I like driving in my self-satisfied notion of history

[hirez]

On the way home, a four-pot chopper (in my day it were all H-D or arthritic English twins & singles) came howling the other way. Well, howling until Biker Bill took his hand off the throttle, at which point it went Clat! Clat! Pop! Rorp-rorp! Clat! because the carbies had been hauled out from underneath a pile of nudie-prod mags in the back of the shed, given a slap to dislodge the sleeping mice and spiders and then brick-hammered into place on the side of an otherwise blameless Kawa lump by a halfwit.

Since I had the windows rolled down (Is it winter? No. Therefore windows open.) I was able to breathe in the perfume of leaky valve-guides and serious over-choke.

You know, it's not a familiar smell any more. Back in the old days - I guess up to the early 90s when there was a mass rust-off of Kent and A-Series cars - all winter mornings were filled with the pong of four-star being coughed up by Escorts, Metros, Cortinas, Sherpas and Sierras. Pilots all heaving on the choke-knob (Well, not on the CVH engined Fords. Not when they were new, anyway) and peering through the steering wheel at the only clear spot on the windscreen.

These days you have to stand downwind of a Triumph two-seater if you want to smell history.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

You know they were still building Kents within the last 10 years? Labelled an 'Endura-E' (which isn't as good as it sounds) and stuck in the first of those unlovely Ford Kaks.

I've heard (but never sullied my hands) the easiest way to do an oil filter change on the thing is either to pull the engine, or to grow tentacles.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

My own experience with Kent engines seemed to show that with sufficient age, one could just keep pouring the stuff in the top at about the same rate as it burned it off. See also bloody Hillmans.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Ah, the dawn chorus. Victim of the Japanese invasion and bodging a bit of ROM on the problem. I can't say that I miss it.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Oh for the days when engines had blocks of wood in them.....

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Hey, you've got a real way with words! :-)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

True. Hurrah for engine management. Possibly the only form of management that saves money and makes life better.

Oh, have you seen the n-part Youtube thing about some mad bunch of buggers who took a Skoda to Bonneville and made it go 220-odd? It is a thing of wonder. Perhaps I should dig out the links. Particularly the bit where the chief numpty goes "Well, we dropped a big blower on it and the computer told us to fuck off until we welded in a second set of injectors..."

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I had a Renault-5 like that; the gearbox was held together with a lump of wood and a big U-bolt. One of the wheels fell off when my housemates decided to steal it and tried driving it off a ramp at speed. I fear I laughed heartily at their bruises.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Good job I have a backup career as a skiffy writer. Well, sort of.

[meltie.livejournal.com]

Why, I replaced a choke cable just last week.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Particularly the bit where the chief numpty goes "Well, we dropped a big blower on it and the computer told us to fuck off until we welded in a second set of injectors..."
[grin]