Crank is easily locked in place by removing the starter and putting something to hold the flywheel teeth in place that won't damage it or the gearbox casing. Much easier than faffing about with the brakes, which have been unable to provide enough force to undo a pulley or two in the past (or there's been so much wind-up in the transmission that it's impossible to do). I had one Felicia where the crank pulley was so tight it shattered a really strong 1/2" bar I'd been using for years (solid one, not one with a joint in it). Right b'stard to get out.

Engage 5th gear, pull handbrake, push hard brake pedal and lock the brake disc with an iron bar acting as a lever. The photo is just as a generic guide, you may rest the bar the other way around depending on sense of rotation.

Edited 9 April, 201313 yr by adurer

I made a tool to lock the crank using the casing and pinion gear from an old starter motor, I put a stack of washers behind the pinion solenoid cavity to force the pinion out into the start poisition, then welded the reduction gears together to lock it from turning, then it just simply bolts in to the gearbox like a Normal starter motor and locks against the flywheel. I also made up another one that would lock in one direction only to assist in fitting timing belts on my 16v engined specials.

I've got it all off now, ready for the new timing belt to go on. Thanks for the help guys, ended up chocking the flywheel, surprisingly the bolt came off really easily!

Do you guys think it would be worth putting a new head gasket on, the engines covered 89k miles. I don't know if it would be better to not disturb it, or put a new one..

Dont bother changing the gasket, you can sometimes cause more problems than you fix by disturbing it.

Dont bother changing the gasket, you can sometimes cause more problems than you fix by disturbing it.

Agreed; the best place for new gaskets on a run like this is in your spares kit rather than in the engine. Well documented; the first time I ever saw this was in a travelogue on the first London-Sydney rally, the second in one on the London-Mexico World Cup rally.

For redirecting the fuel and brake lines, is it just a case of laying some braided lines into the cabin of the car. Where would I stand come MOT time?

you wouldnt use braided lines internally normally, you would use hard steel or copper pipes and only join up on flexible braided or rubber where it goes into the engine bay where it needs to be flexible..

under the car there will also be an additional 5th hard line wich is for the fuel tank vapour which goes to the charcoal canister at the engine bay end and into the neck of the fuel filler pipe at the rear drivers side, you could just seal this off at the filler neck and use a fuel filler cap with a vent hole.

you should be ok with mot regs running fuel lines internally so long as they are secured to the body with clips etc, a good place to run them is up along the sill where the wiring loom runs down the left hand side, if you peel the carpet back there is a sort of protected cavity with holes to let the loom through, its hard to explain what i mean but if you peel the carpet back on the left hand side it will be obvious

The cars gutted, so I've already seen what your referring to, thanks for the tips. I'll be wanting to replace my fuel cap anyway as the locking mech is broken on it.

I've used both braided and solid lines inside rally cars. Unless you use more expensive braided stuff you will get "fuel sweating" as it were, and the vapours will get in the cockpit, which is quite unpleasant, particularly on a longer stint - I'd not do it with braided again, as the solid lines were cheaper and far easier to deal with (but difficult to get to look good). As Tom says, there's no issues MOT-wise providing the pipes are secured reasonably - a set of P clips will do the trick, no problem, although depending on who's inspecting the car for your event, you may want to ground metal pipes to the bodyshell with a bit of wire and a suitable clip (such as a jubilee clip), making a good electrical connection.

It is, however, a right pain in the arse getting the lines to the fuel pump/return if you run the hard lines to there, you'd be better off running them into the area where the fuel filter is and having the rest flexible - I made this mistake when doing mine and while they were doable, to replace them meant dropping the tank by 6" to get to them properly... right PITA!

I ripped out the breather and charcoal canister, etc., never had a problem with it.

I've not had a good dig about with the tank yet, but would it be possible to access the lines where they come down from the tank, cut them there, add a bit of flexible line to direct them into the car, then back to hard lines for inside the car. Just to cut down on labour so there's no messing about with the tank.

Also, does anyone have a template I could use to make up a strong engine guard. I tried PMing you, Djaychela about the one you mentioned previously, but seems like I can't send you messages?

get some good strong cardboard and cut out a template and offer it up and do it by trail and error, once you have a good working template get an engineering company to make one up for you, possibly laser cut or similar, you could get it made with lugs as well to make it easy to bolt it to the bottom of the car

Also, does anyone have a template I could use to make up a strong engine guard. I tried PMing you, Djaychela about the one you mentioned previously, but seems like I can't send you messages?

email me - djaychela (at) gmail (dot) com.

As for the tank, yes, you could access them in the under-seat void,and get your solid lines through to there to do it. Dropping the tank is easy enough, and you'll want to do so anyway to put a tank guard under it - it's only plastic and it will see some serious running damage if you're on rough roads. With a tank guard on there, you won't have any worries, and the car will run better on the rough if it's well designed and stops things getting caught up on the rear beam.

Hi Fakedollar, This sounds quite a challange. Good choice of car as very robust. When are you planning on going?

Here is a link from a good site by some experienced travelers who have done china, Mongolia etc. You should get some useful tips on routes. Ok I know they did it in campervans, but then they have done it there and back. That aside its interesting reading. I had a look at your just giving page, it does not say much! Have you another website with progress reports?

Hi Fakedollar, forgot to post the link.

http://www.xor.org.uk/travel/china2002/index.html

Good luck.

Hey there, thanks for your interest. The just giving page was quickly thrown together, just to get more weight behind our cause when approaching potential businesses for sponsorship on the car build. It will, of course be rewritten properly when the time comes to start fund raising for the relevant charities.

We're aiming to leave around this time next year, but have no real fixed date in case our work takes us away and we fall behind.

I've just had a quick look at the website you linked to, looks very interesting, I skipped straight to the part about entering China, looks like we'll have to use the same method and go through a Chinese agency who supply a guide/escort and the relevant docs, only problem is its far from cheap..

I've taken quite a few pictures so far, I guess I should get round to knocking something together for this site. We'll be launching a dedicated address at a later date, there's only two of us and getting round to sorting the admin out while working full time and squeezing in several hours here and there to work on the car is quite difficult.

If you are not planning on going until spring 2014, then you have plenty of time to get the modifications right and tested. I have drivenmy felicia around the farm extensively and have found that its xcountry performance on the standard tyres is a lot better than in many 4x4s. Dejaychela has loads of experience and I believe he found the xcountry performance to be suprisingly good. Once you have built the car up, take it onto one of the training areas to get to know its characteristics.

I would recommend fitting good permanent towing points both front and rear. The standard screw-in towing eye is not robust enough for what you want and on rear a towbar does the job well. Also make sure the car has the reinforcing strut between the tops of the front shocks. These were standard on all face lifted models and I see yours is the earlier one.

Good luck