![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wheeleyandtwooley.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Photo-6.jpg\" "\\"Photo")
<\/a><\/p>\nA full cage was grafted onto the car in May 1997 to make it safer, and a Holden HT gearbox\u00a0installed in \u00a0the rear to replace the auto transmission setup.\u00a0 This still had the welding problem until some special chromealloy rods were tried.\u00a0 The front suspension was changed to pushrod operation in April 1998, but the handling was still diabolical without rear suspension.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 The front was gradually hardened, but the problem was only partly solved.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At the May 1999 event at Coomera, the 2\/3 gear selector jammed in the other gears, and punched a hole in the casing.\u00a0 All the oil was drained out, and the box survived the last 3 tests with no oil in it.\u00a0 An Aquabond plug patched the hole, and worked perfectly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was towed to Nirimba in Sydney for the Australian Motorkhana Championships of 1999 which were called off after a cloudburst flooded the grounds.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 However at the Australian Motorkhana Championship on 13th August the motor was running very poorly, and needed half choke just to keep it running.\u00a0 New plugs were tried, but made little difference.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The car was pushed out of the way, and dumped on its trailer while the driver went to hospital to get his hands bandaged.<\/p>\n This evil handling and troublesome car was retired on the spot, and plans started on a better handling replacement.\u00a0 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. GONZALES. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Gonzales was the sixth motorkhana special built by Alan Wheeley.\u00a0 It was originally planned and sketched in March 1988 when a Kawasaki Z1000 motor was bought from a 1982 model Z1000J bike.\u00a0 The original design was … Continue reading <\/a>Construction started in November 1993, and the car had its debut at the old Brisbane Airport on 20th February, 1994.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The connectors were then discarded, and solid hubs made to key onto the axle.\u00a0 Continual trouble was had with welds in the drivetrain not being strong enough, and all drive to the axle lost.\u00a0 The output shaft of the Toyoglide was made of super hard chromed steel, and a keyway could not be cut in it.\u00a0 So a shrink fit was tried, but this did not work either.\u00a0 At the christmas rebuild, the gearbox was taken apart to check the internals, which turned out to be OK.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This design allowed everything to be set up, tested by hand, and then simply filled with oil, and sealed.\u00a0 This worked well except for the continuing problem of welding the output sprocket.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"