What's made you smile today?

[bugsymike]

As an apprentice there was a local remould company called Kentreads, the Ring road was littered with examples having seperated.
Then as an Esso garage we supplied their new crossplies, unfortunately stacked on top of each other 5.20s and 5.60s textile braced were so flat it was a nightmare getting tubeless to come out onto the rim.
@ The Panda Nut "While call you experts were using reamers dad and I were spending hours 'reaming' king pin bushes with a circular file which explains why the job always seemed to need redoing." . Rebores same way?

 

[bugsymike]

. I did find changing the lever damper oil for EP90 firmed things up until the seals failed, so moved on to grease..... needed weekly at best. Youngsters just dont have the opportunity to learn easily these days. They are worse off for it I think. I remember the motor show in 1975 I think, I made the top ten in a how fast can you change the spark plugs competition. The people at the top must have been amazing to watch. But for a teenager I was chuffed to do as well. I think today is just less fun.

Those lever arm shock absorbers were also the top suspension mount so took as lot of stick.
I had a pair leaking on my 1964 MGB Roadster (£90) being an impoverished apprentice I put off the cost of replacement as long as possible amused by after a fast drive and a quick stop I could jump out and lock the car whilst it was still bouncing up and down, it was a toss up which stopped first the bouncing or the running on.
I learnt my lesson though as it then broke the front springs also.

 

[The Panda Nut]

As an apprentice there was a local remould company called Kentreads, the Ring road was littered with examples having seperated.
Then as an Esso garage we supplied their new crossplies, unfortunately stacked on top of each other 5.20s and 5.60s textile braced were so flat it was a nightmare getting tubeless to come out onto the rim.
@ The Panda Nut "While call you experts were using reamers dad and I were spending hours 'reaming' king pin bushes with a circular file which explains why the job always seemed to need redoing." . Rebores same way?

Pah. Bloody cheek. You never done this with a baked bean tin wrapped in 40 grade wet n dry... Youve never lived

 

[The Panda Nut]

Most of my used motors were beyond reboring. I had one A40 engine let go on the old A40 out of London on the big hill up to the roundabout where the M40 started. On examination it had a hole the size of a 1p coin in the top of a piston. It did however go on a few thousand miles like that until a recon unit was within budget. Can you imagine the fuss an ECU would make of that!

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

If we were lucky I would leave the nut on without the washer just flush with the end of the threads then a good wallop with a copper mallet should send the cotter pin on it's way once remains of nut removed.
If that didn't work then we knew we would have had to drill it out either way.
Hillman Imps as I recall no reaming required.

Ah, Hillman imps, yes indeed, no reaming needed. D'you remember the early ones with plastic (maybe teflon of some sort?) bushes which developed play almost as soon as you fitted them? They didn't last long and were replaced by more conventional bronze lined steel bushes. The seals consisted of a rubber ring top and bottom which really didn't keep the grease in or dirt out so the only way to make them last was to grease them every few weeks. The dome type welch plugs used to fall out too! In later years I went through a period of infatuation with them and owned several including one of the rare Husky estates.

 

[bugsymike]

Ah, Hillman imps, yes indeed, no reaming needed. D'you remember the early ones with plastic (maybe teflon of some sort?) bushes which developed play almost as soon as you fitted them? They didn't last long and were replaced by more conventional bronze lined steel bushes. The seals consisted of a rubber ring top and bottom which really didn't keep the grease in or dirt out so the only way to make them last was to grease them every few weeks. The dome type welch plugs used to fall out too! In later years I went through a period of infatuation with them and owned several including one of the rare Husky estates.

I thought they were bronze, but never kept any of my vehicles long enough to wear out a second time.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Yes that's the kits, fitted quite a few in the past.
We had a one pass reamer like you describe for Austin A60s, but used adjustable reamers for the others, so a longer job.

Now you're bringing it back again. Yes we had the one pass reamer but I also remember one which did the bushes one at a time. It had an extended parallel "nose" which made it long enough to go right through the upright. Then there was a tapered guide which you fitted into the bush you weren't reaming and the extended nose went through it so the bush you were reaming ended up perfectly in line with it's partner. The one pass reamer which did both bushes in the one pass was so much easier to use.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I thought they were bronze, but never kept any of my vehicles long enough to wear out a second time.

I seem to remember they were steel backed with bronze - or maybe brass? - wearing faces (bit like a shell bearing only full circle and with brass/bronze instead of white metal. I could well be wrong though. Think I've still got some in my "obsolete parts" drawer, must have a look for them.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Just thinking about all this reaming. How many of the youngsters - "Technicians" as they now call them - do you think could do this sort of work nowadays?

 

[The Panda Nut]

Just thinking about all this reaming. How many of the youngsters - "Technicians" as they now call them - do you think could do this sort of work nowadays?

I still have my file, I would show them......

 

[bugsymike]

Just thinking about all this reaming. How many of the youngsters - "Technicians" as they now call them - do you think could do this sort of work nowadays?

They probably associate the term with something else.
Doubt if many have rebuilt an engine with new shell bearings, gaped piston rings, checked cylinder head and block with a feeler gauge and straight edge etc. turned the key and just know it will start.
Mind you I confess to have never scrapped a white metal bearing, although I know the principle.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Mind you I confess to have never scrapped a white metal bearing, although I know the principle.

Same here Mike. I actually have a couple of scrapers I picked up at the Portobello autojumble many years ago, no one seemed to know what they were so I paid peanuts for them. They're quite good at removing the internal rim lip on brake drums.

 

[vexorg]

The new peugeot badge, saw one today and at first glance thought someone had stuck a lamborghini badge on their peugeot. Looks like it was peugeot that copied the badge style!

 

[Cheest]

We made it Maine last night after a two day drive from the US via Ontario and Quebec with our oldest grandson in tow. If we stay south of the border, it’s 1350 miles, one way. If we drive through Canuckistan, it’s 1200 miles. It’s also not a holiday week in Canada, so there isn’t the gawd awful traffic there is on this side of the border. Except for Toronto. Toronto sucks, but it sucked 35 years ago, too. So I know what to expect.

Driving through Quebec, I learned that I still know enough French to get around. I was translating road signs while driving and Mrs. Cheest was asking how I knew that.

I know that the 26mpg we got with pickup doesn’t impress you guys that much, but only having to buy a single tank of fuel in Canada pleased me to no end. The pickup is also quieter and more comfortable than Mrs. Cheest’s Renegade. Even she admitted it.

 

[bugsymike]

The only time I used my very minimal French was driving down to the South of France in 1977, before marrying my first wife.
It got me a bottle of wine and a double bed, so all that was needed.

 

[Cheest]

I kinda sorta had to learn French for Paris-Brest-Paris in 1991. Few folks speak English in the French boonies. It was a heck of an experience. My daughter took French in high school, so we conversed for her benefit. We both have a hard time with it now.

 

[bugsymike]

I kinda sorta had to learn French for Paris-Brest-Paris in 1991. Few folks speak English in the French boonies. It was a heck of an experience. My daughter took French in high school, so we conversed for her benefit. We both have a hard time with it now.

My trip being pre E.U. I found the French quite tolerant of the British (ze Ros Bif) also most could speak better English than my French, even out in the sticks/boonies, these days they choose not to due to politics.
Maybe if you had said you had come over in person to thank them for the Statue of Liberty to clear up any misunderstanding of your origin.

 

[portland_bill]

I know that the 26mpg we got with pickup doesn’t impress you guys that much, but only having to buy a single tank of fuel in Canada pleased me to no end. The pickup is also quieter and more comfortable than Mrs. Cheest’s Renegade. Even she admitted it.

26mpg US, is about 31mpg UK. (We have bigger gallons. Is that the only thing the UK has bigger than the US?) For such a big truck, that's not bad. I have a small van that only does 35mpg UK, so that makes your truck look ok.
I'd prefer to do such a journey in either the Panda or the Skoda Fabia though, both returning over 50mpg UK. (41mpg US) Having said that, travelling from the southernmost tip of the UK, to the most northern tip, is only about 835 miles, so it is difficult for us to travel as far as you in one trip, unless we get seriously lost.

 

[bugsymike]

Mind you if our fuel pump price was similar to America we would drive further, it's roughly double due to taxes!

 

[Cheest]

26mpg US, is about 31mpg UK. (We have bigger gallons. Is that the only thing the UK has bigger than the US?) For such a big truck, that's not bad. I have a small van that only does 35mpg UK, so that makes your truck look ok.
I'd prefer to do such a journey in either the Panda or the Skoda Fabia though, both returning over 50mpg UK. (41mpg US) Having said that, travelling from the southernmost tip of the UK, to the most northern tip, is only about 835 miles, so it is difficult for us to travel as far as you in one trip, unless we get seriously lost.

While dining with friends in Iceland many years ago, my buddies’ main squeeze asked us where we were heading the next day and how far the drive was. I can’t spell, let alone pronounce, the name of the town but it was a 200km drive. She said something like it was too far to drive and Mrs. Cheest said that it was nothing for us to drive 300 miles to do something and maybe drive 300 miles* back.

*bear in mind, she’s never done that. I drive, she naps.