My Mallock

These pages have moved to http://www.nwsprints.co.uk where there are no annoying adverts, pop-ups or spyware and it responds quicker too! My Mallock before and after its rebuild.  On the left is as I got it in 1990 and on the right it's on it's way to the rolling road in 1998.

History

I bought it about 1990 from Simon & David Atherton in Stockport.  It's a Mark 14b circa 1975-ish.  It had been used in Formula 1300 circuit racing by someone in Sheffield in the early '80s then sprinted and hillclimbed a bit in the Northwest.  I managed to win the ANWCC sprint championship in '93 (admittedly not a vintage year) and came second in the combined sprint and hillclimb championship in '99 after far too many DNFs caused by a couple of diff failures, suspension failure, plug failure and faulty fuel pump.  In 2000 I stuffed it pretty comprehensively at Paddock bend at Curborough at my first event of the year and spent the next two years, on and off, slowly rebuilding it.

Chassis

		It's a typical clubman's spaceframe: 5/8th square tube with ally panels pop-riveted on.  It took about 1,500 rivets and I had to plug the original holes with braze first so you can imagine it took a while.  All the ally was bent over pieces of wood - hence the "styling" is rather angular.  It's obviously low-tech, strong enough, too heavy, but infinitely repairable.  I'm told the tail section is non-standard as it is curved at the top - other 14 owners tell me theirs are flat.  At the scrutineer's request I put in a thicker diameter rollover bar - the original did a fair job of protecting my shoulders but not much else.  I also replaced the top of the frame surrounding the cockpit and dashboard as it had got so tatty over the years.  It's got a couple of additional tubes keeping the rear axle away from my back - imagine a rear-end shunt without them?  Finally I added a backbone/transmission tunnel linking the rollover bar to the bottom of the dashboard and extending up the nearside of the footbox.  This is all basically for safety reasons - it supports the rollover bar better, restrains the propshaft and keeps the engine/box out of the cockpit.   After my front end impact at Curborough I am rather pleased that I added that extra metal as the cockpit and footbox are almost perfect whilst everything in front of the master cylinders is pretty crumpled - that is about a yard of crumple zone I used up!   Here are some pictures of the damage.

Bodywork

Mine is just about the worst looking Mallock around.  I'm not particularly proud of this, there's just always something more important to do, for example going to the pub.  As you can see on the other pages on this site the bodywork is just fibreglass cladding.  It's obviously not original with Mk17 side pods and you could fit a V8 under that bulge in the (Mk20) bonnet.  It's also been cut and shut a number of times to fit over whatever it sat on at any particular time.  I may cut it again over the winter to streamline it a bit.  It is fitted with a genuine Mallock high downforce nose at the front which makes a huge difference - it used to suffer from  tyre shredding understeer with the home made nose I used to run.

Suspension

Standard for a Mk14 - unequal length wishbones at the front and a 5-link back end, i.e. trailing arms and a panhard rod.  It has coilover sprint/damper units, inclined at the front and vertical at the back.  The dampers are Spax, rose-jointed at the front.  There is an adjustable anti-roll bar at the front, which I now set on the stiffest setting  with the high downforce nose and rear tyres that are a bit past it now - I used to have to set it full soft to minimize understeer when I had the small "Baitings" nose fitted.  Simple but effective.

The settings I have are a compromise between those on Bernard Collins and Alex Graham (Mk.20's).  As you can see there is quite a variation between them - dunno if they are appropriate but it is a place to start and better than guessing.  If anyone has some other suggestions, please let me know.  For the record, these are:

Engine

I have a couple that I alternate between as each gives up the ghost.  I'm currently running a home built 1350 crossflow (60 thou overbore on a 1300 Escort) with Vulcan big valve head,  12.5:1 compression, twin 40s, Cosworth A6 cam, a 4 into 1 exhaust, lightened, polished and balanced rods and rockers, steel posts, lightened iron flywheel.  About 100bhp at the wheels is what you get.  It revs nicely but doesn't want to know below about 5000 rpm. The other, whose bearings went missing at Aintree earlier this year, is another home-built semi-short stroke cross flow.  Basically that's a fancy name for a Mk2 Escort fitted with a Lotus twin cam crank and pistons.  The reasons for this were to get more revs without the cost of a pukka steel one and to sit the engine as low as possible.  It has a Rallye Equipe big valve head, 12.5:1 compression, twin 40s, Piper 254 cam, a 4 into 1 exhaust, lightened, polished and balanced rods and rockers, steel posts, ultra light steel flywheel and Cosworth bolts to keep it all together.   After all this, it does not feel a lot more powerful than the small one, certainly does not rev as well (only about 7500 on a good day) but it is a lot more torquey.  Absolute power figures are pretty irrelevant, what matters is how much power is available all the time you want to accelerate and how few gear changes you can get away with. Being tight-fisted I use the same dry sump kit, inlet manifold, exhaust system, rocker gear and distributor on both engines.

Transmission

It's got a  2000E box with bullit ratios (very high first) and shortened tailshaft and then a composite Ford/Minor 1000 4.2:1 diff.  I ran a standard Minor diff with no trouble for a couple of years, but in 1999 I broke two - so maybe the 1600 engine is better after all!  I've since got hold of a couple of Ford/BMC composite diffs (4.2 and 4.55) (thanks to George Emmerson) and a set of halfshafts to suit (thanks to Bernard Collins).

I tried a sintered clutch for a bit but didn't like the sharp take-up on downchanges and, with limited power available, I find a standard AP organic clutch spins the wheels as much as you need and lasts a couple of years for a fraction of the bother.

Misc

It runs on 8" and 10" revolutions and the tyres are soft Avon hillclimb slicks.  The rears are A36s, but unfortunately they are about 8 years old and they do age, the fronts are A40s new in 2000.  I run them at 12 and 14 psi.  I try to run with the regulation minimum 5cm. ground clearance, though it is a bit higher at the back which I believe is how they are meant to be set up.  Brakes and steering come from various Triumphs, from Spitfire to GT6.  The rack is from a left hand drive Spitfire turned upside down to get it low and to get the wheels to turn the same way as the steering wheel!

Other Sprint and Hillclimb Mallocks and other Clubman's cars

There must be lots out there, but I have not found many on the web yet.  Here are some links to other sites, mostly just pictures.  Let me know if you'd like a link: