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Father Ted

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Having had the MG Midget MOT'd a couple of weeks ago I renewed the insurance today. Didn't go with Lancaster as Adrian Flux were £35 cheaper, with better cover.

 

I'm not a fan of the 40 year exemption and will choose to have mine tested as normal.

 

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Nice colour! Krome bumperz :-)

What's the story with those period alloys? Used to see a few Midgets on these. BL option-list? Minilites, Dunlops?

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Grabbed 5 mins to try and fix the rusty backbox back on the companys sharan 7 seater.. welded pipe in to sleeve over the rusty bit, just waiting on a new clamp

 

On different news decided to take missus car home as she stuck in hospital with stepson with broken leg, funny looks from dudes expecting a female driver

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after bigging up the black mini on sunday evening, our journey home on monday turned into a complete 'mare.... it seems i really iinxed it! 

 

so, we left Gravesend about 8.30, car both running really well.

 

up to cambridge services about 10am, and on to just pass stamford for 12.30-ish, so far, so good....

 

then on towards homeworld. get to the Newark junction, the balck mini started to miss-fire. decinding that it was wiser to get off the motorway we dived down the sliproad where the car finally died. now, as we knew the petrol gauge told lies, we thought that i musta ran it out of fuel. indeed dropping the contents of the petrol can into the car, all seemed well, so, we made our way into the town centre and filled them both back up.

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£6 later, it seems that the tank wasnt as empty as we thought.

 

ah well, not to worry. so back to getting home, only maybe a mile outta town this happened.

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yes, FTP.... the black car had lost power and if it did start, it wouldn't rev, like no power whatso ever. shit.

still not the end of the world, as there is recovery included in the insurance., so, at 14.30, we called the breakdown, we couldn't fix it.

 

an hour or so later, a chap arrived. he too found that while the car had a healthy spark, there wasn't any fuel. examining the petrol pump revealed this

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that pump is shagged. the end of the operating lever is missing as is the return spring. and there is no sign of them either. not under the car, anywhere obvious. we assume that they are missing, presumed somewhere in the block or gearbox (we think, fuck!!!!!)

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thats it, our jouney is done, and the car needs recovering., so once it has been booked (at around 4.30-ish) we wait.

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and wait

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and wait some more

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and wait some more again

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eventually (at around midnight) a very pleasant young man arrived and we get loaded up. but he can only take u up to Blyth Services on the A1M (about 30 miles away) cos his truck is registered as a wrecker and has no tacho fitted, so he cannot travel more than 60 miles from base, plus his firm is only contracted to cover Lincolnshire

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arriving there at 1am. now thing get really peachy, see its the RAC, and they cannot get us on for forward recovery until 6am at the ealiest. 

 

so, a night at the Travelodge it is. at least well have a bed to sleep in, and i can get a shower. i stink. my hair is a state and the sticky sweaty ness of the day is clinging to me like a second skin. and the RAC are paying. what a carry on....

 

a new day, and a new trial to get home. a shit. shower and some sleep, lets see what today brings. check this out, the new jeep thing, now that is one of BL's finest greens i believe

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1130 and this very nice chap arrives, again we load up, and head off on the 78 miles back to Pickering

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arriving about 1.30 to unload

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yes... back where we started nearly 6 months ago.  to the very same spot (almost)

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so, what are we going to do, do we have a plan? yes, we do. we are going to lift the engine out of the min, and split it from the gearbox. all in the hope of finding the missing pieces of metal. alrernativly, if we don't find anything, at least them we know (hope?) that we are not going to have these bits turn up in either of the engine or box when they are actually running. it is such a sweet running motor, i don't want to ruin it or the gearbox. and its the only way to be sure. kerry has borrowed a long magnetic grabber thing so she is going to use that firs to see if there are any errent pieces actually in the engine block. but, there is hope. the car rolls smoothly so there isn't anything in the gearset/differential that shouldn't be there, and the engine turns freely by hand, so it seems there isn't anything stuck in that also. 

 

monday afternoon, i was gutted/devistated/heartbroken and pretty much utterly beside myself over it. like, have i just destroyed a really sweet running (and oil tight) A-series engine and/or is gearbox? well it seems maybe not, but we will only know once we have had a look inside.

 

so, a proper shitty end to what had been a top weekend, and i've ended up needing to take another days holiday as it has taken us nearly 24 hours to travel from Newark to Pickering. i could bloody well have walked, or pushed the damn car back, quicker. and the RAC are a useless shower of wankers. well the indian call centre staff are. for the most part the english staff did at least try and sort us out. but when i worked for Barclay's, this was true too. the indians will tell out right fuckin' lies, and leave the english contact centre to pick up the pieces...... and if i had known it was the RAC when i took out the recovery thing on the cars insurance, then i wouldn't have bothered!

 

plus i saw this beauty in the yard at Golden Square this afternoon. isnt she lovely?

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.....the RAC are a useless shower of wankers. well the indian call centre staff are. for the most part the english staff did at least try and sort us out. but when i worked for Barclay's, this was true too. the indians will tell out right fuckin' lies, and leave the english contact centre to pick up the pieces......

Having worked for an Indian-run firm in Harrow which was an early adopter of outsourcing to, er, India, I regret to say that at least some of this rings true. It's a pity, given the Indian reputation for being dynamic in business and successful as a result of their efforts.

 

Then you look at things like the electric G-swiz and realise they can be just as shite as us.

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That's shit is that ! I can't recall Mini engine/boxes well enough to recall if they have a deep sump which would be good news as those bits of errant pump could sit in that for decades without bother. I think I would be tempted to get a new pump and carry on and smile while whistling bravely!

 

I just had an interesting conversation with Paul of Specialist cars (who was good enough to get ALL my stuff out of the heap of shit and deliver it back to me) about Bentleys... I guess now he no longer has a vested interest in keeping me in the fold, the truth can be told. Bentleys are crap! Apparently they see countless cars like mine that are always going wrong in expensive and unusual ways, it seems to be the later cars that are the most bother! Arnarge (the one after mine) is even worse and is one to avoid... like the plague as not only are they unreliable, parts availability is terrible as some are BMW and some Bentley and some VW! They have one in at the moment that is totally off the road because the oil pressure sendor/sensor has failed. Part is not available and there is no date when it will be available! This is on the cars that ran to 2012 with the old RR V8 and nothing else will fit.

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we didn't tow it cos well, we didn't have a tow rope!

 

the car is a manual car, but even when its been pushed around free wheeling with the engine switched off then the differential and the gears inside the gearbox are all spinning away to themselves as the wheels turn. all the clutch does is split the engine from the transmission, it doesn't stop the gearts inside from turning.

 

as we have lost a pice of metal about 1/4 inch square, we were worried (and still are a bit) that it had fallen through the engine and got caught up in the gears and that underneath, and wreck the gearbox.

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Tonight was the first East Coast Retros meet that I organise with my mate at its new venue near Ipswich, we managed to get 142 cars on show in the end and no complaints or problems at all! I was too busy either parking cars or chatting to get many photos though so here's a few pinched from Facebook.

 

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This was my car of the night, very rare Toyota Cressida Estate!

 

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Your probably bored of this by now!

 

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Rover 105 custom V8 beast.

 

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we didn't tow it cos well, we didn't have a tow rope!

 

the car is a manual car, but even when its been pushed around free wheeling with the engine switched off then the differential and the gears inside the gearbox are all spinning away to themselves as the wheels turn. all the clutch does is split the engine from the transmission, it doesn't stop the gearts inside from turning.

 

as we have lost a pice of metal about 1/4 inch square, we were worried (and still are a bit) that it had fallen through the engine and got caught up in the gears and that underneath, and wreck the gearbox.

99% sure these have a magnetic sump plug. When I used to change the oil on my metro the sump plug would look like a shiny porcupine with all the shards stuck to it.  Whip it out and have a look. With a bit of luck the missing bit will be there. It's a massive ball ache separating the gearbox from the engine on these. Fingers crossed!

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Good to see your ECR meets going from strength to strength Trigger. I hope you actually have time to enjoy it in between all the organising and whatnot.

Thank you! I still struggle to see much of it and when I do get time people in the cars that I want to see have already left but it was more relaxing last night in the new venue for me than it used to be at the old one, no general public trying to park with us and getting all arseholey with me is a big bonus!
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Well done fella. If she said that politely she might not have been referring to your weight. Ahem.

 

 

Thats it , make me even more nervous . The problem with being in a long term relationship is that you get stuck in a rut and getting back in the game is terrifying for me. No, we had a chat about rugby and how it suits all builds etc and she was deffo more interested in the numbers 1-3  :-D

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Thats it , make me even more nervous . The problem with being in a long term relationship is that you get stuck in a rut and getting back in the game is terrifying for me. No, we had a chat about rugby and how it suits all builds etc and she was deffo more interested in the numbers 1-3 :-D

Ask her what number shirt she would be on a football team.

 

If its number 1, shes a keeper.

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