Smoll shite acquired. The wife made me do it....

[UltraWomble]

I had 3 BLMC cars early on all with chokes and all 3 needed a clothes peg.

I suppose I could have put a new cable in, but meh.

[groovylee]

little mini update time!

just lately it has been running a little rough, needing choke more than normal, and sounding like it's not firing quite right.  this was brought to a head when Mrs groovy took it to a show while i was away, and it caused her all kinds of grief, and ended up being driven back on full choke just to stay running.

obviously this is not good, so i set about figuring out the problem.

first off, lets check the timing. well, i would, if i could get it to idle. somethings pretty wrong here.... so, off with the grille, and off with the dissy cap.

ah, that's not great, there are ali filings in there, and the rotor arm has just fallen off!

I'd been warned by the guys at LynxAE to keep an eye on the accuspark dissy, as they have had issues with them in the past. so in preparation, i had bought a spare dissy from SimonBBC aka powerspark, just in case.  these are also engine specific, so you have the correct advance curve, rather than the accuspark ones that are simply listed for the A+ engine.

anyway, dissy swapped over, timing done, and it is running like a dream. better than it was before in fact. so Mrs groovy is once again happy.

while i had the thing opened up and the tools out, i also replaced the missing lower ball joint gaiter, the tie rod bushes, and the engine steady bushes. all is well again in the mini world.

[groovylee]

some pics from the hitchin car meet.

[groovylee]

And some pics from the Falcon classic tour around Northamptonshire and warwickshire

[groovylee]

not a lot has been going on with this little thing really. while the salt was on the roads it stayed on the drive. so now the sun is out, it's time to get it out to play again. 

with this in mind, we decided to do the London to Brighton mini run last weekend. it was a great run, with loads of amazing cars present. pics in a sec, as i can't seem to get them to work on this machine....

[groovylee]

[groovylee]

[groovylee]

Crazy to think that these two were taken 20 years apart! 

[Matty]

I'd love to do something like that as a family. Unfortunately she categorises my car as "fucking embarrassing" 😄

[Tommyboy12]

How was L2B this year? Different start point to last time I did it. Did it help with the horrendously early start time?

[groovylee]

4 hours ago, Tommyboy12 said:

How was L2B this year? Different start point to last time I did it. Did it help with the horrendously early start time?

it seemed to go ok. i last did it 18 years ago from crystal palace park. this time from Cheam it was a bit more organised.

basically camping was in organised rows. cars were lined up at 7pm on the sat night in strict order of arrival for camping. very controlled and very good.

5am sunday the gates opened for the non campers to queue up. run pack collection from 0530, first cars away 0830 after the show and shine ones left.

all in all, good fun, felt less manic than the old CPP days, and more easily accessible food places on foot at Cheam.

it looks like this could have been the last one due to ULEZ, but we will see.....

[Tommyboy12]

I suspect they will move it out of the ULEZ zone but I also gather Bristol are getting less keen on car shows using the promenade too. I did it in 2012 and 2016 at CPP and it was fairly well organised both times but its a killer time to be getting up when half the campsite doesnt go to sleep until 3-4am