Ulysses

Those arms look very nice indeed!

Good day out laning yesterday (now). Went well in north wales for a sceninc route. Sadly Dave retired late morning with a suspect head gasket (see Daves Boogie thread). Rest of the day went ok once we had made sure Dave was ok to get home under his own steam. More will follow when i've had some sleep...

On the way home the car started to stall. It stalled on the motorway but clutch started ok (at 50~60mph). Did that a couple of times with me desperatley looking for services to pull of the motorway. Broke down and stopped at Jct.29 just under the roundabout. Cranking and fuel, but no spark.I'd missed charnock richard services by a few miles sadly. All this in the persisting rain.
 

Called the recovery lot (greenflag) who said would get to asap at 17:36. In the meantime I connected the tablet PC to the ECU and looked at the fault logs. They showed over 500 faults with the crank sensor and about 400 with the cam sensor. Now it is normal to get a few issues with cam/crank sensor signal sync when starting/cranking the engine, but there is a lot more errors than I would expect to see on the log.

Macadams (contracted recovery agent) turned up in the usual transit sized van pretty quick and together we pulled out the (suspected) crank sensor, cleaned it up and... it made no difference. With no spares and no option to fit my 31" tyres onto his towing dolly, it was back to waiting for a flatbed vehicle to pick me up. Annoyingly, I did have a spare crank sensor in my spares-on-board box, but some stupid thing made me take it out on saturday before the trip. Maybe i'm cursed? I have annoyed the god of what-spare-parts to carry somehow?!

19:49 another Macadams guy calls and arrives shortly in a massive 18ton flatbed truck Loads me up and we are off... to Tebay services on adventure in the huge truck. Arrived at Tebay and unloaded about 22:40. Went in with my new mate for a coffee (good coffee at this stop) and he called the next agent to see when he was going to pick me up, which turned out to be another Macadams guy...
 

22:00ish another vehicle arrives. His normal vehicle of choice had decided to have a breakdown issue of its own with brakes and he had to turn around from southwaite to longtown to get another vehicle to come and get me from Tebay. Anyway, loaded up and on the road pretty quickly. A smaller flatbed vehicle this time, but nipped along well enough and more suited to the roads where I live.
 

00:30 Unloaded and he helped me push it into the garage too. Cant fault the service from the 3 guys that helped me today. All 3 where friendly and helpful. Interested in the vehicle and the greenlaning hobby and did their best. The secret I leaned from one of them was the Brittania (LV) recovery will actually send a flatbed first time if you ask them to. The others (incl greenflag) all send a smaller van thats not suitable to tow it first, to asses the situation. 

So overall. A good day on the lanes seeing mates and driving some superb Welsh scenery, let down by a couple of issues for both Dave & me 



 

Thankfully no covid issues to report, but there might be a 3rd engine issue victim from this trip 

Mine was, as expected, the crank sensor. On Monday I replaced it with the spare that I'd stupidly taken out of the car on Saturday and it fired straight up. Very annoying 

Videos & pics are uploaded and Brett is hard at it finishing off the blog. Here is some of my pics from the day:

 

Had a trip out to visit my mam yesterday in Ulysses. Took the scenic route over hartside and some scenic lanes on the way, all with no gates and no risk of getting stuck solo... GOPR3165 Aiketgate GOPR3166 Longdales GOPR3167 Renwick GOPR3168 Haresceugh

Discovered that the steering was still wayward. Decided to check the wheel bearings and kingpin bearings. Sure enough front driverside bearing has gone. Luckily a spare in the garage so popped it on this morning..

old:
 

new:
 

Martin's blue grease can be seen in the old bearing still and it looks good still too, shame about the bearing race wobbling all over the place! All back together and off into town for some beers. Still wayward steering .

Had a look at the steering bars and found the toe-in was actually toe-out so adjusted it back in again, but had consumed a beer whilst fiddling so thought it best to delay the test drive for now. Plus I can hear further beer calling from my nice sunny garden 

Nice views. I really need to think about visiting the UK someday.

some of my favourite lanes there Riccy

Finally think ive got the better of the wobbly steering. The steering bar was loose at the PS box end and tightening that helped, but it was ultimately the kingpin bearings, which I should have done when I was messing about with the wheel bearing, again on driver side. Passenger feels OK, so will do a test run tomorrow and see. 

 


Then a bit of fiddling with a new design of engine mount, courtesy of Dave Marsh Racing. These replace the two original rubber mounts at the front to stiffen everything up.

 

So out with 3 extension bars and managed to swap one side ok.

 

Fired up and its too stiff for my liking. The whole car vibrating like mad at idle speed, OK when driving though. 
I had a suspicion it would be so had ordered some radius arm bushes from Martin earlier in the week. Back out and pressed in the rubber bushes instead. Now back in and is much improved. Still need to do the passenger side one, but that means taking off the exhaust manifold. Not got the time for that this weekend, but one seems to be enough to stop the wayward movement anyway.

 

 

Trip out to visit mam again tomorrow so will see what its like and report back.

This is why this is such a good community, People doing tricky stuff, taking the time to document it, and then posting it so that others can do it and feel encouraged enough to have a lash. Fair play Riccy and everyone else for taking the time to post. Fantastic.

Trip out went ok. Stopped at Carlisle on the way and knocked the steering back a few degrees on the back bar (too much toe in). Needs a bit more but is now at least controllable 

Bimbled about up to Alston area and took in a few easy scenic lanes as well. Decided to have a quick check on the top end of Tynehead (excellent tricky lane). The top end is usually very boggy, but it had been dry. However when I got there I was greeted by a police car and a couple of enduro bikers. One of their bikes had broken down and they were trying to tow it with the other one. Policeman drives past and sees them two off the track and wheel spinning trying to get the bike back to the road. Obvs he was having a go at them, then started on me asking if it was a legal greenlane. It was and I showed him mapping to prove it, but I decided to bugger off and look at the lane another day   (and yes I did help push the bike back to the road)

anyhoo...

GOPR3169 Kirkhaugh ford



GOPR3170 Blagill to Foreshield



GOPR3171 North Hudgill



GOPR3172 Garrigill ford




and also from a few years back here is Tynehead so you know what im on about. Its a much bigger boggy mess at the top end now (start point in the vids)

Few quick jobs this morning:

Wind a bit out of the toe in on the steering bars. Seems ok now.

Oil change for gearbox and transfer box. Managed the transfer ok, but couldnt get the gearbox filler plug undone. Much swearing and WD40 resulted in giving up on it for now. Transfer box oil was full of sparkly bits   but no big stuff thankfully 

Test run out then. The Jimny Jaunts gang were out today around the peaks and a spare place had come avaliable on saturday afternoon. Too late for me to get ready and I hadnt booked monday off either sadly, so I passed the offer. But I did get out this afternoon for a few lanes locally to make up for it...

 

 

Keepers cottage. A nice lane South of Wigton. Usually a bit boggy in amongst the reeds, but fairly dry today. Great spot for a photo


Then onto another local favourite Carlislegate Lane. Lots of leafy stuff, but a passable to most easily.
 


Sandale was next, another favourite. Its very little used so usually over grown. The grass was higher than the bonnet today


High Ireby had some new signs, but that wasnt enough to stop me 
 


A quick nip along a lane that shows on OS maps, but not trailwise. A short and sweet lane.


Then onto Longlands. No walkers and only a couple of cyclists today. Ideal  
     


and a cheeky couple of lanes on the way home too



Nice 3.5 hrs out and about locally on easy lanes. A bit of soft foliage stuff, but nothing damaging and plenty of views  

New fuel tank arrived from Martin yesterday

 

And what a fight to fit the thing. Luckily my back body tips, so I could get at the top of the tank. This allowed me to drain the fuel by removing the fuel pump assembly from above. I used a ball valve siphon hose which got 90% out into jerry cans safely. Handy gadget. 

The filler and overspill hoses were easy to remove, but the tank was a real fight. The 4 bolts that hold on the guard all sheared off and one of the other two rounded instantly. The sixth gave no trouble oddly. It took about 3hrs to get it out and fix the snapped off bolts 

Then to actually get it off I had to undo the rear prop from the diff end and tie out the way, then much wiggling to get it out and the new one back in. Refitted pump and pipework easily enough and I even remembered to transfer the little anti-siphon thing on the filler pipe. I would imagine its a right nightmare job if you dont have access from above!

 

Run out to visit mam tomorrow to check everything and then its the BigJimny meet the following Sunday. Pretty excited about that