Tunneling

Ah the long awaited opening of the Hindhead tunnel posed a temptation too strong to resist & at the the suggestion of Mr Mangofury who was kindly dropping off some tools for me, we went to do some accoustic testing.

Here is a still from his blatcamera & shows my Fury about to plunge into the very earth . There are average speed cameras in the tunnel, but nowere does it say what gear you have to be in. Having travelled to quote theBBC "Britain's-longest-road-tunnel-that's-not-under-an-estuary" - so not Britain's longest tunnel then? We headed for home.

This left us with something of a problem, we needed to avoid the queue the tunnel was dug to cure (the nortbound side isn't open yet) so we left the A3 and patrolled some very country roads, before rejoining the A3 at Hindhead & coming home for a coffee. A pleasant evening indeed.

I continue to be astonished as just how well the Fury holds the road, from the A3 where buffeting was minimal even at "quite high" speeds, to the narrowest of undulating country roads, the Fury just sticks & inspires confidence. I'm sure it would continue to be tarmac-bound at considerably higher speeds, but on public roads, the fear of what might be round that next blind corner tempers the right foot somewhat.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

There were blats I could've gone on both yesterday and today, but yesterday's was out as I had to provide a tug service to move the caravan to Poole where Mrs Blatter, daughter-the-younger, the increasingly page3 girl shaped daughter-the-elder, & daughter-the-elder's taciturn boyfriend will be spending the week.

I arrived home yesterday evening & went to bed - this was a mistake as when I logged on to the SKCC's forum this morning another run had been hastily assembled & it was too late to go on it.

So what to do? Well the kitchen still needs work, so I plumbed in the radiator, then set about the garden - I am no gardener & tend to adopt a "slash-and-burn" approach where perhaps a little gentle pruning might be more appropriate. while looking around with a tree lopper in one hand & a "big" saw in the other my eyes fell upon the leylandii - or as there's just the one of it - leyland. Topiary sprang to mind, so I lay down the gardening-tools-of-mass-destruction & selected instead the garden shears, nipping here, trimming there, standing back to get the long view, before advancing to sculpt again, until .........what do you think?

I call it "beer can" Of course you may not be able to pick out the finer detail, the only photographic equipment available to me was my old ME Super - & two weeks waiting for the photo to come back would take the edge off the artistic impact - or the i-Pod & ironically it turns out that you can't put an i-Pod on a tri-Pod - who'd have thought?

Gutted

Well, the weather forecast hasn't changed & the trip's been cancelled - not really a surprise as this is the weather picture for our arrival time:-
Somewhere under all that blue is an outline of Cornwall. The trip will doubtless get re-sceduled for later in the year, but we'll have less daylight to play with, but will no doubt be safer - which is generally agreed to be a good thing.

So I guess i'll be getting on with the kitchen this weekend then <glum face>

Stormy Weather

Well, the big SKCC blat to Land's End is supposed to be this weekend, so the weather forecast for Friday (when we're not going) is glorious, while that for Saturday (when we are) is probably best described by the vernacular "pissing down". I'm hoping against hope that it'll fizzle out, or pass over quicker than forecast, but time's getting a little short now. Anyway, some of the other SKCCers seem keen to do it anyway, so we'll see how it goes.

Took the Fury in to work today, it seems all good - except the exhaust manifold gasket is blowing again.

Getting in Some Miles

Took the Fury to work today to get some miles on it before this weekend's trip, all went well, though I chose a poor route to work, a much better one home. If the weather holds I may well take it again tomorrow, the new brakes seem much better than the old, though a wet road will provide the proof of the pudding.

Wassapnin?

So, dear reader, I guess you're thinking "he's been quiet since the car got back on the road, either he's busy driving it, or something's gone horribly wrong." Well, it's neither of those.

The simple fact of the matter is that the car has not left the garage, I was sent to Filton for a course & when I could've driven it it was raining. However, I did take it out for a blatette this afternoon after Mr Mango was kind enough to drop the soft top back to me. I merely patrolled some back-roads on the outskirts of Guildford to get some miles on the car before the epic trip to Land's End next weekend. but all seemed well, the new brakes pull the car up straight & without locking up & the gearbox is crisp & positive, so I'm a happy bunny.

On The Road Again!

Spent all day wrestling the gearbox into the car, I must have been having a bad day because everything that could go wrong, did, I spent a hour looking for the clutch fork including looking in the engine bay several times, then I found it lying on the exhaust manifold – in the engine bay. Any tool I put down vanished, only to re-appear ten minutes later on the other side of the car, any nut or bolt I dropped (& there were many) disappeared into the most inaccessable crevice if could find.

When it was finally in & ready though, it fired up first time. First impressions are good, the brakes seem more powerful & more progressive, & the gear change is neat & precise. There is a little vibration when turning left, so I think the bell housing is just touching the chassis, I’ll look into that today.