:: Sunday, October 5, 2017 ::
Another month, another TVR Car Club meeting. With the transmission now more firmly attached to the rest of the car, I’m looking forward to a decent wee run to try it out.
We have arranged to meet at Dave’s, so I get the car out of the garage and leave it to warm up, while I look for my woolly hat and my gloves - it’s bloody freezing, and the heater isn’t very efficient with the roof off. What’s that you say? Put the roof on? Where’s the fun in that?
I set off, and by the time I reach the other end of the town, I’m grinning like a Cheshire Cat. This car is superb! It surprises me every time I drive it, just how much fun it is. It’s not quiet. It’s not smooth, it jiggles like Pavarotti on a treadmill, it’s really not comfy at all. It’s brilliant!
The customary chat takes longer than usual, mainly because Dave needs half an hour to recover from the ordeal of choosing wallpaper. You think “peace in the Middle East” is hard?
This means that we have to blast more or less straight to the venue, but that’s no real ordeal. It does give me time to reflect on two things:
1. I enjoy this car more than the Porsche - it’s slower, less comfy, less reliable, but still better. I think I’ll sell the Porsche; and
2. Will Hugh be there in his car today?
Our lunch time chat covers the usual range of subjects, including why Hugh is here, but his car isn’t. Remember how Dave and I spent aaaaaaages fixing it in September, so that he could bring it to Wentworth in October? Remember how it then did 500-odd miles in a weekend without missing a beat? Well that’s just not fucking good enough, is it?
A couple of days after that excursion, it was due its MOT, except there’s excessive play in the steering (apparently) and the steering is also too stiff. So our hero pulls it to bits, replaces the top steering joint and the bulkhead bearing, but disconnects half of the column wiring in the process. So the net result is - it’s not working.
I feel another excursion coming on..
All too soon, it’s time for home. As usual, we’re among the last to leave, and follow Dave back down the road and over the new Forth Crossing at just-above-zero miles per hour, caused mainly by tourists crawling across taking photos, videos, and the piss.
Car home and safely ensconced back in the garage. Marvellous!
Later on at night, I get a notification of a question on one of the "American car" facebook pages. The question is "I've just bought a Camaro, had it trailered here, just found out it has no fan belt. Do I need a big fan belt to go round the crankshaft, water pump and alternator, or can I put a smaller one on, just round the pump and alternator?"
Eh? Is it just me?
I go to the discussion, and there's half a dozen answers already, ranging from "what if the water pump seizes, you'd have no alternator charge?" to "what if the alternator seizes, the pump would stop". There's no answer that says "how the fuck do you expect the water pump and alternator to go round, if they are not driven by the fan belt from the crankshafty-thing. THAT'S HOW IT WORKS!" I manage, through sheer willpower, to write a polite response clarifying the mechanical necessity of having the fan belt, and the devices attached to it, driven by something that's already moving.
I despair, I really do...
:: Saturday, November 18, 2017 ::
More fan mail!
This one points out that I've put "October" and not "November" at the top of that last post. He thinks I'm not very clever.
He's probably right, but in my defence, since I put those DeLorean bushes on the car, I still know who I am, and where, but not necessarily when. It's all very confusing, this time travel, you know!
Anyway, not very much to report on the car front, except that my Range Rover vibrates like a hammer drill when I brake, and road salt sticks to it like shit to a blanket, so it looks like a heap. On the other hand, the heater, the heated seats and the heated steering wheel all work marvellously, so at least it's a warm, comfy heap!
And it still doesn't smoke so plastic welding did the trick!
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