Cats clapped out Cars. Wafting North

[catsinthewelder]

Got a bit of tinkering time tonight as the others were watching the football.  Tail light wasn't working but had electricity at the connection under the seat and a good bulb.  Hunted round the van and found the boss had packed my (240v) soldering set.  Theoretically useless but it had a bit of spare wire tucked inside.

Took the light unit off and found 3 wires but couldn't get to the contacts.  I gave the dead wire a tug and it pulled out from the mudguard though.  Cut right through.  I considered connecting the original wires together but a crimped connection in the mudguard seemed like a bad idea so I used the spare wire.  Didn't cut the originals down so I can solder it up when I get home.

Probably be in John O Groat's by 8 tomorrow!

Monday's looking wet so we're hoping to get back Sunday night.

[catsinthewelder]

Happy Easter chaps 

 

[Tickman]

Well done.

Glad it's all downhill on the way home...

[Marina door handles]

Good stuff, hope the weather is kinder on the run home! 

[catsinthewelder]

Almost at the border, camped near Dalwhinnie last night and ran out of charge on all the electronics.  Bikes still running well, not far to tonight's stop in Carlisle then home Sunday night.

[catsinthewelder]

So as a catch-up, we made it to John O Groat's yesterday morning about 8am.  The bonus here was getting the bikes up to the sign as there was hardly anyone around, a few random passers by though so we got a full team pic

Sadly no sticker as the shop hadn't opened but we checked beforehand and they are available on eBay!

A small amount of getting lost on the way was rewarded by seeing a Citroen Visa parked by a house, looked in use

 The coast road is a lot nicer in the dry conditions on the way back.  I finally caught up with slow traffic (and the other bikes) just before our breakfast stop where the bike pictures above were taken.  I needed to adjust the chain hence pictured on the deck.

Fully recommend the River Bothy if you're ever up that way.

 

[brownnova]

Well done! Just caught up on the entire story. Looks amazing! 

[catsinthewelder]

After breakfast we headed down the coast and stopped for fuel.  I had a bit of a panic when I couldn't find my phone or wallet.  After borrowing fuel money and a phone to ring the café I found them in the pocket of my hoodie.

Further down the coast I split off from the others and met up with my son in Beauly.  Stayed a bit longer than planned so needed to get to the next stop a bit quicker than was ideal.  They'd sent me a Google maps pin in Dalwhinnie.  The A9 gets old very quickly at 45mph so when a "adds 8 minutes" Google maps diversion pinged up I took it.  It would have been ace it I'd spotted the turn off onto the little lane or if the fact I'd missed it didn't cause Google to assume I didn't want to go that way.  

 

From that it sent me a mile south out the village, 3 miles north up the A9 then a mile and a half south down.  I stopped halfway up and looked at the van 1/4 of a mile away and scratched my head but got there in the end.

[catsinthewelder]

So after not much sleep what with it being rather cold we go up about 6 and realised that breakfast was about 65 miles south.  My electronics were all flat so I just had to try and remember where I was heading and rely on the van behind me .

We made it, ate and selected a MacDonalds near Falkirk for the next stop.  By this point I was really flying blind as my phone was charging in the van.  Obviously I lost the bike ahead and the van behind at Gleneagles so picked a road and crossed my fingers.  Fortunately after 10 miles of worrying a bit I found the other bikes in a layby.  The van had taken a different route!

After that they slowed down a bit so I could keep up.  Yet another Mccoffee and we headed south.  

A few more stops and we made it to Carlisle

[catsinthewelder]

Carlisle's a beautiful little city but we didn't get to Lok round so you'll have to put up with a shite Nissan at the Aldi and our little bikes at the hotel.

Another early start saw us flying south until the inevitable rural delay

 

Shap was conquered and I think I stayed above 40mph southbound (still miles behind the others till I found them at the top).

Down the other side was lots of fun heading for breakfast in Milnthorpe.  Sue's breakfast bap nearly defeated me!

From here we had to try and cheat Google maps to take us back into the Forest of Bowland.  I'm not quite sure what happened as I couldn't hear my directions but I followed one bike that way and along some wonderful roads until I lost him and found some more ace roads before stopping to turn the sound back up and actually find everyone else.  This meant they left the next stop before I had chance to set my Nav going at all.  I followed them for a few miles before loosing them at a red light in Preston.  Fortunately the van was still following me so I got him to overtake and took what seemed like a day to get down to the Mersey crossing.

From here we had quite a successful run back down to the Raven near Whitchurch for another brew.  In theory it was one stop from there back to Ludlow but as my family were in Bridgnorth today I suggested a quick stop in Shrewsbury to say goodbye.  We didn't make it that far.  A few miles outside the Sinnis Hoodlum was at the side of the road.  After a bit of investigation we found a blown fuse but nothing to replace it.  We did have solder though so a short bit was placed between the terminals and the ignition lights came on.  At Shrewsbury the 1st 2 bikes had failed to stop but we stopped anyway and bought fuses and fitted the biggest (7.5A).  After 300 yards the van had disappeared into the distance with the tools and the fuse had blown.  Brute force removed the seat and my ignition key got the solder back in.  On the far side of Shrewsbury we found the van and one other bike.  A bit of an attempt at repair happened.

Could I continue to Church Stretton to get a last photo of the 4 bikes?  Aye go on then, the road from there to Bridgnorth is a beauty.  

200 yards later the solder melted, game over for the Sinnis.  I tried to convince him onto the Scooter but the answer was no!

We took a picture of the remaining 3 at Church Stretton which I can't find and 2 headed back to Ludlow 

I went for a nice dinner with the in-laws and a terrifying ride home in the dark with a headtorch based tail light solution (and my girlfriends Corsa behind) and a 25W headlight.  1st time I've ridden in the dark for years and likely to be the last!

But I'm home

[mat_the_cat]

On 4/5/2023 at 4:49 PM, catsinthewelder said:

With the plug off it was grey on the anode with a bit of black soot on the bottom so too much fuel rather than not enough.

Epic trip, and sounds a great time!

Worth bearing in mind that a sooty plug can also indicate an ignition rather than fuelling problem - if you have a misfire, the next spark cycle will have twice the amount of fuel to burn hence running rich...

I suspect that investigation and fixing aren't top of the list today though.

[Cavcraft]

Hats off, Cats! 

[catsinthewelder]

@mat_the_cat I'm fairly sure the problem there was the choke not being fully off.  With the aftermarket fuel filter in place it was a bit hard to reach so I'm leaving that off for the time being.

  It does occasionally stutter slightly under load but I'm not sure if that's engine or transmission as it likes to stretch the chain.

Thanks @Cavcraft, she's been a cracking little bike.  Wouldn't have been a proper roadtrip without a bit of tinkering

Just going down the yard to collect my stuff/help tidy the van today.  Next job with the bike is to rebuild the rear light unit.  The indicators are held on with gaffa tape and the tail light has stopped working again.

Going to rewire the whole thing to some better connectors further forward.

[catsinthewelder]

Spent most of today crawling round under the Dacia.  The last time I used it was before the bike trip as I'd foolishly decided to use it as a daily driver for a week or two to space the MOTs of the moderns out a bit.  Due to a fairly ridiculous set of circumstances I ended up using it to collect a friend from Birmingham airport and we had brake failure on the way back.  

I was fairly sure I knew what was wrong, a garage had been unable to get the right parts for a previous minor leak so had bodged it just to get it away.  It was a T piece above the back axle and the thread was knackered.

I knew getting the right bit would be tricky so bought a universal T in the right thread, some unions, pipe and tools to fit and bleed it.

Many thanks to everyone who helped in the question thread

Finally got it all together again today and bled up.  Did break to natter to a young Romanian Amazon driver who was amazed to see it and told me a few tales about them and how they are getting hard to find back home.

Then I took it for a test run up the hill.  Really glad to get it done as I need it for my daughters prom in 18 days.

[catsinthewelder]

Big daughters Prom day today.

Lots of dull SUVs, a tacky limo or two and because we're in the countryside.

More interesting was....

I've never been so worried about breaking down but the car behaved beautifully despite awful weather on the way home (felt sorry for the guy in the bullnose Morris).

Dead proud of her, she made the dress herself!

[Six-cylinder]

19 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

Big daughters Prom day today.

Lots of dull SUVs, a tacky limo or two and because we're in the countryside.

More interesting was....

I've never been so worried about breaking down but the car behaved beautifully despite awful weather on the way home (felt sorry for the guy in the bullnose Morris).

Dead proud of her, she made the dress herself!

That is so cool to see you with your daughter and the Dacia.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, catsinthewelder said:

Big daughters Prom day today.

Lots of dull SUVs, a tacky limo or two and because we're in the countryside.

More interesting was....

I've never been so worried about breaking down but the car behaved beautifully despite awful weather on the way home (felt sorry for the guy in the bullnose Morris).

Dead proud of her, she made the dress herself!

Nice pic at the venue, can't isolate it on my phone

[AnthonyG]

Love the tractors, the old stuff and the Dacia. Tractor and quad are very Shropshire.

Still remember someone at my school drove his dads massive MF tractor to Hereford Leisure Centre for Wednesday afternoon ‘games’ (you could choose to do tennis/squash/golf etc in the 6th form) and then home because it had been at the dealer being serviced.  It was about the same size as the Case in your first pic. He had to park it in the area normally reserved for coaches! 

WTF is the chrome thing attached to the ‘50s Cadillac’s window? 

[catsinthewelder]

@AnthonyG I think it's some sort of early air conditioning.  I used to see similar stuff at VW shows on very expensive looking customs.

[Dyslexic Viking]

18 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

WTF is the chrome thing attached to the ‘50s Cadillac’s window? 

 

7 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

I think it's some sort of early air conditioning.  I used to see similar stuff at VW shows on very expensive looking customs.

Yes it is an early form of  ac called swamp cooler.

More info here  https://www.theautopian.com/heres-the-science-behind-how-cars-stayed-cool-before-refrigerant-based-air-conditioning/

[dollywobbler]

Aw, lovely. Folk have been asking about the Mighty Dacia. Very impressive.

I'm on prom duty this week with the 2CV. Very proud to have been asked.

[catsinthewelder]

@dollywobbler

I was wondering about asking the boss if we could borrow the Dacia Jogger for a head to head test.

[catsinthewelder]

As spotted in the grin thread I'm temporary custodian of this beauty as a way of getting it from @HMC in Devon to @Schaefft up north.

It has a few issues but makes a lovely change from my usual rubbish.  Weather was beautiful this afternoon so I risked opening the sunroof on a potter into town.  This was inadvisable as a small part of the mechanism for the wind deflector isn't attached.  We got it closed with my girlfriend carefully pressing the button while I held a few sprung bits of metal in place in the supermarket carpark.  She drove it home with a big grin on her face (and did it a lot smoother than I drove across Tavistock considering it's her first go in an auto).

While she was cooking dinner I popped out to try fitting the radio cassette.  It powered up but needs a code which I couldn't find in the service history.  Will see what I've got lying round that'll fit.  Realised that the occasional noise might be the hydraulics repressurising as the accumulator sphere could be past it's best.

Will commute in it tomorrow as I've realised that I can use 5 different vehicles this week if I fix the Dacia (love a deadline).

[Schaefft]

31 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

As spotted in the grin thread I'm temporary custodian of this beauty as a way of getting it from @HMC in Devon to @Schaefft up north.

It has a few issues but makes a lovely change from my usual rubbish.  Weather was beautiful this afternoon so I risked opening the sunroof on a potter into town.  This was inadvisable as a small part of the mechanism for the wind deflector isn't attached.  We got it closed with my girlfriend carefully pressing the button while I held a few sprung bits of metal in place in the supermarket carpark.  She drove it home with a big grin on her face (and did it a lot smoother than I drove across Tavistock considering it's her first go in an auto).

While she was cooking dinner I popped out to try fitting the radio cassette.  It powered up but needs a code which I couldn't find in the service history.  Will see what I've got lying round that'll fit.  Realised that the occasional noise might be the hydraulics repressurising as the accumulator sphere could be past it's best.

Will commute in it tomorrow as I've realised that I can use 5 different vehicles this week if I fix the Dacia (love a deadline).

Thanks again for taking it on for a little while. Regarding the radio code, the link in the screenshot below might still be of use?

[catsinthewelder]

Excellent, cheers @Schaefft will give that a go tomorrow.

Bit of a grin was seeing Dodgy Tom (formerly of this parish) for the first time in ages.  He was on the way back from a local show in his Standard Pennant and parked up next to the XM.  On seeing me he said that he knew I wouldn't be far away!  He's fine and running a 306 as a daily.

[SiC]

Ah I can out do the Prom entrance! Spotted this when I was going in our local gym. Even needed a team to do it, with someone to jump out and put chocks in to stop it rolling into the Porsche behind. 

So very west country. They were just missing the barrels of cider in the back. 

 

[catsinthewelder]

10 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Thanks again for taking it on for a little while. Regarding the radio code, the link in the screenshot below might still be of use?

I can't get anywhere with it, just get a search box.

Tried entering Citroen, the code on top of the radio, the chassis number and the login email into it with no results

Also tried the keypad code with no success (we're having a quiet morning at work).

[Schaefft]

3 hours ago, catsinthewelder said:

I can't get anywhere with it, just get a search box.

Tried entering Citroen, the code on top of the radio, the chassis number and the login email into it with no results

Also tried the keypad code with no success (we're having a quiet morning at work).

Do you have a photo of the label on the radio? I'll buy one on ebay if theres an offer. There should be plenty of threads online trying to retrieve their XM/Xantia radio codes as well.

[catsinthewelder]

Might be worth trying the thread on MSE that @Scruffy Bodger suggested on another thread

For some reason I can't sign up there on my phone.

Code is 6011210 if you can't see it.

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, catsinthewelder said:

Might be worth trying the thread on MSE that @Scruffy Bodger suggested on another thread

For some reason I can't sign up there on my phone.

Code is 6011210 if you can't see it.

Hm, not sure if thats the serial number. It should have a label like this: