While stuffing ourselves with donuts, we'd made arrangements to follow Welsh Dave in his big blue Buick across South London to the Detonators car club annual barbeque in a park in Shooters Hill, the highest point if Sarf Lond'n.
He lives in the area so knew all the back roads to take to avoid the worst of the city traffic. Unfortunately that seemed to involve driving over every speed bump he could find too. His big 50s Yank tank, with it's wallowy suspension, seemed to cope with them fine, but we had several scrapes & clunks under the Pop's sills. Couldn't see any damage so hopefully it sounded worse than it was.
Lots of traffic, lots of heat -I really struggle in hot weather, but the Pop seemed to handle it with no problems. It really does grab a lot of attention in the city -we tried to look cool, while dripping in sweat.
The BBQ was great -a very nice way to spend an afternoon. I'll tell you all about it in the events section, but as this is a motor thread, I'll just say we parked up in the long grass of a country park, with fantastic views out over the city, ate hotdogs, listened to the band & generally chilled out for the afternoon in the company of fellow rodders. Very cool.
Mr Kapri arrived in his model A pick-up, all the way from Waterlooville, down on the South Coast, along with his cruisin' buddy Chris in his big black Victoria sedan. At the end of the day we followed them back out of the city, onto the A2 then around the M25 & the A3, peeling off at Guildford to head back to our corner of Hampshire. We finally arrived back at the workshop around 8.30 in the evening, after a 12 hour jaunt. Another 200 mile trip, still averaging 20+ to the gallon, including the drive across the city & half an hour crawling in heavy traffic on the M25. No problems at all, (I really shouldn't tempt fate by saying that). That's about 1,000 miles now.
Only worries are an occasional click from the starter on the first turn of the key when it's hot -it always starts second time, but I'm dreading the day it doesn't. Could be just the inhibitor switch getting hot as it's fitted to the side of the gearbox, or the starter solenoid as it's right under the exhaust headers.
Talking of heat, the cab's still getting ridiculously hot on long runs. Archie coped with it better than me yesterday but as I said, I'm not a hot weather person anyway. Kev suggested a lot of the engine's heat is being ducted up into the gearbox tunnel, plus the exhaust header heat is coming up & through the open windows, as well as the heat from the silencers underneath. Finishing the welding on the cab floors etc, then fitting something like Dynamatt heat reflective matting would make a huge difference, (I hope). That'd also cut down the noise. It's fine when I'm on my own, but conversations are limited to a few shouted remarks at motorway speeds.
I've got used to the steering & it doesn't bother me now. I just have to remember to swing wide into tight turns & be prepared to do a 12 point turn to get into parking spaces. Kev came blatting past us at 85mph on the M25 yesterday & I pulled out & caught him up, so it's pulling pretty well, although the steering gets very light at that speed, feeling like we're suddenly driving on ice.
No oil, water or fuel leaks so far.
Overall I'm really pleased with it. Considering we built it in a shed, with no real previous experience, (but thankfully lots of help & advice from you lot), it ain't turned out too bad.
