Sat 13th March - Kent - Rye

[Ross]

Not a great start to the year, but I've decided to get my breakdowns out of the way early this year.

As Mark says, front offside damper decided it was simply too bumpy and either shook itself free, or more likely snapped. Couldn't really see without taking the nose off, but I suspect it's broken. Fortunately the spring stayed wedged in place and didn't make a break for it.

I didn't have long to wait for the recovery truck though (about 15 mins after you left Mark) and after some gentle teasing - about a centimetre of ground clearance meant some creative use of some wooden planks - we managed to get it loaded and back to 7-Indulgence. Co-incidentally, the breakdown guy used to work at Sanspeed (for 10 years) - which is where I go for my rolling road sessions - and has a love of Pintos with side draft carbs (Weber of course). So he was quite interested in mine. He also told me the owner of the garage where he now works has a 7 type in the garage that he built a few years ago, but which hasn't moved for several years and only occasionally gets started. Guess he lost interest.

Car is now at 7-Indulgence and I'll see what they have to say about it on Monday, but was talking to Grahame about rose jointed shocks as a replacement to compensate for the 'interesting' alignment of the Tiger mounts, which he suspects are largely to blame. Slightly more worrying was the (small) pool of oil on the bed of the tow truck when we took the car off. The recovery guy said he'd cleaned the truck yesterday, so was sure it was from mine. But there was no oil on my garage floor this morning, so I'm hoping I haven't damaged anything else this morning. I grounded the sump guard a few times on the way down, but had no oil issues, so not sure.

After all that though, I still got back in time for an early Mother's Day lunch, so all was not lost.

A word of warning for those just awakening their cars for Spring. The roads, particularly some of the busier back roads, are serious pot-holed and not terrible friendly for low-hung kit cars. The worst was probably Seven Mile Lane south of Wrotham - if you're going that way you'd be better off in a 4x4. The breakdown guy told me all he's done for the past few weeks is pick up cars with knackered wheels and suspension. In fact, he picked up someone last night with both front alloys knackered only 200 yards further up the road from where I secumbed.

Happy days!

[James]

Looks like I missed a fun one, Mark tut tut I did warn you about 7 mile lane lol, hope the car gets fixed soon so I can join you next time

James

[Martin J]

Agree with Ross, seven mile lane (from Wrotham Heath as far as the army camp) is a disaster area!
We often use it as we live in Mereworth & have to swerve all over the place to avoid the worst & this is quite a fast stretch of road. I bypass it if i'm out in the 7,but how long before it causes a crash or some poor motor cyclist comes off?

[greenwood03]

I think the problem that the various councils has is to repair the types of potholes that for example 7 mile lane has - they arent exactly craters, but across the region there are so many roads that have huge patches that are missing 3-5 inches of top surface. Down the lanes where we live they've actually repaired the proper potholes - which were 7+ inches deep, proper wheel breaking stuff. I guess in comparison to the 'patches' those are easier to do. Have to admit that James did warn me, although when we ran down there traffic was light and it was easy to avoid them.