A new vehicle and new learnings

The previous post was in August and having turned 78 in October, I thought I'd better announce that I'm still alive and kicking!  One way or another, it's been a busy time, although fairly ho-hum.  Regular readers will remember that late last year, I fractured my femur whilst demonstrating a serious lack of talent on my mountain bike.  Rehab has gone pretty well but a bone scan revealed that I had a certain amount of osteoporosis - a reduction in bone density.  This could have possibly contributed to the fracture, although there's no absolute proof.  Since the scan, a weekly pill and strength exercises at the local gym 3 times a week have seen blood tests return to "normal", whatever that might be.  Thankful for small mercies, I'm back on the mountain bike but Jennie has banned me on pain of death from the local challenging goat track where I had the accident, sigh.....

Currently behaving on smooth gravel and sealed roads

On the automotive front, cars in general have nowhere near the appeal of motorcycles but in the 4+years that we've owned the classic 1972 MGB GT, they've got a bit more interesting; particularly when tinkering with them.  Outings with the local classic car club have been a lot of fun and seeing a guy and his wife about my age turning up on the last run in a hot (and noisy) Mazda RX7 rotary with a monster rear wing was quite a sight. Turns out that he was a rotary enthusiast from way back. It got a good work-out too!  A few of the local classics are in the photo below - Aston Martin DB9, MGA, MGBGT, F-type Jaguar, Model A Ford. Just out of interest, the guy waving in the photo was the test pilot for the first ever WW2 De Havilland Mosquito restoration project in NZ.

Lunch at Tairua beach

We tend to hang onto our cars and are not particularly interested in new shiny stuff.  A 2005 Toyota RAV4 is our workhorse for towing, launching the boat etc.  It's been absolutely bulletproof in the 15-odd years of ownership. Jennie's Honda Jazz RS is a 2017 model bought new and we tend to use it for longer distance runs in more comfort than the RAV. The MGB is a pure indulgence - a replacement for fun on two wheels.

However, recent developments have seen some changes.  Our eldest granddaughter will soon be off to university to study nursing and personal transport whilst on hospital placement will be pretty handy.  Guess where the RAV is going?  That opened the door for a more modern 4x4 and we were faced with a bewildering range of makes and models.  Reviews on YouTube and in the print media were often contradictory which complicated things.  In the end, we chose a Subaru Forester Premium and absolutely love it as it has both emotional and "fitness for purpose" appeal. You might remember that I used to bang on about those two factors being needed when choosing a motorcycle.

Subaru Forester Premium 2.5 litre

It's really easy to drive, both smooth and quiet but it's the first modern car we've owned with the full suite of safety features and boy, the number of switches and buttons are more like an airliner cockpit than a car!  There are buttons and switches in the driver's door, steering wheel and at various locations all over the dashboard.  We've had the Subaru for a bit less than a week and I still don't know what half of them are for!  The photo below shows the info pack which comes with the car.  The owner's manual alone is 607 pages long and you've got to be reasonably computer literate to take full advantage of the "infotainment" system and the linkage to your smartphone.  Got to admit that it's impressive though, especially the Harmon Kardon high end sound system. 

A whole new world of terminology and functions to absorb

 

The Subaru has a safety system called Eyesight Technology and the 3 hour drive home from the dealer was regularly interspersed with warning sounds and coloured lines on the multiple display screens. The most irritating feature is a bit of technology which figures out where the driver is looking and warns them to keep his or her eyes on the road.  I can appreciate the intent of this but when a driver is briefly scanning to improve their situational awareness, it can be intrusive. When the ignition is turned off, the car seems to default to its factory settings rather than retain personalised settings.  In fairness however, most features can be turned off with a button press rather than having to go through menus on the multiple screens.  If only I could remember which button does what!

Just some of the controls to master over the coming weeks

Leonard Cohen playing on the sound system by bluetooth phone connection

It's worth mentioning the dealership where we bought the car.  It's called Farmer Autovillage, located at the coastal town of Mount Maunganui.  It's a huge complex taking up a fair proportion of a main thoroughfare.  They sell a dozen vehicle brands or more and although they largely operate as separate units, they have a centralised service reception adjoining a very nice cafe.  Before visiting, I thought it had the potential to be impersonal and intimidating but they are super-well organised and all the staff we met were genuinely nice people who went out of their way to make you welcome without being over the top.  A lot of work has clearly gone into organisational planning and teamwork.  Full credit for such a pleasant experience.

Service Reception at Farmer Autovillage

This post isn't intended to be a comprehensive car review, just some observations about the direction personal transport is heading in with regard to technology, especially as we tend to hang onto our vehicles.  Overall, Jennie and I love the Subaru.  It's quiet, comfortable and totally fit for purpose. We've only had one slight embarrassment.  This was being unable to let our neighbours out from the rear seats without turning off the ignition when returning home from a quiz night .  We've since found the door unlock button!  Clearly, plenty of learning still to do.  However, there's one feature which is perhaps a damning indictment of the state of the human race.  When the ignition is turned off, there's a chime and a message on the dashboard asking you to check the rear seat.  I'm guessing this is in response to news reports of babies and small children having been left in vehicles when the driver has been distracted and forgotten about them.

I might add that Jennie has been making noises about buying another convertible and the latest shape MX-5 Miata with the powered "Targa top" might end up being a replacement for her Jazz RS. She actually sat in one at the Autovillage.  Let's just settle for the Subaru for a while, eh?

Finally, a cautionary tale about using expanding foam.  I'd just finished a job inside the house filling a small cavity with foam and walked outside when the aerosol can ruptured without warning.  It would have been a disaster inside the house with sticky foam flying everywhere.  As it was, the stuff stuck to a lawn, covered a shed door, decorated a few plants and ruined a perfectly good pair of Sketchers sneakers.  All this happened in seconds whilst I was contemplating what to do.  In the end, I chucked it onto the lawn where the remaining contents formed something which resembled a brain from a B grade movie.

There's a lot of foam in a can!

A new discovery

The Coromandel Car Club went for a run at the weekend, with a great lunch in Whitianga and ending up at a private, predominantly automotive museum about an hour from home which is relatively new.  I'd never heard of it until a few days ago and it's mind-blowingly good. For Kiwis, it's about 3 km south of Whitianga on SH 25 and the entry fee is $10.  The name of the place is Wheels Within Walls.

Some of the Coromandel Car Club vehicles

Here is a small selection of the photos I took, showing the variety of machinery on display.  There really is something for everyone at this museum.

Museum entranceway

There's a great mix of military and civilian vehicles and weaponry.  Down by a half track troop transporter was a long box with what appeared to be a bazooka in it!

Jennie and the ideal vehicle for cutting through rush hour traffic

Serious gas guzzlers

Seacat ship-based surface to air missile

Moving to civilian vehicles, it was an eclectic collection, including quite a few I'd never previously seen and I'd never heard of a Triumph Gloria, which was manufactured between 1933 and 1938 in various guises.

The Triumph Gloria

The Gloria radiator badge

Triumph Mayflower, two Rolls Royces and a Rover

A nice restoration project

The perfect tasteful Cadillac for Trump

V8-powered trike - ewwwww

One corner was devoted to early Land Rovers which were all in great nick.  The orange/red utility in the picture below had no i/d but was probably a locally made special body on the chassis of something else.

The offroad corner

At first glance, the car below is a stock Ford Anglia undergoing restoration.  A closer inspection reveals a Chevy 305 V8 being shoehorned into it!  I love sleepers and a mate in the UK had a standard looking Anglia with a Cosworth-prepared Cortina motor in it.  The fact that he was a senior engineer at Cosworth explains a lot!

Ford 105E Anglia

There's a sign on the screen of the Anglia which I just loved.  It's enlarged in the photo below.

Loved by mechanics everywhere

The Holden Torana enjoyed considerable success on the race tracks of Australia and NZ and have a cult following. Pristine SLR 5000 V8 models sell for astronomic prices but even the smaller engined models in original condition demand a huge price.  The black model below is allegedly a 1974 2.8 litre model.

Holden Torana and 1960 Ford Zephyr

Unknown vehicle below undergoing restoration.  The tiny engine must be a dream to work on with that great access.

Restoration underway

I don't know if the vehicle below is a commercial or home built item but it's probably a nightmare to steer with the pivot directly above the front wheel and the driver swinging about all over the place!

One of Frankensteins less successful creations

There are quite a few interesting displays devoted to things other than vehicles.  A wall with polished blowlamps and soldering irons caught my eye as an arty photo.  I guess that these early kerosene-powered blowlamps are regarded as a serious hazard these days but I remember my grandfather stripping old paint from woodwork with one.  They needed care to operate as it was possible to send out a jet of burning kerosene like a flamethrower if they weren't hot enough to vaporise the fuel.

Blowlamp and soldering iron display

There was a big area devoted to competition vehicles and here are a few examples.  The first photo is the V8 engine in a Bathurst-type Holden Commodore racing saloon car.

Holden Commodore race engine

The next photo is of a V8 stock car for speedway racing.  Easy to see where the Mad Max movie series got its inspiration from.

Absolutely brutal

This is a speedway sprint car for oval dirt racing. Still very popular in North America and the Southern Hemisphere.

Sprint car with massive wing

The bike below is a normally aspirated drag bike which used to run at the Meremere dragstrip  in NZ.  The museum owner was talking to me about the possibility of mounting it on a stand and demonstrating short engine runs for museum patrons.  Bring your ear plugs!

Kiwi drag bike 

Finally, a photo of the wonderful rustic bar at the museum - just perfect!  I hope you've enjoyed the short tour and can assure you that it's even better in the flesh and hours can be spent there.  A real asset for our region.

The museum bar

A blast from the past

Back in Covid lockdown, I set about digitizing our vast collection of photo prints, slides and negatives.  At best guess,well over 2500 images with a few still waiting to be done.  There are also 2 boxes of slides featuring the 1969 Isle of Man TT and the 1971 Transatlantic Match Race from Mallory Park.  The house elves have hidden these somewhere and I've been unable to find them which is a major irritation.  That aside, a fair number of the motorcycle digital images have appeared in this blog.  As it's a cold winter day in NZ, I thought that it was a good opportunity to showcase the story of my first "big" bike which briefly appeared in the history of bikes I've owned HERE .

Back in 1967 (58 years ago for the mathematically challenged), most readers of this blog weren't even a twinkle in their parent's eyes. I'd just seen an advert for a 1955 Triumph Tiger 100 which had been fully restored by the owner.  He worked for the Reliant car company and had access to professional paint spray facilities, chromium plating baths and so on. Although the bike was 12 years old, I thought it was worth a look.  I'm really glad I did - almost a case of serendipity.

He'd done a flawless job of restoring it but wasn't asking the earth.  I was more interested in sport-oriented bikes at that time but he had gone down the Marlon Brando "Wild One" route with US style raised bars, tall mirrors, crashbars and a white vinyl covered seat to complement the royal blue and white paintwork.  He had also chrome plated the engine mounting plates.  The engine had also received some attention with 10.5:1 pistons, E3134 performance cams, a gas-flowed cylinder head and a tuned exhaust.  I wasn't so keen on the US style treatment but it was such a lovely bike that the deal was done. Incidentally, I still have the Triumph service manual and official Triumph tuning sheet somewhere.  Maybe the house elves are looking after these too. Here we are in 1967, a slimmer and fitter version of me with a full head of hair.

Wearing the approved safety gear of that era

The Tiger was a lot of fun to ride and at that time, was more than a match for most cars on the road, particularly on twisty UK roads.  The major downside was the upright riding position which caused substantial drag at higher speeds and above 70mph or thereabouts, the long stalk mirrors would fold back and trap me between them!  I think that the photo below was taken in early 1968.  The mirrors have clearly been removed and I'm wearing a Belstaff waxed cotton jacket, much favoured today by the chinless horsey set.  Mine was undoubtedly a health hazard thanks to accumulated road dirt, dead insects and god knows what else sticking to the greasy outer layer but it kept the rain out. It didn't smell particularly fragrant either.  It also appears that I'd grown more hair, styled in the "rocker" mode of that era.  A near-neighbour was a "mod" who owned a Lambretta scooter festooned with lights and a fur-trimmed parka for weather protection and a Beatles haircut.  Mickey-taking was good-natured in both directions as we got on really well, unlike the brawls which broke out between the two factions at coastal locations, particularly Brighton.  

The "rocker" image of the 60's (yeah, right....)

I still wasn't happy with the upright riding position and acquired an aftermarket sport fairing. I also fitted dropped "Ace" handlebars to give a forward lean.  These two items made a considerable improvement to rider comfort with the reduced wind blast.  Given that the Tiger 100 only produced about 34 bhp or so, it gave a bit more performance at the top end too.  However, the big drawback was that the fairing was just a fibreglass shell with no infill panels. It magnified engine noise considerably to the point of distraction so it was dispensed with after a few months.  The photo below shows me negotiating a tricky bend near home in Northamptonshire.  There was a humpback stream bridge immediately followed by a 90 degree left-handed corner where it was easy for the incautious motorist or rider to come to grief. Glad to report that I was never a casualty at that spot.

The Tiger with its full fairing

From 1968 onwards, the Tiger was getting less use as I was building a supercharged drag bike and had a Wolseley 6/110 car to tow it when I started competing. However, during a maintenance strip-down of the Tiger, I noticed that one of the cylinder liners had a crack propagating from a conrod cut-out.  I didn't know how long it had been there but decided to replace both liners. Without going into tedious detail, the person who did the job made a hash of fitting them and over a period of a few weeks, they rotated slightly in the alloy barrel.  The first thing I knew about it was on the open road when the engine started misfiring and when I looked behind, there was a wall of white smoke.  The liners have cutouts to provide clearance for the conrods when they are halfway up and down the stroke.  With them rotating, they neatly machined grooves in the conrods as can be seen from the photo below. All that fine aluminium powder has to go somewhere, the "somewhere" in this case being all the oil galleries which starved the engine of oil, wrecking the pistons too. Bugger......

A ruined Triumph engine

Rebuilding the engine was considered very briefly but with all the expensive performance parts, plus the extreme difficulty in getting all the aluminium swarf out of the oil galleries, the decision was made to scrap it.  However, the good luck fairy must have been looking over my shoulder as a chap at work had just written off his Tiger 100 and I was able to buy the engine at a very reasonable price. The engine was in really good nick and ran reliably until I finally sold it to a mate in 1971.  Although it didn't get a lot of use in the 2 years leading up to its sale, I had some great adventures on it with my best mate Rick and his 650 Triumph Trophy. The most memorable one was attending the 1969 Isle of Man TT.  Numerous trips round the 37.73 mile circuit were made, including one at dawn with just Rick and I on the course. I'll leave that ride to your imagination but it will never be forgotten.  The young lady, Anne McGregor whom I met there was from Scotland and arrived on holiday with a mate, not knowing that the TT was being held!  I still have the 80-odd page programme for the princely sum of 3 shillings and sixpence which also helps with the memories. 

At Braddan Bridge on a non-race day, 1969 IOM TT.  Rick's Trophy on the right

I guess this tale goes to show that it's not just the bike, but the memories which go with it which ensures that it's permanently locked inside the skull.

1969 IOM TT race programme

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.