RogueRunners 25 - Prologue

It's that time of year again - ROAD TRIP! - It might not seem that exciting to someone who dreams of two weeks on the beach in Benidorm, but to the RogueRunners it's one of the highlights of the year.

The idea hatched some time ago when one of our number reported that a new named route had been invented in Scotland. After the success of the NC500 (North Coast - 500 miles), there was now a SWC300 (South West Coast - 300 miles), this was all the excuse I needed & I set to work, initially basing the routes around Dumfries, which begat the tour it's name - the Dummy Fries Tour, as you can see, we have another superb decal featuring a crash test dummy with fries.

However, these things don't always go to plan & I could find no suitable hotels in Dumfries (or at least none cheap enough) so we are based a few miles away in Ecclefechan. The hotel I've found was bought recently by a couple who have been refurbishing it over the winter. He is a biker & car enthusiast, so it's boding well.

Also not in the plan was arriving at my girlfriend's house to find while removing a front wheel for a tyre change, that one of the bolts holding the near side cycle wing was missing altogether, another was completely unscrewed, leaving only one still holding the wing on the car 😱. There was some fevered re-working & I initially made it roadworthy with another bolt & a stack of washers, then after the delivery man had called - an M8 standoff with locktite & a spring washer which was a much better solution. when I have access to some proper tooling I shall wire-lock it all, but in the short term it will be frequently checked.

Meanwhile, back at RR25, I've split the SWC300 into two so we'll do most of that over two days & the rest of our time will be taken up with tours in the direction of Selkirk, Northumberland, Cumbria & the North York Moors, we take two days to get to what has inevitably become known as "EkkyFekky" & two days to get back, in previous years we might have done it in a day, but we've been doing this for 11 years now & we're not as young as we were.

So - will the weather hold? Will all the cars last? Will I remember to take everything this time? Will the hotel be finished? (it may be more like the traditional Benidorm holiday than we anticipated).

Check back over the next few days to find out.

All Change

 Yes I've had a re-decorate.

In true bloke style it's taken just 15 years to get around to it, but I felt it was time the Fury was laid to rest & the Stylus - representing my new life - took it's place. The photo was taken on the RogueRunners Devon trip recently by Brian. I cropped it a little & added the orange text. It only took me 1 1/2 hours to work out the Blogger settings!

RogueRunners Devon The Third - Day 3

Time to head home& another beautiful day had dawned. But there was trouble in the camp, an attempt to load the day's route had got a "no route possible" from the SatNav. I've commented on this before, it's a "feature" of modern TomToms, if a way point is placed on a road which is subsequently closed, it just throws a wobbly & is no help at all.

We followed the route in T.Y.R.E. while also following it on the phone in "maps" & found a closed section, re-routed, saved it as V2 & put it back in the SATNAV - "no route possible". Repeat - found another closed road, save as V3 & try again - "no route possible".

Porlock Weir

Eventually route V6 worked, so memory cards were passed around the group, all except one who was going to follow us for a way, then depart to visit relatives. We paid up & thanked out hosts at Laston House for another fantastic stay & headed off. Within 2 miles the six of us were split into four groups all travelling in different directions. As is often the case, we sort of re-formed by happenstance except for the guy who had retained the original route & used it with "traffic" switched off - he found the coffee stop first & encountered no closed roads at all.

The coffee stop in question was at Porlock Weir, usually we go into the hotel, but this year the sun seemed to have bought out enough people to make opening other businesses worth while, so we had coffee outside a small coffee shop on the quayside.

We set off again heading east to Dunster, where we again took the nice winding road, which was more or less traffic free. After that our number dwindled as people broke away & just three of us took in the "lunch" stop at Chew Valley Lake. I say "lunch", it was after two o'clock when we arrived & the waitress said "I'm afraid it's too late for lunch - we're only doing drinks - well drinks & cake". Ah, the magic word.

It was very pleasant sitting in the sun looking over the reservoir, but soon we had to move on. The next part of the journey was quite unpleasant as we tried to make our way across to the A303. Appalling road surfaces unnecessarily low speed limits & on one occasion a pair of women cyclists side by side on a 60mph A road, with 1/2 mile of frustrated traffic behind them! I shall re-plot this part of the route if people want to do the tour again next year.

But there it was finished, another successful trip, everybody seemed to enjoy it from the comments posted on the WhatsAp group. It's a fantastic group of friends from all sorts of backgrounds who just enjoy driving. Now we're looking forward to RogueRunners '25 next month - back to Scotland!

RogueRunners Devon The Third - Day 2

 

Day two dawned fine & clear, though I'd had a rough old night. Stomach cramps had kept me awake & without any of my usual fixes available, I was in quite a bit of pain & thinking I would have to miss the day's run. but eventually I managed to get some sleep which relaxed it all, but - disaster - I had to skip breakfast!

We headed south out of town & had a good run as far as "The Quince" honey farm & cafe.

It's a Turner

This year I didn't slide to a halt after very nearly missing the entrance.

This year it was warm enough to sit outside

This year coincided with "drive it day", so there were some interesting cars in the car park (and some MGBs).

Sadly there was no cake for me in case I gave myself more stomach problems, but having soaked up some sun, we headed off into the wilds of Devon. Today what traffic there was seemed intent on trundling along 20mph below the speed limit & not pulling in to allow faster traffic through. I don't expect to be let through, but it's nice when it happens.

Travelling north towards Dunster on the lovely country lane we even got stuck behind two caravans. Fair enough there was nowhere for them to pull in, but fortunately they turned into a camp site, so we got a little unimpeded driving in after that.

The next stop, just after Dunster was the Driftwood Cafe at Blue Anchor on the north coast, when we arrived it was festooned with bikers, but by the time we'd got our drinks, they had all but left. Here I felt I was safe to indulge, so had a cake with my drink.

Back in the cars & heading for home via the private toll road that cuts out Porlock Hill. The story goes it was used when cars & lorries couldn't pull trailers up the steep Porlock Hill, nothing is said about how they negotiated the hairpin bends. It's a fun & scenic drive though & the honesty box was pretty full, so it's not just me that thinks so. After the toll booth, one of our number sped off & parked to take some dramatic photos as we went past - Thanks Brian

I just held a small point-&-press camera over the screen arch - relax, it's a private road.

Then all too soon we were back at Laston House & walking down into Ilfracoombe for tea in our usual haunt - The Smugglers, where the proprietor remembered us from previous years! 

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not

RogueRunners Devon The Third - Day 1

 April - & it's time for the first road trip of the year. RogueRunners devon is a bit of a cheat really as I use the same routes & the same hotel each year.

We started at Andover with a breakfast in the Premier Inn, then headed um - east. Only one stop on the A303, because then we went south past the excellent Museum of Army Flying to pick up the A30 through Salisbury, where we turned west.

Railway Carriage in the background

We got a clear run through the zigzags at Compton Abbas & stopped for our first Coffee & cake at "The Udder Farm Shop" - no idea where it is, but it's very nice. Then on, passing the place where the cyclewing detached from my girlfriend's Tiger last year - no such difficulties this time, so we did get to stop at Pip's cafe-in-a-railway-carriage (we sat in a bus), which again was nice, but very expensive.

In the bus

 By now we were properly west & just needed to cross the M5 to be in cream tea country. With that out of the way, we headed diagonally up across Exmoor - no freezing low cloud this year & we descended to the coast at Lynmouth, before refuelling at Hele & pulling into the excellent "Laston House" - our accommodation at Ilfracombe.

The Mercedes is NOT one of ours!

After unloading, we headed to the Lime Kiln for tea - fish & chips six times was the order of the day & very good it was too.

It wasn't too far to stroll back, & straight to bed - the weather was looking fine for the morning.

Bone Idle

 I've mentioned that I'd messed with the Stylus' throttle cable with somewhat mixed results, the new cable route was technically better, but the idle was unstable, swinging from 500 to 1,200. I took the car out & while it was drivable, it wasn't pleasant, the engine took a long time to drop to idle, giving the unnerving feeling that I was speeding up, because I wasn't slowing down as fast as I'd expected. It was also popping & banging like a bastard.

I'd re-designed the pulley block for the cable & printed it in ABS for strength, but this gave problems, the first bit of travel passed across the pulley, rather than away from it, so didn't pull the cable much at all.

Yes the new version is orange - what of it? It's actually orange because that ABS filament seems to print much nicer than any other colour I have.

I decided that part of the problem was the stiffness of the cable going round the pulley - really I should've used a 2" pulley & may well re-design it again now I know I have space. I swapped the bike brake cable for a bike gear cable (hands up who knew they were different) & that worked better, but the idle was still poor. I wondered if the throttle needed some help to fully close, so I found some small tension springs I'd squirreled away years ago & fitted one of those. Again it was better, but not right.

Next I decided that while running the new cable route & forcing my arms into gaps too small for them, I might've disturbed the throttle bodies & caused an air leak. I took off the entire inlet system & found that yes, one of the vacuum tubes feeding the MAP sensor wasn't as far on as I'd like. They didn't seem very tight, so I shall get some fuel hose to replace them in case the modern petrol is slowly eating them, for now I tyraped them on. I took a few things apart & had a good look round - my home designed & printed intake trumpets are standing up well to the heat & vibration - then carefully re-installed everything.

I started the engine & not only did it not idle, it went straight to the red line! Eeek! I shut it down very quickly & re-checked everything, it all looked good, nothing forgotten or hanging off. I released all the clips sealing the throttle bodies to the intakes & this time lined them all up with much more care. With fingers crossed I pushed the starter button & it ran with the same lumpy idle. For some reason I started looking at the slow running screw, a couple of degrees made the difference between lumpy & 600 RPM & smoothish at 1,200 RPM. But when I backed it off further so it wasn't touching the throttle lever at all - smooth as you like & 750RPM. It's NEVER idled smoothly at 750 RPM. I think the slow running screw being set was stopping the ECU just controlling the idle, there's also no occasional "sneezing" (it made a noise I can only write as "TSHA" every 15 seconds or so) & while it's a bit of a worry when stone cold, idling at only 500, once warm it's nicer to drive than it's ever been.

My fingers are firmly crossed as it RogueRunners Devon III this coming weekend.

On a separate subject I received an e-mail today from the Blackbushe Air Day - just an advertising mail shot really, but in the description of the classic car section was this from last year's show:-

There we are look, fifth from the front & almost out of shot.

Busy Weekend Part 2

Having got up early yesterday for  the excellent Wheels Day, we were up early again, heading in the opposite direction for the Brooklands "Spring Gathering". The weather had looked iffy, but turned out better than forecast, so another excellent day was had. The variety of cars was again good - though not as "extreme" as Wheels Day & after a while the sun came out - ish. We also had a guided tour of my nephew's girlfriend's car restoration training workshop which was good.

I'll start with this '56 Chevy, certainly a bold colour choice, buy it just worked.

Isn't that lovely? Styling wise I don't think the Americans get it right that often, but when they do it can be very good indeed.

Subtle, well proportioned & easy to live with.

The paint on this was amazing, the sun came out just as we were talking about it & WOW!

You wouldn't want to get even a minor scratch on it though.

Zoom in - go on.

Back in the late '70s you didn't see a V8 Pop because no-one had worked out how to fit one in & keep some space in the inside. This one had a large V8 & four useable seats, which speaks volumes for the quality of the engineering. 

The "quilted" aluminium firewall was a work of art too.

A "Vincent Hurricane" - essentially a new body for a rusty Spitfire. You don't see too many around any more.

VWs & their offspring always feature heavily, & these two Type 2 pick-ups were very nice.

As was this GP Beach Buggy.

And this Nova with a Lotus badge. There were kits available to fit a Ford engine onto the VW transaxle, so it mat be that this car has a TwinCam. There was another Nova with a tube chassis & what appeared to be a mid mounted Alfa Boxer engine.

Classic Model A Hot Rod. It has been racing a Pendine Sands.

I got arty.

There was one of these at Wheels Day & I don't think it was the same one.

Also in the very small but sweet category was this Fiat 500. There seemed to be a great many Fiats in attendance.

Early Corvette was nice, but.....

...not as nice (to my eyes) as the slightly later one. I'll say it again - why doesn't a Cobra manufacturer make an early 'vette shell to fit their chassis?

Another Fiat - not one I was familiar with, I thought it was a Saab Sonnet at first.

Pretty little thing.

Freshly wrapped Haines Roadster looked good, the "wear" & "dirt" is in the wrap.

No manufacturer anywhere has ever made a car that had better styling than the two door MkI Escort. But now they're trying to see you a four door electric Capri.

I rest my case.

Weirdness. I'd guess that an Australian wanted the ultimate in a luxury "ute".

Body panels were perfectly straight & fitted well. Very impressive.

Yellow Tiger was just lovely. there were perhaps four Tigers in attendance. I would imagine some were ex-Alpines.

Representing the exotic end, were a couple of Maseratis, which were pretty stunning.

And finally. A friend sent an ad for this a couple of years ago when it was for sale. Someone thought "what if Lotus had done the Consul Capri instead of the Cortina". So they built one using Lotus Cortina parts & carrying out the same sort of mods - like the extra instruments & the wide steel wheels. It looked REALLY good.