The Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen winners

Vegard Foseid and Are Sletta (Sechs Volt Garage) receive their trophy from Markus Lottermann for winning the 1300 class.

Ray Schubert (Speedwell USA) and his protégé receiving the trophy from Markus for winning the 1500 class.
Normally Tom Niedernhofer should have been on the stage too, but we think he was still recovering from the "white knucle ride" in the Kübel ;)

Øystein Asphjell and Rune Weea (Screwdrivers) receive their unlimited class winners trophy from Markus Lottermann.

Vegard Foseid and Are Sletta receive the Petermax Müller trophy from Markus for the overall win in the race.

They will need to hand the trophy back in 2 years at the next event and as defending champions wear the race number 51. We hope next time the Sechs Volts Garage will bring two cars to help defend the title ;)

Once again we would like to thank all involved, also a big thank you to the Lottermann family, Bob (BBT) for sponsoring the trophies and Rob Amos (pre67VW) for talking the photo's.

The Norwegians rule the day in the Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen!

We are just back from Bad Camberg and what a fantastic time we had. Our friends "up north" really did kick our buts in the Petermax Müller race, although a few of the OOC cars never made the start line....

Here you see Herr Blowers Pepco powered Oval parked next to Vegards Abarth Zwitter, on the ferry across the Rhine just before the start of the race.

The race was not just about raw horsepower, you needed a good navigator to read the map and direct you, also some luck on the slippery winding country roads.

 The unlimited class was won by Øystein Asphjell in his HPD Special and he probably would have won the overall trophy if his navigator Rune Weea hadn't have taken them on a slight de tour, although they blamed the road book, we know they really stopped off for a spot of lunch :P 

Only joking guys, you did a fantastic job and we were honored that you supported our event in so many ways. 

The 1500 class was won by the legendary speed demon Ray Schubert driving a Kübelwagon!

Yes that's right he was driving a Kübel although the motor is running Porsche internals.

We followed behind Ray for a while in a support vehicle and it really was something to see him sliding the Kübel around corners and descending the steep roads like a man inspired, all with cable brakes and off roads tyres, if only he'd had his Pepco Zwitter....

There was a good chance that Ray and his navigator Tom Niedernhofer would have won the overall trophy, but they ran out of fuel, luckily we were close by and only needed to push them 400 meters to a petrol station, but still, all lost time!

The 1300 class and the overall Petermax Müller trophy was won by Vegard Foseid and his navigator Are Sletta, they really drove their little 30hp to the limit, towards the end of the race the motor was losing power on the steep uphill climbs and the brakes were overheating on the descents, but against the odds they pulled it off. Well done guys :)

The winning motor of the Abarth Zwitter, shows sometimes David does beat Goliath...

The next edition will be in 2 years time to Hessisch Oldendorf, where the defending champion will be wearing the race number 51. The OOC will attend in full force and the Jägermeister Zwitter will return. Hopefully we can put Ray Schubert and also Larry McKenzie in some real race cars, then we really will have some fun. I also heard that Magne Bævere will be attending to strengthen the Norwegian charge to the flag.

For all who attended the race and supported us in any way we are truly grateful, we would also like to thank Markus Lottermann for presenting the trophies to the winners. 

Looking forward to seeing you all at the Hessisch Oldendorf edition of the Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen .....

The Paints out........

With only just over a week to go to the big event, our friends "up North" have already began applying "War Paint" to their race cars ;)
We still need to build engines for two of our cars before we start thinking about War Paint.....

PMGR parcours preview

Only 2 weeks to go, so here is a peek at what you can expect, if you are entered in this years PMGR.
The full course is 120kms, so this is just a sample to wet your appetite
if you've not entered this time, guess you need to wait a couple of years for the next edition ;)

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who needs sleep?

The big day is getting closer and it looks like someone has not been getting too much sleep in order to make the start line of the PMGR :)

Parcours

The maps for the big day are ready!
So if you have entered the "PMGR" your navigator will be needing one of these .....

Lightening the load!

The R&D department are always thinking about ways to improve the power to weight ratio on our 

cars, here is the latest offering they just produced. 

A balsa wood gear knob, we haven't weighed it yet, but were sure it must weight a super heavy 5 grams.

Every little helps....

Yet more progress......

The Master of Metal has been busy this weekend too

Looks like he found some time to make his front hood instead of working on the Pantera's arches...

6 weeks to go.....

Normally we should be at "The Champagne Vintage Weekend" with all the other vintage boys, but we are burning the midnight oil in the workshop as it is only 6 weeks before the PMGR...

The '53's case is now ready for full flow, although we had to again give the case a full clean afterwards.

We also installed some longer oil pump studs, although were not 100% sure what pump we will run at the moment.

We already cleaned all the oil galleries on this case and then refitted aluminum plugs so it looked original, we got side tracked and it was just left laying around, then the plans changed and we went back to work on it.....

The case was put together dry with the Mahle Nicasil cylinders and heads to check everything fits OK. We searched for a set of NOS pushrods, but couldn't find them.
What we did come across was another set we had for another project. So, as we had them laying around we thought we'd use them and after a little machine work they were now the correct size for this application.

Never enough time.....

 The "Master of Metal" has been busy working away on his project :)
Although we are hoping it will be finished in time for the "Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen" as he seems to be far too busy working on someone else's race car ;)

Lift off...

Or should that be "lifters off"

More work on the '53's motor today, the NOS lifters were removed from the pushrods and then the inserts fitted into the lifters.

Next up was some machine work to make the lifter ends fit into the cut to length pushrods, we decided to use chromoly ones as they are going to suffer some 'Torture" and don't want them to bend.

Now they are all ready for their final clean...

People ask us how we remove the lifters from the pushrods without damaging them.

We do it how we have always done it, quite simply really, we don't use any fancy slid hammers, pullers or heat on them.

First we spray dismantling lubricant (plus gas or something similar) between the lifter and the push rod, stand them up vertically and let them soak for a few hours.

Then take an old 11mm spanner and slide it over the pushrod to seat against the lifter, clamp everything into a vice, that accepts a pipe, so not to damage the pushrods.

Then with a gentle but sharp tap on the spanner the lifter easily comes away from the pushrod with no damage.

Automuseum Prototyp...

Back on track...

Home early and there has been an special delivery, looks like we can finish the rear brakes on the '53 now we got the wheel cylinders...

Big thanks to Jules over at KK for top Express service as usual ;)

Four little soldiers standing in a row........

In the workshop early before going to the "9-5 work", so just enough time to give the rods their last clean, before attention turns to the '53's motor.

We could have used 912 rods we have laying around, but decided to go for normal 356 ones.

They've been magnafluxed, shot peened, end to end balanced, weight matched and new bushings installed.

People say these rods won't stand up to full race "torture" and you should only use 912 ones, well we will see.

If they survive the Petermax Müller gedächtnis Rennen, lets see how they look after going down the Mulsanne straight flat out a few times.....

A roll in the nettles!

We had the full flow oil lines made today and thought we would see how things would look and what we would need to change.....

Yes we know people are going to say "We would rather roll naked in nettles than fit those restrictive banjo fittings to our full flow application."

Well regular visitors will know we only do what was available in the day and therefore period correct for our cars.

If it was good enough for Wolfgang Denzel and also Porsche to run on their Le Mans cars in the '50's then it's good for us.

Maybe we all just like nettles ;)

Go with the flow......

Full flow that is....

We took a look at the full flow filter that we were thinking to use on the '53 today, Imperial and metric, Hmmm

We had a look around the workshop to see what fittings we had lying around that could work and came to the conclusion that maybe we should take a trip to Hansa Flex.......

More progress......

The gearbox is back in the '53, as we made some changes at the back we thought we should check everything fits Ok before installing the brakes....

A solution....

A lot of head scratching has been going on, as it was becoming impossible to find piston rings to run with our original Mahle Nicasil cylinders.

But after a few emails to LN engineering they guided us to Total Seal, where they found us the correct rings for our application.

We must say a big thanks to Charles at LN and Keith over at Total Seal for all their help.

The beginnings.....

The type 64 K 10 is where it all began and one of the "archetypen" on display at the prototyp museum

Happy Faces!

We had a recent trip over the see Seppe "The master of metal" and what a nice sight it was when entering his workshop.

All those happy smiling faces looking at you every morning when you start work......

Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen

The Oldspeed Cannonball Challenge is DEAD!

Long live the "Petermax Müller Gedächtnis Rennen"

we thought the original name was not in the spirit of the event, so we have re-named it after the one and only original Oldspeed Maestro.......

Heart transplant

The gearbox is nearly ready to go back in the '53, so focus has turned to the motor

We know our friends up North are busy with Ferdinand's finest, so we thought we too should use a zuffenhausen heart for the '53....

We know they have some tricks up their sleeves, but so do we, only the big day will tell if they get to take the trophy back up north with them ;)

Wired !

Work continues on the '54 and the wiring loom is nearly finished...

Gripping stuff

Herr Blower has got himslef some new XZX rubber upfront ready for the big day.......

Nearly together again!

All the gears and the bearings are back on the pinion for the '53's gearbox.

Just checking all the gears select OK and then the two halves can be joined again.

Although it wasn't without drama, the box was on the bench and something fell off the shelf and landed on the reverse selector !

The end snapped off, but luckily well known vintage parts guru Filip Garsbeke is only 10mins away. A phone call was made and soon enough we were back with a NOS reverse shifter.

Thanks again Filip for saving the day ;)

Guess the lesson to be learned here is "less haste more speed"

Just in time!

The pinion bearing arrived this morning, so work can carry on

Big thanks to Shawn over at Vintage Parts inc for sending the bearing super express....

'53's box!

We started reasembeling the '53's box today, although the clock is ticking and work is behind, guess it's time we pulled our finger out!

We are still waiting on a bearing for the pinion and then we can reassemble it with the new gears and get the box back together.

Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow.......

Holly Molly!

The '53's modified torsion arms are back from powder coating and ready to be installed, although we had to modify the spindles for the new backing plates we made......

4 Wheels on your wagon!

The gearbox is back in the '54 and all the wheels are at last back on!

Just need some new boots!

The '53's rims came back from the powder coater today, now we just need to get some new boots and a set of racing inner tubes and they'll be ready to go..............

1 down 1 to go.......

The Oldspeed gearbox of the '54 is nearly back together with the new 3rd & 4th gears installed, some slight modification was required on the case to accept the taller 4th gear.

Now just the '53 one to assemble.......

Spindles

We tidied up the workshop today and found the box of NOS King & Link pins we had misplaced, so a few hours were spent fitting them into the dropped spindles that the '53 will run.