1927 AC entered for the Peking-Paris event!!

[Old Crock]

A 1927 AC has been entered for the Peking-Paris endurance event!
   
   This is one hell of a motoring challenge, for the cars and the drivers. The route is more than 8500 miles, over an itinerary of 36 days, and the cars journey through China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, then into Europe through Poland, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland (and more) to end in Paris. You can imagine the state of many roads, let alone crossing desert and so on.
   
   The car is the 1927 AC saloon, with Weymann body, that was recently returned to the UK from South Africa (see photos in Vintage forum, under recent posting 'Two vintage AC's come home'). Steve Gray of Brooklands Cars has entered and I admire his courage and spirit! The event takes place June/July of next year so more to follow.....

[Jam2]

I hope he has a spare set of rear axle gears to take along.  A lot to be said for using a saloon in that event and the weyman body does allow for some flexing.

[Old Crock]

The axle is scheduled to be inspected and spare parts made as necessary. The costly item being the worm with phosphor-bronze wheel. Saying that, I have been involved with many vintage AC's in the past and have never seen damaged planet gears (on six cylinders anyway). I know that in the 20's the axle was said to be 'problematical' and AC even placed adverts disputing this (one headed 'The strength of the bACk axle' – the AC logo placed between the 'b' and 'k' letters). I have seen broken half-shafts, chipped crown wheels, worn gearbox gears but none are that surprising considering age. This year I put a 1920's axle back into the car as it was; there was no damage, only some acceptable wear. The only gears I've seen broken were due to lack of oil and the owner being at fault. Some are unaware that when changing oil these axles then need to be again topped-up after a short run (as oil is pushed through to the gearbox).

[Old Crock]

A paragraph on the car, and Peking-Paris entry, will be in the next edition of the 'The Automobile'. It will be in Matthew Bell's column (he owns a 1926 AC 4-cyl.)