McJim

Spitfire has been sitting in the garage all last week ready to go. Just load the tools and luggage and we're off. Heading down on Saturday morning leaving about 6:00am and home after the run on Sunday. 160 miles to the start and 93 miles home from the finish. Finally, a Club Triumph event close to home. Looking forward to it. Jim.

I'll bring the drinks - still got a boot full of an effervescent sparkling wine. Got to get rid of it somehow. Must be a few soft southerners taking part. Jim.

Good man, Bruce! Jim.

Nuala, after the pen burst. Such a positive person. Jim.

Such sad news. Katy and I were looking forward to catching up with Nuala on the Border Raiders after spending a good while with her at the start of last year's RBRR. Always up for a giggle and a laugh like when a fluorescent yellow pen burst in her hand at the Novotel car park in Richard's Stag. The look on her face was priceless. Let us know when the funeral is and Katy and I will be there. Jim.

Not to mention some of their drivers! Present company excluded. Jim.

Be fair Mike, some of them have good legs and very short kilts. Ah, you can tell a true Scotsman. 😉😉 Jim.

No Tony. Don't be bashful - they're all for you. 😁 Jim.

Thanks for that Tony. But be honest, you just don't like me. 😉 Love and kisses. Jim.

Lucky you. I've yet to see May's magazine drop through the letter box and not holding my breath for July's. Any chance of a discount seeing as I don't get a Club magazine unless I specifically ask for it? Jim.

This is Roxy, our last of three Miniature Schnauzers. She's been in the wars over the last couple of weeks, first being diagnosed as diabetic and then she must have damaged an eye on a rose thorn or something similar and had to have the eye removed. Still thinks she's a puppy and all squeaky toys are definitely hers! Great wee black dug. Jim. 279216506_953486231981379_7055090985071525738_n (1).mp4

Susan, I think I can speak for all at Club Triumph when I say that we all miss Paul, his humour, his generosity and most of all the warmth you felt when you were in his company. His was a great guy to be around and it was an honour to be one of his many friends. I still think about him a lot. He was a big Yorkshire Pud! Jim.

Just making the point that the Gallery location didn't feel very intuitive. Minor gripe. Jim

We could certainly do with that. We have a "difficult to find" gallery section at the moment but if that was made easier to find plus a video link section along the same lines, that would be even better. Jim.

You think? 😉 Jim.

Well said that man! Jim.

Don't know who this belongs to and don't take any credit for it but it needs to be on here. Jim.

Utter rubbish! My mate David and I did it in 2014 and got there 17 minutes before sunrise without going ape-sh*t. Go for it! It's great fun and perfectly doable within speed limits. Here's a spreadsheet I did prior to going all the way down to Land's End. Incidentally, it was a couple of guys from Pistonheads who did this first, then made Clarkson and Top Gear aware of the possibilities of doing the run themselves for TV. In my opinion, one of the better challenges they did and one we can all do. By the way, we didn't see Mr Plod once during the entire trip, they were so keen to "catch" us. And here's the account of our adventures as published on Pistonheads Forum. We’ve all seen the Top Gear Race Against God.I thought, “I could do that.”Even though the start is 560 miles from home, why not?A hunt around the internet found the original Pistonheads run and report and other tales of folk who had done it.I had a word with my mate, David and he was up for it too.I’ve done a couple of Round Britain Reliability Runs in my 1973 Triumph GT6, one with David and we’d also done a similar run in an Alfa Romeo from Ardnamurchan, the furthest westerly point in the UK to Boddam Ness, near Peterhead for the furthest easterly point in Scotland. For that run, we made it with 40 minutes to spare without doing ludicrous speeds.I like to plan these things out and had prepared spreadsheets with intermediate times and distances to driver change locations and the obligatory fuel stop. Some may say that it’s a bit anal but I know from experience that when your brain isn’t running at 100% due to tiredness, a bit of paper showing you what comes next can be invaluable.Anyway, the weekend approached and we set off from home, just north of Glasgow, David and I, in my MX5 heading south to Cornwall at 2am on Saturday 21st June.When I picked up David from his house, I was a bit worried about his choice of shorts for the journey, particularly what could be hanging out of them, and I don’t mean legs. They don’t call him “Big Boy” at work for nothing!Anyway, that aside, we were booked into the Travelodge at Hayle as it offers an early book-in at noon where we intended to sleep all day before the run.Someone had sent me a note via Facebook that a guy called Christian was trying to contact me so that we could meet up at the start and, hopefully, at the finish. However, it turned out that he was doing the run on Friday night into Saturday morning.We had looked at this but chose the Saturday start as we knew there were about 20,000 people going to be at Stonehenge for the summer solstice celebrations and were concerned that there could be loads of people strolling about on the unlit A303 when we were coming through.However, Christian did complete the run but finished 6 minutes after the sunrise. He was delayed by roadworks on the A30 at Hayle directing them through the village into a set of temporary traffic lights that caused chaos. Plus, he was directed off the M25 near the Dartford Crossing which made his chances of successfully completing the run beyond reach.Christian e-mailed me to let me know that the roadworks that we anticipated to come across on the A12 didn’t hold him up and would be no problem for us on the following night.Christian must be some guy, as he had driven from Dusseldorf, crossed on a ferry, made his way to Land’s End, did the run, then drove back down, hopped on a ferry and drove home. He must have been totally knackered!After talking to some locals at Hayle and Penzance, we discovered that the Hayle roadworks weren’t on at the weekend, which was a big relief. Plus, we were doing the M25 clockwise avoiding Dartford in any case despite the fact that we were aware of roadworks with a likely 50mph speed limit on them.We grabbed a bite to eat at a McDonalds, then cruised down to the start at Land’s End.The first person we met was a biker with two additional fuel tanks strapped on as panniers, who had motored down from the sunrise at John O’Groats to Land’s End without using motorways and stopping only once for petrol. And when I mean he only stopped once, I mean it. This guy had a catheter fitted so he didn’t even have to stop for a pee.A bit too extreme for us!I told David not to even contemplate a used water bottle. “I’m not having pee all over my leather seats. They’ll smell a treat when I turn the heated seats on!”We then met a young couple who had hired a Mercedes C Class but were given a B Class, much to their dismay. It was her birthday treat to do the run. Why could I never meet women like that when I was younger?Next, a guy with his wife and young son in tow showed up with a Golf convertible.Neither of these two crews seemed to have given much thought about the run or even the route they would take other than they were going to give it a go.Finally, two bikers arrived, Rich and Lawrence. Rich has been running a blog about the trip for the last few months and I had been passing on information relating to proposed roadworks along the route to him.It was good to finally meet Rich and we had a good chat but we were all nervous and keen to get on our way.We heard stories of other crews dotted about Land’s End but were unaware who they were but we would keep an eye out for them.Slowly the minutes counted down towards the start and we settled into the MX5, sat nav programmed to our first driver change near Bodmin and the Bullitt music on the stereo to build up the atmosphere. You know, the music that’s played when the Mustang and the Charger are about to race round the streets of San Francisco.Two minutes to go and I put the speaking clock on the in car phone through the stereo.“At the third stroke, it will be nine thirty six precisely.” Beep, beep, beep and we were off.Leaving Land’s End, in front of us were a Mitsubishi GTO and the guy in the Golf convertible but no sign of anyone else. The folk in the B Class weren’t even in their car!We started down the narrow twisty section of the A30 towards Penzance at a fair lick between 40 and 50mph, where possible. After about 5 miles, the Golf got past the Mitsubishi, who showed no signs of backing off and we tucked in about 100 yards behind.We were through Penzance in no time at all and out the other end. There was no sign of the Golf, just the Mitsubishi.We followed him for a few miles then on went his indicator and he pulled into a lay-by and we drove past. I started to wonder why he had pulled over then looked in horror at the sat nav. We were on the wrong road!We were so intent on following the Mitsubishi, that we had missed our turning on a roundabout. What a schoolboy error on my part since I was supposed to be navigating!A quick u-turn and back up the two and a half miles to pick up the route again.Faux pas over, we made the decision to pay more attention to the sat nav in future.Much quieter roads than expected and a clear dry night meant we had no trouble making up about 3 minutes on our scheduled time to the first driver change. I took over for the next stint to Exeter, virtually all on dual carriageway and an easy run for me, making a little more time in hand in case we ran into trouble later on. If only we’d known what was coming.David took over for the next leg and at the traffic lights going from the M5 onto the A30 at Exeter, the B Class suddenly appeared beside us along with two motor bikes but not Rich and Lawrence who were taking the M5, M4 route.The lights went green and all three took off like a bat out of hell.We hung back and let them disappear into the distance. We were making up time in any case and they looked like they were heading for a big fright or even tangling with one another.This may be a quick run but it’s no sprint and we still had a long way to go.On the twisty section at the Blackdown Hills on the A303, we caught up with three slow moving cars and no prospect of passing. We sat back until one pulled off and then a section of dual carriageway saw us past them and on our way again without too much time loss.David then remarked how we had less than half a tank of fuel left. Despite doing just under 30mpg, we were indeed less than half full. A quick calculation and I decided that we would make it to our scheduled refuel point, a large petrol station, the Buck Services east of Andover with a little fuel to spare.We backed off a little to save fuel and finally, the Buck Services came into view and with a sense of relief, we cruised up to the pump.Then the big shock. They had no unleaded fuel in any of the pumps!I had made a contingency plan in case of a problem here and knew there was another Esso station a few miles further on, so we changed drivers again and drove at about 50mph until we reached the petrol station, brimmed the tank and headed off into the dark again down to the M3.However, after a few miles at a good speed, we encountered roadworks and the dreaded specs average speed cameras with a 50mph speed limit. They went on for miles and it took what seemed ages to reach the M25 where we changed drivers at the Junction 17 off ramp.Back up onto the M25 maintaining a steady 70mph with the sat nav pinging at every overhead gantry warning of fixed speed cameras and every other car whizzing past us at up to 85mph. Do they know something we don’t?Then we hit more roadworks and mile after mile of specs cameras. We finally came out the other end of them and a white Transit passed us on the inside and put on his hazard lights for a few hundred yards.I had been aware of a hissing sound during the last stint but couldn’t work out what it was. There must be something wrong with the car and he’s seen it, so we pulled over onto the hard shoulder.Sure enough there was. At the petrol station, David had tried in vain to pull the boot opening release before giving up and using the key fob. In his unfamiliarity with the car, he’d pulled the bonnet release. Still, no harm done and we were on our way again.At the last driver change, I had dropped the folding hardtop and the cool night air reinvigorated us. We felt more confident that we could do it despite losing time due to the roadworks and were now about a minute down on our planned schedule for a 4:20 finish, 10 minutes before sunrise.Making up some time earlier on had been our saviour with our fuel problems, motorway roadworks and specs cameras whittling away our time cushion.However, even the intermittent fog around Ipswich couldn’t slow David down and I took over at Woodbridge for the final stint.We finally reached the place we were dreading, Blythburgh, where we knew there were temporary traffic lights. The roads had been completely deserted save for one Jaguar which we were now sat behind. We waited for about a minute for the lights to change to green but we knew that, barring a disaster, we were going to make it. As for the Jag, we had to wait for a short section of dual carriageway to get by as he clearly knew the roads. Clarkson wasn’t driving it though.And now we were on the outskirts of Lowestoft. Every traffic light was at green as we cruised the streets of Lowestoft except for one that changed within a few seconds.We were now in the industrial estate where the finish was located. The sat nav said turn left.“Rubbish! I know where I’m going!” I said as we promptly turned into a cul-de-sac. A lesson not learned from my earlier faux pas.Then I thought, “Maybe the sat nav has a better grasp of the situation than me.” and we followed the route round into Gas Works Road and the finish came into view.We had done it!We arrived at 4:13, a full 17 minutes before sunrise.Waiting for us was the B-Class, which despite going like a bat out of hell earlier on, arrived only 3 minutes in front of us. They looked knackered.Also, the two bikers from the A30 junction at Exeter, the Golf convertible, a Honda Civic Type R and a BMW Coupe were there too.We moved all our cars down to the Euroscope at Ness Point, the furthermost eastern point in the UK and everyone shook hands on a job well done.It was quite an uplifting moment, all these total strangers coming together with the same idea and intent of purpose.Shortly afterwards, an elderly large Citroen estate arrived but still no sign of Rich or Lawrence.We all stood and watched a magnificent sunrise at 4:30, mimicking Clarkson’s calls of “Loser!” ringing through the morning air.After that, it was all strangely subdued as we waited to see if anyone else would arrive, but no one did.We left at 5:00am and headed for our hotel in Great Yarmouth and a good sleep and cracked open a couple of bottles of Stella Artois from my luggage in the hotel room.Neither of us finished them.We were too tired.Next morning, we headed home to Scotland with another challenge crossed off the bucket list.We had averaged 65.1mph and 29.7mpg over the route and the MX5 never missed a beat.I later contacted Rich via Facebook and was relieved to find out they were okay.An emergency petrol stop and a wrong slot on the M25 roadworks taking them south down the M11 meant that they arrived at the finish 45 minutes late.When you’re so tired, it’s too easy to make a wrong slot as your decision making processes become more and more confused. Especially when you can’t change drivers every 50 minutes or so like we could.Still, much respect to two young guys earning the iron butt award for the longest time in the saddle on the run.I must thank David for his great company and our respective wives, Ruth and Kirsteen for putting up with yet another hair-brained scheme that I came up with.I would also congratulate all those who took part on the night and the previous night.I feel happy knowing that there are people out there, like me, who have that can-do attitude and are up for a challenge.Whether they were successful or not doesn’t matter a jot. The fact is that they did it for the thrill of it all and the love of the open road.I’m glad that I finally did this run as it’s been at the back of my mind for a long time to give it a go.I would thoroughly recommend this run to anyone on here.It is achievable but there is also the distinct possibility of not getting to the finish before sunrise.It seems easy. Drive just over 60mph on dual carriageways and motorways but once you get out there, you quickly realise that this is no cruise along deserted roads.Now, what hair-brained scheme for next year? Just go for it and get it off the bucket list Jim

I've put together a new RBRR video that's a bit different from all previous videos of the event we've seen. I contacted Mathew Whittles, Howard Brissenden and Peter Raemen for their RBRR footage and used some of my own and that of my daughter, Katy, to produce and edit together some material already on YouTube and some unpublished. So, instead of the RBRR from one crew's perspective, I've produced a video that is more like what you would expect from an outfit with cameras fitted on numerous cars and at locations around the route. The footage is of the 2016 and 2018 events and was originally a teaser for what it would be possible to produce for the 2020 event but Covid put paid to that and in 2021, crews had access problems to the UK or new cars to be run in. So not enough footage for this type of video in 2021, but 2023? Who knows. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and don't find the music not to your taste. Come on, who doesn't like trombones! Thanks to Mathew, Howard, Peter and Katy and also Tim Bancroft for his support. If anyone knows how to link it to Club Triumph, please feel free as I thought I did, but I don't. Cecil B DeMcJim. Here's the link:

Well, still no further forward. Had to refit the two(!) spacers just to be able to tighten the nuts of the studs. The new pump wouldn't go in with either no spacer or only one. Not a drop of petrol coming up from the tank to the new pump. Used a tyre inflator to blow back and clear if there was an obstruction from the pump to the tank and that was clear, however, it did do a decent impression of a jacuzzi. I was quite enjoying it for a while looking in the open filler cap until I started to get a bit light-headed and dropped my cigarette. Don't know where it went but it's not blocking the outlet anyway. Calm down, calm down! I've never smoked a day in my life but I've mislaid the lighter I was using for a better look. Now stuck, unless anyone "in the know" has a trick to make sure the new fuel pump is properly fitted. At this rate, I'll miss the two days of summer we get up here and the opporchancity to go "Taps aff!" Signed, Buzzin' and Wired to the Moon from Scotland.

I have a feeling that I have one long stud and one short Colin. I'll have a look tomorrow and probably be on the phone to Canleys next week with my luck. Jim.

Thanks chaps. One of the studs came out rather than the nut on the end. It would only catch on the block with just a couple of threads which led me to believe that previously it had been a case of whatever pump was to hand when the engine was originally rebuilt, which would appear to have been the later version. I'll give it a go with the new older version and no spacer in a couple of days as my back is killing me after the forced labour of painting the garden fence. Tea and sympathy gratefully accepted. Signed, An old, decrepit man from Scotland who's now less confused. Thanks again guys. You're not a bad bunch.

Am in the middle of changing the fuel pump in my 1976 Spitfire. I ordered an early type pump for my early 1500 but when I finally got round to removing the existing pump, it appears to be the later model one plus there's a spacer block. The engine was rebuilt about 2 years ago after it nearly failed on us on the 2018 RBRR but the engine block was changed as it was too badly damaged by whoever rebuilt it before I owned the car but the internals were retained. The number on the engine block is FM 042773 HE, which I thought was an early 1500 engine. Whoever rebuilt the engine in the first place also fitted a Mk 3 cam, which makes the engine really torquey. Nice. So what now? Can I fit the early pump I bought and omit the spacer? Will it be okay with the Mk 3 cam? Do I have a late model engine block? Any help appreciated as I have the mechanical capability of a pomegranate. I can't understand it. The guy on YouTube made it all look so easy. Signed, Confused from Scotland.

Fitted LEDs to the Spitfire before the 2021 RBRR. Bought LEDs with a heat sink - no fan. Everything fitted into the headlamp bowl and no drilling. Got mine from here after many recommendations - https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/12-volt-collection/products/latest-led-headlights-h4-philips-z-es-hi-lo-beam-conversion-9-32v#shopify-product-reviews No issues at all on the RBRR despite them being on for long periods at a time. See the difference in the video. H4 halogens to LEDs. Jim. video-1624820673.mp4

Cheers Rob. I'll gladly sponsor you for a visa. Jim.