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General Murphio's Meanderings

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General Murphio's Meanderings

Thanks Peter, we all really appreciate you taking the time to post your driving and traveling experiences, and I have enjoyed them all. :)

I think you need to look at fitting winter tyres and a removable snow plough, so that literally nothing can stop you going out in Murph. ;)

cheers, Steve
 
I for one will miss your communications.
Having yet to drive mine further than 35 miles - you and your machine are an inspiration - your desire to keep things original are at odds with my build BUT it's been great fun swing and reading about your meanderings
Wonderful pictures only add to the enjoyment I have taken from your thread!
 
Peter,
I will really miss the Meanderings of Murphio.
Having followed the latter part of your restoration and understand and appreciate the desire, will & determination to restore Murphio not only back to life but to use and maintain him within your ever day life.
I am also going to miss all those gorgeous locations that you visit in Murphio and i am extremely jealous as we don't have such delights down in the South east.
Thanks, you have been a truly inspiration that has helped me along my own journey.

I'm sure this isn't the last we will here of Murphio though!
 
Meanderings haven't stopped; in fact I'm just back from Sainsbury's, Murf having started first time being accidentally left outside last night and having a frosty head, the temperature had dipped to -2 C overnight.

Searching for other things I came across a reference to my little car from the Fiat 500 Club magazine backin April. I was honoured to be asked to contribute something, but in the meantime my membership lapsed so I never saw it published, but here he is on the front cover. Pinup boy!:D

http://fiat500club.org.uk/home/april-2016-magazine/
 
Well done Peter---but she would look an awful lot better with door mirrors fitted!
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All Murf's photos were taken well before he had a pair of mirrors in his wardrobe:D
I've been putting the job off whilst busy with the engine and a huge job on the house. I would like to find a way to fit them without piercing his delicate skin. Failing that, I will make it a bit more involved as I would like to bolt them on rathe than rely on self-tappers; that is a a fiddle that can wait.
Ther's no rush as most vehicles are in front of me and that's the way I like it.:D
 
A new season of meanderings kicked-off today, and what a horrible day it was, with real Scottish weather. I wouldn't have set off if I had known it was going to rain hard virtually all day. But Murf doesn't know it's raining or just how far he is from home, so just forges on regardless. It tested out the new regulator and battery with wipers and headlights for about six hours.
We did a 240 mile return journey and the engine is back to its sweet, washing-machine-on-spin-cycle, perfect best. The electronics of the distributor are now clearly spot-on. With the car running this well I don't yet need any extra cubic centimetres so the engine implant will have to go on-hold. It would be insanity to disturb this staus quo.

Here's Murf in Glen Etive, a wild and remote place, even for The Highlands, looking a bit mis-shapen with my wide-angle lense and the perhaps controversial strap on the boot and odd choice of mirror adding to his uglification....he doesn't care, he still gets admiring looks from all the girls.:rolleyes:

MAL_8719 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
I have to tell you about today's journey. For reasons of slight insanity and really nice weather, I arranged my work journey to the furthest point in the north of the Isle of Skye today.
I knew it was going to be a long one but I didn't expect it to be the 350 mile epic that it turned in to. Murf performed as perfectly as ever and the engine tickover when I returned sounded like I had just been for a quick spin to the shops.
I even had the roof down for an hour.
We saw some amazing things and kept the locals and tourists very amused and surprised.
I really recommend that you take your Fiat 500 to Skye at some point. Once you get onto the more remote roads to the north, south and west it really is perfect for the car and the scenery is amazing. The road up to The Quiraing has a sign warning 1 in 15 gradient, which didn't seem too bad, but at the hairpin bends I nearly lost grip and had to go down to first gear.
MAL_1062 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
MAL_1019 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
MAL_1087 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
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Amazing scenery. Maybe I was right about the spotlights and creating your own Roswell incident. The first picture looks like the aliens ? have caught you and dragged you and Murf off to their far away planet!
 
The Highlands are amazing in the sunshine. Where we live it is often sunnny but the landscape is quite flat. There are a lot of places where it feels quite alien when you're used to comfortable rustic scenery.

The video show eight minutes of meanderings out of a total driving day of about 8 hours.:eek:

[ame]https://youtu.be/4kWAwYl4LD0[/ame]
 
Murf has meandered to a full stop today as is evidenced by this photo:
Some of you will know that I have had cold-starting problems for a while now and today it was back with a vengeance. But we did start and were away having fun when after a short stop he wouldn't go again. Even a hill start didn't work. I recognised the puffing noise from when the rockers came loose a few months ago which quickly led me to the problem; the same intake valve which was under the rocker which was stiff appeared to have seized open in the guide. I left it to cool down hoping to lever it up and get it going again at least to hobble home.
But closer inspection showed that whilst I could push the valve down more, it couldn't be made to come up. Odd! Here I am in the middle of nowhere so nothing to lose by removing the carb and looking down at the valve. What I think I am seeing is the valve seat insert which is hanging around the neck of the valve and stopping it from closing.
So obviously my hard starting and "misfiring" which I have been tracking down for several weeks is actually rooted in this problem developing over time.
I have used synthetic lead additive fairly regularly but for me I think this is fairly conclusive prooof that the valve-seats need modifying for unleaded. I have gradually started to really hammer the car along as I have become more confident in it so that may have contrbuted to the problem.
The immediate consequence is that a 650 engine and matching gearbox are going in sooner than intended.
Every cloud etc...:D:D:D
By the way......top 5 star points for the AA and the good-humoured AA man.(y)
PS. He made me pose for the pic and I don't know where I got that look from.!!!!
 

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Bad luck Peter - Bummer! :mad::mad::mad: Gets me a thinking about preparation, modification and expecting modern performance from our classic cars:(:( I have been using Mobil 1 10W 60 for a while now and have yet to see if the temperatures are lower during summer!! Talking about additives to the fuel, I'm into Millers VSPe Power Plus which is supposed to add 2 points to the octane rating of fuel ( super at 97 + 2 =99) but the big question is about the Ethanol in fuel now???? The Millers is again supposed to help against this, but how much is unknown. I hope you get the reserve(y)(y) engine fitted soon as Murf will be wanting to be on the road again:cool::cool::cool:

Ian.
 
Oh dear, and I thought I had problems.
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It's really weird that! My machine shop advised me not to replace the valve seats in my D head. He said they should be perfectly ok for unleaded, as are all 500 engines due to the fact that they were made with steel seats in the first place.
Saying that, I once had a mini head that had hardened seats inserted due to running a turbo and 16lbs of boost! It started running on 3 cylinders, so I took the head off and one of the seats came loose. Could it be that little Murph was running too hot? weak mixture? This can cause this problem.
Well at least this gives you the ideal opportunity for your latest 650cc modification.
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Franko500 said:
Could it be that little Murph was running too hot? weak mixture?
Click to expand...

Anything is possible given the velocity I have been going at of late, but the plugs are always the nice colour that Haynes says they should be and the mixture screw is within recommended limits. The carb gaskets are new etc. etc. There are no other signs of overheating and have been no tell-tale noises or smells.
I have a theory that it might be connected with my previous incident. The rocker assembly came loose on one stud; this may have been a result of the intake rocker-arm being slightly seized or it may have caused that. The arm was therefore bearing on the valve stem at a bad angle for a short time whilst running hard. It may have slightly bent the valve stem and put the valve head out of alignment, thus putting unequal pressure on the insert.
It might just have been me driving like a nutter.
I have another 500 head and the 594 head which I could swap. But I would take the lump out anyway so I may as well put it into "cold-storage" for a while.
The downside is that I now have the whole shakedown process for the new engine to go through and to build up confidence in it. Consequently we will be staying nearer to home for a while.:mad:
 
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Oh dear you've wounded him!!!! I was going to say killed but that would infer he is never going to run again.:D

I would imagine the problem you suffered before with the loose rockers has allowed that valve to move about a bit too much. I don't think I have ever heard of a single case of unleaded valve failure on a 500? But then again nobody probably does anywhere the mileage like you do, so you could be a first but I doubt it.

Were you far from home when it happened?
 
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