Quelle Horreur!!

Why the French you may well ask, I had a moment today that reminded me of my first attempt at the 10 Countries Run in 2007 when the Spitfire knackered a rear wheel bearing resulting in our retirement in France.

It was such a nice day today that I decided to use the Spitfire, on my way home at lunchtime I hit a pothole with the rear nearside wheel which resulted in a very horrible screeching noise from the rear, remembering a similar noise near Dole in France in the middle of the night I limped the final two miles home very carefully.

Jacking the car up when I got home and turning the wheel, there didn't seem any play in the bearing so off the wheel came followed by the brake drum and what dropped out, the top brake shoe return spring! I remember I had replaced the brake shoes last November just before the MOT, clearly I hadn't positioned this spring properly, a quick 5 minutes work resolved the problem and I am pleased to say all is well again.

Well it is Friday 13th!!!!

Stag has a new Ticket!

After much gnawing of fingernails today I finally received the call from my local garage that the Stag has passed its MOT with a few minor advisories:

- cracked exhaust mounting on nearside below gearbox

- sheared bolt on autobox oil cooler

- suspected wear in offside rear wheel bearing as tyre shows wear on inside edge.

Can't dispute the first two, but I suspect the last one as that tyre was swapped from the front offside about a month ago and it was showing wear on the inside then! Still I will have a good look at it before the RBRR just in case he was right!

As it was a nice day today, I gave the Spitfire a good run and leaned off the mixture on the front carb as it was running rich, this has certainly improved the idle but I still have a problem with the jet going slightly into 'choke mode' on its own. I will have to look at the linkage a bit more closely as these were new a couple of years go when I replaced the old waxstats for conventional jets.

New Year, New Challenges!

This year its the turn of the Stag to attempt the Round Britain Reliability Run, should be fun I hope, it was in the Spitfire last time. Speaking of which, I dusted the cobwebs off the Spitfire today as it had been sorned since its MOT last November, taxed it and gave it a good run up to Morrisons for some shopping. Its amazing what you can get in the boot!

I have just booked the Stag in for its MOT in our local garage as its renewal has crept up on me and I've only got 7 days left on the ticket. Fingers crossed all is well, I've done all the usual checks but this is the first time I haven't sent it up to Faversham Classics for a service beforehand as I plan for it to have a service closer to the RBRR, it's only done 3500 miles since the last one and 2000 of those were on the 10CR