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Grolliffe Returns and a Pug 205 Departs On Holiday


Saabnut

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Today was the first dry and not frosty day for a while, so first job was to try and stem the flow of water into the recently acquired AS Forum Bike 205D, with the eventual aim of removing the currently installed ornamental fish ponds. This was achieved with a great* deal of planning, equipment and expertise in true forum style. There, that should do it, good as new:

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With that successfully* completed, it was time to take it away to my local Ace Mechanic and perpetual French Chod and Swedish Chod Fondler. Duncan is brilliant with old motors and the only professional I trust implicity, and he gets all the jobs I can't do or can't be bothered to do. In an attempt to extend the life of the Pug, he is going to see if he can reseal the injector pump (or swap it for a good one) as the cherry bomb exhaust needs to be heard more. On to the trailer:

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And the reason for this sudden burst of activity? After 18 months away, Grolliffe is finished and ready to return home. After burning out the clutch on the Mulsanne Straight at LM24 in 2018 and limping back to blighty, being recovered home and dropped of at Duncans, it has had a new clutch and flywheel installed. This was far from simple, although support from the American suppliers was good. The first clutch did not clear, resulting in a dragging clutch. The second was exactly the same. A conversation with the suppliers (where the word Chinesium came out) followed and a third unit sent. This one was definitely USA made and arrived with certification for the complete assembly including flywheel showing it had been fully assembled, tested and balanced! This one fitted, although a bellhousing spigot had to be re-made to accomodate the slight difference from the old one. Before everything was working, the clutch and flywheel has been installed 13 times, and I now have a custom made virtual gearbox which is basically a frame that allows installation and testing of the entire clutch without the gearbox getting in the way so we could see what is happening!

Suffice to say, it has been a long, trying, frustrating and expensive business, but today I took Grolliffe for a test run (the sun even came out whilst this was underway) and then she was loaded onto the trailer for the journey home:

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Oh yes, a virtual pint (that will be exchanged for a real one if we meet) for the first person to say who/what the original Grolliffe was that the car is named after without using Google. I am  just interested if anyone knows (ie is as sad as me). I will explain the story of how the name was arrived at if no-one knows or indeed if someone does.

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47 minutes ago, DVee8 said:

Noggin the Nog Ice dragon?

Bloody hell, another pint I owe Mr DVee8 :-)

The name came from the fact that on a cold morning (ie most of them up here) the Cobra produces lots of steam from each of the side pipes. My friends daughter, then aged 10 said it looked like a dragon breathing and when revved she said it sounded like a dragon as well. As I have worked in Norway for the last 20 years, remembering Noggin the Nog from my childhood, and I remembered the ice dragon. I confess I could not remember the dragons name so googled it, and the Cobra became Grolliffe.

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15 hours ago, Saabnut said:

Grolliffe was that the car is named after without using Google. I am  just interested if anyone knows (ie is as sad as me). I will explain the story of how the name was arrived at if no-one knows or indeed if someone does.

I was expecting to see a BX

& something to do with minor cleric in Warhammer or summat if my memory serves

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