Jason

Would be nice wouldn't it but if I let you go they'll all want one - we should really get our act together and hire a portaloo

The more the merrier - it's a full-on day and the timing marshals don't get much, if any, time to themselves as we try and keep the cars moving all the time.

For a flying log it looks alright mate, well done :-)

I'm just not competitive - haven't really got it in me, the last time I had a go round the cones I went the wrong way round a few but I did look good - see avatar :-)

I'll try and be there, new job is taking off with much travel and possible trip to Russia is discussed but the nature of the work is that it can all change - last week it was talk of an Istanbul trip that has now turned into Sweden, I'm enjoying it.

I've blocked out the time in my diary, we'll see if that makes any difference :-)

I should see Carl tonight and will see if we can coordinate.

Back to the 10CR ideas :-)

Although I've done them all no email received but then you can't ask everyone everything all the time so no grudge held!

Firstly, before I offer any feedback, it's important to say that I'm grateful to any organiser of an event, I know what it takes and I know how it feels when someone criticises. The 10CR is fundamentally a good a event, I wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't.

I think the road book should be better, the route was reasonable but there was no way to navigate from the road book alone so I wondered if it represented good value for money spent printing it? Transposing it to maps was fraught with difficulty, I felt it would have been better to have done it on Google maps rather than in MS Autoroute. Sat Nav was the only way to go. Hotels were too sanitised but then I am far too familiar with Holiday Inns and they are a necessary evil for such a big field. The check point concept doesn't work as there's often no one around to sign a book and with such a large field it's impractical to police. I didn't like the continental start, it stretched the duration of the event too far with no appreciable benefits to the driving quality of what we were doing - I felt like I wasted a day.

There's an evolution to the 10CR that seems to be going more towards hotels and civilisation than the original idea of the run, it's getting a bit comfortable in it's old age. That's fine and certainly has a place in the calender, plenty of people like that and as long as it gets participants then it's right to run it in that format. Mountain passes can, like Holiday Inns, get a little bit samey but there's no denying they have their uses. Is is time for the uncivilised 10CR to be distilled out of the present civilised one?

Personally I think I want something a little less mainstream and a little more rough around the edges, that means it won't have the mass appeal and would then be a smaller affair. I would like to get the adventure back - that first daft frolic in a Stretch Herald was great mainly because we had no clue how we were going to get round and we hadn't done it before (there were good reasons for that!)

I've looked at driving to the Arctic Circle (bloody long way). a trip to Moscow or Berlin, recreating the European route of the World Cup Rally (could be done, I have a route) and the driving round  Portugal and Spain thing. I've had chats about the whole ferry to Santander and run around Spain maybe down to Gibraltar but that means 24 hours on a boat both ways and that robs you of valuable driving time :-)

I was thinking how soft it would be if applied to just wood - could it be too hard to the touch or would there need to be something softer between the wood and the leather? It might make it all too bulky or am I over thinking this??

Daft question Dave but what's the wheel actually made of? Is it pliable or solid? I have a wood rim wheel and although I like the dimensions I don't like the wood so I was wondering if one of these covers could be made to cover it up.

Do you need just the pipes or do you need the end fittings too? You can pick up the pipe kits quite cheaply off eBay (James Shackford) or you could just use the truck air brake line that I've been using for years - can be had in black, red or clear.

Tim has all the old road books - I think one of the earliest ones may be missing but certainly the early noughties are there.

What did you lose en route??

Quoted from LouisW

I found this today... It fell into my oil pan (not when draining oil) and I'm unsure what it is. Some have said its a bonnet cone with the rubber bit gone. Ideas?

Is it make of copper? I think it may be part of a disintegrated solenoid?

Before you go buying new switches it's best to take the old one off and verify it is indeed defective - because of the way these things wear it's very easy to get a few more years out of them with a clean and fettle approach. Often removing the spacing washer under the inhibitor switch will give you that little extra space to operate. I had one play up on me on a 10CR once, it was the mounting bracketry that was at fault and after some percussive maintenance at 2am in a German car park, all was well - that fault caused me to "lose" overdrive at speed, very disconcerting!

Overdrive in reverse is usually fatal unless you're lucky - I was lucky once, sounds like you have been too.

Hmm, well I think I will start with a complete renewal of the hydraulics and a n inspection of the rest - TR Shop's kit is on special at the moment, �69.50 for the whole lot, just add fluid and bad language. For that price it's worth it to remove this from the equation first.

Thanks for all the thoughts and experiences, it helps!

Ahh the clutch is colour related!

Is it because I is yellow?


Thanks Mike - I see TR Shop do a complete hydraulics kit for the clutch - as this car was very little used over the last 20+ years it wouldn't surprise me if it's all a bit marginal! I'll be under it in the weekend, again :-)

Here are the symptoms - clutch engages and disengages OK, no funny sounds, it's a bit heavy but not bad. Occasionally (more so that I'd like) it feels like the clutch pedal won't come up properly and it feels like it sticks just after the biting point. It kind of goes light and as you lower the pressure of your foot it bites harder and you get a little jolt, almost a kangaroo moment. I've stalled it a couple of times but as the clutch has bitten I can usually get the car moving and then the engine is spinning enough to take a sharp engage.
I thought it was doing it more when hot but I'm not so sure. It felt like the pedal was binding so I investigated the mechanism, no play but a rather tird looking spring on the pedal. I replaced that and over the weekends driving around the Isle of Wight I tried several other springs I had including a correct one bought recently - this improved things but it's still a pig to drive in traffic.
I'm suspicious of the hydraulics now and having taken a look at the fluid it's pretty crappy but plenty there and no signs of leakage.
So I think I will replace or at least service the hydraulics with a rebuild of master and slave with new fluid. I will try and see if the pedal bush could be worn but is there anything else I should check?
What are the symptoms of cross shaft failure? Is it obvious or is there a gradual deterioration then failure?

Thoughts welcome :-)

Also, something to bear in mind with Stag drums is that they have numbers cast proud into the drums, this caused issues with getting the wheels seated on my old Mk1. I took the letters off with a grinder to get the wheels to sit flat on the drum face - I still needed to reduce the wheel arch lip with that same grinder (handy tools!). That was all wide track Stag rear end, Stag front brakes and 15" KN Gemini wheels - all fitted nicely in the end :-)

t'aint standard so could be anything, usual suspects are a manual override for an electric fan, spot/driving/fog lights or a low tension cut-out for the ignition - i.e. secret immobiliser switch. Alternatively, in the case of my old PI, it was just a switch, not wired into anything!

Top tip for removing the steering wheel - undo the big nut under the horn push, put it back on a few turns - then bash, swear, pull and suitably abuse the wheel to get it off. If the nut is left on, when the wheel does finally come off it will not smack you in the face and leave you sat back in the driver's seat semi concussed and bleeding from a fat lip.

Been there, got the T shirt (with a blood stain on it)

You know what they say, don't get married, it's too expensive, just cut to the end - find a woman you don't like and buy her a house.

I seem to recall the poor old girl suffered some less that sympathetic driving - and yes it was usually my unsympathetic driving - I've never handled anything so big (ooo err Missus).

We did leave a little bit of stretch all over Europe - on every speed bump and the apex of every hairpin!

Happy days!!

That's what we need on the 10CR, more foreigners - well I guess the septics aren't really foreign, just colonials really - Welcome boys, this one should be a good one. Oh and if Goody tells you to white wall your tyres, kick him squarely in the crotch :-)

I think you need an early 6 and change the exterior panels for 4/5 ones - so easier to "downgrade" a 6 than "upgrade" a 4

Thanks, that's about what I have to go on the car, I say "about" because it's not quite complete having had a chunk cut off it at some point. The silencer's OK though. I just need a new link pipe I think. I haven't done any more than pull the stickers off the car since the run, must wash and polish sometime soon.

Wash your mouth out!!!!!

Could it be this arrival at John o'Groats?



Naaa,

I think the best moment of all was the trip out of Sugar Loaf - we had a crappy trip down into Wales, the car wouldn't behave at anything under 3000 revs and wouldn't tick over at anything less that 2000! However the twisty roads demanded full use of the rev range although the fog and dark demanded caution. Nigel was knackered, I was knackered, the car was crap and we were almost out of ideas. Yet from this low point we somehow managed to pull a little belter. We changed the plugs (it was not tthe plugs but we were desperate) and spent an hour tuning and fiddling with linkages to get the engine running better - as we left it was clear that the gods were smiling on us again and so, as a tribute to those gods, I thrashed the doors of the TR and drove it hard - that was a great feeling and just goes to show, never surrender, never give up and always balance your butterflies.