My Mallock

 

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.

and finally as it is now.

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 at Curborough at my first event of the year, took it back to Mallock's for a new front end, came back in '02 to win the local hillclimb campionship, then promptly damaged the back end at Aintree. Since it is now in the best condtion it has been in since I've had it, I figure I ought to sell it so I can afford to run the Van Diemen I bought to replace it 5 years ago!

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 as I've proved a few times.  Only the front is 100% genuine Mallock, the middle now has a steel backbone/transmission tunnel linking the rollover bar to the bottom of the dashboard and extending up the nearside of the footbox.   This is mostly for safety reasons, but must make it stiffer at the expense of some additional weight. 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 was rather pleased that I had added that extra metal as the cockpit and footbox were untouched whilst everything in front of the master cylinders was pretty crumpled.  I also replaced the top of the frame surrounding the cockpit and dashboard as it had got so tatty over the years.  The tail, which just keeps the scenery away on a bad day, is all my own work.  At the scrutineer's request I put in a thicker diameter rollover bar with additional forward bracing - the original did a fair job of protecting my shoulders but not much else.   It's also got a couple of additional tubes keeping the rear axle away from my back - imagine a rear-end shunt without them?  All good stuff when ambition gets the better of ability!

Bodywork

It used to be just about the ugliest Mallock around.  I wasn't particularly proud of this, but making it work properly always seemed more important tha making it look pretty.  As you can see on the other pages the bodywork is just fibreglass cladding.  It's obviously not original with Mk17 side pods and you could have fitted a V8 under that bulge in the (Mk20) bonnet.  It had also been cut and shut a number of times to fit over whatever it sat on at any particular time.  However, last year I did manage to make a mould that fitted a lot more snugly around the engine &decided it was good enough to paint.  It is fitted with a high downforce nose at the front with a couple of small diffusers underneath which makes a huge difference - it used to suffer from  tyre shredding understeer with the home made nose I originally run. By contrast, the rear wing is quite slender in profile and not set at a great angle of attack - odd combination but seems to work OK.

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 spring/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.  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.  Just over 100bhp at the wheels (130 at the flywheel) is what you get.  It revs nicely but doesn't want to know below about 5000 rpm. The other 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 did not feel a lot more powerful than the small one, certainly did not rev as well (only about 7500 on a good day) but was a lot more torquey.  Since then I've switched to a Holbay K3A and '45s with 38mm chokes, which has raised the output to about 160 bhp at the flywheel without losing too much bottom end. However, 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, exhaust system and rocker gear on both engines.

Transmission

The bellhousing is iron, but with a rather pretty pattern of holes to lighten it. It's got a  2000E (3-rail) box with bullit ratios (very high first) and shortened tailshaft and then a composite Ford/Minor 1000 diff.  I ran a standard Minor diff with no trouble for a couple of years, but in 1999 I broke two - on both occasions it was the planet wheels that disintegrated. 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) which are all BMC except the sun & planet wheels which are Ford (thanks to George Emmerson) and a set of half-shafts to suit (thanks to Bernard Collins).

I tried a sintered clutch for a bit but didn't like the sharp take-up on downchanges. For anyone thinking of fitting one, I think you ought to use a steel flywheel and don't forget you need to lengthen the release bearing or modify the actuator or you won't be able to de-clutch at all. Anyway, 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 cost & bother.

Misc

It runs on 8" and 10" 4-spoke revolutions and the tyres are soft Avon hillclimb slicks.  The rears are A36's, but unfortunately they are about 10 years old and they don't mature well, the fronts are A40's brand new in 2000!  I run them at 12 and 14 psi.  I've also got some old circuit racing wets for the front, which do at least allow you to run when it's raining.  I try to run with the regulation minimum 4cm. 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:

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Contact dennis.doyle at tiscali.co.uk with questions,  comments or corrections to this web site.

Last modified: June 16, 2006