THAMES VALLEY HOODS
An area group of the RHOCaR club - all things Robin Hood Kit Cars
Xmas 2005
Another year at the Millets Farm near our monthly meet at Gozzards Ford - and another very enjoyable afternoon. More tintops than last year - but a few hardy fellows pulled into the car park in their Hoods (some a bit later than others eh ... Peter ?).
About 30 in all settled down to a very festive spread and John Peach our leader took time out to summarise the year in that charming way which is only his. When the events were skipped through in that headlines way it makes you realise that a lot has indeed been going on in this last Thames Valley Hood year. The list included 3 Homecalls , Karting , seven Kit Car / Classic shows and 3 runs out to pubs / railways. A very generous prize was presented for best "Festive Hood" and that honour turned to Graham Bowden who had come along 
with wife Viv in an exceptionally festive turnout. By all accounts this was the ninth year that the TVH's had visited Millets Farm - and we'll set a webpoll up to see if we should make it a tenth ! This year the Xmas event is not the last of the year - we have another club night on Wednesday 14th and a planned Treasure Hunt on 31st December (TBC), so please come along and give the Hood a run out.
Tales of Hooding and more besides .........
Tales of plans and things to do ......
John Peach's 2B suffered a steering rack failure on his way to Millets Farm - more of this later - all those with a 2B will be very keen to know about what exactly has broken !
Pictures from the event - courtesy of Terry.
THE STEERING RACK TALE ......
I have just spent the day fixing the problem that occurred on Sunday morning as follows.......The symptom was that the amount of steering on the right hand lock suddenly became much reduced, barely beyond the straight-ahead position.
Fortunately for us, we were on the fuel forecourt at the time.Had this happened at speed I cannot imagine what might have been the outcome.
Today I removed the rubber gaitor , to find that the nylon bush / bearing which should be captive inside the tube of the steering rack had worked free.The 
picture shows how I found it.
As the metal rack shaft slides through this bush during steering ,the load on the bush is very low, only friction and well greased at that , so it is hard to imagine how it broke free .However it is very clear that it does not '' fail to safety '' when things go wrong.
When I re-inserted the bush all was working ok again, except that one of the nylon segments meant to retain the bush was snapped off. This may have happened when I used a heavy hand to try and make the car steer properly when it went wrong on Sunday, or its failure could have been the cause, it is not that easy to prove now.I have now added extra retention to prevent the bush being able to come free again.
The ideal fix would be a circlip, but there is no groove inside the tube obviously. I considered split pins through the wall of the tube, or self tappers into the bush from outside the tube.I decided to drill small holes where i could gain access with the drill, and have inserted small rivets in two positions outboard of the bush, thereby preventing it from moving. A couple of strategic blows with a centre punch on the blind side of the tube , and I am now certain it will never come out again.
The finished repair.
Afterwards I removed the gaitor from the drivers side, but it is not the same, as it is close to the pinion box, so no modification s needed.
After a test drive, I am now confident the fault is overcome, and thankful there were no serious consequences. I will raise this as a checkpoint to other members on the Rhocar site.Yours - a relieved John.