Who needs gears, anyway?

I planned a weekend trip to Cornwall to see family - I get in the car and I can't seem to select reverse? Then I prod the gear lever and it bounces up and down - that doesn't look good.

Panels off and, yes, the damn GBS quickshift has snapped AGAIN!!

UNBELIEVABLE!!

I guess I'm lucky I was at home in my garage, unlike the last time this happened.

I've had some discussions with Tony on how best to fix it (he fortunately happens to be an aircraft engineer) and Matt from the SKCC club has agreed to do the welding for me.

On holiday next week, so I'll get on it then...

How the Other Half live

 Went out for a fun trip to a UK kitcar club member. He lives out in Kent in the back of beyond and it was a great drive; nice roads, lovely weather.

His address said it was a 'cottage' - Holy Cow, that's an under-statement. A beautiful house, several acres of grounds and it's own fishing lake - that's not the cottages I know about!

About 5 members of the club turned up although I was the only one in a kit; the house owner has an old Robin Hood in his garage that needs a major restore and 2 others were in the same boat. The Porsche 944 in the pic below was the guy's other fun car, the Jag belonged to the old guy who had donated the wreck of a Robin Hood:

I had a great drive there and back but my next job is now the alternator wiring; I rarely get over 13.6v out of it and that probably is because of the earth. The alternator earths through it's mounting clamp and the engine and when I originally fitted that on, I had to strip the powder coat off the mounting face. However, it's very possible that has either rusted or has got dirt in it (see, learning from last week's temp gauge fiasco), so I need to just take it off and see if I can clean that up.

Pride before a fall and rise

 So I decided to try sort out my temperature gauge - it hasn't been working for months.

I'd checked the wiring and sensor and I knew both were OK so I decided to try dredge up some knowledge from my electrical engineering degree 30 years ago (I went into software and forgot most of my electrical stuff). 

Working on the fact that the sensor is just a load in the circuit that includes the gauge, I decided I needed to lower its resistance to allow some voltage to move the gauge needle. I recalled that placing another resistance in parallel with the sensor should achieve that. Not knowing what resistance I needed, I bought a £3 variable resistor, wired it in parallel with the sensor and stuck the resistor on a convenient surface:

Now, before fitting it properly, I jury-rigged the wires to make sure the theory worked and, Holy Shit but it did - with the ignition on, I altered the resistance and the gauge needle moved accordingly! I was seriously impressed with myself and I almost fired off an email to my university to congratulate them on their teaching abilities. 

Anyway, I then wired the resistor up properly, which involved snipping off the old spade terminals on the earth and sensor. While doing the earth, I noticed some dirt under the terminal, which i unthinkingly removed and crimped on a new terminal. 

Once wired up, I connected up the laptop so I could read the coolant temp and adjust the rheostat so the gauge matched it. Once started and running for a minute, I could already see the needle rising on the gauge. 

Hugely proud of myself, I went off for a drive to check it worked at all temperatures. A mile down the road, however and the gauge read 110 while the laptop showed 95 so I stopped to adjust the rheostat. But I found that no amount of twiddling would get the needle below 80 - I should have been able to set it to anything I wanted, in theory?! 

And then it dawned on me - the sensor was working correctly, without the need for the rheostat. To prove it, I cut the wires and voila! A working temperature gauge! 

So all I had needed to do months ago was remove the earth and clean it (and maybe the new, shiny spade terminal also helped). 

Doh! 

So a lesson learned - the simple things first before dusting off the old grey matter. 

Playing in the sun

 A nice run out today with the SKCC club - the weather has been very nice recently so I dragged myself out of bed at 6.15am. The sun fooled me into thinking it was hot but not at that time it wasn't, so I froze for the first 20 minutes of the run to the meeting point. 

Five or 6 of us had an enjoyable 70 mile thrash with very little traffic:

Arrived at the Chalet cafe to see a few other kits:

...and some other interesting vehicles:

I'd also arranged to meet some members of the UK kitcar club that I volunteer with:

I did get a little confused about where to sit as the SKCC people were on 1 table and the UK kitcar people on another. With hindsight, I should have introduced them all but that didn't occur to me at the time -not sure why.

Anyway, a good chat, kicked some tyres, sorted out some major World problems- good fun.

Screening process

 Time to fix my windscreen; did I mention that the screw holding the main frame to the bottom cross bar has failed on the passenger side (I'd already fixed the same issue on the drivers side a while back)?

Not a huge problem and fix; a strip of ally in a boomerang shape, slit in the rubber, bend the strip round, drill a few holes and whack in some self-tappers - job done:

Pretty damn horrible, even worse than the drivers side but does the job.

To make up for the ugliness, I fitted the excellent 3D-printed grill badge Tony made for me:

Now that is more like it!

Also, the new cap on my header tank seems to have fixed the coolant overflow problem, which is a result. I really need to get my temp gauge working....

Bromley Pageant

 After an absence of 3 years, the Pageant was back and the sun was shining, so off I went to join a stand with the SKCC club:

It's a great show this; cars from every era and all types:

Some sort of Jeep-based thing...

Alpine Sunbeam. If I ever sell Zedster, this may be my next purchase.

Renault Gordini - strangely butch but you should have seen the panel gaps!

Visible from space...

I never knew they did Capri convertibles...good looking...

This 1984 Escort was totally original and by that I mean a total wreck. But I remember a chaotic drive from Manchester to London with my family in a hired one of these. At the time, it was luxury to us!

My 2nd ever car - Golf GTi Mk2, the first car I had driven that could actually accelerate uphill!

When is an Alra Romeo Montreal not worth photographing?

Lots of stalls including a very nice doughnut place. And I met someone famous:

Not quite sure what he was doing there (they were filming) but a nice guy. I didn't have the heart to tell him I don't actually like his presenting style but hey, a brush with fame...and I was happy as well (boom, boom).

While there, Matt suggested my overflowing coolant may be a failed pressure cap on the header tank, so I've ordered a new cap (I think it is the right one) and for £7, worth a shot.

All in, a great day out...

The Middle Earth Tour

 The Middle Earth Tour with the SKCC was a week-long driving tour of the Scottish Borders. The idea was to stay in one hotel for the week in Haltwhistle, Northumberland, officially the Centre of Britain (and that was the slightly tacky name of the hotel).

A brief summary of the trip is below, with a video at the end.

Day 1 - Getting there, 420 miles

The trip started with a 7am meet at Lakeside shopping centre:

Six of the eight cars met here; me, 2 Elises (Roger and Graham), a Caterham (Brian), Stylus (Tony) and an MK (Matt). The first couple of hours was a blast up A-roads to breakfast near Peterborough where we met up with the final 2 of the group; a Tiger (Linda) and Caterham (Duncan with wife, Alison):

The next 150 miles or so were actually pretty good, considering they were major A-roads and 50 miles of the M1, not scintillating blatting territory but not the slog I was expecting. Much was helped by some great scenery as we skirted the Peak District and this improved even more as we meandered up through the Yorkshire Dales, stopping for the obligatory ice-cream:

The local who worked in the shop was a major F1 fan and homed in on Linda's Gulf-liveried Tiger - they were like sisters separated at birth.

The final 50 miles to the hotel were a taste of the days to come as discovered some great driving roads. What also emerged was the continual flakyness of everyone's TomTom sat navs; the new ones are too clever for their own good and if you put a waypoint on a closed road, the stupid things just refuse to allow you to load the route - they don't even suggest an alternative. Me, with my £35 CoPilot app on my phone worked flawlessly all week. Remind me never to consider an 'upgrade'...

Another theme for the week was my cooling system - since the new rad last week, I must have introduced an air lock somewhere. I wasn't over-heating but my header tank was over-flowing as the airlock forced coolant out as it got hot. This just meant that I had to top up the coolant every morning before we left. At the suggestions of others, I also tried to clear the airlock by removing the top rad hose, where we assumed the airlock was. However, all I got was lots of coolant all over the floor, which suggested the air wasn't there.

Dinner in the hotel was very good - pretty hefty portions and our own private dining room (we pretty much were the only people staying there).

Day 2 - Road to Lindisfarne, 266 miles

After a great breakfast (lots of choice), we set off from the hotel car park we had pretty much taken over. And what a great first day -  the route and roads (map above) were so good, I forgot to take any pictures. We went this direction because the weather radar showed less rain and so it proved - a few drizzles here and there but never horrendous.

After a semi-disastrous detour through a farm (lots of gates, sheep shit and puncture-threatening stones, all taken at 3mph), we stopped off in Duns, famous for local lad, Jim Clarke; motor racing legend who tragically died in a crash before I was born. The little museum is very impressive for a man who had a relatively short career (but won everything imaginable) and the local village cafe did a great range of cakes and pancakes.

We did get some slightly stronger rain here and it was at it's worst as we crossed the Lindisfarne causeway a little further on; very strong winds and a brief heavy rain squall meant we didn't stop at the tourist trap of a car park but simply turned round and came straight back. Some of the roads were quite bumpy and this was another theme of the trip - I'm not sure if this was because my new tyres (Avon ZVS) are stiffer than my old ones but I definitely felt more jostled all week. However, they do have much better grip than my Toyo's, especially in the wet.

A little further down the road, Bamburgh Castle was an impressive location - really should have stopped for at least one picture - doh!

Dinner in the hotel was again very good and after a quick beer, we all turned in - that much driving is pretty knackering.

Day 3 - Overhill and Underhill, 242 miles

Today was a route through the Lake District and a bit of the Yorkshire Dales. The weather wasn't as kind to us and we spent quite some time with hoods up. 

At this point, my wipers started acting up - they wouldn't work at all initially. Then, they started working but only on fast speed, which wasn't great (I wasn't sure how long they would keep working at that rate).

After going through Keswick, we managed to fill up the layby over-looking Buttermere:

More lovely roads, great views and satnav shenanigans meaning we were normally driving in smaller groups and always with different people. It is always amazing how, on these trips, we can all have the same route and (apart from me) the same satnav software but they often choose different directions. It is actually quite fun as you can never be sure who will be in front or behind you or for how long.

We drove through the pretty towns of Ambleside and Windermere and got a lot of attention as we managed to get most of us together in one line. This part of the country is my favourite in terms of scenery; quintessentially English with green hills, stone walls and the traffic wasn't even too bad.

A brief trip into the Dales (Tebay, Hawes, Kaber) and the first of 2 visits to the Brough Castle ice-cream parlour:

...before we entered the wide open moors of the North Pennines. The winds were so strong here, my passenger door kept flying open - I must fit the same armrest setup I have on my drivers door. But the roads were lovely; sweeping bends, no traffic (except sheep) - Seven Heaven.

Back at the hotel, we decided on the local pub across the road from the hotel (well, we didn't want to WALK anywhere too far) for our meal and it was very good.

Day 4 - On the doorstep, 279 miles

This route was named because we were originally going to meet up with a Scottish guy who lived locally but he had to cancel at the last minute. Wonderful blatting roads over through Lockerbie, past Dumfries and up to Moffat via a beautiful lake:

The day continued like that - driving heaven. At one point, I was leading the group and there was a 20 year old Nissan Almeria in front of us; a local who obviously wasn't going to let a load of Sassenach's get past so he proceeded to push his aging car at frankly ludicrous speeds around some lovely windy roads. I actually backed off from him because I was worried we were egging him on - he was almost on 2 wheels at times and any hill forced him down to bus speeds. Crazy loon...

At some point during the day, I had a genius idea to check the plug into my wiper motor and, sure enough, it was hanging half-out. I think all the bumpy routes had vibrated it loose but pushed back in and my wipers were back to normal, just in time...

There was more rain over the day with hoods up half the time but we got back to the hotel and a meal in the pub across the road again.

Day 5 - Not at home, 261 miles

The name for this route was courtesy of some dodgy MP (are there any other types?) who broke lockdown rules in the area. 

First up was our second visit to the Brough Castle ice-cream parlour - strangely, still had nice ice-creams and coffee; who'd have thought? The route carried us through Barnard Castle and Richmond, both very pretty towns and I would have liked to spend a bit more time in these places but I can leave that for when I'm too old to drive.

We also managed a great route up through the North York Moors where my poor passenger door took another pounding from the gale-force winds - if anyone needs a location for a new wind farm, let me know. I lost the others at one point while I stopped to get some pics:

At some later point, I met another enthusiastic local, this time in a Dacia of all things. This guy was good, however, and while I kept up with him ok, I couldn't have gone much quicker. Childish, I know but as Henry Ford once said, "motor racing was invented 5 minutes after the second car was built".

Back to the hotel and a second meal in the pub across the road - very nice burger.

Day 6 - Duncan's Route, 230 miles

This route was originally planned as a much longer route taking in the western town of Stranraer but it was decided to shorten it to this run - and what a corker it was. Using roads Duncan had been on before and wanted to share with his wife, it was probably the best day of the tour, partly because Duncan, like me, is not a fan of the small, single lane tracks and so avoids them.

It started off with a great road up to Hawick and more again across to the quaint town of Moffat, with a brief stop on the way while we were all actually together for a change:

Also during this time (I think - difficult to keep track), I was briefly leading the group and I saw a couple of bikers coming up behind, filtering past the others as we trundled along behind some slower traffic. Just as they got to me, I turned off onto a promising looking B-road and hit the after-burners - the bikes kept up with me for the first straight but after 2 corners, they were dots in my mirror. Four wide-ish tyres round bends makes a BIG difference. I heard later that they refused to let the others past initially but finally caved when they realised it was them, for a change, who were the mobile roadblocks. Must have been a shock to their systems...

I stopped at Moffat briefly to get some touristy stuff for the family while the others carried on and then had a very enjoyable thrash trying to catch up, which I eventually did as everyone turned up at yet another pretty lake, St Marys Loch which had an equally useful cafe for a coffee (which I proceeded to spill down their freshly painted counter - whoops):

On this thrash (I think), I met my final crazy loon of a local who wanted to show me how it was done. This time, he was in a BMW i3, the electric car with tidgy little skinny tyres. But, wow, he was moving - much like the Dacia the day before, I could keep up but couldn't have gone much quicker, although the roads were not as twisty, so he may have suffered more if they were. As it was, he turned off, probably to find a charging point as he must have blown his range with our 5 mile blat.

After our coffee at the lake, it was back via Hawick to the Kielder Forest, a beautiful, smooth, traffic-free, high-speed cruise through trees and valleys - delicious! We stopped for another coffee and cake at the Kielder Reservoir cafe, along with a bunch of Mini's:

Back to the hotel for my final meal (steak, hmmmm) and an interesting chat with the hotel chef who had just come back from holiday - a total nutcase of a woman who could hardly stop talking and told us her entire life story, including all the multiple health issues she suffered. And the 14 (fourteen!) Alsations she had on her farm, all trained to kill - nice. And the fact she hated kids but had 4 of them (and she was only 30 years old or so and the eldest was 16) - double nice. We were just glad she hadn't been there all week or we would have been at the pub more often.

Day 7 - Back to the Shires, 400 miles

I had originally planned to stay an extra day with the others but my wife had put her foot down about how long I was away, so for the sake of marital harmony, I left a day early.

I said my farewells as the others were preparing for the day's run and set off for the slog home.

My initial route was lovely - back through the Dales on some great roads to remind me of what I would be missing in congested SE England. 

But it went pretty horribly after that - I thought I'd skirted around Bradford but no, got stuck in horrible traffic and took me an hour to do 10 miles! Then the M1 motorway decided to become 60mph average speed for 20 miles followed by congestion for another 10 miles and finally, the M25 came out to play and was a car park all the way round - I had to leave early as I almost ran out of petrol! Cut across country for the last bit.

Suffice to say, 12 hours after setting off, I finally got home!

Epilogue

Distance travelled: 2,098 miles
Hotel costs: £520 (6 nights and 4 evening meals)
Petrol costs: I'm too scared to look - it will have been more than the hotel!!

While I was building my car, this type of trip was everything I looked forward to; great roads, good company, beautiful scenery, sun shining (ok, 3 out of 4 is still very good). It wasn't particularly cheap, I used up precious holiday time and we definitely didn't save any polar bears. But it was....EPIC.

Many thanks to Tony for organising all the routes and the hotel and for everyone else for being such great company.

And huge thanks to Zedster - for being massive fun and not breaking down (yup, he got yet another wash this year).

Video of the trip ( I tried to trim it down but it's tricky, so apologies for the feature-length):