:: Diary - July 2014 ::

:: Sunday, July 13, 2014 ::

I haven’t had much to report on the TVR front for the last 3 weeks. For the first week I was too busy, the second week I was on holiday and the bird week, I couldn’t be bothered. So the car is sitting in the garage exactly as it came hope from our weekend tour.

I did manage to order proper window switches, which arrived yesterday. The old ones are working fine at the moment though, so no rush…

Today, though, I’ve agreed to take the car to a TVR Car Club stand at classic car show at Irvine, which is about 70 miles away. This means getting up early, and sneaking the car out of the street at 7am on a Sunday morning, and then driving up the road to meet Dave. We decide to take the motorway route through, which is safer, in terms of journey time, but by god, it’s boring! At least a couple of rain showers keep me suitable refreshed. Dave doesn’t know the way, so I lead.

We meet up with the others and then head off to the park where the show is to be held. Once again, everybody starts their engines and then all sit there waiting for somebody to lead the way. Once again my O-level in Geography and Advanced Impatience comes in handy… Why does nobody ever bother to find out where they are going?

We get set up, the sun comes out, and it’s all very pleasant.

I find a Triunph Stag that still has its original engine. That’s a rare find, if ever there was one.

I like this.

Dave and I leave to go home by the shorter and more interesting route - takes longer though. In fact it takes even longer than “longer” because of the usual Sunday “45 everywhere brigade” intermingled with the “drive your caravan right up the arse of another one so that nobody can get past” club. The first lot really get on your tits - they dawdle along at 45 on twisty roads, then charge through the next town at exactly the same speed, so that they disappear until you leave the 30 limit and catch them up a mile later…

As for the caravanists - what can I say? I think the caravan club must preach “safety in numbers” or something because once you see one, you’re going to have to pass a lot more.

I think I’ll give up driving and buy a steam roller. Anybody who dawdles slower than one of those deserves to be flattened and posted home.

:: Monday, July 21, 2014 ::

Today’s lesson is about procrastination, and the reading is from the book of Bill Watterson, creator of the “Calvin & Hobbs”, who said:

“You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.”
“What mood is that?”
“Last-minute panic.”

True dat.

How does that relate to TVRs? Well all of us have our “I’ll get around to that one day” wee jobs to do. And then before you know it, that car show or event is upon you and you’re putting your car back together at 3 in the bloody morning. Unless you’re Dave, and only leave yourself 4 days to polish it instead of 5.

The point is - the doors on the Porsche swing open when you want them to stay shut, and swing shut on your ankles when you are trying to get out. They have wee friction check-straps which are notorious for wearing out in only 20 years or so. I was at a wee car display for the Sporting Bears on Saturday and they were doing my nut in, trying to stop them randomly swinging open on the car next door, etc.

Replacement straps are only £18, and I bought two, several months ago. I haven’t fitted them because they go inside the door, and according to the manual (this thing is 3 times the thickness of a Haynes manual and seems to cover every part on the car) you have to take the door card off. Looking at the manual, there are so many separate bits with screws, clips and allen bolts, that it looks like it would be easier to decommission a nuclear submarine. So it went in the (not inconsiderable) “looks difficult, do it one day” pile.

Well, after Saturday, I decide to give it a go. The first one takes me an hour and a half, not just dismantling the door, but working out how to knock out clevis pins, finding the right screwdriver to bend back wee tags etc. I get there though, and it works!

The second one takes me 15 minutes, because I worked out that if I just take the door pocket off, I can take the speaker out, and then I can (just) get one hand on the strap unit while I unbolt it from the hinge end of the door. The main risk is that if I drop a bolt or a washer it might fall down between the door skins (they re double-skinned around the hinges) and rattle around forever.

All goes well though, so this pain-in-the-arse job is finished in under 2 hours.

The second reading is from the book of George Bernard Shaw, who said “If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you'll find you've done it.”

Next job is to take the exhaust off the TVR and find the wee intermittent rattle. I’ve been meaning to do that for ages. Sounds difficult though. Maybe tomorrow.

:: Sunday, July 27, 2014 ::

After a week of procrastination, I fully intended to take the exhaust off today, and check for that rattle and refit it so that it’s further from the chassis. But Jim spoiled my plan by phoning yesterday and suggesting that 3 of us meet up for a wee run tomorrow morning.

“You do realise that the weather forecast says it’s going to be pishing down tomorrow?”

Aye but not till the afternoon - we’ll be back by then!”

I’m persuaded! So I get up at 7am, it’s sunny right enough.
I go out to the garage at 7:30am. It’s raining in that kind of “falling mist” way you get here. Might be all right.

I get to McDonalds at ten to eight. It’s pishing down. I think that Jim’s school must have lumped “weather forecasting” in with “navigation”, and he was off that day.

So we sit and eat our McMuffins (which strike us as being absolutely tiny - the rolls are like mini-scones) and discuss the ways of the world. Well, the ways of the TVR Car Club, Pistonheads, and everything else, while we decide whether to have our run or not.

After an hour or so, the rain seems to have stopped, so we decide the run is on. We plan a route by naming 2 towns to pass through, and set off.

The roads are still soaking though, and after about 20 miles, we encounter a car (a Rover 75 I think it was, but I didn’t really notice) skating sideways towards us across a bend, with a flat front tyre. He pirouettes neatly into a convenient lay-by, while we slow down in case there’s something around the bend, that he was trying to avoid, or oil on the road, or something. We also want to make sure that the driver and his family look ok.

The 2 seconds that we spend in these brief display of sense and humanity is too long for the blind and brainless monkey in the car behind, who toots because we have held him up.

We have a wee stop for cake and scones, a peek at the sky, and set off again. Unfortunately, the rain does on heavily, so we stop to put roofs on, and decide to head home.

2 miles from my house, the road is closed by a fire engine, beside a screened-off area at the side of the road. We detour around, but you can’t help thinking - here was me bothered by a bit of rain, but there’s somebody with a family whose day is suddenly a whole lot worse…

It’s been a while since I had a spontaneous run like this, rather than heading for a specific place for a specific time, and it’s great, especially when you’re not trying to look after or guide a huge convoy, or try to guess the right speed, or what somebody else might want to do - the three of us have done this so often, it’s easy.