Stag Weekend

Well, not what you're all thinking - this was a weekend of using the Stag. I had an opportunity to join the beginning of the European Stag weekend organised by the SOC on Friday. This was a train ride from Tenterden to Bodiam on a specially chartered Steam train, appropriately titled the Stag Express.

It was a great start to the weekend, a nice leisurely drive down to Tenterden to join approx 50 other Stags in the Station car park, a leisurely ride through the Kent and Sussex countryside on the train followed by local beer (Shepherd Neame Spitfire of course) and beer battered Haddock and Chips at the Castle Inn on the sun terrace, leaving a short time to stroll around Bodiam castle before the ride back to Tenterden.

Returning to the car park to see 50+ Stags parked there was very impressive.

Saturday I was working so used the Spitfire on this occasion, parking it in the registry office car park whilst undertaking my duties there. When I came out to go home, I was confronted with the Bride and Bridesmaids of the wedding adorning themselves over the car!

Sunday was a Stag day again, met up with a couple of local TSSC members in their Vitesse convertible and Bond Equipe and convoyed along the M20/26/25 to Leatherhead for the SEM there making sure we blatted past any MG's we came across!

The SEM was a good turnout, unlike last year although there was little in the way of autojumble. Met up with TSSC Canterbury area and had a good day with them

Whe the time came to go home, Chris (Vitesse) and I decided to go home across country, as I used to work in Dorking some years ago I led the way down some very nice leafy lanes skirting Dorking, Gatwick, Lingfield and Tunbridge Wells arriving home about 1.5 hours later - great run. Only problem on this route is that all the nice leafy lanes I used to use are now 40 limited!

Stag went very well on both days, just getting a bit of misfire on kickdown at approx 4000 revs, but otherwise it is running very well indeed.

Bits 'n Bobs

Sundays run out to Manston was great - 38 Cars in total from TSSC, CT, SOC and the TR Register, covering all models of the marque (except Toledo/Dolomites). Just goes to show that we can all 'club' together when needed!

After the journey home, as the brakes on the Spit were feeling a bit spongy, I decided to jack up the rear and give them a bleed before the MOT Monday only to be confronted by a puddle of oil from the nearside rear shock. Monday morning came, cancelled MOT appointment as I knew I couldn't fix it that day, rushed out in the afternoon and bought a couple of cheap bog standard County items to get it through the test. Fitted them Wednesday, passed the Test first time today - Yay!!
And yes, I did bleed the brakes. I'll replace them with better items when funds allow, or, more likely, when one of them breaks!

I also did a small mod to the Stag this week, I now have illuminated heater controls!. A thread on the SOC forum was discussing how to acheive this, so whilst in Halfords I bought a couple of small LED lights for a Tenner. A simple fit, currently powered by a switchable plug in the cigar lighter, but will be wired into the dash lights soon. I would have preferred a red glow, but the blue light given off does complement my Blaupunkt Stereo!

West Kent TSSC Drive it Day Pictures

The pictures say the words- Great Day - 37 Cars at Manston

TSSC West Kent Area Drive it Day Update

An update on the applications received so far:

15 Confirmed and paid up - models covered are Spitfire Mk 3/4/1500, Herald 1200, 13/60, TR4,5,6, Bond Equipe, Hurricane, Stag.

Support from other Clubs is very encouraging as well with members from SOC, CT and the TR Register joining us, and the possibility of 5 or 6 additional Stags arriving in Convoy from South London. Members from Canterbury Area will also be joining us at the musuem, so it looks like we will have a good turnout - just hope the rain stays off!

MOT on the Spitfire runs out on the 21st so it's booked in for that day as its the day after the run!

A Triumph Break!

Nothing to do with Triumphs, although Land Rover are mentioned! - we've just come back from a Safari in Kenya, our fourth time there so we're a bit addicted to it. This time we took our daughter and her husband with us and for the first time had a 'real' safari vehicle a Land Rover Defender instead of the usual Nissan/Toyota safari vans. This was a great improvement, particularly because there had been some significant rainfall this year and the Defender went where no mere Nissan.Toyota dare, we even had to pull two Toyota Landcruisers out of the mud! (I say we loosely, it was actually our driver Gimo who performed the feat, we merely provided additional weight in the van!)

In short we had a great time, travelled through the Great Rift Valley, visited Samburu, Sweetwaters and the Masai Mara and saw lots of game. It was actually very quiet as so many tourists had either been put off by the recent troubles there or had had their holidays cancelled which is a great shame for the local tourist industry. We saw no sign of any troubles there and everyone we met were as friendly as they ever were. At one hotel we stayed in on Mount Kenya, we were the only 5 people for dinner and breakfast, clearly outnumbered by the staff there.

Anyway, here are a few pics we took there, the odd looking land rover was a 70's British Army one used to transport us to our balloon ride over the Mara, finished off by breakfast in the bush - great time.

Wind Deflector Part Two

Spent some time last week finishing off the wind deflector on the Stag. Took it up to South East Trimmers near Faversham where the owner matched up a piece of vinyl to the Stags Beige Trim, which is now commonly referred to as Biscuit apparantly.

Only cost £15 - what a bargain! - the next stop was B&Q for some aluminium strip and Evo Stick (new fangled solvent free white stuff!) This was followed by a quick trip to our local 'Grace Brothers' department store for some elastic, eyelets and velcro.

Whilst I was at the trimmers, he had a tonneau already made up so he drew the profile on the back of the material for me - this made it much easier.

Once home, the material was cut, edges glued and one of the ally strips embedded in the front edge, this was then bolted to the other ally strip sandwiching the plastic window. Eyelets were added and elastic attached. I needed to put two small bolts through the rear hood tonneau seal channel to take two of the elastic ties.

First Test Run had to wait until Sunday morning due to the weather - very impressed with the result.

And now for the bad news - I have had to withdraw our entry from CT's HCR due to a clash of dates - my nephews wedding is on the same day and I'd already promised to video it for him - Damn, was looking forward to the HCR!

Adding a wind deflector

I've been meaning to do something to make journeys on cold days a little more comfortable in the Stag and add a wind deflector to it. I did this with the Spitfire some time ago and the difference on that was huge.

Anyway, at the recent Ally Pally show I spied a Stag on the Club Triumph Eastern stand that had such an arrangement, what appealed to me was its simplicity - velcro fixings at the top and gate latch strikers at the bottom.

So late last week, I fashioned a cardboard template and went to a local glazer that also provides acrylic windows for saloon racing cars - he did all the required cutting and shaping leaving me to add the gate latches. Finished it this morning and tested it - great improvement - just awaiting some rubber door seal to edge it with and stop the acylic squeaking. The next step will be to make up a tonneau to go over the rear seats which will be attached to the bottom of the acrylic screen using aluminium strip.

Some samples of material arrived from Woolies today, but I'm not that happy with the match to the existing Beige (code74) trim, so have arranged to go to South East Trimming tommorrow who have some the right colour (I hope)

Total cost so far £45 - a lot cheaper than Bosscreen!