Three Speed

A few from the Old Crocks run today. I had to head home at 10am and I will have missed any later arriving interesting spectators’ chariots. Very poor turnout, very wet.

At the London - Brighton old crocks run today.

Be careful what you wish for. My Scimitar had a diesel donk in it. Not nice. Wasn’t an XUD though.

Clockwork - Schiphol airport

I believe think in has changed since those experimental cars. The thought then was to hit the pedestrian low and scoop them up onto the bonnet so that they don’t bounce off and you then run over them. That’s why there’s a bar around the front that is supposed flip up when you’ve hit your victim. Current thinking is quite different and vehicle fronts are supposed to be as flat and bluff as possible to spread the load and push the victim away. Maybe this assumes brakes are better and the car will have stopped before running over the body. I seem to remember a Marina-based SRV car with a similar front to the one shown.

Kamikaze doors surely. Mitsubishi Minica is what it is.

The driver was Dr William Sellers. The car is still around but I’m not sure who owns it now.

Silverstone 1974

Why this was in the fair city of Cambridge today, I cannot say. Coincidentally I will be in Colorado next week. Good to know there will be one less there.

No photos unfortunately… FU2 on a newish black Roller of some description. And J444AAG of course it was on a Mitsubishi Outlander.

I like the idea of a patient thickness gauge. I’m picturing a mechanical type of IQ test. If you’re too thick you can take your chest pains somewhere else.

I had a '76 C90 as student transport. Could get the speedo off the scale (lying prone!). Great bike. But boring - never went wrong. So I sold it and got a '66 Bantam. Much more "interesting".

Bright colours disguise ugliness.This Pontiac Aztec was lurking In Toronto.

This is the Anglia at the NEC in 2018. It’s had at least 3 different noses. I think it’s well done, unique but not historic. I’m sure it cost a lot to do and the charity donation is a nice gesture but I can’t imagine anyone paying anything like that amount for it.

Some colourful stuff spotted in Ottawa recently.I have never seen a Tesla that colour before.

I had a 72 P6B in the ‘80s. It would drip oil onto the exhaust Y piece and fill the car with smoke when idling. I was advised that the cause was the real crank seal failing due to a stuck oil pressure relief valve. Apparently common on that era or the V8. This could lead to over pressurising the hydraulic tappets which would then get noisily and wreck the cam. I don’t know if that could lead to. More oil around the valve guides and oils dribbling into the cylinder that way? I sold the car on - which I regret.

There are several routes from Cranleigh to Broadbridge Heath but Chichester would quite a long way round - nice drive though.

Welcome, For poverty level Sussex pricing, you could try Autoweld in Broadbridge Heath. Jim welded up my BX - functional, rather than concourse. Would use again. Can’t say that about the BX though.

Are you allowed to get out first?

Saw this in Devon earlier today. Now back home. Glad to find no Capris on the driveway.

Saw this R4 from my seat in Starbucks on the A303. Too lazy to get up and take a closer look. Do those wheels count as 3 spoke?

Nuttin’ to do with me! I hope.

Thanks for that @lesapandre. One of those could have been my Dad's Minx - OUC508F.

I wasn’t aware that San Francisco had so many Fiats in the 60s. And no American iron in the shot. I suspect that photo may have been taken in that Europe?

Quite hot today. A good way to get out of the sun is to hide under a DS. That's where I spent most of the afternoon. A couple of years ago someone said my DS was riding a bit high at the front and I thought now would be a good time to do something about it. I've had this car for about 6 years but have never really go stuck into it. After a bit of reading and googling I still didn't know exactly what to do so I started anyway. To do it properly you need a pit or a hoist. I have a sloping driveway and ramps. Not ideal. You are supposed to measure the height of the bottom of the antiroll bar from the floor. It's hard to know where the floor is when the wheels are on the ramps so I put some wood blocks on top of the ramps to creat a defined surface. That's a bit scary so I did not do as the book said and leave the handbrake off and the wheels unchocked. I could measure the height of the top of wood blocks and subtract that from the height of the antiroll bar. Using the figure in one (unofficial) manual it seemed that the ride height was to spec. There are 2 official manuals: 824 and 518. The correct figures are buried in 518 and it seemed the car was about 20mm high. The manual says to loosen and rotate the clamp which fixes the rod to the height corrector to the antiroll bar. I did this and managed to get the car stuck in the maximum height position - the one you use for jacking the car up. I wondered if I had dislodged a connection. Obviously it is impossible to see where the bar goes and how it connects to the height corrector. There is a cover panel which is held on with 5 screws so I tried to remove it. 4 screws are easy to get to but to remove the 5th you have to remove the front wing. I had not done this before. Just 2 bolts hold it on - but actually there are 4 bolts and then you have to disconnect the headlamp swivel cable, bonnet release cable and a bunch of wires at the front and another bunch at the back. Then you can remove the wing. I was a bit rough with the headlamp swivel cable and need to get another bulb. Now I could then get the cover panel off and see I had not dislodged anything. I did find several grease nipples I didn't know about so I greased them. I also could see that my antiroll bar bushes are, as I had suspected, knackered. That explains the clonking over bumps. I set the height to the lowest - depressurised - setting and jacked up each side of the car to the height I wanted to be the normal height. Then started the engine and set the height control lever to the normal position. I tightened the clamp and all is well. Cover panel back on, replace wing and all is well. Except I have no headlamps on the nearside - as well as damaging one bulb I must have dislodged the connection to the other one. I hope I have. Anyway, I think the ride is softer now and the car looks better. I need to check the rear height. And stop an exhaust joint blowing. And do a million other things. After I've got the nearside headlights working I'll take the offside wing off and grease the nipples on that side. The antiroll bar bushes look fun to replace. At some point I need to replace a few body panels. And so on... And clean up the driveway. Onwards and upwards.