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[ The challenge and teams | Result | Anoraks' diary | Cat-alysts' diary | Science | Related links ]
What's new pussy-Cat-alyst?
A marriage is done, a baby's on the way and, once again, the Cat-alysts return to Scrapheap Challenge to defend our title. All that is different this year is we don't need another trophy. We've now got one each and we are comfortably the most successful Scrapheap contenders of all time.
Before we set off, the firm gave us a fab XJR and an S-Type for the week and a few freebie caps, Jaguar yearbooks to give to our expert and the opponents.
Our laissez-faire attitude soon gave way to the desire to win. So we blew the dust off the kit bag of tools and winning bits and we were off.
High and dry
After check-in, we realise the hotel doesn't offer late-night drinking for residents, taking Englishness to new depths.
Then off to the yard to reacquaint ourselves with the quad bikes and tools and finally learn how to gas cut using oxy-propane, which was such a disaster in Car Flingers.
Later we meet our expert who, thankfully, is deeply uninterested in watching England take on Croatia in Euro 2004. Over dinner, we establish we should be able to do business even though he does talk as though he's the captain.
Build day one
Back on the heap, Robert and Lisa issue their challenge – Power Pullers! We are somewhat deflated, knowing it was done before by the Brothers In Arms in one of the early episodes of Scrapheap in 10 hours. Bemused, we muster a bit of elation but at least no one assumes we'll be experts at it, unlike with the Racers last year.
Expert Richard is from the West Country and has some history of tractor pulling – he doesn't volunteer whether he has won. He outlines his plan to put a more powerful engine in an old tractor, which seems sensible, although we do question the feasibility of mating a 1980s engine to a 1950s gearbox.
Richard assures us he has done it before but Shane is still sceptical. The challenge seems to be on the basis of load-pulled:weight ratio which arouses our suspicions. The rules also seem more restrictive this time: our juggernaut must be two-wheel drive so no hydraulic rams, no forward-thrown anchors and no road train of several vehicles. Still, better keep thinking about it.
The shopping list is as short as any I can remember, a tractor, some tyres and a bigger diesel engine. Surely we need more than that? This is a Grand final, after all. Where's the fun? Where's the imagination? Where's the winning edge of eccentricity? No ideas here.
Off they go but Tim and Shane's movements seem to be restricted to 'our side of the yard' – later, we find out why.
They find an old tractor but it is buried. They also earmark an old Ford Cargo for its engine, but that's also buried. Eventually, the tractor is liberated but a jammed left wheel makes getting it out very tough. Is this really the device that will win us this? It's covered in moss, as lightweight as something from Camberwick Green and old – probably from about 1953.
We get the tractor back to the yard and up on stands. We free the wheel (jamming the brake on that side) and play with the controls. The low ratio gearbox, which is an essential element in any tractor pull, just cannot be engaged – which is probably why the farmer threw it away 20 years ago.
We cannot help but notice The Anoraks have managed to scavenge a seemingly roadworthy Volvo tractor unit for a 40-tonne lorry from 'their side of the yard'. It comes complete with air horns, air conditioning, a bunk bed and air brakes and looks more like they are competing in Showroom Challenge.
How on Earth can we compete with such a monster with a 300bhp, 1,000lb/ft of torque and a turbo diesel engine with a drive train designed to work for 1,000,000 miles?
Richard, Shane and Tim extract the Ford Cargo engine and the unit is brought into the yard as lunch starts. Our spirits are not high: there's too much going through the motions and no scope (or need) for inventiveness.
After lunch, the front of the tractor is cut off and extracted, the engine is decoupled from the gearbox and dumped with the disdain it deserves. Shane sets about removing the sump from the Cargo engine as it will need to sit vertically in the tractor. We also need to make a new oil pick-up tube that will only draw oil and not air.
Tim can't find any decent tyres, not even ones good enough to hold any air. There is no sign of a turbo for our middle-weight, normally-aspirated engine, either.
With the sump off our new engine, Shane and Richard set about making a new oil feed tube which would be easy if we could get the welder to behave. The machine has developed a technique of its own which dogs Shane for the rest of the day by leaving great gooey streaks of solder-like globs which won't hold the tube junction on the flange.
Any small holes above the oil level would draw in air and have a catastrophic effect on the engine's bearings so it takes a huge amount of the day to make and remake this joint. Eventually, the sump is reunited with engine and, as luck would have it, the engine goes straight on to the 50-year-old tractor gearbox.
Now Tim and I know that one decent-quality M12 bolt in tension would be more than adequate to lift the tractor up but our expert is determined to use a very beefy hitch so Tim and I set to bending strips of 6in wide steel to make a yoke.
By the end of the day, we still need to reinforce the hitch. Enough for one day, we retire to consider our position.
Build day two
Our hands appear to be tied. The gearbox is probably shot, the whole thing weighs half the other team's truck, we have no tyres that'll hold air, our engine has no turbo but it does more than enough torque to trash the 50-year-old tractor gearbox.
Tim and Shane return to the yard and find two tractor wheels and tyres. They are rubbish. They have holes in the side walls, treads on the wrong way and rotten rims that won't even hold an inner tube. We have four wheel and tyre assemblies, none are the same diameter or width or hold air.
With the engine on, we play with the front end for hours to work out how to join it back to the frame. Eventually we force it back on, join it and reinforce it. Then we add some Brunel-like nameplates to the side.
Richard, meanwhile, devotes the whole morning to replumbing the diesel engine, removing anything that may slow things down and rigs up a rudimentary throttle control. Finally, it's all-clear for a start up. Bingo, the beast-ette roars into life but something is wrong.
Ooops! No oil filter. Engine oil gushes out all over the floor and the engine shuts down. I have to use a pile of absorbent bunds and mats to clean it all up, still, at least the oil pick-up is working.
Tim and I get back to the towing hitch. Our expert insists on ever more extravagant metalwork and given that if the hitch fails, it could cause the tractor to flip over – which would be a catastrophe for us all – we agree to play it safe.
Tim and Richard set to joining our mismatched rubbish wheels and find some huge gas pipe for cutting. Except it won't cut. The lack of rust should have been a clue. As it's a pipeline, we realise, it will be protected from corrosive gases and liquid – it probably has a high nickel content but in any event it behaves like stainless steel and the oxygen in the cutter won't oxidise the hot steel.
Tim resorts to a large cutter grinder. I later suffered a chemical peel on my face from the nickel (or whatever) dust and I hope I don't suffer any long-term lung issues, either!
In the end, we have some fabulous hoops and Richard welds them to our frail old rims, creating what would otherwise be a pair of very robust wheels and tyre assemblies. A barrel stand is fixed to the front to hold 250 kilos of water ballast (to hold the nose down) and the radiator and electric fan are fixed at a jaunty angle.
Finally, the wheels are bolted on and we can then see what room we have left over the space required for a driver and three passengers. Seats are scavenged from the yard, the driver will have a nice office swivel chair but to make it fit, everything but the thinnest of pads is removed. The passengers get a bench seat from a van. We try it out, all fit in and then realise we could fall under the wheels.
The device is finished all bar tinkering and a couple of safety modifications – to be specific, these involve finding some means of preventing us from falling under the wheels.
Tinker time
Since stripping down and rebuilding the gearbox is out of the question, we will have to make do with half the gears and hope the damage to the remaining sets isn't too terminal.
The useless tyres are filled with concrete, a new entry in the Scrapheap Challenge world of bizarre tinkering. This is to add weight to our featherweight device and to stop the tyres spinning on their rims.
We reckon that regardless of engineering, weight over the driving wheels will be everything. If we have good treads with enough weight on them, we can get it to dig in to make the tyres act like a pinion on a rack and pinion system.
Richard adds an auxiliary fuel tank which through us manually pressurising, he plans to 'inject' neat fuel into the inlet manifold to 'give us more power'.
For one, I'm not convinced we need more power or that we would have it without more air, too – we just need a bigger machine with tyres and a gearbox that can take the load. However, there is nothing else to do and it keeps him happy.
The device is painted pink, as usual, which makes it look even less impressive.
We flip a coin to decide who goes first. We win and I elect for The Anoraks to go first on the basis that, if their machine explodes or miraculously catches fire, we could win at a gentle walk. These scenarios seem unlikely.
Round one
The Anoraks have pulled their first race and we line up to do likewise. Richard takes up the slack and pulls away with some nice smoke, no wheel spin and a gentle play with the fuel injection at the end.
Round two
Again, The Anoraks have cruised to the other end without breaking a sweat. The larger second load is attached to our device.
At full power, the whole ensemble begins to move. We get about six feet before the nose begins to lift. The tractor swerves to the right, we have no individual wheel braking so cannot correct. Richard eases off slightly. The nose drops and we turn back in the right direction.
This time, as we attempt to move off, we don't. The wheels begin to spin and the engine runs away. There is much black smoke and then Shane's footrest moves as part of the structure fails. We're not going anywhere – ever. The device is nearly up to its axle, the gearbox is bust, so is the structure and the engine has destroyed itself in some indeterminate manner.
Au revoir Scrapheap.
Post mortem
We collect our losers' medals after The Anoraks have pulled double what we'd failed to pull and go home.
We've been the Cat-alysts, good night.
Garry Preece