November Update

 

November Update.

 

I was hoping there would be more interesting things to write about but there have been a number of little jobs I have done in between news of more van parts. Highlight was last weekend when Louis Barbour sent me a short video of the transmission working in his test vehicle. 

I got on with fitting a new rocker box gasket to the Toyota so that the plugs were no longer drowning in oil. It had to be taxed and not sold as planned as there is little choice in my price range as ULEZ to the North Circular has been introduced and made second hand cars more expensive. If I have to go into that area I’ll do it the bike for which I do not pay. Another gripe to add to my list is E10 fuel. I don’t agree with the action or the philosophy of replacing one hydrocarbon for another that has inferior combustion power. Petrol has a combustion power that ethanol does not have. Have you tried the flaming Christmas pudding spectacle? You have to warm up the brandy quite a bit before it will ignite and burn with a nice blue flame and you can eat it afterwards. I would recommend not to cremate your Christmas pud with petrol, especially in a confined space. This lack of oomph from the ethanol side of fuel does not do well in your engine. Older ones suffer because your octane level is lower, pinking, poor tickover, lack of power and so many miles to the gallon less and you are paying for it! More fuel used at even higher prices. I have now stopped using E10 in the Toyota because it doesn’t tick over smoothly anymore. We don’t know anymore what you are filling your tank with. How are the suppliers allowed to give you this rubbish? Even a loaf of bread has its’ standards. I, being an anorak with some things, record fuel usage on everything, except the Toyota (Gita’s car), and can tell you the difference in the fuels use between fill ups even on E5 petrol versus premium there is a difference. On the Buell it is 3mpg which works out at 6%. The government information says 1 to 3% so when E10 came along what do you think will happen to your fuel consumption? Going to be 10% less miles to the tank full. Makes a complete mockery of manufacturers figures.

November is a good month for MOT’s, the Toyota and a bit later the El Cid. Last year I had the advisory of king pins and front tyres needing to be replaced. For this year I greased the king pins and moved the tyres to the back of the car. Still the kingpins had too much wear and now the rear tyres are an advisory. No fooling these guys. I have been using the Chinese tyres, the cheapest I could get as the tracking on the El Cid tends to wear the outside of the front tyres and repeated tracking adjustments resolved this problem and the tyres have worn evenly for the first time since 1997. I have to get new tyres so I took an offer of  a set of 5 new Toyo tyres from ECAS. Those who know they are 135 against normal 2CV of 125 a slightly bigger tyre and will replace the Chinese ones after I have used every ounce of legal tread. Having got the new tyres I went to get two fitted, the spare and a new rim for when I need to use them. The big problem is balancing. The place I used to use has changed their machine and are no longer able to balance three stud disc wheels. Disaster. Does anyone know where I can get them balanced?

I have signed up the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcycle Club for the Kempton Park Off Road bike show on December 4^th. I will be taking my LE. Normally I would be riding it, but as it will be December and it gets dark before the show ends it will be trailered. Checking the trailer over the wheel bearings were a bit rough. After nearly 40 years on the same abused bearing it was time to give them some tlc. I finally obtained some of the correct size after returning the first lot ordered. The problem that one company had different widths for the same bearing number.  Being Imperial taper rollers some were measuring the outer race width and some the inner race width. I could only measure the inner race on my trailer and the outer race on the replace bearings without damaging the packaging. It was not until I removed the outer race from the hub could I compare like for like. Trailer Tek were very helpful in resolving this issue. 

While waiting for the post and we had some fine weather I set about making the trailer more versatile. For a bike trailer it is Harley sized 500kg and very long. Held together by one big bolt and a plate I could easily re-drill holes for new positions. I now have the potential to shorten the trailer to 4ft by 3ft box length, or a small bike length or full size. It took about a week to measure, check, clean and paint before a final assembly and back into storage until December.