Description:

Van Diemen RF85 Formula Ford 1600cc race car, I bought this car in November 2022 with it last having been used at the festival at Brands Hatch in 2019, it was all together and running having a Neil Bold engine, Hewland Mk9 gearbox and wide track RF86 front suspension but needed some tidying having been in storage for a few years.

I removed the bodywork and when I did this I found the chassis had been repaired before but very poorly, I then got hold of another chassis which had been refurbished and powder coated so decided to rebuild the car using this, the floor and bulkheads were all remade with new aluminium, everything was swapped over onto the new chassis and any worn rose joints etc were replaced at this time and the steering rack was rebuilt with new bushes.

The bodywork was tidied up and painted, this isn't perfect but still looks good, new aluminium radiators were fitted along with new battery, extinguisher system and harness, it was then inspected for a MSUK passport as I planned on using it for sprints and hillclimbs.

I used the car at Blyton Park in May and it ran faultlessly but I found the ACB10 tyres were well past their best and the gear linkage was sloppy and the gearbox had unsuitable ratios, I bought a brand new set of ACB9 tyres and remade the gear linkage with new u/j's and spherical bearings, on stripping the gearbox I found it had 6 dog gears instead of the normal 8 dog ones, ratios were difficult to find for this so I took it to JPR at Silverstone and had the gearbox rebuilt including changing the pinion bearing, layshaft, all the hubs, gears and ratios so it is now 8 dog, the cost of the gearbox rebuild was just over £3000.

The plan was to use it again for a few events this season but due to a change in circumstances due to a family bereavement I have decided to sell it.

The car is completely ready to use as it is, the tyres are brand new and the gearbox is unused since the rebuild, it is very tidy and obviously the chassis is perfect, there is some slight corrosion and small dents on some of the suspension arms and the bodywork is good but if you wanted to make it a perfect car new bodywork could be purchased.