Morris Minor Owners Club

I've just arrived home after driving through some really torrential rain in the Yorkshire Dales. I'll do a proper writeup later when I emerge from under a week's worth of emails and piled up work, but I just wanted to mention that by a really bizarre coincidence I pulled into a petrol station in the Lake District this afternoon, and Neil and Stephanie were there! We were going from and to different places at different times by different routes and they just happened to cross at the exact place and time that I decided to fill up. Neil was fiddling with his voltage regulator because he thought the dynamo wasn't charging properly at low revs - hopefully they made it to Neil's brother's OK after I said goodbye for the second time...

Here are the updates I posted by mobile phone on my blog (it doesn't look like anybody copied them onto here). The one I sent on Wednesday evening vanished into the ether so I'll copy it from my phone's sent message folder.

Tuesday evening
295 miles
Have reached Cheddar OK. Fenchurch running great. Went via E Wales and over the Severn. Crossed Clifton suspension bridge twice.

Wednesday afternoon
I'm at Goonhilly Down Earth station. Have successfully avoided temptation to check email at free web cafe. Heading to Lizard Point soon.

Wednesday evening
Road to YH closed. Friendly locals sent me down overgrown green lane. Have lost aerial. Pls send bent coathanger so I can listen to Wogan.

Thursday morning
At Land's End
Spent night with Olympic snoring champion. Bodged half of aerial back on. Fenchurch says RARRRR! (engine braking on 1:4 hill)

Thursday afternoon
We are stopped at Taunton Services due to carb flooding on Neil's car. Eliminated usual causes; now scratching heads and mumbling about RAC.

Thursday night
386 miles
Eventually left Neil to mercy of the AA and Bigginger. Rest of run fine apart from tub of butter melting over everything in boot.

Friday morning
Overpriced breakfast at Knutsford while others catch up. Neil is back on the road. Shouted at by farmer's wife for parking in wrong yard.

Friday evening
Crossed Forth RB. & arrived Glendevon YH (lovely place) without incident apart from niggles like squeaky dynamo and leaky damper.

Saturday afternoon
At John O'Groats
Have arrived at John O'Groats after a fast and uneventful run in plenty of time for ferry. I still know where my towel is.

Sunday morning
I am camping at Kevin's farm with Ray. Helped Neil replace his fuel pump points and tweak mixture last night. Looks like being a rainy day.

Sunday afternoon
I am sitting in Fenchurch at the Orkney Vintage Club rally waiting for the driving rain to stop. A car heater would come in handy right now.

Monday morning
Weather dried later on and I had a quick drive around the island. Have said goodbyes to everybody and now on ferry after very early start.

Monday night
422 miles
Drove hard on bendy roads for over 11 hours to get to Minigaff YH. Fenchurch conked out briefly due to dirty fuel pump points.

Glad to hear your back safe Alex - Little bird told me you didnt half take some overtaking on the A9 through caithness yestrerday such was the speed of Fenchurch !

Ah yes, I did a lot of hard driving yesterday because I had over 400 miles to cover on rural roads populated by slow-moving tourists. Negotiating the narrow winding A714 from Girvan to Newton Stewart at 50-60MPH in the rain was particularly hairy....

site is giving me a lot of 'invalid session' ####ox so i'll post an update some other day.
I'm back home safe and sound and very glad I went

Some statistics.

Total miles driven: 2361
Total fuel consumed: 239 litres (52.6 gallons)
Average MPG: 44.9

Total miles driven: 2361
Total fuel consumed: 239 litres (52.6 gallons)
Average MPG: 44.9

Not bad going for a week I know of some cars don't cover that in a year.. not me I hasten to add
Well done to you all and enjoy your rest

Mal

Reckon thats brilliant fuel consumption and one heck of a lot of miles.
Mind you Fenchurch does purr like a kitten - as did all the cars (except Neils briefly when it wasnt getting any fuel )
Even Rays pick up with the side exit exhaust made the old trav here sound like a load of bolts in a bean tin !

we are still up on the islands at the moment, and took a trip to rousay today for the longest walk ever! we will be spending the next few days with family and then heading back on saturday morning.
both of our cars are still running well but i could do with checking my brakes before the trip down the A9...

good to hear alex and ray got back ok...hope you both enjoyed the run... shame you missed the good weather which we are having now!

by the way, our group got a mention in the local paper and on the radio!

Arggg !!! lack of communication here - garage & tools at your disposal - as much tea as you can drink - internet etc.
Didn't know you were still here !!!

shame you missed the good weather which we are having now!

I didn't miss it - I had it in Findhorn - lovely blue sky and lots of it. ;-)

The Dragon reckons you were heading away there for a night of passion - confrontationally did ask her if she was justified making such a statement as thats a forgotten concept in her book LOL

Home at last at 1922. Just added a load more photos to my fotopic gallery at
http://minor946.fotopic.net/c1346971.html
We stayed at my brothers last night in Nantwich, after driving through some abysmal weather on the M6 between Kendal and about Warrington.
We started out on Tuesday from Dunfermline at about 11am, had a quick photoshoot at South Queensferry in front of the two bridges, then headed along the A7 through Galashiels & Hawick. Lovely route, I'd recommend it if you're not in a hurry.
We then got on the M6 at J45 and, just to be different, came off at J42 and did the A6 over Shap and through the lakes to Kendal, where in a bizarre twist of fate we met up with Alex again (as mentioned in his post earlier). I was a bit worried that my ammeter was reading 0 and the ig light was coming on even in 4th at 30mph. I adjusted the regulator a bit, all seems ok now. I'm sure the dynamo brushes are ok, but I'll have the dynamo off and check them out just to be certain.
Today we travelled via Market Harborough for lunch with some friends, then set out along the B4455/A429 Fosse Way from near Rugby all the way to Cirencester-about 50 miles of Roman road. Another good stretch of road, if not quite as scenic as the A7!
The car is now sitting in the garage slowly dripping dry, after some 2052 miles in the last 7 days. We have used some 256l of unleaded, which works out at about 36mpg-not quite as good as Fenchurch, Alex! Something's not quite right somewhere.
So ends a thoroughly enjoyable week. We have made some friends, had a few scary moments and driven through some fabulous countryside.
For me, perhaps the best bit was turning up at the Italian Chapel on Orkney, with 5 other Morris Minors, for a quick photo shoot, while a
party of bemused Italians in a camper van looked on!
A big thanks once again to all involved for your company, help and encouragement, especially in those dark moments at Taunton services.
We would both definitely do it again-perhaps we can fill the Orkney ferry up with Morris Minors next year?
cheers all, Neil, Stephanie & Honey.

Glad to hear you made it, Neil

I must admit I wasn't sure if you were going to make it to the next stage after Taunton.

I haven't decided yet if I want to do the run again next year. There would have to be something different about it to capture my interest; perhaps a more scenic route avoiding motorways and major A roads or something. That's what I did on the way down and the way back (I'll post a scan of my route map at some point) and those parts of the journey were much more interesting (albeit slower) than the long stretches of motorway. More comfortable seats are needed before I undertake another marathon journey though...

The Dragon reckons you were heading away there for a night of passion

nah - I'm a fairly reformed character these days. The only kisses and cuddles I got were from the over friendly puppy!

after driving through some abysmal weather on the M6 between Kendal and about Warrington.

The people using just side lights in 10 metres visibility made the whole thing that bit more interesting
I was probably not far behind or in front of you then! It would have been funny if you'd seen us as well as Alex.

Fosse Way from near Rugby all the way to Cirencester

You passed by 2 miles from me then.
Yes that's a great stretch of road for a Minor. We covered ~6 miles of that stretch on the first web-rally runaround on the way to Gaydon museum. It's certainly not the lake district, but for this part of the world that area's scenery is not bad!
A few miles off the Fosse Way is some nice hairpin bending hillside. They used to run hillclimb events there many years ago (before the local farmer put them off) and they relocated to the infamous Shellsley Walsh.

Here we are trying to sort out Neil's carb flooding problem at Taunton Services (it's 5.7MB and you'll need Quicktime Player). The exhaust is also broken, hence the noise - we were on our way to Birmingham to buy a new one and fit it at the side of the road when the carb problem occurred. In the end we spent 2 1/2 hours trying to fix the carb, then eventually we gave up and Neil called the AA while the rest of us carried on. There was a long way still to go and it was going dark by the time I reached the fairly remote farm I was staying at. Neil meanwhile got the AA to tow him to BigGinger's house, where Andrew sorted him out with a different carb float valve and a replacement exhaust. The vertical lines in the video are the camera sensor overloading because it was so sunny. That was the day that the tub of butter in my boot melted over everything.

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Was a nice write up in last weeks paper and a passing mention in this weeks in the main vintage show article.
Sadly not the pic at the chapel which emailed to them on monday but might well be in next weeks.
Will see if i can scan the articles later and put up a link.

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That's odd. The filename your browser is requesting has the embedded player parameters tacked on the end. Here is a direct link to the file without the embedding: http://www.alexholden.net/misc/TauntonServices.mov

Worked this time, but incredibly slow download. I might shrink it and host it myself, if that's OK