Construction of the eighth motorkhana special has actually started, and this blog will be upgraded every week or so to show the progress. The name for the car has been chosen, and it is Geococcyx Velox.  The Lesser Roadrunner, located mainly in Mexico, and is smaller and browner than its American Cousin Geococcyx Californianus.  I did not want it to be called “an american areshole”. It is powered by a Yamaha FJR1300 motor, which is supposed to have 145 HP (instead of the current car’s 75), and three times the torque rating of the existing car. This motor was purchased from Melbourne, and arrived on 29th December, 2009.  It took some time to sort it out, and get the motor out of the alloy frame for the bike.  The radiator had been damaged and was broken around one of the outlets, and replacements are very expensive.  I bought a second hand radiator from a dirt bike for $10, and found that it was completely clogged with dried mud and dirt.  A quick blast with the Karcher cleared it all, and looks brand new.

Because the new motor is shaft drive, a right angle gearbox to transmit the shaft drive into the input shaft of the VW Golf Mk 1 gearbox had to be designed, and the internal gears purchased from TEA Transmissions in Tiaro. The box was fabricated from a piece of 100 x 3 SHS, with a removable top section. Bearing housings were fabricated from 40 NB pipe, and bolt to the walls of the SHS.   20 mm sealed ball bearings do the rotation of the shafts, and a clutch spigot welded to the output shaft.  This was completed on 21-11-2011.

The actual chassis frame was started on 11-1-2012, and is made from 25 x 1.6 SHS, with 540 mm inside the rear frame members, (top & bottom), and 300 mm between them vertically.  Brackets were fitted to this to mount the VW Golf Mk 1 gearbox, and brackets to mount the motor in the chassis.  The front engine mounts are bolted to the motor, and the horizontal SHS member sits on the top chassis rails where it bolts on.  This is to make the engine removal and refitment easy.

Steel plate mounts for the right angle drive box were fabricated, and the area above it where the bell housing is situated was infilled with light gauge metal.  The driveshaft from the engine to the right angle box was manufactured with a double plate joint in the centre.

The fuel injection had come off the block of the motor during transport, and it was replaced using a special home made allen wrench.  The standard bike airbox is huge, and would have gone almost to the rear of the chassis, so the nose was cut off a VW Golf Mk 1 airbox to allow 4 pipes of 38 mm diameter to fit into it, and a light gauge sheet metal plate fabricated to suit.  4 pieces of this tube fit between the rubber pipes on the injector plate to replicate the long injector tubes, and the Golf airbox fitted up to it.  The inlet tube for this airbox was long enough to foul with the rear dampers, so it was cut short.

The exhaust system was next, and the original primary pipes were badly crushed when the bike was crashed, so only the first bend and about 120 mm length was useable.  Mandrel bends of 90 degrees were bought from the muffler shop, with a 4 into 1 collector, and a 2 inch bend included.  A jig to replicate the position of the exhaust ports and all the motor mounts was fabricated, and the exhaust system welded up with difficulty because the primary pipes are very thin and made from some unusual material, and they were very difficult to weld without blowing holes in them.  The exhausts were fitted on 15-11-2012.

The cleaned radiator with its fan was mounted on 22-11-2012, and the original alloy transfer pipes made for the FJR radiator were modified to suit the smaller radiator.  The coolant reservoir went on a few days later.

The front part of the chassis was tacked together on 26-11-2012, and joined with the rear part of the chassis.  Diagonal members to strengthen this area were tacked in.  The right angle drive gearbox had dedicated chassis mounts fabricated, and light gauge sheet meatal covers the rest of the bell housing.

The 1-5 gear linkages were manufactured using M6 rod end bearings and transfer shafts going to the lever in the cockpit, which is topped by a hand carved silky oak wooden ball of 40 millimetres diameter.  Then the two alloy pedals were folded up from the old alloy side panels from special No 6 (Gonzales).

A driveshaft for a FJR1300 arrived from USA on 10-12-2012, and it was cut short and butt welded to the short stub axle on the right angle drive gearbox.  Next day the two roll bars were cut to length and angle, and tack welded to the chassis.  The 1.6 mm Zincanneal floor pan, firewall and seat sides were fitted, and upholstery and padding fitted to them.  The seat cushion and seat back were fitted with home sewn covers in red vinyl.

A three litre fuel tank for a kart was purchased, and mounting brackets built to hold it in place.  The fuel pump was positioned below it, and the fuel lines to the injectors sorted out and plumbed.  The mounts for the rear suspension units were fabricated, and the intake oval tube of the VW Golf air cleaned cut short to clear.

All the rear suspension mounts were tacked to the chassis on 19-12-2012, and the clutch lines and master cylinder re-positioned.  A new aluminium clutch lever was hand built from part of the original FJR alloy chassis, but I made it opposite hand from what it was supposed to be.  4 hours work down the drain.  A new one was made from 10 mm alloy plate.  The operation rods to the pedal were fitted with M6 rod ends.

A zig-zag mounting bar for the front suspension mounts was fabricated and tack welded into the front chassis.  The dashboard brace member was tacked in place on 2-1-2013, and the steering shaft made from some old 3/4″ OD tubing, bolted into the universal joint on the steering rack.  A pressed plummer bearing was fitted to the dashboard brace to support the steering column, and a suitable bolt found to use as the steering wheel boss.

Next day saw some of the unwanted wiring removed from the loom.  Things like lights, windscreen wiring and the like were identified.  This will be a long job.  The brake master cylinders were positioned on a small frame, and extensions made from the brake balance bar to the cylinders.  Designs were produced for two different turning brake arrangements.  One similar to the existing car with individual levers on each side of the car working different rear wheel brakes; and a single lever arrangement where the lever is mounted on the right hand side of the cockpit, and it is pushed to operate the right hand side brake, and pulled to operate the left hand side brake.  The latter one was manufactured on 5-1-2013, with an intricate brass ferrule that allows the lever to move back and forth but only operate one cylinder at a time.

After weeks of work, the wiring nightmare that was the original harness has been redone, with all the main components installed flush in the left hand side chassis in the cockpit area.  Some of the wiring has been made into a new harness, but the forward / reverse electricals have yet to be installed, so they will form part of another harness.

Diagonal braces made from 20 x 1.6 SHS were cut and tack welded into the side frames, positioned to clear driveshafts and the like.  Spring / damper suspension units were sourced from local suppliers, and the mounting brackets to anchor them to the chassis were fabricated.  Rocker plates for the pushrod suspension were fabricated, and tack welded into position.  When the suspension units arrived, they turned out to be of different lengths, so the rear brackets had to be cut off, and remade.  The suspension A Arm pickup points were tacked onto the chassis, and jigs made for assembly of the upper and lower A arms for front and rear.  The design of home made front uprights was finalised, and the components fabricated utilising 20 diameter sealed ball bearings.  A special purpose hub / disc was designed and turned up from a piece of 25 mm plate.  The A arms were fabricated from 17.1 OD x 3.2 wall seamless tubing, and fitted to front and rear, and the pushrods fabricated from the same material.  When all were fitted, the temporary supports made from coat hanger wire could be removed.

The rear hubs are VW Golf front hubs, with the discs machined down to 220 diameter instead of 240, and to 4 mm thickness instead of 12.  Major weight savings here.  New lower ball joints, and new inner and outer C.V. joints were installed.  The rear suspension toe links were fabricated in the “Khanacross” configuration with anchor points on the centreline of the chassis, and fully adjustable anchors for the “motorkhana” configuration have been fabricated, but not yet installed.

Progress on the car has been stalled for a fortnight or so because of cataract surgery on my eye.

The clear Lexan bodywork arrived on 6th March, but part of it was manufactured incorrectly, and had to be returned.  The remade part arrived on 7th March, and mountings were manufactured for it.  An old fire extinguisher cylinder was modified to use as the air pressure reservoir for the forward / reverse pneumatic cylinder, and a connection made for the cylinder rod to mate to a M6 female rod end.  The cylinder and reservoir were plumbed on 9th May.

The brake calipers off my old Kawasaki GT550 were mounted on the front uprights, and clamp on the machined hub / disc.  Old KLR650 brake calipers were mounted on the rear hubs, to clamp onto the machined down VW Golf discs.  The standard VW Golf calipers are retained for the turning brakes.  Kart type nylon brake fittings and lines were purchased, but the threads did not match any of the calipers.  Adaptors were not available anywhere in the world, so I made my own banjo fittings from solid aluminium to mate to the bike calipers, and the Golf calipers re-threaded to suit the kart fittings.  All the master cylinders had solid alloy connectors made for them.

The turning brake lever had an aluminium plug made to mount the push/push switch for activating the forward and reverse mechanism, and fitted in place.

Now that nearly everything is manufactured and installed, it is time to take it all apart, fully weld the chassis and metalwork, blast and paint it.

The car has been stripped, and the chassis fully welded.  It is going into the paint booth in early January 2014, and is to be painted “Phantom Pearl”.  Then it will be all put together again.  The clear lexan bonnet has the name of the car painted on it, and the artwork completed.

CASPER, the Friendly Special.

This is the seventh motorkhana Special built by Alan Wheeley.  Casper was the first of his specials that was completely designed by AutoCAD in a computer.  The previous special, Gonzales, handled badly because of the lack of rear suspension, so this new car was designed with independant A Arm rear suspension, with an open differential so individual turning brakes could be used.  Two VW Golf gearboxes were lying around, so one of them was designed into the car.  The Z1000 Kawasaki bike motor out of the old car was tuned by a bike shop, and prepared for the new car.  The internal gears of the VW gearbox were measured, and it was found that 4th gear would provide about 90 kilometres per hour at 11,000 rpm, and first gear in the bike box.  Because third and fourth gears are side by side on the input shaft, and have synchromesh between them. it was decided to convert the third gear set into chain sprockets, wrap a chain around them, and have a reverse gear set with synchros between forward and reverse.  The gears were very carefully measured, and drawings produced for the specialised manufacture of these components.  Because of the size of the synchro rings, the sprockets would give a top speed in first gear of 97 kph.

In January 2002, many lengths of 38.1 OD x 1.6 mm wall 350 grade ERW Tube were purchased.  On Sunday 3-2-2002 a start was made on fabricating the chassis frames.  The upper and lower frames were welded up, but ran out of welding rods.  On Wednesday 6-2-2002 the basic chassis was finished.  Next day took the motor out of Gonzales, put it in position in Casper, and fabricated the engine mounts.  20-2-2002 got the cage pipes bent, and next day welded them up.  On 23-2-02 welded the 1.6 mm Zincanneal floor pan on.  25-2-02 made and fitted firewall.  Next day started the long slow process of fabricating and installing all the ancillaries like gear linkages, pedal mounts, dashboard, chain tensioners.

On 6-3-02 started on the rear suspension, by making the suspension mounting brackets, but found that the proposed De Dion Beam fouls on the arc of the kick starter. Experimented with upside down rear suspension, but discarded the idea.  8-3-02 returned to the A Arm wishbone design, and fabricated all the suspension arms in the following week.  The front suspension was started on 15-3-02.

The footwell of the car was designed to take three pedals across the car.  Then a different idea was thought of where the accelerator and brake pedal were combined into one pedal.  Because even F1 drivers take 0.2 seconds to get off the accelerator and onto the brake, and then 0.2 seconds to get back onto the accelerator, meaning that even a F1 driver would spend 0.4 seconds at each pole neither accelerating nor braking.  In the Multiple Loop Test, there are 11 instances of this being needed, resulting of at least 4.4 seconds being lost.  So an aluminium accelerator pedal was built, and hinged at the bottom on a 25 SHS frame, which surrounds the pedal.  A throttle cable end was anchored on the side of the pedal, and the sheath anchored on the frame, to make the accelerator work in relation to the frame.  Then the whole frame was hinged at the top on the main chassis, with this frame pushing on the brake master cylinders through a balance bar.  The Bowden Cable then was anchored to the chassis with an “S” bend in it to allow for the brake pedal movement.  This means now that the driver’s right foot never has to leave the accelerator nor brake pedal.

Work on the front suspension took another week to finish.  Work on the rear suspension took another week.  Four wheel steering is not allowed in Motorkhana Group 4H Regulations.  It was banned many years ago.  Because I was using VW Glof Mk 1 front hubs on the rear, I realised that there was a possibility of passively steering these rear wheels if the toe link connecting the steering arm was mounted on the chassis higher than on the upright.  Then when the car rolled on its suspension in a turn, the outside wheel would turn outwards, and the inside wheel would turn inwards, with the result being a car that would automatically turn the rear wheels around poles.  6 millimetres difference in height was built into the mounting points.  The photo below shows the rear wheel steering in action.

Another week was spent building and fitting all the brakes.  Then another week for all the fuel systems.  Then on 17-4-02 everything was taken off the chassis ready for painting, which took another week.  Then the job of re-installing everything started.  Along the way, I designed a lifting system into the trailer, consisting of two SHS frames hinged in the inside of the trailer, that normally sit flat with the chassis.  The pivot point axles have 3/4″ chain sprockets on them with a chain wrapped around them.  A Goggomobile jack was mounted so that when the nut was turned, the jack extends, and makes both the frames come up together under the car to raise it off the wheels, and leave it at a better height to work on.

38 ID x 13 wall Roll Bar Padding was glued onto the cage.  Then the bodywork was started in clear acrylic.  The car was then taken to the bike expert where it was tuned, new timing chain fitted, and new jets in the carbs.  On 6-7-02 the firewall, seat, belts were installed, and the chain for the primary drive cut to length.  A standard VW Golf gearbox was fitted to check all the alignments.  New master cylinders were fitted on 17-7-02, but bleeding them was a problem because they were mounted on the floor, and the turning brakes high up.  All the brake fluid kept running back into the master cylinders.  A week later, and a rough wheel alignment performed so that the car could be driven for the first time on Saturday 3-8-02.  The rear suspension bottomed out with a 100 kg load, so the suspension arms were relocated. 

Sunday 24-8-2002 was its first competition at the MG Car Club Ironman event, where the motor did not run properly at low revs, the brakes were very bad, and the rear wheel steering was too violent.  The steering ratio was not good, with too many turns needed to go from lock to lock.  A week later, new brake balance bars were fabricated to try to solve the brakes, and the rear suspension bottoming was solved by the fittment of new spring/damper units.  Sunday 8-9-2002 was the Queensland Motorkhana Championship Round 5 at Queensland Raceway where the brakes were still bad, the motor still ran poorly, and oil started leaking out of the tacho drive.  Things were no better at Round 6 on 17-11-02, but at least the turning brakes were working well.

To solve the steering problem, a Go-Kart style system was built, and together with a new larger diameter steering wheel was tried out on 2-2-03.  The steering shaft sheared from the pressure, so a design utilising a modified Renault 10 rack was started.  To try to solve the motor problems, a new air box was made from a VW Golf unit.  It was all tested out at Round 1 of the QMC on 23-3-03, but the fuel pump failed.  New hotter spark plugs were tried, but it started backfiring and running very rich.  Testing was halted by a broken C.V. Joint.

At this point it was decided to give up on the Kawasaki Z1000 motor, and get a younger replacement.  On 8-4-04 a Kawasaki ZXR-750 was purchased for $1600.  Six months later the change over was started.  The motor mounts are different, so the old ones were cut off, and new ones fabricated.  The exhaust pipe centres are different, so new pipes were manufactured using the old ones as a basis.

In January 2005, when the chain was being fitted, it was found that the newer motor has 5/8″ chain, so all new sprockets and chains have to be purchased.  The new motor is water cooled, so a radiator position had to be finalised, and all the pipes connected up.  on 12-2-05 all was ready for a test firing of the motor, but when the isolating switch was connected there was a giant spark in the electrics.  A dead short in one of the terminals.  Fixed that, and the engine started and ran, but the revs climbed after 10 seconds.  An extra spring was put onto the throttle return cable, but no difference.  Investigations showed that the choke cable was sticking, so an extra spring was fitted to it so solve the problem.

The first competition with the new motor was on 13-2-05 where the ride height was set too low, but the motor ran well.  A new chain path was designed to better utilise the chain, and two teeth taken out of the chain to make it all work.  The car was towed out to Roma for a demonstration motorkhana where it kept jumping out of gear on the over-run.  When the gearbox was taken apart, it was found that the circlip was not fitted properly to the end of the input shaft, and the pressure on the gears made the shaft slide through the box.  On the over-run, the movement caused it to jump out of gear.

New “Lexan” bodywork was fitted to the car just before towing it all the way to Perth for the AMC in 2005 where the chain adjuster came off halfway through the competition.  With not enough time to solve the problem, it was loaded on the trailer for the 4,000 kilometre journey home.

A home made steering rack was manufactured for the car in February 2006, and a restrictor placed in the fuel return line.  The brake balance bar was removed, and replaced with a simpler system.  In June 2006, a reversing mirror was built, but the field of vision was not good enough to use in competition.

Just after the AMC of 2006 (held in Brisbane), an air operated forward/reverse system was manufactured using a pneumatic cylinder to change direction in the box, powered by a reservoir, and switched by a button on the right hand turning brake.  The systen was tested on 8-11-06, and all worked well.

Early in 2007, a new smaller diameter steering wheel was built and tested OK.  2 degrees negative camber was built into the front suspension to better utilise the front tyres.  In July 2007, new front spring/damper units off a Suzuki RGV250 were tried on the front, and the resultant firmer front suspension made a great improvement to the handling.  The steering was still not good, so an “Edge” steering rack from a sand buggy was obtained.  It was fitted in October, 2007 with another improvement in performance.

January 2008 saw a major rebuild, and a change of colour to Hammertone Charcoal.  It was towed to Rockhampton for Round 1 of the QMC, but somehow water had got into the fuel tank, and it would not run properly.  The first test was missed while trying to flush some fresh fuel and metho through the lines, and by the end of the day it started to run at over 6000 rpm again.  Next day at Gladstone, it ran better again.

At a private test day on 5-5-08 all the corner weights were tested both with driver aboard and empty.  Caster and camber gauge settings were checked and adjusted.  A camera was set up to film the suspension at work, and the results analized.  The next week, the old problem of jumping out of gear re-appeared, and it was found out that the circlip had come off the input shaft again because of the sideways pressure.  The VW Gearbox is technically running backwards from the Golf design, so the shaft was taken out and washers fitted at the loaded end.

The clutch started playing up in November 2008, and it was found out that the standard Kawasaki clutch master cylinders are pressure bled when new, and so the position of the bleed hole is not important.  This was only found out after buying replacement parts at great expense, and so a different type of clutch cylinder was fitted.

At the next motorkhana, the right rear suspension unit sheared off, so Kayaba suspension units were purchased to replace the originals.  One sprung a leak, and had to be rebuilt.  New 7″ x 13″ rims were fitted for the Wheels on Wide Bay event, but something broke in the gearbox.  When the box was taken apart, there were broken teeth on both gears, half a tooth was broken off the diff gear, and the diff pinion severely damaged.  The thrust washers had failed, and jammed the gear teeth.

The input shaft was then ground to suit a proper thrust bearing, and all re-assembled.  It all worked well for the Iron Man Motorkhana where the car won outright.  A new muffler replaced the hot dog unit to soften the harshness of the sound.  The plastic coolant header tank was replaced by a metal one in 2011, after the plastic one melted.

Some American brand crossply slicks were tried out in September 2011, but because of the light weight of the car, they did not build up any temperature on the front, and subsequently did not grip well.  All sorts of tyre pressures were tried with no better result.  So a pair of Formula SAE front Hoosier tyres were purchased to put on the front wheels.  Grip was suddenly improved.  New lower front A arms were fabricated to get 30 millimetres of caster in the fronts to better utilise the tyres, but this caused a problem on full lock in reverse, where it became difficult to get the car straight again.

Goggomobil Special.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

This is the first Motorkhana Special built by Alan Wheeley.

On Thursday 23rd November, 1972, Trevor Holmes delivered the Goggomobil Sedan that I had bought from him.  On Saturday 9th December I drove it for the first time around some streets in Kingston.

On Sunday 25th March, 1973, the body was taken off the chassis.  I then had 100 or so M6 bolts and nuts with flat & spring washers.  The fibreglass body was sat on some wooden flooring in the yard as a cubby house for my nieces to play in.  On Saturday 31st March, the chassis was driven for the first time.

The car’s debut motorkhana was on Sunday 1st April, 1973, at Lakeside in the QMSC Gymkhana.

On Friday 6th April a melted piston was found in the motor.

On Saturday 14th April a full roll cage was bolted to the chassis.  Next day was the QMC 1, at Coombaba, resulting in the Goggo motor broken again.  On Thursday 26th July the engine came back from a full rebuild by Henry Benson, and was installed on 30th July.  The next Motorkhana was at Lakeside on Sunday 5th August, followed by the Interclub Motorkhana at Surfers Paradise Motor Racing Circuit on Sunday 9th September.  At this event Keith Butcher drove the car around the pit roads with John Virtue acting like a motorcycle sidecar passenger by hanging out the side of the cage on the inside of corners.  He yelled out to Keith to do two left hand corners, and then two right hand turns with him transferring to the other side of the cage.  Unbeknown to him there was a gateway in the fence between the marshalling area and the pit area, so after the two left hand turns Keith turned right through the gateway with John still hanging out the left hand side of the cage.  The car went up onto two wheels with John nearly scraping his back on the bitumen.  The episode gave both of them a big fright.

On Sunday 14th October a set of stinger expansion chambers was designed for the motor, and they were built on 25th October.

The next Motorkhana was on 28th October, and on 2nd November a set of tyres were hand cut for dirt events.  The stinger expansion chambers were fitted on 12th November, which increased the power from 15 HP to 16HP, but increased the noise by a factor of 100.  It made the motor incredibly loud.  It was taken to Lakeside on 17th November for the sprints, on a borrowed trailer which broke on the way home.

Dad had found another Goggomobil Sedan in Townsville, so on his next trip to Brisbane, he brought it down the 1000 miles on his box trailer.  It really looked funny sitting on top of the trailer, but he was less impressed when he found out I was going to use it as spares only.  He arrived on Sunday 16th December, 1973.  Special mudguards were fitted for dirt events on Saturday 22nd December.

The body came off the second car on Saturday 19th January, 1974, and the whole lot was shifted to my new house on Saturday 23rd February, 1974.  A trailer was purchased on 23rd March to tow the special on, and it needed lots of work to be prepared for its new job.  Alan Huxley did the welding on the trailer, and it was first used to tow the Special to Toowoomba for the second round of the Queensland Championships on Sunday 21st April.

The next Motorkhana was at Lakeside on Sunday 5th May, where the Goggo won outright.  Softer front springs were installed in the front suspension on 29th May, and the settings were modified on 17th June in time for the White Horse Inn Motorkhana on 30th June.  On 7th July it went to Canungra for the next event, but at the Mt Cotton Hillclimb on 14th July, there were big problems with the brakes.  They were fixed in time for the QMROA Motorkhana on 21st July, but the motor did not perform up th scratch.  The motor was worked on during August, and became healthy again for Sunday 8th September when the car was sold to Greg Quelhurst and Ian Johnson of Sunnybank.  All the spare parts were delivered to them at the Australian Motorkhana Championships at Surfers Paradise Raceway.

Greg and Ian used it in one Motorkhana, and then played with it in the paddock beside their homes, where it was destroyed by jumping it off a large earth bank.

Thanks to Graham Ruckert, I now have photographs of the car.

VW Platform

This is the second Motorkhana Special built by Alan Wheeley.

The VW body was taken off a chassis by John Virtue early in January, 1977 and it was parked in his workshop in Kingston.  Preparations for competition consisted of welding a full width roll bar onto the car with braces to the rear.  The first motorkhana that it ran in was the Holden Torana Car Club event on Sunday 20th March, where it came third outright.

It was transported to my home in April, 1977, and was test driven in the street on 1st May.  It ran at the QMROA Motorkhana at Capalaba where it won outright.

Lights were fitted to the trailer on 19th May, and the trailer registered on 1st June.  The rear suspension was reset on 15th June to bring the wheels back to upright without the weight of the body on the chassis.  Greg and Christine Evans bought third shares in the vehicle, and all three drove it in events.

On Sunday 19th June it competed in Queensland Motorkhana Championship Round 4 run by QMSC, but the oil cooler sprung a leak at the sealing rubbers inside the fan housing.  A new set of wheels were bought for the car on 9th July, and fitted with tractor tyres for the dirt.

The Interclub Motorkhana was held at Toombul Shoppingtown on 14th August, and the next event was the QMROA round of the Queensland Championships held at Dalgety’s Paddock at Rocklea.  It ran at the Renault Car Club Motorkhana on 30th October, and the last round of the QMC on 27th November, 1977 at Labrador.

Greg and Christine took over the ownership of the car when Alan Wheeley started competing in his “Wusten Rennwagen” in 1978.

GONZALES.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Gonzales was the sixth motorkhana special built by Alan Wheeley.  It was originally planned and sketched in March 1988 when a Kawasaki Z1000 motor was bought from a 1982 model Z1000J bike.  The original design was for the car to be front wheel drive, ARTICULATED, with a Toyota Toyoglide auto sun gears to provide the forward/reverse.  The name chosen was “Artie Q”.  After months on the design, it was realised that because the previous vehicle had been banned, building another car that had very unusual desigh features was an invitation to the knockers to ban this car also.  A proof of this concern was demonstrated when a spoof design of a diamond shaped car with a very wide single drive wheel in the centre, steering wheels in the centreline at front and rear, and outrigger casters put outbound from the middle of the car was published in a car club magazine.  The spoof design was mentioned at the national level of administration with plans already in place to outlaw it.  So the design was toned down greatly, with the bike engine mounted east/west behind the driver, with chain drive from the bike gearbox into the toyoglide gearset inside a home made gearbox behind the solid rear axle, and then driving forward by chain to the rear axle.  A number of tentative names were mentioned, but finally decided on Gonzales (the fastest mouse in all of Mehico).  Kart handling principals were designed with the solid rear axle by using shaft to hub connectors locking the wheels onto the axle, and rear track was then variable by sliding the hubs along the axle.

Construction started in November 1993, and the car had its debut at the old Brisbane Airport on 20th February, 1994.  One of the shaft to hub connectors could not stand the pressure, with the result of one rear wheel coming off to make the vehicle a trike.  The connectors were then discarded, and solid hubs made to key onto the axle.  Continual trouble was had with welds in the drivetrain not being strong enough, and all drive to the axle lost.  The output shaft of the Toyoglide was made of super hard chromed steel, and a keyway could not be cut in it.  So a shrink fit was tried, but this did not work either.  At the christmas rebuild, the gearbox was taken apart to check the internals, which turned out to be OK.  When installing all the parts and the gears, something got out of alignment, and as soon as drive was transmitted through the box in the first event, the whole internals sheared apart.  So a new design was started on a gearbox using Chryslet Torqueflite gears in a home made gearbox that had all the bearings in the wall of the box, and a simple lid.  This design allowed everything to be set up, tested by hand, and then simply filled with oil, and sealed.  This worked well except for the continuing problem of welding the output sprocket.

A full cage was grafted onto the car in May 1997 to make it safer, and a Holden HT gearbox installed in  the rear to replace the auto transmission setup.  This still had the welding problem until some special chromealloy rods were tried.  The front suspension was changed to pushrod operation in April 1998, but the handling was still diabolical without rear suspension.  The inside rear wheel would sometimes be 250 millimetres off the ground befor the rear end would slide.

The car was weighed in September 1998, and it came out at 308 kilograms, with approx 26 % on the front wheels.

The front dampers were replaced by ones from the rear of a Suzuki GS 1000 that featured air pressure over the oil reservoir to soften or harden them.  The front was gradually hardened, but the problem was only partly solved.  A full rebuild was done in January 1999, and this time the second and third gears were left out of the HT gearbox to save a little weight.  At the May 1999 event at Coomera, the 2/3 gear selector jammed in the other gears, and punched a hole in the casing.  All the oil was drained out, and the box survived the last 3 tests with no oil in it.  An Aquabond plug patched the hole, and worked perfectly.  Below is a photo of the car when it was fun to drive; tail out slightly, power sliding away from a pole.

In July 1999 the cage was extended 150 millimetres upward to satisfy new roll bar regulations.  It was towed to Nirimba in Sydney for the Australian Motorkhana Championships of 1999 which were called off after a cloudburst flooded the grounds.

New links on the front suspension and dampers pumped up to 45 psi helped the handling enough for it to win its first ever Queensland Championship round in October 1999 at Coomera.  The motor was starting to get very tired early in 2000, so the car was taken to a bike expert to get the motor tuned.  However at the Australian Motorkhana Championship on 13th August the motor was running very poorly, and needed half choke just to keep it running.  New plugs were tried, but made little difference.  Then in the Paddy test, the motor started to come good, and in the high speed reverse to the finish garage the motor came on song, but the reverse flick into the garage went wrong with the front tyres suddenly gripping when sideways, and the car rolled over into the garage.  During the rollover, Alan’s hands got outside the cage, and hit the bitumen, tearing all the skin and flesh off the backs of them.  The car was pushed out of the way, and dumped on its trailer while the driver went to hospital to get his hands bandaged.

This evil handling and troublesome car was retired on the spot, and plans started on a better handling replacement.  The phots below taken at Hervey Bay on 16-8-1998 shows how small and narrow the car was compared with a RWD Renault Special, and two Front Wheel Drive Mini Specials.

RADENKERBTIER MOTORKHANA SPECIAL.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Radenkerbtier was the fourth motorkhana special built by Alan Wheeley.  The name came from two German words because it was made mainly from Volkswagen parts.  “Rad” is wheel in German; and “Kerbtier” is buggy in German.  Therefore “Wheel’s Buggy” became Radenkerbtier.  It was built to replace another car that had design deficiencies that could not be overcome.

Independant rear suspension was deemed to be better than the previous swing axle setup, so the rear suspension from a VW Station Wagen was purchased from Langdon’s Wreckers, together with a Superbug gearbox, and a ball joint front end out of a VW 1500 Type 1.  This front end had big disc brakes for better stopping, and 4 stud hubs for the newer wheels.  Unfortunately the front end is designed for a lot more weight that you get in a motorkhana car, so the top tube was cut in two places, and a Meyers Manx “Select-A-Drop” welded in place.

The actual rolling chassis was welded up on Sunday 22-10-1978, and an alloy framed steering wheel fabricated in July 1979.  Tho old motor out of Alan’s VW Beetle was taken apart and rebuilt with 86 mm barrels and pistons, then bolted to the chassis on 10th August.

It had its debut on the IWMAC Purga dirt grounds on 12th August, 1979, but the brake pedal mounts broke off.  Completely new pedals were manufactured for it, and new wheel bearings fitted before towing it to the Australian Motorkhana Championships in Adelaide on the 26th August.  It then competed in the motorkhana part of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers in the main street, in the rain.  Construction of a special purpose trailer for the car was started in October, 1979 and first used for towing it to Surfers Paradise for the Speed Week Motorkhana on Thursday night 1st November.  The car had its first outing at the Echo Valley Dirt Hillclimb in Toowoomba on 11th November.  The car was weighed in this trim and came in at 430 kilograms, with 17% of that on the front wheels.

An innovative air operated turning brake mechanism was built in February, 1980.  The sizing of the cylinders was wrong, so larger cylinders were obtained and fitted.  The whole car was taken to Denis Hall of Spartan Paints in March 1980, and painted in Spartan Ultrathane in brilliant yellow.  The trailer was painted in equipment enamel.  Signwriting was done by the owner to thank those firms that had helped with equipment used on the car.  A new “Scat” over the top exhaust system with megaphone trumpet tailpipe was fitted for the first run at Mt Cotton Hillclimb on 16th March, 1980, and it sounded wonderful.  However the air operated turning brakes still did not work well enough, so they were replaced with normal hand operated cable brakes.  The car was towed one thousand miles north to Townsville for the second round of the Queensland Championships where it won outright.  The next weekend it was at Rockhampton to run in the Round 3 on the grass, where it placed second.  Around this time a SAAB 900 was taken to Surfers Paradise to try to beat the 24 hour record, and lots of Pirelli P6 tyres were supplied for the attempt.  However the Saab chewed these tyres to shreds on the abrasive surface, and they were thrown on the tyre scrapheap.  Alan found the 4 best of these, and fitted them to some 6″ wide rims to use on the bitumen, and made an enormous difference to the handling.  In July 1980, the car ran at a club day at Sutfers Paradise, where the high speed handling was tested to the limit.  Then it was taken to the first IWMAC Autocross held at Coominya, on a tight sandy circuit.  Lots of high powered desert racers turned up to be trounced by Radenkerbtier because it was better suited to the track.  however, a month later when the next Autocross was held, the steering box came loose on the front of the car with a high speed excursion at the finish line resulting.  Keeper plates were welded on to stop that happening again.  A hot dog muffler was fitted to the flange joint in the exhaust to quieten the noise for events where there were restrictions.

It was towed to Melbourne for the Australian Motorkhana Championships in August 1980, where it scored second in class, but the trailer succumbed to problems on the way home.  The wider wheels and extra components had now increased the weight to 470 kilograms when weighed in October, 1980.  The high speed handling was again tested when it was taken to Lakeside Circuit in November, 1980.

In February 1981, the air cooled VW motor was taken off and a Mazda Rotary motor installed, with an RX2 radiator mounted at the front to try to counteract the motor weight.  However when it was tried out at Lakeside, the front wheels would instantly launch into the air on application of power, and the steering did not work with the front wheels off the ground.  Rotary motors may be small, but they are very heavy.  A bearing in the motor siezed, so the VW motor was replaced.

It was towed to Townsville in April where it again won outright.  The following Saturday it ran on the bitumen at Rockhampton, and then on the dirt on Sunday to record third outright.  The next weekend was a demonstration event at the Boonah Show, and a cow cockie looked at the radiator mounted (still) on the front, and the VW motor on the back, and believed the story that this was one of the new water cooled VW motors.

In May 1981 it was towed back to Rockhampton for the Motorkhana School, where it won outright, then down to Coffs Harbour in NSW for thr State Of Origin motorkhana where it again triumphed.  A month later it did it again at Ipswich, but then the bubble burst at the QMROA round of the Championships where it was a victim of some bastardry between the Clerk of Course and the Scrutineers and declared illegal.  All of the major chassis tubes had been built from 25 x 3 square tube, and these sections were used in the bracing between the front and rear roll hoops, and the cross bracing to the rear of the chassis.  The CAMS regulations had been changed to outlaw non circular sections in any roll bars.  It was argued that if the bars between the front hoop and the rear hoop were cut off, then the car would then become legal, but very dangerous, but the scrutineers held firm.  Rules are rules, regardless of whether they are stupid.  The car then had the square section braces cut out, and replaced with circular section of less strength, but it was back being legal.

Around this time Tony Poulos ran his Alfa Romeo at the Surfers 12 Hour Sports Car Race, and the Dunlop slicks he used were still in good nick after the event.  A deal was struck to “borrow” them for Radenkerbtier for bitumen events in return for giving Tony a co-drive in the car.  However the car did not give him the thrill he expected, but the slicks were kept for motorkhanas on bitumen.  It was towed to Canberra for the Australian Motorkhana Championships in August where it scored fastest time in the Lazy Eight test, but a motor stalling problem saw it end up in 4th in class.  Driver errors at the Surfers Paradise Speedweek Motorkhana caused a poor performance, but at Toowoomba the next month it was fastest outright.

1982 started well with another first outright at Ipswich, and then it was taken to the porsche Motorkhana School at Kooralbyn in March.  A poorly timed front-end throw at Townsville in April resulted in second outright, and the following weekend in Rockhampton it was third outright.

The Australian Motorkhana Championships were held in Brisbane in 1982, and the car won its class in that event.  But the seeds of a radical new design were sown on that weekend, and the car was sold to Malcolm Ryan in December 1982.  Malcolm towed it with him when he shifted to Melbourne on 1st January, 1983.  He ran it at the AMC in Melbourne in September, and started on overhaul after the event.  He towed it back to Brisbane in 1984, but suffered a major road accident when towing it to Nambour to get the motor rebuilt.  It was not until April 1985 that the car ran again, and it had only two outings in that year.  It was taken to Coffs Harbour in 1986 for the State of Origin Motorkhana where Alan Wheeley (the previous owner) won outright.  The car was then left on the trailer in Malcolm’s yard while he had some family troubles until September 1990 when Alan Wheeley organised to take over the car, and start to fix 4 years of erosion.  In April 1991 the car was taken to Steve Sheehan for him to work on in a deal where both he and Alan would drive it in events.  Alan’s radical new car had been banned, and he had nothing to drive.  Steve did a freshen up of the motor in June 1991, and repainted the car in August of that year.  Both drove it in 1992 and 1993 before Alan started work on his new car designed to the new regulations.  Steve built a “Killer” VW engine for the car in 1994, but it detonated.  He built another in 1995 with the same result.  Both drove the car in occasional events in the following years.  Ownership of the car was given to Steve Sheehan on 8th December, 2001 and it ran occasionally in 2003 and following years.  Unfortunately it has not been driven since 2008, and is stored in Steve’s shed.

In November 2013, Geoff Johnson took over ownership of the car after his similar car was stolen from his home garage.  He is in the middle of a complete rebuild of the car, and hopes to be competing in it in 2014.

 WUSTEN RENNWAGEN.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Wusten Rennwagen is the third motorkhana special built by Alan Wheeley.The name comes from 3 German words:- “Wusten” meaning desert; “Renn” meaning race; and “Wagen” meaning vehicle or car.  Therefore Desert Racer is Wusten Rennwagen.  The vehicle was originally built by a desert racing person, but found that the wheelbase was far too short for that sort of competition.  Alan Wheeley bought it as a rolling chassis, fitted with a Kombi gearbox, on 18th July, 1977.  The reason for the Kombi gearbox was to a lot of ground clearance under the car, but because that is not a consideration for motorkhanas, the Kombi box was replaced with a VW 1500 swing axle box.  This unfortunately had bent axles, so it was returned and replaced by a VW 1300 swing axle box.  The Kombi front suspension had Holden hubs grafted to it when it arrived, and that setup was left alone.  The original front and rear roll bars had a single tube between them on the centreline (like a Targa Top), but because this was not legal, nor safe enough, two pieces of heavy wall steam pipe were cut and welded into the outside corners of the hoops, and then the original tube cut out.

An 1100 cc VW Beetle engine was purchased second hand, but when it was fitted and first run, bad noised came out of it as half an inch of crankshaft end play became obvious.  This motor was returned and replaced by a 1300 cc 40 HP motor.  When it ran poorly, it was taken apart to reveal a cracked head and lots of untightened bolts.  So the old 36 HP motor from the previous motorkhana VW Platform was borrowed.

Its debut event was the BSCC Autocross on Sunday 14th May, 1978.  At the Lakeside dirt motorkhana, the gearbox mount broke, and was replaced.  It was then towed to Coffs Harbour for the Queensland versus NSW Motorkhana at Red Rock on the Queen’s Birthday Weekend.  The following weekend the motor was returned to Greg Evans, and work started on a proper rebuild of the 40 HP motor.  That was finished in time for the BSCC motorkhana at Toombul, then the QMROA motorkhana at Capalaba, and the HTCC motorkhana at the same place.  There was an oil leak that was traced to the oil cooler, so the sealing washers were replaced to fix the problem.

It ran 9 events in 1979 before being sold to Gerard Healy of Southport for $450.

Gerard ran it at one motorkhana in 1980, before crashing the car at a sprint meeting at Surfers Paradise Raceway.  I do not know if it was ever repaired.

KWAKAKART MOTORKHANA SPECIAL.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Kwakakart is the 5th special built by Alan Wheeley, who started with a clean sheet of paper, and with the then current rules in mind decided to build a rear wheel drive car to be as competitive as the front wheel drive cars. Principal parameters were a vehicle as small as was possible, as light as possible, and as powerful as limited money would allow. Construction was started in August 1982, and the debut of it was on 27th February, 1983 on a dirt surface.

 
An old circuit racing Go-Kart was purchased to get the wheels, tyres, brakes, hubs, axles etc to keep the vehicle as small as possible. The chassis was modified and lengthened to the minimum wheelbase of 1800 mm, and a full cage incorporated for safety. For power, a Kawasaki Z650 wreck was purchased to get the motor, electrics, exhaust pipes etc. The design of a forward/reverse gearbox was started. This transmission was based on the gears from the bottom leg of an outboard motor (rated at 55 HP), built into a home made casing located in the centre of the rear axle, and fitted with disconnect dog clutches on either side of this transmission. The dog clutches were kept engaged by springs, and disconnected by small air cylinders operated from solenoid valves controlled by switches in the turning brake levers. No suspension was originally incorporated, but corner weights were able to be altered by threaded rods in the cage front mounts. 5 inch diameter wheels front and rear were of 5 inch width at front and 8 inch width at the rear, and fitted with sticky slick tyres. At the time there was a big war between the three tyre manufacturers, and every 6 months a better compound was brought out and nobody then wanted the just superseded compounds, which could be bought for about $20 each. These tyres lasted for about 9 months, and by that time an even newer compound would be on the market.

This car had a motor that revved to 12,500 rpm, it was half the size of the other cars, half the weight, and revved twice as hard. It was spectacular to watch, and not easy to drive. The original kart steering had one quarter of a turn from lock to lock, and this was changed by using some sprockets and chain from a WW2 aeroplane to get it to three quarters of a turn. This chain broke during the Australian Motorkhana Championships in Melbourne in 1983, so the original kart steering was re-fitted. The whole car at this time weighed only 275 kg.
The motor was in the rear, and mounted longitudinally, with the drive taken by chain to the input shaft of the reversing box. All “hot” parts were on the left hand side, with the exhaust system going from 4 into 1 beside the motor, then into a “hot dog” muffler, and then to the rear. To save costs, Alan decided to build this exhaust himself, but realised that the only way he could do it was to buy lots of bends from an exhaust pipe shop, and cut them up and weld them together. So the job was given to a specialist exhaust man, and he did exactly the same thing. All combustibles were on the right hand side of the car. A mower fuel tank fed by gravity to the carburettors, but it was found that cornering forces were so great that the carburettors either starved on left hand turns, or flooded on right hand turns. An electronic fuel pump was then fitted, supplying pressurised fuel to a log manifold in front of the carburettors, with a return line to the tank. Because fuel pressure regulators are expensive, a piece of copper tube was fitted inside the return line, and the tube was bent gradually till the correct fuel pressure was obtained.
The first time the car ran on bitumen was the Mt Cotton Hillclimb on 20th March, 1983. A problem was found in that the return road to the pits was just two strips of concrete, but with a track dimension of less than 1100 millimetres, only two wheels were on the concrete path, and the other two on the rough dirt and rocks between the strips. The result was the whole aluminium floor tray was torn up and destroyed. The next time the car competed at Mt Cotton, it was organised to be allowed to do a spin turn after crossing the finish line, then go back to the pits via the track and start line.
The first bitumen motorkhana was at Rockhampton on 3rd April, 1983 still in its unpainted state, and the photo of some of some of the cars emphasises the size of the car. On the left is a Volkswagen Special, then a Mini Special, then a Citroen Special, then Kwakakart.
The other photo shows how hard it cornered by lifting the inside rear wheel.
There is videos from that date on youtube. www.youtu.be/isJDjJOFWLw www.youtu.be/wWCYKMKxv9E www.youtu.be/moOxjCzLY5o
The car was painted in June 1983 by Denis Hall. The third Championship Motorkhana it ran in was at Warwick on 3rd July, 1983 where it won outright.
Videos of this event are :- www.youtu.be /aT9eyPMhi2k www.youtu.be/AM_E5G_P_ow
The car was towed to Perth for the 1984 AMC, and won the RWD specials class, but the abrasive surface tore the rear tyres to shreds. It ran again the following weekend (after 5 days towing it back across Australia) at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast.

Video is :- www.youtu.be/zA12mAz84E4
When driven hard around corners, the car started to bounce excessively, and after watching a video of the trouble, a solution was found. The rear tyres were gripping until the outside edge lost adhesion, and the car would bounce sideways till the edge gripped again. The rear wheels were then fitted with two front tubes side by side with the inner tube inflated to 20 psi, and the outer to 15 psi. This profiled the tyre slightly, and the bouncing stopped.

For events on dirt, some 6” diameter wheelbarrow rim halves were fitted with mower tyres that were hand cut to reduce the amount of tread blocks touching the ground, and therefore increase traction. At the Echo Valley Hillclimb at Toowoomba on 28th October, 1984 the speed at the end of the straight was calculated at 130 Kilometres / Hour; which was way above the recommended maximum speed rating for the tyres of 20 KPH.

It competed in the 1985 AMC that was held on the gravel at Albury – Wodonga, but the furrows that got to 150 millimetres deep made it difficult to drive a car with only 40 millimetres clearance under the chassis. Video is :- www.youtu.be/LeQUveKxLBQ
Unfortunately some of the other competitors did not like anything different from the normal type of car, and steps were put in place to outlaw the car. The car was perfectly legal, so the rules governing motorkhana cars were changed after only three years to make the car ineligible. From now on wheels were to be of a minimum of 10 inches diameter. The car ran a few times in club only motorkhanas, but when the gearbox shredded a spline again, the car was retired to gather dust under the house. www.youtu.be/SBToD6Gz4yU