How did it know ? After weeks of good weather why was it going to rain at 7:15 am this morning ? It was only a few drops - although kept going on and off until 9:00 - but that was not going to spoil the day.
So - how to start and then back out a recalcitrant Tiger from the car port ? Well the neighbors definitely noticed me revving - and stalling - and revving - and stalling - until the car settled down enough to attempt to move it backwards - with a Roar.
I set off for Woolverstone just before 7:30 and although it was hard to keep going I managed to get there - and into the show - with out stalling. I did cheat and slow down a lot and then use the handbrake to come to a full stop. That minimised the brakes locking on.
We then went back for the alpine too. So here we are almost the in prime position and almost first on the field with the Tiger in the front and then my Alpine at the back.
Chris eventually arrived and parked next to his Tiger - at last they were together again at a show.
Why do Tiger boys always have their bonnet up ? Eventually we had eleven cars on the stand and a nice mix of Rootes models even if Tigers were in the majority.
Anyway the show was good and we had lots of interest in the cars. The venue worked well as did the entry and at the end of the day, so did the exit. There were only a few vintage cars though and a lot of 'moderns'.
The Alpine did look good though - I suspect after the 3 miles there it did not even have time to get dusty.
However, I still had to get the Tiger home to Glevering that night which was beginning to prey on my mind.
We waited for the show to thin out and as Chris was packing up to leave, I decided to take the Alpine home and get a lift back for the Tiger run a bit later. I was back before the Rapier has even moved an inch.
I started the Tiger - well I started it several times - eventually it settled down and ticked over fine. The problem was that as soon as I touched the throttle gently it stalled. If I put my foot down hard or 'blipped' it past that point it seemed to jump up and get going again. I waited for almost all the traffic to clear before I tentatively set off - this time with another Martin as 'observer'.
We went to long way to avoid the traffic lights and the car was quite 'judery' again. Once on the Manningtree road it seemed to settle down a bit. In fact pottering along at 50-60 on a low throttle it was OK. Not quite as bad as before perhaps ?
By the time we'd crossed the Orwell bridge and made Woodbridge the car was feeling a bit better, but it was still hard to manage roundabouts as the speed you wanted was the worst place for the throttle. I sat in third for some of the way [still keeping the revs to about 2000] to balance the car.
Onto the final leg and the bypass it was running badly but better than the day before - in fact it felt like it was only on 7 cylinders - like the Ferrari did with a burnt out lead. It did not want to accelerate either. I'd been trying to not use the brakes but by the time we left the A12 the 'automatic braking system' was in full flow and I did not need to use the brake pedal at junctions - the car just stopped on its own.
We made Glevering without incident although I was revving it a bit to keep it running at times. I parked it in the garage and let out an audible sigh.
After doing the tests on the brakes again we left well alone and called it a day. They were both back in the garage by 6:00 and I decided to get going again.
The MK2 was still there, still filthy but seemed to fly along on the run home.
Job Done.
No comments:
Post a Comment