La Porte in Luton, remember it now Mike?
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Hi Jon, Oh yes that brings back the memories. The half clad glass room just inside the outer door was the "workshop" where we built and prep'd the cars. Note the little side door adjacent to the main door for allowing the car to pass freely. I had forgoten just how run down the place was even then. it's good to see the "business end" of the car, all too often the other views tend to be shown; in the first you can see the motor protruding from the chassis and the 'chute housing above it, this was also the main structural mount for the fin. In the next closer image, the main inlet valve for the motor can be seen to the left of the motor itself; the flex tube running over the motor would have been the HTP feed for the turbo pump steam generator. The next shot shows just how much the rear track was increased, to provide a more stable platform and the rear brake lines can be seen attached to the rear upper suspension arms, all in the interest of low drag. Nowadays, I would have run the brake lines inside the tubes, but we had not thought of that in the late 70's. how times change. This image also gives a good idea of the much narrower tryes and wheels used on BB 2, again this was to reduce the drag profile of the car, from 255,mm wide to roughly 140,0mm the fronts were 127,0mm. The final shot is of a car, or mock-up of a car Barry inherited. It was the Blue Star car that David Gosling was to build, alas I think he was killed in a road car accident, hence we received the mock-up along with other bits & pieces. I saw this mock-up on top of the bridge at Donington Park in the early 90's, but I doubt any of the other equioment was obtained along with it. The colour of the car was Blue, very similar if not the same as the Cambell's Bluebirds, nice. I wonder if the mock-up still sits atop of the bridge, I haven't been to Donington in many years. I look forwards to seeing the next batch of pictures. Well done to Brian for taking the time to record the project on film. My one regret, was never having a camera to hand during these years.
Thanks for putting some information to the pictures Mike, I will upload some more later tonight.
As promised some more pictures
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The final shot is of a car, or mock-up of a car Barry inherited. It was the Blue Star car that David Gosling was to build, alas I think he was killed in a road car accident, hence we received the mock-up along with other bits & pieces. I saw this mock-up on top of the bridge at Donington Park in the early 90's, but I doubt any of the other equioment was obtained along with it. The colour of the car was Blue, very similar if not the same as the Cambell's Bluebirds, nice. I wonder if the mock-up still sits atop of the bridge, I haven't been to Donington in many years. I look forwards to seeing the next batch of pictures. Well done to Brian for taking the time to record the project on film. My one regret, was never having a camera to hand during these years.
Mike I always wondered what the car was on the Donnington Dunlop bridge, I did read that when the bridge was dismantled the car was put on display somewhere else, you said Dennis Priddle built the chassis, did he do the bodywork as well, is the rear suspension some kind of rocker arm or torsion bar set up
Mike I always wondered what the car was on the Donnington Dunlop bridge, I did read that when the bridge was dismantled the car was put on display somewhere else, you said Dennis Priddle built the chassis, did he do the bodywork as well, is the rear suspension some kind of rocker arm or torsion bar set up
Good day JT, Curiosity got the better of me yesterday and I sent an e-mail to Donington to try and get some info on the Blue Star, I did not know the bridge had gone. If I get a reply from Donington, I will pass on the info. I also asked if any of the old BB stuff was obtained along with the mock-up, I hope they reply. Yes Denis built the chassis for us and also gave me some help on the detail design of the welded joints, a great help. I have a vague memory of visiting his workshop to see the chassis part way through the build, he may have had to extend the jig to accomodate the BB frame, as it was quite long. GP MetalCraft, of North London, made the body work; what they could do with Aluminium and rollers is almost beyond belief. As you may have read, I have a connection with Ferrari and almost a life long passion for the marque. The 206 Dino is one of my favorite cars ever. On one of the visits, GP MetalCraft were making a replica totally in Aluminium, wow it was incredible; not a sign externally of all the welded panels needed to follow the body lines. Only by looking underneath could you see the "patchwork quilt" of pieces that made the whole; a nice memory for me particularly. The rear suspension was by rocker arm, as you have seen. What was quite unique was the actual spring units were rubber Aeon units mounted back to back; this allowed us to play with the preload and alter the rear ride height of BB 2. I am putting some effort into finishing the history article I have been writting for some, er...years, now. This covers in more detail the design of BB 2 and the mods that were done to BB 1. In essence the article is finished, but now needs to be put into to some sort of readable document. As written it's not too easy to read. I have just remembered one point about the rear suspension that might make you laugh. I'm not too sure how many drag racers follow circuit racing, F1 in particular, but over the last couple of seasons F1 cars have gone to pull rod suspension. I actually did a design for pull rod for BB 2, I decided in favour of the rocker because I did not want the pull rod out in the breeze. Either way the spring units were mounted inboard, but the rocker systrem won, it was simpler as well.
Good day All, Another "post card" from Italy. The first of the new pictures give a good idea of the cockpit. Just like any competition car it's spartan. Had the car kept on running, I think side windows would have been put in to lighten the area. On the left, just by the "kick-up" in the body, you can see the hand brake lever, opposite is the 'chute lever as a standard fueler would have, well my memory of a fueler. I must go back to the Pod one day. Anyway back to the picture. You get a good shot of the steering wheel and column, complete with the offset in the column to get past the propellant tank. This was done to keep a lower profile as possible on the ramp of the front bodywork. The second pic shows the two pedals and the main "fuel" tube routing thro' the cockpit. Just think, passing through the tube under the cover was the HTP at a rate of 6,7 litres every second to feed the motor via the turbo pump, but this was a low pressure delivery here and relatively safe. Ok I have an admission to make, I can't remember what one of the two pedals was for. I think the left opened the main inlet to the motor, the other pedal, ????. Maybe if I looked at the drawings, I would then recall but for now it'll remain a mystery. The gauge on the left was probably the inlet pressure for the motor, again I would have to look at some design stuff to be sure now. The third pic shows a lever operated valve that was for pressurising the starter side of the turbo pump, the gauge nearby was probably also part of this sub-system, judging from the route the flex tube is taking. One pleasing minor detail is that the UJ joints are correctly mounted in phase to keep the input/output of the rotation constant when turning the wheel. In the forth image, just behind the firewall can be seen part of the spherical vessel that started the turbo pump spinning. This was a two or three shot device from prep of the car due to the relatively small volume of HTP stored under the diaphram. Once the turbo pump was up and running, it was self fed from a connection on the main inlet valve to the motor, which I pointed out in the rear shots of the car. If we had a problem and emptied the vessel, we had to refill it to enable further starts. The motor is the cylindrical object lower down under the cross tube. You can start to get an idea of just how small the motor is/was. The last pic of this batch shows a panel which housed various parts of the control system for the gas pressurisation. The black object, near to the firewall, is a hand wheel for adjusting a pressure control valve. This system was used to set the low pressure in the main HTP tank as well as the start side of the turbo pump, this being a higher value, but one I can't remember. I hoping that there are some more pictures showing the rear face of the firewall, this should prod a few momories out of their pidgeon holes. I am off on a few days holiday starting Friday lunchtime, any further answers and explanations will have to wait for a short while.
Thanks for the info Mike, I got in touch with Donnington asking about the car as well without any reply
'morning JT, Donington sent me an answer regarding the Blue Star mock-up. I received an answer from Kevin Wheatcroft; he remembers as a child travelling South to pick up the mock-up, also seeing a chassis and rocket motor he thought was for the Blue Star project. The chassis I can't pass a coment on, there seems to be some confusion over what that was, from earlier posts. The motor was probably the Stentor RZ1 Barry got when he bought the business end of the Black Knight missile, we used the engine(s) from this later missile. The Stentor was planned to be used in a true LSR car that never came to fruition and was much more powerfull than out little motor, but the BB cars were only ever meant to be National record breakers and not full blown LSR cars. Alas Kevin has no further info regarding the sale of the mock-up, he wrote that they (Donington) were offered the mock-up at short notice for a sum of money, beyond that the rest is lost in time now. I wonder if the administrator of Barry's company could further the investigations, trouble is for me, it would have to be done at a long distance as I live in Italy. I'll see if I can find out who acted as the receiver/administrator, it might give some more info to the old BB bits and pieces.
MikeH wrote:. I wonder if the administrator of Barry's company could further the investigations...Not unless there is anything in it for them...
All they are interested in is £££/$$$.