SEPTEMBER 2005
“Obviously the excitement got too much for one
spectator, Goodwood 2005”
SEPTEMBER 2005
“Obviously the excitement got too much for one
spectator, Goodwood 2005”
MEMBERS
PRESENT: John & Chris Bicycle
made for 2
Phil
Stag
Andy
Tony
& Ruth
Chris
Shepard
Thanks
to Phil for taking the notes of the meeting whilst we were away on holiday,
although looking at the numbers it doesn’t look as if it as particularly onerous month
to do it. With a large contingent away at Goodwood, this was a very
quiet meeting, held around just one pub table.
The Goodwood crowd did make contact via phone!
The main (only?) business of the evening was to discuss the Christmas do,
and do we want to move to another venue?
If we do, does anyone have any suggestions - one option suggested was a Chinese restaurant.
TReasure
Hunt, 2nd October.
This
was re-scheduled from the 18th September, as the original date
clashed with Goodwood, and was a leisurely run out via Barkby, Hungarton,
Bagrave Hall, Loseby, Cold Newton and Tilton.
A goodly number attended, including:
John
& Chris
Tony
& Ruth
Pete
& Lynn
John
& Margaret WON
Ray
& Heather
Mick
& Lynda
Reg
& Irene LOST
Roger
& Gill
Apologies
to all for a slight direction error with ’T’ junction.
MEMBERS CARS - Shock News!
Dick
has put his car up for sale to pay for his next tank of petrol.
When asked why use an
estate agent he replied. "Black four meets all modern housing trends. It's
small, has nice views, leather seats, a great sound system, central heating,
and the occasional shower (top down in rain). It doesn't have a loo, but as I
never "stall" the car, it is not an issue."
Goodwood Revival Meeting. 16-18 September – Part 1, Dick’s story
Ÿ
GOOD COMPANY. Graham Ransome,
Ÿ
GOOD performance from the cars, the only
minor trouble being the exhaust pipe on Paul’s Healy replica detaching itself
from the rest of the car while entering the car park on Friday morning.
Ÿ
GOOD CAMPSITE. provided by Graham’s long time
friends Ron and Pam. They had run a residential home for 19 years, and were
nearing the completion of converting the buildings to a house and flats. Our
original plan was to camp in the garden. Graham, Paul, David and Ben kept to
the plan, but the others accepted Ron’s offer and took the soft option of
putting their bedding in the lounge of the almost completed house. Snoring?
Indescribable. Ron had provided a large marquee in the garden, together with
tables and chairs, and a half oil drum barbeque range. Food preparation was
carried out in the house kitchen. Altogether a great campsite, unfortunately
for this year only. When the new owners of the house and flats take over, it is
anticipated that they probably will not make the LTRG quite so welcome as Ron
and Pam did.
Ÿ
GOOD FOOD and DRINK. Reg headed up the purchasing team,
and helped Tesco to another record half-year profit. Nigel was chief cook on
Thursday evening, Terry on Friday and Paul on Saturday with assistance of
varying degrees from the others. It must be said, that whatever skills the LTRG
lack, gastronomic expertise is not amongst them.
Ÿ
GOOD WEATHER. Poured on the way down on Thursday,
but the sun came out in the evening once we had arrived. Sunny Friday and
Saturday (Several sunburnt faces). Sunny again on Sunday morning, but overcast
for the homeward journey.
Ÿ
GOOD is inadequate to describe the
Goodwood Revival Meeting, it is just simply the best motorsport event of the
year. If you want more info, visit www.goodwood.com
Ÿ
Time to quit when the going is GOOD. We
didn’t attend the racing on Sunday, too crowded. Roger had to return home on
Saturday, Ben, David and Nigel departed Emsworth late Sunday morning. Dick had
lunch with Patsy at Bosham Sailing Club before heading home in the afternoon.
Graham, Paul, Reg and Terry took the ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of
Wight, and then returned home Monday morning. From Terry’s description of their
drive home, it seems that they made the fuel shortage a great deal worse! GOOD show.
The Track Action
The Crowd
The Overhead Action
Goodwood Revival Meeting. 16-18 September – Part 2, Terry’s story
Sunday was a glorious day. We (Graham) decided that a trip to Portsmouth was in order. But we (Graham) then decided to go to the IOW instead so that we (Graham) could see the IOW steam train. Reg managed to get one train ticket out of the auto machine with advice
from his three TR colleagues, but we failed to get any more. Then Graham noticed the booth was manned and applied for a group discount resulting in our tickets being much cheaper than Reg's!
It was such a lovely sailing day. We visited three pubs, downed at least five pints each. Hopped on to the IOW ( London underground old stock) train twice, a steam train once, a bus ride, two ferry rides and of course the return train journeys to/from Pompy, not forgetting Ron's cab service to the station and back. We also managed a little walk. That was the exception to the rule!
Monday - Left Emsworth around 11-11.30am. Reg led using SatNav until Paul overcame it with anecdotes about routes he had grown to know and love. That left just me tailing behind.
Reg had cunningly programmed it to avoid tolls, motorways, towns, and villages. I was impressed until I realised that you cannot program it to avoid caravans.
We managed to shake off a Porsche Boxter while on the A5 ( I think it was the A5). Stopped at Reg's for our second coffee break then steamed up the M1. I had a standing start race with Paul at the lights outside Enderby. Beat the bugger! I could hear his rev limiter cut in on him. Oh how I chuckled!
Having dispatched one of those modern Aston Martin fords on the M1, I then had some fun with a Jag saloon, we had both reached 110+mph when slow traffic in front meant a hasty sloughing off from high speed. We looked at each other and shared a secret wink.
Update from Massachusetts:
Below are the contributions from Heather and Pete, and the ongoing story of his
rebuild.
I’ve just frightened myself by looking at my previous report and realized that the progress is far from spectacular. The wipers were brutal, as the bend in the first element of the tube from the motor to the first wheel box had got out of spec. Those of you who have been there will know that this is about the most intolerant piece of gear on the car. Half a degree out and the cable won’t run free. We have some pretty nifty tube benders at work, but without a pattern to work to they couldn’t be expected to come up with the correct profile as there’s a double bend in different planes. They even tried making me a new one. In the first week of September we were back in the UK for a few days to attend a wedding, and the first stop was at TRGB to pick up a pre-ordered accelerator pedal to replace the significantly tortured one I had removed. While I was there I had a piece of inspiration to ask whether he had the wiper stator, and he took me up to his Aladdin’s cave (remember it Allan?) and invited me to search the wiper shelf. I found what appeared to be the job, but, as I said before, you have to be off by only a bit. Luckily it was the correct one, it fit perfectly and now I have the wipers properly assembled.
The dashboard’s on, instruments in, all wired. Engine components are back from the machine shop, so the main three jobs to finish are engine build (and convert to alternator mounting) steering rebuild and brakes to finally assemble after changing wheel studs to accept sold wheels. Unfortunately this involves removing the rear hubs (fronts as well, but they’re fairly easy) and I haven’t done that job for many years. Please await cries for help, usual crew! I need to get the gearbox to a decent old gearbox man I’ve been recommended to, as I believe I really should replace the seals that will have dried out in the 4 years it’s been stood. And I ain’t no good at gearboxes. Also need to get the starter motor to the auto electric shop that my racing engine man has recommended. No point in not checking these things now. Oh, and the radiator. I have an early rad, so the club’s stock of beautiful aluminium ones at Andy’s is no use to me. And of course I need to get a battery and finish off the electrics when I’ve got the steering column in. Then after lunch….
I keep wondering what has happened to all my time, then I remember just how long it takes to take some things apart, clean and paint and reassemble. And you still have nothing to show for it at that stage. Also the last two months have been hectic at work, to the point that I’ve not been getting in those couple of hours every night that you need to make significant progress. And much time goes in sourcing parts, then re-sourcing when they send you a mixed bag of 16 collets for the valves (one of the 16 would never see a TR in its life – heaven knows what it was). And they charge the earth because they can. I must have paid so much in postage and packing that it’s beyond a joke. The trick is to build a big shopping list of non-urgent parts so that you can get into the free shipping zone.
I went to have a look at tyres the other day. Dunlop SP Sport are looking favourite. Do you realise it’s becoming difficult to get symmetrical tyres for sports performance, or does that not apply in the UK? They’re all flamin’ uni-directional, which you can get away with when you have the emergency spare, but not when you need a conventional one. At least the prices are ok because there’s plenty of competition. The best price for Dunlops came from the Goodyear shop. I don’t think I’ll be going back to the Firestone depot that fitted Heather’s unidirectionals the wrong way round.
Tonight’s an admin and writing night. I’ll have to take out another night to do my tax return later this week. And the Boston Redsox are in the post-season playoffs which I will try not to allow to distract me, but somehow as the nights get colder…. But I’m having a week off work before the end of this month, so if raking autumn leaves, clearing out gutters and generally preparing the house for winter doesn’t get too much in the way, I’ll make better progress then.
This car will be on the road in the Spring, come hell or high water. Pray for a warm winter.
I’ll try to not leave it as long next time.
Peter
Since I last wrote we’ve had a poorly
Koko. He became very quiet, was off his
food and didn’t want to play. I took him
to the vet’s and left with a much lighter purse and two bottles of antibiotics
to be administered twice a day. I’d
never thought about how difficult this could be; the beak that can crack
walnuts has to be kept open to get the syringe in without fingers or flesh
getting in the way. By day three I was
referring to it as my piercing session.
Koko became fearful of the yellow towel I’d wrap him up in to try and
restrain his movement. Sadly there was
no huge improvement after five days so we had to make another call on the vet
where blood was taken and I had the horrible news that the antibiotics had to
continue for another week. Thankfully
the blood tests came back confirming the vet’s assumption and the prescribed
treatment finally had a positive result.
I was very pleased to learn from the
blood tests that Koko’s calcium levels were OK.
Low levels are quite common in African Greys, which is why so many
Americans feed their birds formula food, i.e. pellets. A good variety of fresh fruit and vegetables
works just as well but these products are not found in all US kitchens.
Remember the kettle that had broken
in my last missive? I discovered that it
had a three year warranty so telephoned the manufacturer and they sent us a new
one. The old kettle was sent back to
them with a $5 cheque but must have crossed in the mail with its
replacement. What a lovely, efficient
company. Buy Cuisinart!
I imagine that the two recent
hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) have been covered in the UK media. There are many volunteers from my chapter of
the Red Cross that have travelled down to Louisiana, Texas and Florida (a
staging centre). This has made staffing
at the office quite lean at a time when many strangers are wandering in wanting
to help in some way. I’m spending a few
extra hours there to help out where I can.
Hopefully I’ll be able to go down to the crisis area myself in the
future but the current conditions there are hazardous to my health so I’m not
wanted.
The weather here has continued to be
warm and dry. Some of the garden plants
seem to be getting a second lease of life; surely primroses shouldn’t be
flowering now? And while I mowed the
lawns on Friday I discovered new flower buds on the Hibiscus that flowered
nicely in the late Spring.
Work at the synagogue has built up
to a crescendo. Before our brief trip to
the UK the office computer “shit the bed” just as the new membership year and
preparations for the High Holy Days began.
A new machine has now been installed with new versions of the programs
we use so I’m trying to catch up and learn the function changes at the same
time. Stops life from becoming boring I
suppose.
That’s about it for now so, until
next time, take care
Heather
CALENDAR FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS:
|
October |
|
|
11 Tues |
Ashby Folville |
|
20 Thurs |
Group Mtr |
|
30 Sun |
Last Run Out |
|
November |
|
|
8 Tues |
Ashby Folville |
|
17 Thurs |
Group Mtr |
|
December |
|
|
13 Tues |
Ashby Folville |
|
15 Thurs |
Group Mtr |
AND FINALLY: IS CHRISTMAS CANCELLED THIS YEAR?
Next meeting Thursday 20th October 2005, the Rose & Crown, Tilton on the Hill.
See you there,
Martin & Sue.