the steering box and the pedal assembly, plus several spares to carry with us.

After much static testing, assembling and disassembling of all mechanical parts (several times….) every panel (doors, etc.) were stripped to bare metal and the body has finally moved into the paint shop. Hope progress will be more visible from now on …		We opted for a black base, but with just a tint of metallic green. Top coat was a water-based paint plus high-gloss clear lacquer. Looks good (although I have not yet checked it under full daylight… Once the painting and mechanical assembly is finished the car will move to the rally preparation proper, namely instruments fitting, wiring, etc..

MGB Engine in Place	Aston-type Fuel Inlet on C-pilar

José Romão de Sousa is not a beginner in classic allies. He already did the London-Sydney-Marathon. Here's a newspaper showing him and his wife...

Update Ocober/November 2006:


Since FIA homologation is not required, the antiroll bar was taylor-made made by a specialist. It is made of 45 mm OD steel tube, 1 mm thick, with some transverse sections in 38 mm OD. It is a simple structure, bolted not welded. Main design constraints were obvious: it should not conflict with either the wood dashboard, the steering wheel or the competition seats and that it could be easily removed from the car if necessary. It will be painted body color.

The exhaust manifold was cut out of a bought SS MGB manifold. Because of the engine size and the LHD configuration (virtually everything is on the LH side of the engine compartment…) it had to come down in front of the steering box. Also, it is made in several separate sections, each one gliding inside the next one, with simple outside spring clips holding the two parts together. Body mounts are straightforward with rubber bushes on rigid mounts. The manifold, the muffler and the end section are in ss but for ease of machining and quick manufacturing we accepted that the other sections could be carbon steel, steel welded (not ss welded). We can always make a full ss one later, if required.



I was in London over the weekend. One of the things I went there for was to get the 41/9 CW&Pinion I sourced from John Barringer of Harpenden in Herts. John decided to drive down to London in his Magnette on Sunday morning (despite the rainy weather) and we met at the Club where I was staying in West London. He took me out for a tour round the block and I was impressed with the overall condition of his car and the “nerve” of his engine. Not a concours example, but well cherished and enjoyed. Here is a picture of John (wearing the right sweatshirt, no less) and his Magnette. He also spoke highly of his last years’ visit to Australia and the kind of warm reception he got from Malcolm and John Russell.

Update December 2006:


Polished carburetor cups and chrome air filters		Exhaust loose joints (with side springs) and fairly rigid exhaust mount

	Spax gas-filled front shock absorber	2 doors being painted back to black

We just decided on a fixed Kenlowe (manually activated) electric fan in front of the standard radiator (in addition to the oil cooler) which required a special mount (picture enclosed) and will not allow the bonnet lock to be installed – we will only use straps.

A very strong sump guard is mandatory, especially since the sump is so prominent and so vulnerable and we are short of the 8” ground clearance we were aiming for.
But this is part of the specific rallye preparation which is to follow and will be done by a different guy, and also includes all the electrics (with several dual circuits), two electric FACET fuel pumps, plus king filter and water separator, many other instruments (rev counter, oil pressure and temperature, Brandtz, GPS, lambda sensor, etc), aeroquip pipings for fuel running inside the cabin, mudflaps, etc., etc.

Update February 2007

Yesterday was grey, rainy and windy and the enclosed pictures are terrible. The car was trailed to the MOT station and the available background for picture taking was also very bad.
Because of this last minute request by the Chinese authorities for a valid European MOT certificate by this week, we had to rush the car through the MOT test with many rally specific installations still missing. I did not “dare” take more pictures inside the car just yet since many rally instruments are still not fitted.
In addition, you can see that outside there are a lot of things still to be done: no hockey stick body trim, small and narrow tyres (155 x 15), front suspension too low, windscreen trim lifting, etc.
I plan to start testing the car in 2 weeks time and by then I will make a complete and detailed photo session.

Update March 2007

One of the last decisions we faced was over which tyres to use, the basic options being between modern low-profile “traction” forest tyres (such as Colway remoulds) and reinforced high-profile van tyres. The 4.5“ original steel wheel is a bit special and available rally tyre offer for such a narrow wheel is very limited. In the end we opted for the latter ones, and chose a semi-steel radial light-truck Chinese (!) tyre, size 185R15C (674 mm outside diameter) by Chengshan, with a nominal standard load of 875 Kg each. These are the ones I will be testing this weekend. The idea is to maximize ground clearance and puncture resistance, even allowing for a relatively small traction on mud or loose gravel. I will report on test conclusions.

I drove the car for the first time over the weekend. The idea was to do as many miles as possible running-in the engine and getting acquainted with the car handling. We adjusted the rear suspension height with a full tank (80 liters) plus 120 Kg in the boot. I did about 500 miles on tarmac and smooth gravel roads (no sump protection fitted) and was reasonably pleased with the steering, the handling and the brakes (no need to remove valve…). I was not too pleased with the engine and we later decided to remove it and check a number of things. So the engine is out and this may prevent me from doing another run next weekend…
I plan to attend the Magnette & Steam Event on April 7^th , so only 3 weeks to go…

Update April 2007

- After the engine problem I decided to add a rev counter and oil pressure, oil temperature and water temperature gauges. We produced an extra octagon-shaped veneered cluster (placed on top of the dash using the ashtray insert), where we put the rev counter in the middle and the oil pressure and oil temperature gauges on the sides. The water temperature gauge is now on the central panel (radio space) together with the petrol tank level gauge.

- The ignition switch and starter knob are now on the left of the heater controls, behind the roll cage vertical section;

- We also added an extra veneered panel underneath the dash to accommodate additional switches plus the windscreen water jet switch;

- We now have the two petrol pumps and the two coils switched on and off from the instrument panel;

- The roll cage is fully bolted and can be removed if required. The space between the cage and the body, both on the front vertical sections and on the top horizontal ones, allow them to be used as handles by the co-driver (can also be used by the driver, but his hands are usually busy grabbing something else…);

- We glued an aluminum foil-surfaced fire-retardant 5 mm foam inside the top to prevent the car from getting too hot in the sun (we also did the same inside the aluminum gearbox cover to minimize the heat from a different heat-source…);

- The manual fire extinguisher is on the floor in front of the co-driver’s seat.

- The automatic fire extinguisher tank is also on the floor but behind the co-driver’s seat. It is operated from a control box at the rear of the aluminum gearbox cover, under the hand brake lever. There are jets on both sides of the engine compartment and on both sides of the cabin;

- The two tyres have now been moved inside the car, horizontally behind the co-driver’s seat (the new wider tyres make it impossible to fit both in the trunk, and I did not want any more welding…).

- Co-driver foot rest has three foot-operated switches, two on the right (wiper plus water jets) and one on the left (horn).

- There are sockets on the engine compartment, trunk and dash to plug-in a torch, additional instruments, etc.

- I plan to plug a i-Pod into the driver/co-driver headphone communication system so that we can listen to music/radio whenever possible.

There will be a final round of pictures before the car departure Wed night, because we had a last minute change of front coils, shock absorbers and mounts to get an extra inch of ground clearance (every little mm helps…).

Last minute changes included a totally revised suspension set-up (1 extra inch of ground clearance, different shocks front and rear, etc.), new rear axle bearings and sealing, a larger sump protection and a new location for the Brandz pulse sensor.

The Duraluminium sump protection is now much larger than anticipated. We put a 34 mm round bar across the two front eyelets and welded two front support mounts on it. The protection is bolted at the rear and also in between front and rear. I enclose a number of low-res pictures to illustrate this. We believe it will prove sufficiently strong to withstand abuse as a “skid” platform… We also added a small protection for the diff lower bolt at the rear.

The pulse sensor is now parallel to the car axis on the left front brake disc assembly.

At the rear inside the car we loaded the two spare wheels, 3 boxes of spares, the jack, sleeping tent and mattresses. All the rest went into the trunk. Not too heavy and plenty of space left there for our two small bags…

After a frantic late evening work last night, the car was finally loaded to a trailer today and is now on its way to Calais! I will fly to the UK tomorrow, pick up the car in Calais and cross back the Channel tomorrow night, ready for the Magnettes & Steam meeting on Saturday.

Update 15.04.07

When I collected the car at Calais Friday night it was immediately apparent that something new was wrong: huge vibration at around 50 miles/hour. This was not previously noticeable, so my initial feeling was that the last-minute changes had created a new problem…

These last minute changes had been:

- lightening a 1” thick prop-shaft spacer we had previously used without any problems;

I drove carefully to Winchcombe and planned to look for the cause at the end of the meeting. During the meeting I had a word with Paul Batho who very kindly volunteered to help me look at the possible causes. We drove to his place and in succession removed each one of the first three possible causes but were unable to identify the cause for the vibration. Thank you Paul for a late Saturday afternoon’s work…

The only real alternative left was the prop-shaft itself. At about 9.30 pm we called Doug Smith of MG Motorsport and I arranged to meet him next day (Easter Sunday) at 2.30 pm. He had a new MGB prop-shaft, which was ½ inch too long and required a bit of trimming on the splines end to make it work comfortably when the rear axle bumps up and down. But it worked and the vibration was gone. Thank you Doug.

Why this happened is not totally clear. There was now a “play” on one of the prop-shaft U-joints. It is possible that the new suspension height had created a new angle for the U-joints to operate and this may have exposed a problem that went undetected before. Or it could just have deteriorated during the 2,000 miles or so I had driven so far.

So after 2 days of detective work we had solved the vibration “mystery”. I then drove a few hundred miles more, collecting my wife from Heathrow Monday morning, doing again (this time with her) the GPS training test I had done alone before and then driving to Bury S. Edmonds to deliver the car to the shippers Tuesday morning.

It is on its way to Beijing now…

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