Well Lit

The Stylus has Fiat Coupe tail lights, it's quite a common choice on Styllii, they look better that trailer lights, but I've always felt they bulged from the back of the car a bit. So I drew up & printed some mounts to move them inside the car, with alloy looking tunnels & I have to say I'm pleased with the result. The outboard ones have been a faff as the original builder put in "pods" in the wheel arches to waterproof the back of the lamp units & I had to make new, larger ones by using an old bucket as a mold & making new  GRP pods. Fitting the offside one was also a faff as the fuel filler gets in the way, but it's done now.

I think that's looking pretty good, one more to do & some fettling, but I'm very pleased with the look.

It's Trying To Tell Me Something

 On day 6 of the road trip, the fuel pump decided not to play ball in the hotel car park, this was better that out on a moorland road, but still not a good thing. I fiddled with fuses & all those things you do when you're not sure where to begin & suddenly it was working again - excellent. I quarantined the old fuses & the rest of the trip was great.

A week or so later I went to Screwfix - 50 yards before I arrived the engine died - no fuel pump. I pushed it into the Screwfix car park & gave the fuse a hard stare. It appeared to be fine, but the plastic around the "fuse wire" bit looked a little bulged, had it been getting warm? I swapped the 10a for a 15a & it fired straight up - excellent.

On testing, both the 10a fuses were fine, which was odd. Then yesterday I decided to go to my brother's. I got no more that 1/4 mile when the fuel pump stopped & no amount of wiggling the fuse was going to re-start it. Then the starter stopped working as well. I pushed it home.

Once in the garage I had the dash out of it & poked around a bit. There was a large orange wire coming from the fuse box, it came from the fuel pump relay, there was a large grey wire going to the fuse box, it went to the fuel pump fuse. You might think that they would just join together somewhere near the fuse box - or even be just one wire. No, this is a Kit Car & further more, a kit car that's has several

owners, many of whom have "improved" it, so between the orange & grey wires was this collection of random sized wires & connectors. I simplified it down to the minimum it needed

Then I looked in the boot where there is a "security switch" which turns off the fuel pump. As I reached round the back I thought one of the terminals moved & on further investigation, the spade terminals were insulated with clear sleeves, BUT, the sleeves were over long & the terminals weren't gripping like they might, furthermore,  one of the sleeves looked like this:-

That's been getting hot that has. So my assumption is that the spade terminals weren't gripping well, the over long sleeve sleeve, helped by some vibration - pushed against the switch body & slowly slid one or both of the terminals off until it was just touching & occasionally not touching at all. So I've fixed that.

On to the starter. The button is made to a pattern issued by the air ministry before WWII, so it's somewhere between 60 & 90 years old, but the type was used in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Mosquitos etc as engine starter buttons. I had one in the Fury & I have one in the Stylus. The one in the Fury got a bit petulant & I gave it a squirt of WD40 & made it's life easier by making it fire a relay to fire the starter solenoid rather than firing the solenoid itself. That seemed to work. The one in the Stylus has only ever fired a relay & there seemed to be power in all the places that power should be, so I took the switch apart & cleaned out the ancient grease from around the terminals & gave it a squirt of WD40 for good measure & it seems to be working better. It's been around the local roads a few times - only as far as I was prepared to push it back from - & it's been fine, I shall do more testing tomorrow.

So, overall I'm quite please with the Stylus, it's been dropping hints that there was a problem for a while, but causing me the minimum of inconvenience. 

Busy Weekend II

 On the Sunday we went to "Brooklands Relived", a sort of Goodwood revival - ish. There's not much of the track left, but there were demonstration runs up the Test Hill, an Autotest event & a Sprint on the Mercedes World track. The cars were mostly '30s ranging from tiny Austin 7 specials to huge 4 1/2 litre Bentleys - lots of those. there was also a bit of "drag racing" on the start / finish straight, the surface is really far too rough, but it was good fun to watch.

Thunderbird & Chrysler New Yorker in the "Pride of Ownership" concourse.

"Vitamin T" was built by the esteemed Nick Butler (of Revenge & Andromeda fame). It's a Model T "Doctor's Coupe" designed by Fords so that Doctors could drive it wearing a top hat. It was looking absolutely splendid for a 40 year old hot rod, we spoke to the owner who also owns Andromeda & Nykilodeon - he's not a hot rodder by inclination, he just admires Nick Butler's engineering.

Austin 7 special - there were several, looking right at home here.

Bentleys - there were lots, mostly not pristine. That's not to say "tatty", they were perhaps grubby, definitely "used" which was good to see. There were being charged up the hill & hurled around the Autotest.

As I said - hurled around the Autotest ....

...& run up the Test Hill

Drag racing ish, looks like they're having fun though.

Some of the "races" were a little odd. Cobra vs. aero-engined special (the Cobra won). Entertaining, but odd.

MG vs Bugatti - the supercharged MG won every time.

Of course Vitamin T won.

Speedwell Mini - these were roof-chopped before delivery & had the vertical gutters / seams shaved to reduce frontal area, it was having great fun on the autotest.

I've no idea of the story here, but that's a Frogeye sprite, but without it's Frogeyes. Again, this was being hurled around the Autotest with some enthusiasm.

Properly sideways - he caught that & got it back straight before the next cone.

We've all heard of the "Rolls Royce of motorcycles" the Brough Superior, who knew there was also a Brough Superior car? I didn't, my girlfriend didn't - which is practically unheard of. 

At Brooklands there were FOUR, including Mr Brough's own car.

Type 37 Bugatti - quite a lot of money's worth I should imagine, just parked up, no-one around, no-one standing guard, no need. It was a very enjoyable relaxed event.

So all in all a very good day, not particularly what I was expecting, it was better than that, would I recommend it? Yes, we saw cars & events you wouldn't normally see & to illustrate that, I'll end with this pic.

We spoke to this chap, he's run the car at the VHRA hot rod races on the beach at Pendine (I was wearing my VHRA tee shirt), so the car gets used & used properly - well played sir - I salute you!

Busy Weekend

 There were a cople of things in the calendar this weekend, the "Air Day" at Blackbushe Aerodrome & "Brooklands Re-lived" at - unsurprisingly - Brooklands.

Air Day is a nice event, quite low key, but a bunch of interesting cars turn up & a bunch of interesting planes fly in. there isn't an airshow as such, but there are often "fly-bys" & joy rides, as well as the usual comings & goings. So here's the Stylus parked up between a lovely Italian Car - & a modern Ferrari.

The 500 had alloys & a pearl paint job & looked lovely in the sunshine.

After we parked, we started by looking at the planes.

I've mentioned this one before, Lockheed Electra G-AFTL, was bought for clandestine spying using hidden cameras to photograph Germany before WWII - look it up, it's a fascinating story.

There were a couple of Yakovlev trainers, bought in after the wall came down.

Also a couple of Miles Messengers, surely Sufficient in the tail department. Designed to a request from within the ranks rather than an "official" requirement, the war office initially refused to buy any out of sheer pique, but relented & several were used as transports for high ranking folk, including if I remember rightly, Montgomery into France on D-Day. This is the only surviving ex-military one.

We were visited by the BBMF Lancaster, which did three fly-bys & caused many a phone to be pointed skyward.

Two '32 model Bs, fantastic.

I've not seen this orange DS before, also, I've not seen a DS with alloy wheels before. These things must've looked like space ships when they were first shown at the Motor Show & everyone was driving Pops & Morris Minors.

More orange - but with added flake, there's not too many cars can carry off a big flake paint job, but it just looks so good on a Buggy.

And to finish up - A Sierra pick up with a working jet engine in the back - obviously.

Back To Work .....

 ..... well, not work work obviously as I'm retired, but looking round the Stylus there were a few odd jobs needed doing:-

Nearside Rear Wheel Bearing - It was weeping, I'd fixed the off side when I first bough the car, but didn't mess with the other side as it was dry & DON'T POKE AT IT! but a combination of pot holes & high lateral "G" had seen a small amount of oil escape. So I borrowed my brother's slide hammer & sorted that out - I think, I'll need to check it once in a while.

Camera - While we were away, one of the cameras was a constant concern, on day one it decided that after a coffee stop it was bored with video & instead took stills about two seconds apart for the rest of the day - just short of 6,000 of them! On other days it repeatedly switched off after about 15 seconds, on other days still, it worked perfectly all day. I gave it a hard stare in the garage when I got home & initially decided it had just broken & started looking at alternatives, but it seems it might be the memory card, swapping to another make seems to have bought it back under control.

Brake Lights - Duncan told me they weren't working on day one, I did eventually fix this while away & it was all down to my own stupidity, but though it's fixed, there's now only one switch on the brake lights again, so I need to look at adding a second one - not started that yet.

Tail lights - they're Fiat Coupe units & they're fine - they look better than most kit car tail lights (this is a bit of a bugbear of mine). As the Stylus is painted it cuts down my options, the Fury was gel-coat, so could be modified. I have come up with a way of "tunnelling" the light into the rear panel without cutting the body or damaging the paint. So far I have only done the stop / tail lights as the indicators are in an awkward place (when seen from the inside) & need a little more work, but I like the effect.

Front Number Plate - I like it, but it's a little too far inside the nose & in some lights doesn't show up well, also, the 3D printed mountings have cracked / split / delaminated, so as I write, there's another two being printed that will move the plate nearer to the front of the car & will be more resilient.

RogueRunners '25 - Epilogue

 

RR25 - what did we learn?

This was the most complex trip to date. Ten days, three hotels eleven people, but only five doing the whole trip & one of those didn't make it at all due to car trouble.

There were people who arrived after a couple of days due to personal commitments, there were people that left before the end, so it was an ever changing, swirling mix of people who just get on & like driving inappropriate cars. Did newcomers get left out? Did early leavers get ostracised? Of course not, we all just mucked in & had a good time with whoever was there.

That is the joy of the Rogues.

The Ecclefechan Hotel choice was a bit of a risk, as the owners hadn't owned it long & were refurbishing it, but they were true to their word on what would be ready for us & although we were the largest party they'd had for the longest period, they were more than up to the task, regularly changing the menu & making sure we were comfortable.

The roads were good - Ecclefechan looks to be "off to one side", but in reality it offers good routes to the west coast, north east towards Selkirk, east into Northumberland & south to Cumbria & the Yorkshire moors. Some of the smaller roads were potholey, but most were OK & the scenery made up for it - as long as you didn't hit a pot hole while admiring it.

And then there was the weather. We'd had a good spring, we had fantastic weather in Devon & I kept thinking "this won't last" - "this CAN'T last", but last it certainly did & apart from a very few spots on the windscreen the whole ten days was dry & most of it was wall to wall sunshine.

So, was it a success? I came home thinking it was the best RogueRunners trip yet & they've all been brilliant.

RogueRunners '25 - Day 10

Day nine had seen half the rogues head back to a hotel near Gainsborough, Day ten was very much "the parting of the ways". One was going home on the motorway, one was going to visit his daughter not too far away, so just Linda, Graham & myself followed the last of the route for a mere 70ish miles to a farm shop & café near Peterborough. But even then Graham set the controls for home before the refreshment stop. but that is the way of these trips, the last day is very much like the end of a Red Arrows display (bear with me on this) where each plane (car) heads off in a different direction in a spectacular(ish) finale.

So it was that Linda & I stopped at the farm shop, had a last cake & coffee, then bought enormous pork chops for our tea.