What a plonker!

I made a schoolboy error last night, I was driving up to Newcastle from Reading for work - I'd dropped off at Cheltenham to see my Gran who's in hospital there following a fall. I was on my way to buy Dave Pearson a pint and needed to fill up with diesel. I pulled up and selected the nozzle, I remember looking at the pump and thinking "Not the premium stuff, the cheapo stuff will do" as I was filling up the pump cut out a couple of times then my phone rang. I needed to take the call so I put the nozzle aside and went into the shop, took my call and paid for the twenty quid of fuel, jumped back in the car and called Dave to tell hime I was on my way. The car then seemed to missfire but ran OK, it didn't feel right, crappy fuel perhaps I thought. I saw a BP station and as I still needed a tankful I pulled in, filled up with diesel, bought some food and jumped back in the car, it turned over but wouldn't start.
It then hit me, the first fuel I had put in was petrol! Checked the receipt - yup, what a plonker!
Phoned RAC, patrol turned up in 20 mins, full of doom and gloom but within 3.5 hours of my first call I was on my way again - the RAC contractor came out and said they were doing loads of these and a Toyota was easy - 20 mins job he said, and it was!
Whilst chatting to the recovery chap about a brown Herald he had towed in it turned out he was a past Triumph owner. He'd had a Ford metalic blue Ginnall TR7 v8 with a 3.9 engine. His wifes made him sell it a few years ago, he missed it.
So after a cup of coffee and achat about TR7s, Heralds and what you could use contaminated diesel/petrol for, I was on my way again. Didn't get to Newcastle until nearly midnight but I got there in the end.
Stupid things is I have driven a diesel car for 6 years and over 120,000 miles and alll it took was a moment's distraction.

Spotted!

I am selling off a collection of old car mags, when I get a bit bored I go through a pile, see what I want to keep and list the rest on eBay. I can't bring myself to chuck them and I've tried to get the kids involved in listing them on eBay but they just can't be bothered. So I'm doing it! Anyway - I was thumbing through Classic & Sportscar, September 1989 when what do I see? John Wolley on full chat in 6003VC on the Pirelli Marathon. This Vitesse is a car now in the collection of Canley Classics' "full time Triumph enthusiast" Dave Pearson - so here you are Dave, I'll bring the mag up for you when I am next passing.

The test of a good supplier is what they do when things go wrong

I bought some braided hose and fittings to remake the clutch master to slave pipe - I've never liked it in solid pipe and having seen a few in flexi pipe I though - "I'll have some of that". So I satrted shopping around a bit and got totally confused with pipe sizse (thanks to Dave Powel for the tutorial, much appreciated). Anyway, I found what I needed at www.rallydesign.co.uk and put in an order - I was impressed with their prices but not their postage costs which I thought where expensive - but hey! You pays yer money you takes yer choice.
So the package arrived and a neighbour signs for it - she brings it over that afternoon and I unpack - bummer, the pipe is damaged, looks like someone has dropped something on it and crushed it - as it was coiled up it's put a nice pinch in the pipe every 8 inches or so. No good - so I emailed them and got an auto reply saying emails might not be responded to immediately - so I called them. Explained the situation to a chap there who said they couldn't do anything with the courier as the package had been signed for as OK. Grrrr - that expensive delivery option wasn't worth squat. However, he said he appreciated it was no fault of mine and he'd get a new length of pipe out ASAP for me, the next day it arrived (60p's worth of Royal Snail - better than the £8.50 Citylink!) and all is well with the world again.
Now I can do my clutch pipe expertiments - if this works I'll sort out the other pipes I don't like the look of :-) I also bought an eBay special pipe flaring tool, then discovered I have a complete brake pipe set in the garage!

I've got fans!

Two plastic ones to be precise - thanks to Paul Bodium and Andy Cook for throwing some fans my way. They look the same but they aren't so I wonder which one is identical??!!?
I've just been given a new project at work so I'd better finish the DIY and get back to work - well after I've been out in the garage to sort out the little job under the Vitesse hood!

Paddy Hopkirk's World Cup Rally 2.5 PI for sale - only 1650 quid!

Well there I was just browsing through a couple of old car mags I'd bought on eBay. I was a little disappointed in the one I had in my hand, it didn't have the information in I was looking for so I flicked to the classifieds, you often see interesting things back there and true enough, there it was, somthing indeed very interesting - an advert for XJB392H. If you click on the picture it should open up to a full size image for you, in case you can't read it it says

"World-Cup Rally Triumph 2.5 PI Saloon, April 1970. This actual car was driven into 4th place in teh gruelling World Cup Rally by Paddy Hopkirk, Tony Nash and Nevilel Johnston. This car was prepared by British Leyland Special Tuning Division at a cost exceeding £6,000. Modifications are far too numerous to list, but include group 5 tuned TR6 engine, developing 200 bhp, 4 speed close ratio gear-box with overdrive on all 4 gears. Limited slip diff. 6 1/2 J Minilite wheels, 4 Bendix fuel pumps, aluminium body panels, full roll cage, double skin seam-welded body shell, etc. This car has been completely re-prepared at a cost of £700 and is now in pe-rally condition and capable of winning the toughest of national and international rallies. Now offered having only covered a genuine 20,000 miles at a fraction of it's cost with fully documented history, comprehensive spares and tools, at only £1650. PLEASE no time-wasters or stupid offers."

Interestingly the car looks like it's been completely repaired - it was quite bashed about the front end on teh World Cup Rally. "having only covered a genuine 20,000 miles" - I love it, the World Cup was an 18,000 mile rally - so what they were saying is that it's had the wheel driven off it for all of it's life! The garage was in Coventry Road Bulwell, which I think is Nottingham - I've never of them before.

I know where the car now rests and I know there's a few people trying to wrestle it from its current owner - I think he wants more than £1650 for it now though!

In the same magazine there's a '64 Lotus Cortina with 120 BHP, alloy panels and all the right bits for £450!