29-07-2019, 08:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 29-07-2019, 08:13 PM by AustinWood.)
We had a great weekend going to the Scottish Austin Seven Club's rally at Guildtown.
Set off from Melrose at 9:00am on Saturday. Not able to leave earlier because of my companion Lily's shift pattern.
The journey north started off with rain getting heavier and heavier and a lot of standing water. The Austin doesn't much notice standing water but the moderns were struggling a bit! For some reason I've never understood my RK fabric saloon is virtually leakproof. Just a couple of small trickles on the inside of the windscreen from the wiper holes. It's the only waterproof Seven of the 7 I've owned.
Once north of the Forth the weather gradually cleared and we had a good run to Guildtown, just north of Perth. We immediately set out on the tour round Angus/Perthshire which was excellent. Near Blairgowrie the petrol ran out, so topped up with the spare gallon and used the TomTom to get to the nearest petrol station. Filled up and used sat-nav again to get to the lunch stop. Here we caught up with the main body of the cars. Over 40 in the restaurant car park. Excellent soup & sandwiches. Finished the tour and after a quick look round the rally field headed to Kirriemuir for Lily to investigate Peter Pan & J M Barrie.
Our B&B in Pitroddie. It was excellent and we had a good meal at The Inchture Hotel. A surprise was that the hosts are friends of a colleague of Lily's at the Borders General Hospital 86 miles away.
The rally itself was great. Excellent weather and 80+ Austin Sevens. A lot of coverage in other threads.
We had to leave early, about 1:00, shift patterns again!
Total of 300 miles for the journey and the car ran perfectly.
My modification using a separate small 6V lead-acid battery for starting works very well.
The battery is 6”x2”x1” and sits happily alongside the main battery. Normally the two batteries are in parallel but when operating the starter the main battery feed to the switch panel is switched out. This leaves the small battery feeding the ignition with 6V and the large battery operating the starter.
My car has always had the problem that it is reluctant to start on the starter unless the engine is up to temperature. Starts instantly on the handle. The Bacon Slicer starter sinks the voltage too much for the ignition, especially with the Accuspark distributor.
It's a simple, low cost and very effective modification. The Accuspark makes the car run much more smoothly and cruising at speed is much more comfortable.
Heading north we went through Edinburgh used side roads except the unavoidable new Queensferry Crossing. On the return we used the M90 from Perth to Kinross then the old A9 to Edinburgh where we used the by-pass. The traffic was heavy but we didn't cause too much congestion as there were very few trucks, it being Sunday. Glad we weren't going the other way on Edinburgh City Bypass – it was stationary. Normal cruising was around 50mph.
Altogether an excellent weekend.
Busy again next weekend. Heading to VSCC Prescott in our 1972 Citroen SM.
Set off from Melrose at 9:00am on Saturday. Not able to leave earlier because of my companion Lily's shift pattern.
The journey north started off with rain getting heavier and heavier and a lot of standing water. The Austin doesn't much notice standing water but the moderns were struggling a bit! For some reason I've never understood my RK fabric saloon is virtually leakproof. Just a couple of small trickles on the inside of the windscreen from the wiper holes. It's the only waterproof Seven of the 7 I've owned.
Once north of the Forth the weather gradually cleared and we had a good run to Guildtown, just north of Perth. We immediately set out on the tour round Angus/Perthshire which was excellent. Near Blairgowrie the petrol ran out, so topped up with the spare gallon and used the TomTom to get to the nearest petrol station. Filled up and used sat-nav again to get to the lunch stop. Here we caught up with the main body of the cars. Over 40 in the restaurant car park. Excellent soup & sandwiches. Finished the tour and after a quick look round the rally field headed to Kirriemuir for Lily to investigate Peter Pan & J M Barrie.
Our B&B in Pitroddie. It was excellent and we had a good meal at The Inchture Hotel. A surprise was that the hosts are friends of a colleague of Lily's at the Borders General Hospital 86 miles away.
The rally itself was great. Excellent weather and 80+ Austin Sevens. A lot of coverage in other threads.
We had to leave early, about 1:00, shift patterns again!
Total of 300 miles for the journey and the car ran perfectly.
My modification using a separate small 6V lead-acid battery for starting works very well.
The battery is 6”x2”x1” and sits happily alongside the main battery. Normally the two batteries are in parallel but when operating the starter the main battery feed to the switch panel is switched out. This leaves the small battery feeding the ignition with 6V and the large battery operating the starter.
My car has always had the problem that it is reluctant to start on the starter unless the engine is up to temperature. Starts instantly on the handle. The Bacon Slicer starter sinks the voltage too much for the ignition, especially with the Accuspark distributor.
It's a simple, low cost and very effective modification. The Accuspark makes the car run much more smoothly and cruising at speed is much more comfortable.
Heading north we went through Edinburgh used side roads except the unavoidable new Queensferry Crossing. On the return we used the M90 from Perth to Kinross then the old A9 to Edinburgh where we used the by-pass. The traffic was heavy but we didn't cause too much congestion as there were very few trucks, it being Sunday. Glad we weren't going the other way on Edinburgh City Bypass – it was stationary. Normal cruising was around 50mph.
Altogether an excellent weekend.
Busy again next weekend. Heading to VSCC Prescott in our 1972 Citroen SM.
Jim