My Motley Meanderings

As I think I've mentioned, I'm planning to get Lintilla back on the road and drive her for the first half of this year's LEO rally. Here is a list of things I've yet to do on her before the rally. I'll strike them out when I've done them and add more as I think of them. ( Read more... )

I have now booked both the ferry and all my accommodation for the Around Ireland Rally. the_magician and I will be staying in the following YHs:

30th August: Foulksrath Castle (Kilkenny)
31st August: Cork
1st September: Dun Chaoin (Dingle)
2nd September: Sleepzone City (Galway)
3rd September: Blue Stack (Donegal)
4th September: Whitepark Bay (Giant's Causeway)
5th September: Belfast
6th September: Dublin

This bank-holiday weekend I want to achieve several things: research B&B options for those who don't want to stay in YHs, finish off the first draft route plan, produce a progress report and send it out to all the prospective participants, and get on with repairing Lintilla.

With regards to Lintilla, I've decided to try to get her back on the road in time for the National Rally next month. Longer term, the plan is to have both Minors on the road and running reliably by the time of this year's Land's End to Orkney run. I already know Fenchurch is reliable enough to do a long road trip, so I'm thinking of using Lintilla for half or possibly even all of the LEO in order to iron out any problems before the AIR. That way I will have a choice of which car to take, or I could even lend one of them to another of the participants if their car has problems before the trip.

Google Maps is trying to be too clever for its own good. It keeps randomly assuming when I enter "Land's End" that I mean "Lands End, Twyford" unless I explicitly tell it I mean "Land's End, Cornwall".

Introduction

I was originally planning to take part in this year's Barnsley JOGLE (John O'Groats to Land's End in 24 hours in a Morris Minor), but it was cancelled due to lack of interest, so I decided to do the LEO (Land's End to Orkney) rally that Bill had been plugging on the MMOC forum instead. In hindsight I really needed the extra couple of months this gave me to get Fenchurch back on the road and prepare her for the trip. I finished reassembling her on the 18th of July and almost immediately took her on a 300 mile round-trip to Leicester. Nothing fell off, but I did discover a few leaks in the heavy rain and learned how to demist the interior of a Traveller without the aid of a heater. Over the next few weeks I worked until late every night fixing problems and fitting improvements such as electronic ignition, an instrument panel, and a stereo. One of the things I didn't get around to doing was checking the condition of the fuel pump points or repairing my spare pump.

( Tuesday: Burnley to Cheddar )
( Wednesday: Cheddar to Penzance )
( Thursday: Penzance to Underbank (near Buxton) via Land's End )
( Friday: Underbank to Glendevon )
( Saturday: Glendevon to Orkney via John O'Groats )
( Sunday: Pottering around on Orkney )
( Monday: Orkney to Minigaff )
( Tuesday: Minigaff to Burnley via Wigtown )
( Conclusions )
( What Next? )

See also my photo album of the trip for many more pictures that weren't included in this report, and the Morris Minor Owner's Club Forum topic where the trip was planned and discussed.

I'll do a full writeup later when I emerge from under the mountain of emails and work etc. For now I'll just mention a really bizarre coincidence that happened to me on the way home. I pulled into a petrol station in the Lake District, and Neil and Stephanie were there! We were going from and to different places at different times by different routes and they just happened to cross at the exact place and time that I decided to fill up. Neil had his bonnet up again, fiddling with the voltage regulator because it didn't seem to be charging properly. I smoothly pulled up alongside and said to him, "We have to stop meeting like this."

ETA: The SMS update I sent on Wednesday night disappeared into the ether. Here is what it said:
Road to YH closed. Friendly locals sent me down overgrown green lane. Have lost aerial. Pls send bent coathanger so I can listen to Wogan.

Drove hard on bendy roads for over 11 hours to get to Minigaff YH. Fenchurch conked out briefly due to dirty fuel pump points.

Weather dried later on and I had a quick drive around the island. Have said goodbyes to everybody and now on ferry after very early start.

I am sitting in Fenchurch at the Orkney Vintage Club rally waiting for the driving rain to stop. A car heater would come in handy right now.

I am camping at Kevin's farm with Ray. Helped Neil replace his fuel pump points and tweak mixture last night. Looks like being a rainy day.

Have arrived at John O'Groats after a fast and uneventful run in plenty of time for ferry. I still know where my towel is.

Crossed Forth RB. & arrived Glendevon YH (lovely place) without incident apart from niggles like squeaky dynamo and leaky damper.

Overpriced breakfast at Knutsford while others catch up. Neil is back on the road. Shouted at by farmer's wife for parking in wrong yard.

Eventually left Neil to mercy of the AA and Bigginger. Rest of run fine apart from tub of butter melting over everything in boot.

We are stopped at Taunton Services due to carb flooding on Neil's car. Eliminated usual causes; now scratching heads and mumbling about RAC.

Spent night with Olympic snoring champion. Bodged half of aerial back on. Fenchurch says RARRRR! (engine braking on 1:4 hill)

Road to YH closed. Friendly locals sent me down overgrown green lane. Have lost aerial. Pls send bent coathanger so I can listen to Wogan.

I'm at Goonhilly Down Earth station. Have successfully avoided temptation to check email at free web cafe. Heading to Lizard Point soon.

Have reached Cheddar OK. Fenchurch running great. Went via E Wales and over the Severn. Crossed Clifton suspension bridge twice.

Fenchurch is prepared as best I was able in the available time. A few things wound up being bodged or simply not done, but nothing too major. I got the instrument panel fitted yesterday and it's working apart from the second-hand oil pressure gauge which has a sticky needle. I'm feeling optimistic but slightly nervous.

I'm currently burning some MP3 CDs to listen to on the journey (finally a chance to re-listen to all of the Hitchhiker's radio series!) while trying to decide whether to take the fast and easy but rather dull route South to Cheddar via the M6 and M5, or detour through Wales and cross the Severn.

I don't know how often I'll have access to web cafes etc. on the LEO rally, so I'll be posting SMS updates instead.

ETA: It worked, but the updates are going to be very brief due to the 160 character message limit. I'll try to avoid resorting to txtspk. Obviously I won't be able to read or respond to comments straight away.

If you're going camping in a 44 year old vehicle, what better to take with you than...

A classic Optimus 8R Hunter petrol camping stove. ( Read more... )

Since getting back from Teledu, I've worked out a rough itinerary and booked all my accommodation for the LEO run, dug various camping gear out of the loft and discovered that quite a bit has gone missing/got broken since the last time I used it (many years ago), pitched my tent in the living room, washed my sleeping bag, went to the giant car boot sale at Clitheroe and failed to find any camping gear for sale (somewhat bizarrely - maybe it had all been bought up already by the time I got there), and bought some overpriced pans in Millets and an airbed from Argos (those foam pad things are crap). I still need to find a decent lamp and a few other things.

I've also:

• Informed the DVLA and my insurance company of Fenchurch's change of colour.
• Converted her to Negative Earth and replaced the battery terminals with the clamp type. This is mainly a prerequisite to fitting various negative earth equipment like the electronic ignition, rev counter, stereo, etc.
• Changed the engine oil and filter after running a bottle of flushing detergent through it.
• Fiddled with the carb settings because the idle was too fast and the choke wasn't working right.
• Moved the back door hinges a bit because the doors were banging into each other at the top.
• Checked and adjusted all the brakes, discovering in the process that one of the rear hub oil seals has started leaking and will need replacing ASAP.
• Greased the trunnions and track rod ends. While doing this I noticed that one of the steering gaiters has split and will need replacing because oil squirts out of it every time I apply tight lock.
• Replaced the driver's side door interior light switch, then realised there was probably nothing wrong with the old one; the problem was that the terminal was shorting against the inner wing.
• Wasted most of an afternoon trying unsuccessfully to repair a faulty £6 part which I bought it so long ago that I would have difficulty locating the receipt for it. In hindsight not a very good use of my limited time, but before I started it looked like it would only take half an hour to fix.
• Started making a template for the new instrument panel. It's going to go in place of the driver's side glovebox and will contain a rev counter, ammeter, oil pressure gauge, and water temperature gauge. They're all classic Smiths instruments with chrome bezels and look very shiny.

Strangely, the timing cover oil seal has stopped leaking without having done anything except buy the parts I need to replace it. I'm not sure why. There's still plenty of oil in the engine...

I've pretty much sorted out my itinerary for the Land's End to Orkney rally, but a list in a text file and a forum post weren't geeky enough for me so I entered it into Google Maps.

Has anyone got any suggestions for places, people, and things I should try to see on the journey? Preferably nothing that's going to require a large diversion or a long interruption to the journey. So far I'm meeting someone from the MMOC forum in Cheddar and somebody else in Penzance, I'm staying with another MMOCer on Orkney, I'm going to the Orkney Vintage Rally, and I'm stopping off at Wigtown and paying a visit on At the Sign of the Dragon on the way back.

I bit the bullet and sent off my entry form for this year's Barnsley JOGLE (the John O' Groats to Land's End in 24 hours Morris Minor endurance run), but the organisers called today to say that they've decided to cancel it due to lack of interest :(

However, some guys on the Morris Minor Owner's Club forum are organising an alternative trip called LEO. No, not Low Earth Orbit, but Land's End to Orkney. It's a more sedate run than the JOGLE, taking three days to drive from Land's End to John O' Groats, with the arrival on Orkney timed to coincide with the Orkney Vintage Club Rally on Sunday the 12th of August. Splitting the journey up into a few sections means I probably wouldn't need a co-driver. I'd be looking at doing about 400 miles on the Wednesday, 300 on Thursday, 300 on Friday, 230 on Saturday, a ferry trip and however far it is from the terminal to the rally field on Sunday, and 480 on Monday.