Subaru Enthusiasts Car Club of the Sierras

Well before the Rally I had my oil pan replaced because my old one started leaking a little bit. drove the car to work for 3 days to make sure it had no issues. It seemed great. I walked up to my car Thursday morning to run off and get an alignment and do some pre rally errands. I found about a full quart of oil all around my car :mad:

So i jacked up the car, took off the skid plate, and saw a hair line crack about an 1/8 of an inch away from the drain plug. It was dripping at a good clip. I drained out all the oil, and JB Welded part of a dime i had cut with some dikes. Waited a good part of the day for that to dry and finished installing my Intercom.

a bit before i finished packing up the car. I got a call that one of my friends/crew couldn't make it. So i was down to 1 crew man. I finished up packing and had the Chase vehicle meet me at my house, so we could pack it as well, then we headed on down. The drive down was a bit warm (neither of us had AC) but not bad at all, just a taste of what weather we would have to deal with. At least we got to do 70 or so most of the way down which made short work of the 422 mile drive.

We arrived in the OHV park and meet up with john @ a camp site and setup. There was a lot of excitement at our lil camp site, but only a few beers which were quickly consumed. The stars were beautiful and some shooting stars were a great distraction to finally help me get to sleep.

Recce was great fun. Nick (crew) got to see all the roads, and all the rocks. a few of the corners i called out were way off, but Piers was able to suggest much better numbers for the ones i goofed. Our 2nd pass confirmed the notes we made were great. there was still 1 or 2 sections where we missed a corner which confused us the following day.

The first stage went great. I gave the start workers... probably the most pathetic sand drag start of their lives.. about 12 hops of 1 tires with no forward movement and backing off to idle to crawl forwards.. ouch! LOL
The next 2 stages went great. I was probably slowing down a bit too much for the water bars. never quite leaving the ground but rising up to about the full extension of my suspension. I came into service thinking everything was fine and that i should have been pushing harder. but when i looked under the car there was already a small puddle of Oil. my JB weld fix must have failed! :(

Nick had the car up on jack stands in no time. and we thought about our options. i had sliver tape somewhere, but didn't organize my stuff before we left. So we both ran off and started asking other teams for help. Someone quickly had some subaru silicone gasket maker stuff, and metal tape. someone else gave us some brake clean! (think jackson rally , Dirt, and Welker) :confused: i frantically tried to clean it off and apply the silicone. the oil would drip out soon as i wiped the pan. the slight burn of the hot oil being blocked out by a larger desire to continue on. covering the oil pan first with the silicone gasket maker already oily from the leak, and last with metal tape. it appeared to stop dripping. Just before getting out from under the car I could smell gear oil burning too. seeing several large drips coming off the transmission i now felt i was in trouble. I popped up and checked my transmission fluid, it was below the L mark and i knew we started on full. Piers told me we only had 7 minutes left. I was a bit frantic now. I called over to some Guys wearing DI shirts I needed tranny fluid added, the skid plate put on, the car put down, and i had to put my hans back on. They quickly added fluid and put the skid plate back on. I was able to put on my hans while they lower the car and i was good to go!

After driving transit i took at peek at the skid plate and could see oil dripping off of it. though slower than before. i checked the oil level and it was a bit above full. Ran the stage trying to be extra careful over the rough sections and when there was a lot of large rocks. on stage 6 i hit something and i could hear lots of noise from the driver rear brake. Sounded like maybe the brake was slightly engaging but i wasn't sure. car felt very eager to turn /spin left . Combined with the oil dripping which seemed to be faster after every stage and i was very happy we made it to the longer lunch service.

At this service i was able to get an oil drain pan, and drain out my oil, get some Black high temp silicone and more metal tape. Nick quickly had the car on jack stands for me and took off all the rims and tires. I tried to get the drum assembly off but with out any luck. i asked for some help and Kyle jackson set down his burger to help me figure out how to get the stuck drum assembly off. Once that was off I got it put back together, one of the spring dealies popped off and it got adjusted out and was in constant use. Somehow i squirted out some brake fluid while working on that. and got some air into the brakes. After waiting for the silicone /silver tape combination to dry up i put the drain plug back in and filled her with Oil given to me by Jon Burke!

We had an other North Boundry stage which went fine for me excluding some now very soft feeling brakes. Then we had power line south. Near the end of the stage chuck had lost his brakes and had been slowing down to stay on the road. I was closing the gap by quite a bit and with only about 4-5 turns to go i was in some heavy dust. The turn through the finish was a 3 tightens to 2. the Note was called with great timing and clarity but the hanging dust made it hard for me to see and i totally botched the corner. throwing us off the road onto the grass/rough. except for a few pens everything seemed to be in order. then i pulled us back onto the road and we could hear something draging. uh oh :(

Now I have an issue with my skid plate. i lost the rear bolts. I also had left my tools @ service. Luckily it was a turn around service and i ran up the line asking for a 13mm socket and a spare bolt. Kevin had a socket/rachet and suggested a trunk bolt. perfect. worked like a charm!

Chuck had brake fluid issue , of not having any. and Kacie was asking for some. i told her i had some in my brake reservoir she could have if she had a way to get it out. and that others probably would too. Kevin (who was standing right there) Again helped out when he said he had a syringe .

After that i figured i could get back to just driving. Well this uphill battle had the sun in our eyes. and part way through the stage my skid plate came loose again. :( I found it very tough to block out the noise of the skid plate dragging and bouncing around. Some how Piers manged to not be affected by the skid plate bouncing around and kept delivering notes! I had to stop during transit to take off the skid plate and i tried to drive the next stage carefully.

Luckily it was the shorter stage North Boundary West. well my self pacing abilities seem to be suspect as that was my fastest drive of north boundary. (still a pretty darn slow clip at 5:53)

I drove into service. At least i wasn't leaking oil now. we put on the skid plate using an other trunk bolt (how many do really need to hold in the trunk anywayz?) Well by the end of the transit drive the skid plate had fallen down again. by now the rear attachment threads were ruined and unable to really hold on. i took off the skid plate and asked the Marciniaks if they could drive it back to the hotel for me. I drove the last few stages just really focused on getting to pull into that last MTC. Oddly i felt that i was finally coming to terms with the soft sand driving and rock dodging that Gorman requires. I was pushing the water bars and jumps a bit harder, though not flying through the air Ala Jackson rally style

I was very happy to finish this rally. and very fortunate that **apparently** the grading / course condition was the best its been in years :cool: