When the cat's away......

With Jennie in the UK visiting her sister and me having made excellent progress on the "honey do" task list, it was time to chill and do some stuff that I've been wanting to do for ages.  One of the jobs was to properly adjust the clearances in the MG differential.  I knew it needed doing as bits of  the shims were visible in the oil when I changed it in late 2021.

Not what you want to see in diff oil!

I only have an automotive trolley jack and axle stands which would make the job difficult in terms of access, compounded by my slowly healing femur, which makes grovelling on the floor somewhat uncomfortable at present.  The decision was made to do an overnighter in Auckland and let MG specialists, Paul Walbran Motors do the job properly on a hoist.  The plan was once the job was done, to do a solo road trip for a few days and catch up with old friends. However, the weather has been pretty dire this winter with another deluge forecast to start late in the day after the repair and last for several days.  The latter part of the plan was wisely abandoned as it's pretty ugly outside right now.

Driving from rural Coromandel to Auckland was straightforward but getting to Walbran Motors in Grey Lynn out west was a real trial because of the volume of traffic on non-arterial roads that hadn't been upgraded in decades. Driving with a manual gearbox in horrendously slow start-stop traffic is a real pain.  Fortunately, the MG engine runs cool which is a blessing.

I was met by Andrew, Paul's son and his team and given an MGF courtesy car until the BGT was ready the following day.  It was actually good fun to drive but a milky plastic rear screen on the soft top meant more than usual reliance on the rearview mirrors, plus masses of shoulder checks!

Paul Walbran Motors in Grey Lynn

My courtesy car at the motel

Diverting from things automotive for a moment, Grey Lynn wasn't an area of Auckland that I was familiar with. However, the ethnic mix of the local population meant that there was an amazing variety of eateries within a 5 minute walk of the motel. I chose a Chinese takeaway where no English was spoken but coped just fine with hand signals and pointing. The lady running the show made the noodles from scratch and the spiced pork dish was divine.  About twice as much as I could actually eat for NZ$14 (USD 8.50 and GBP 6).

All manner of boiling stuff, including my noodles

The size would be fine for 2 people!

The next morning, I got a call saying the car should be ready around 1pm, so that I could make the 3-odd hour drive home in dry weather and daylight before it got too challenging on the twisty Coromandel roads.  I then got another call saying that they'd discovered a leak on the rear brake hydraulic cylinders, plus worn rear shoes so they were fixing those too.  I arrived whilst they were still working on it, so took the opportunity to take a few photos in the workshop.  Outside MG club events, I've never seen so many MG's in one spot.  Here's a selection.

Our GT on the hoist

The grey MGB on the hoist in the photo below is apparently powered by a MX5 Miata motor and the white GT is an automatic.  Pretty rare I think.

MGB Roadster and automatic GT with sunroof

What you call a busy workshop

MGB GT set up for competition

A couple of very nice 50's MG T series cars

Instrument panel of the green T series MG

A corner reserved for Jaguar V12 XJS Cabriolets

There was a photo behind their reception counter of an MG record breaker which I knew nothing about.  A speed of 204 mph in 1939 from an 1100cc engine is phenomenal!

MG's record breaker

I buy parts through Paul Walbran Motors but this is the first time I've used their workshop and was really impressed.  Andrew, Jade and Nick all went out of their way to make me feel welcome and shared information with humour and good grace - sincere thanks to the their team.  I love working on our MG but for some jobs, expert assistance makes perfect sense.  Logistics from Coromandel to their premises takes some planning but their expertise and customer focus was well worth it.  Traffic getting out of Auckland mid-afternoon was terrible but I had a dry run to within half an hour of home when the heavens opened.  Made it just on dark too. The proper diff clearances have made a big difference too.  No more clunks and jerks when I get on and off the throttle.

Just out of interest, the fuel consumption on the return trip was 33 imperial mpg as I could maintain constant progress on the open road, using the overdrive. Overall fuel consumption over 4 years of ownership has been 24 mpg.  It would have been better had I discovered corrosion pinholes in the top of the fuel tank before last year!

Now for something entirely different which pleases me no end.  I'll probably receive eternal damnation though from any computer engineers who may read this. The desktop PC which I normally use for more complex tasks has been crashing not long after boot-up with increasing frequency. My knowledge of computer internals is close to zero but being a retired professional engineer with a decent knowledge of process plant condition monitoring, problem-solving is second nature.  Before it crashed a few days ago, I managed to run a diagnostic program which wasn't a lot of help on the face of it but I noticed that the CPU was running at well over 90 C with a light load, which I thought seemed a bit high.  Further research confirmed my suspicions and led me into the murky world of CPU cooling. This in turn steered me towards thermally transmitting jointing compounds which are used to join the CPU to the cooling fan, giving a uniform heat transfer.  Never heard of them until I found a chatroom discussion on the topic. The discussion might have been in Martian but I understood the gist of it as the laws of thermodynamics are pretty much constant everywhere.  Poking about in the internals, a quick inspection showed that the original jointing compound had partially vanished and the remainder had turned to powder which is hardly surprising as the computer is at least 10 years old.  

Internals of my Win 10 desktop PC - cooling fan attached to CPU

No normal or sane member of the human race has a tube of CPU jointing compound in their cupboard and living in the countryside only exacerbated my problem.  What I do have, however; is copper-based anti-seize compound for maintaining our vehicles etc. It has a high temperature rating and is thermally conductive. There was mention of this in the chatroom with opinions more or less evenly divided as to whether it would be an acceptable substitute - so much for expert opinion!  As the fan heat sink was copper, I figured that bimetallic corrosion was probably not an issue. Besides, my PC isn't upgradeable to Win 11 so its future might be limited anyway. With fingers crossed and sparingly applying the copper paste to the mating surfaces with a cotton bud, I reassembled it onto the motherboard. Hallelujah - the computer doesn't crash and the CPU is running below 70 C even when being driven fairly hard.  I think we can count that as a win for a computer ignoramus. Nice to learn new stuff to keep the grey matter active. 

 

Planes and some good walks

Every year, we try to catch up with old friends for a long weekend.  They live near  Wellington, our capital, some 650 km from our home and what we normally organise is a meet-up at somewhere different in NZ or the Pacific Islands; giving us the opportunity to see and do different things.  This time was at Mount Maunganui in the north island's Bay of Plenty.

Apart from the pleasure of catching up with friends, I was particularly keen to visit the Classic Flyers Aviation Museum at the Mount.  For some reason, it's not particularly well publicised but as a lifelong aircraft enthusiast, I was keen to see what they had on display.  To say that I was well-pleased is an understatement and we were all pretty impressed.

The museum consisted of a display hangar which was packed to the gunwales with aviation-related items, plus a restoration workshop which we didn't have time to visit.  Here are some photos to give a flavour of what they had on display.  

General view of hangar

Additional general view of hangar

Part of a B-17 fuselage mounted on a wall was particularly interesting.  It graphically showed how little protection there was for the crew from anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighters.  Seeing the bomb rack inside the fuselage was a sobering moment, if a stray round or two had penetrated the fuselage at that point.  Also, the lack of insulation and heating made things pretty unpleasant for the aircrew.

Bomb rack with bomb bay directly below

A couple of photos of B-17 anti-aircraft armament below:

Browning  .50 calibre machine gun

Ball turret

Stepping back to the early days of flight, Kiwi Richard Pearse was experimenting around the same time as the Wright brothers.  Here's a replica of his plane and some supporting notes.

The Pearse monoplane

Richard Pearse

Although many WW2 aircraft used the "shark tooth" insignia on the nose, the best known application is on the Curtis P40 - looks quite intimidating.  This version has the V12 Allison motor, not the Rolls Royce Merlin.

Curtis P40

The Catalina flying boat fuselage shown below is an interesting exhibit.  I wasn't aware that it had attachment points for jet-assisted take off (JATO) to reduce drag during take off on water.  There's still a flying Catalina in NZ which I saw landing at Lake Taupo about 20 years ago.

Consolidated PBY Catalina

The Harvard was a trainer used by the air force in many countries as a stepping stone to combat aircraft.  There are quite a few Harvards flying with the NZ Warbirds.

North American Harvard in USN livery

The Avenger was a WW2 torpedo bomber and I was surprised to see just how big it is.  Notably flown by George HW Bush in the Pacific theatre of war.

Grumman Avenger

The Skyhawk was the primary NZ Air Force combat aircraft when we first came to NZ.  My lasting memory of one was sailing in a coastal regatta when one flew fast and low over the fleet.  Loud as heck and we never saw it coming.  Turned out that it was being flown by a pilot who also raced in the same yacht class as us!  This exhibit was equipped with a rocket pod, Paveway guided bomb and canons.

Douglas Skyhawk

The De Havilland Vampire and subsequent Venom were early UK jet fighters. The vampire entered service in 1946 but the Swiss aircraft shown below was in service until 1990!

Swiss DH Vampire

DH Venom cockpit - rudimentary and small by today's standards

There were lots more exhibits inside which I've omitted for brevity but it would be poor form to leave out the pedal-operated models built for kids visiting the museum. A nice touch.

Recruiting future pilots

There were also a number of outside exhibits, some of which I photographed between passing showers.  These are shown below.

F86 Sabre

De Havilland Heron and Vampire

WW2 Dambusters bouncing bomb and Grand Slam penetration bomb

The "Mount" as it's referred to by Kiwis is an extinct volcano at the end of a peninsula.  There's a 3 km walking track round the base and for the adventurous, a track to the 235 metre summit. A brisk walk round the base taking in the sea views was sufficient rehab for my healing femur!

Mt Maunganui (file photo)

Jennie, Georgina and Mike about to start the walk

To the north of Mt Maunganui is the Te Puna Quarry Park, maintained by volunteers.  Covering about 35 hectares, it's a disused quarry with paths of varying elevation through all sorts of different plants, both native and exotic.  Another great venue for strengthening the leg muscles.

A park trail

Just one of the many species of plant in the quarry

About half an hour from where we were staying, there are the McLaren Falls and rapids.  Situated right by the road, no walking was required to enjoy the sight of the rapids which had a good flow thanks to recent rain.

McLaren Falls, Bay of Plenty, NZ

Great company, great food, lots to see and plenty of exercise - what's not to like?

Small Victories

The content of this post might not seem much to most people but a series of small wins has made the world of difference to me. Having had both knees replaced due to accumulated sporting injuries and then snapping my femur in a mountain bike accident late last year has meant that for nearly 2 years, normal activities have been somewhat curtailed, not to mention varying levels of pain which is pretty wearing.  Although I generally have a positive outlook on life, physical restrictions also take their mental toll.

Today was a big step in the right direction with the first ride on my mountain bike since the accident. (HERE). That ride could have happened several weeks ago but psychologically, I kept putting it off as memories of the accident and rehab was still a bit raw and a mental block.  Time to put my big boy pants on today and get out there.

More nervous than I look!

It was only a 10 km ride, mainly on tar seal with just a bit of level gravel thrown in but the impact (perhaps a poor choice of word) was both confidence inspiring and wonderful.  The femur still niggled a bit but with a pre-ride warm up and taking it fairly easy on the ride, most of the pain had actually disappeared by the finish.  A sore butt and aching wrists due to ergonomic differences between the MTB and static bike aren't really relevant.  Heart rate was ok too on the hills although they weren't substantial gradients.  These should get even better.  Someone who is not me in our household has issued a dire warning about not riding gnarly off-road trails again.  This is on pain of death so good behaviour would be the safest bet.

Ride data - not too bad for a 77 year old geezer

Most people hate strange noises which they can't track down, particularly when it applies to their method of transport.  For over a week, we've had a buzzing sound in the MGB.  It only happened over a very narrow rev range and we couldn't agree where it was emanating from.  It was driving me nuts so I went for a drive with the express intent to track it down.  Anybody following would have wondered what the heck was going on with lots of body movement and head swivelling trying to pinpoint the noise.  It didn't seem to happen at the rev range whilst the car was stationary which made things more difficult.  The photo below was taken at one of the stopping points where this anomaly was discovered. It's actually quite a scenic spot where there is a working vintage gold ore crusher. (Details HERE)

Two vintage bits of machinery - one 100+ years old and the other made in 1972

It wasn't until nearly the end of the drive when the source of the buzzing noise finally revealed itself.  It was coming from the right hand fresh air vent on the dashboard.  The movable centre where the air direction can be changed vibrated against the outer casing at certain revs - some sort of harmonics.  Why it suddenly chose to start doing it is a mystery.

The solution was surprisingly simple.  I found a flat piece of clear plastic packaging medium in our recycle bin and cut a piece to slip between the movable component and outer frame.  The mild interference fit still allows adjustment and it's an invisible repair.  The photo below shows a tiny sliver of the plastic shim as it is being pushed into position at the left hand end of the right vent.

Another small victory!

The supply of potable fresh water around the world seems to be an increasing problem.  It's not only through drought but crumbling infrastructure (old piping or inadequate size) is impacting on the development of housing and commerce throughout the world.  The house which we now live in was built in the 60's as a holiday home on the edge of Coromandel harbour away from reticulated water supply in the village.  The only water source was rainwater collected in tanks.  Eventually, reticulated water was laid on our road but a permanent below ground connection to established properties was a major and expensive exercise because of the steep topography and vegetation.  We've occasionally run a hose to the reticulated water connector at the roadside after long, dry periods or lots of visitors but in the main, tank water collected from the roof has been just fine.

The problem is that with the house being old, filtration was pretty crude, particularly from a biological perspective. We've never got sick but maybe we were just plain lucky. Local tradesmen like plumbers are pretty good at their job but are a nightmare in getting them to turn up when they promise and good communications are rare. Because of this, we sat on our thumbs and did nothing, despite it being on our important task list.  Then lady luck shone on us with a flyer dropped in our letter box.  It was from a small specialist company dealing with rainwater systems who operated out of the Bay of Plenty and Waiheke Island - not a million miles from us (WEBSITE HERE).  To cut the story short, we met the owner, liked what we saw and he's just finished stage 1 of our upgrade.  New filter systems on the storage tank infeeds, biological and particulate filters on the feed to the house plus cleaning and sterilising the storage tanks. Some additional upgrades yet to come.  All completed in a day and a half with a very high standard of workmanship and quality components.  It's probably fair to say that he's cost competitive against local plumbers too because of his specialist knowledge.  I'd call that another victory!

An extremely tidy filtration system 

Storage tank with 2 stage particulate inlet filtration

Going back to the potable water problems in many parts of the world, I'm surprised that the relevant authorities don't encourage greater use of rainwater.  Ok, our storage tanks are old fashioned but new designs are relatively unobtrusive and can even be built into the walls of structures, just like a neighbour's house.  Food for thought?

To sum up, a series of small wins with good outcomes are definitely able to give a real mental lift! 

A great day for bikes and cars

We belong to a classic car club in the next town to where we live but have also just joined the one in our own town (village really with a population of ~1600) as it's growing nicely with a good mix of vehicles from all corners of the world.  After calling the local car club president a few days ago to find out a bit more about it, we were invited to join them the following day on a short(ish) run up the coast to socialise and view the vehicles owned by two of the members at their country property.  

We duly met up in the village and headed off in a convoy to Karen and Brian's place.  Here are some of the vehicles at the rendezvous.

2022 5 litre Mustang with hot motor - sounds fantastic

An eclectic mix of vehicles in the photo below.  The Mk3 Ford Zephyr behind the Mustang belongs to a "mature" gentleman and his wife who live in the south of the south island and just happened to touring in our area.  Mk 3's originally had a 2.5 litre straight 6 engine but this one was a real "sleeper".  Looking pretty standard from the outside apart from mag wheels, the owner had fitted a tuned and bored out 308 V8.  By the way it accelerated away from the rendezvous, I'd imagine that taking it on at any traffic light grand prix would provide quite a shock to the other driver.

Some of the vehicles on the run

Arriving at the entrance to Karen and Brian's property produced an unplanned event.  They have a long driveway with a double gate near the main road.  There was a plate sticking up in the centre of the drive for the 2 parts of the gate to locate against.  Unfortunately, it was a tad higher than the rear muffler assembly of one of the modern Mustangs and pulled the assembly clean off!  Fortunately, there didn't appear to be any damage and just required a refit.  Our MG exhaust pipe was in the danger zone too but a bit of manoeuvring avoided any embarrassment and the offending plate had been removed before it was time to go home! 

Karen and Brian's property was beautifully secluded, a mix of bush and paddocks with a great view back to Coromandel Harbour and parking on one of the elevated paddocks made for a great photo opportunity.

What a stunning parking spot!

Gorgeous native bush all round the property

Glorious views back to Coromandel Harbour

There were several sheds of various sizes around the property, all filled with vehicles and motorcycles of various vintages.  I couldn't help comparing it with the UK "Late Brake Show" on YouTube where rare finds are uncovered after sitting for many years.  However, in this case; Karen and Brian's collection were either roadworthy or being actively restored.  Let's start with some bikes....

In the first shed, there were a number of bikes.   I think that the Norton 850 Commando is a 1974 model by the paintwork - the first I've seen in the flesh. The BSA B44 Victor was a throwback to the mid-late 60's when 4 strokes were still competitive moto-cross machines.  So simple to work on compared with modern bikes.  There were also some Japanese trail/enduro bikes wedged into a corner which were difficult to photograph.  I'd imagine that they were probably from the 80's.

British iron from the 60's and 70's

There were also 3 Harley Davidsons of various types, one of which was a side valve model from 1942.  It was in immaculate condition and in regular use.  It had the slowest stable tickover of any i/c engine I've ever heard - you could count the beats!

Being kicked into life

In one of the larger sheds was a legendary Triumph Trident triple being rebuilt.  The frame and engine are from a 1969 model and the rest from other models and years. It was particularly poignant to see one as we used to see them raced in the late 60's and early 70's in the UK.  The howl from an open 3 into 1 megaphone will never be forgotten!

An early superbike - the Triumph Trident

The photo below is of an early Land Rover in what I reckon is a perfect setting.  The goat skull on the radiator grill is also a nice country touch.

The perfect men's shed

A closer look at the Land Rover

A larger shed contained some wonderful treasures - some of them not covered in this post as I didn't get round to it..

There were a couple of V8 engines on stands, one of which doubled as a test bed and was occupied by a flathead - provenance unknown.  Lovely restoration job.

This is a PROPER guy's shed!

330 Chevrolet small block engine for sale

One of the vehicles in the shed was a 1954 Ford F100 truck which was being lovingly restored in tasteful hot rod style.  Paintwork was flawless as was the engine bay with the non-standard engine. From memory, it's a Ford 385 but I might be in error about the size.

Motor in the Ford F100

My best mate Rick in the UK is always amazed at the amount of activity in NZ regarding classic cars, bikes and aircraft.  I guess that given our population of about 5.2 million, it is rather surprising and long may it continue.  It was a privilege to get out with the car club and to be hosted by Karen and Brian.  Thanks so much everyone and see you again soon.