2CV National Meeting 2023

 

It is great to attend the 2CV National meeting with the gathering of so many like-minded people. Once again I only managed a day visit with my brother Adrian who was my passenger in the El Cid. I travelled to Bristol to pick him up to go to the meeting near Worcester on the Saturday. Not a quick journey but pleasant enough enjoying the countryside getting to Orleton to the west and passing Shelsey Walsh Hill Climb in the process. The roads are as naggery as the hill climb with interesting twists and turns in beautiful scenery.

As always you meet some interesting people, some new to the club and renew friendships with some of the old stagers. It was not one of the best meetings as there did not seem to be a focal point for events. I found the trade stands and some food but not a central display arena. We ended up going to a local pub for lunch as there was nothing to eat at midday when we arrived. After lunch there did not seem to be a program of activities and we were going to head for home but before that we needed to see what interesting things were at the meeting. We headed up the track to one of the camping areas and found and interesting special. It was a Willys jeep body with a Dianne cab. It was very nicely done with numerous novel features. The proud owner was Mike “Hookey” John well known in the Club for his innovation. 

We stopped, took some photos and had along exchange of ideas along with discussing the modifications  we had done  to our cars. As forecast there was a thunderstorm just after 4pm and we took shelter in his camper. Within a few minutes the volume and ferocity of wind and  rain had swamped the site. The storm took an hour to pass and our conversation continued in the camper. The intimate details on the special that included what was done to make various parts of the body to fit made interesting listening and I felt I had come away with little nuggets of information. When the rain stopped we made our way home, but not before having to make some risky manoeuvres passing an on-coming Ami on a single lane track that had become a mud slide on a slope with impending collision, a touch of mirrors was all that happened as the cars slithered toward each other. Bouncing through puddles that filled the pot holes on the track we exited the site and headed for home. I did feel a bit disappointed with this meeting and was glad I had not signed up for the whole event. Compared to last year at Ely near Cambridge there was no show arena as the focal point of the event so no show for everyone to gravitate to that we found along with the lack of food at what I thought would be a peak time I felt it was a poor show and was disappointing. I felt sorry for the first timers we met that day. Down the pub after getting back to Chipping Sodbury, with so many pubs to choose from how much better can it get?

May Comment 2023

 

May Comment 2023

 

When governments impose their decisions against market demands they fail because the population does not agree with their decision and big business does not agree with it either. When big business does agree it is because they can generate more profit from it. Lots of information is stopped from getting to the public and this relates to Euro compliance to emissions. Does anyone remember the lean burn petrol engine? It was so lean that a 1600cc car engine that would do about 35mpg with a lean burn engine could achieve 75 mpg plus around thirty years ago. Savings for the average punter would have been enormous and exactly what we need now with the cost of fuel. The development of the lean burn engine was stifled because of the Eurocrats dogma with emissions. Not CO2 but the nitrous oxide produced from these engines. Because you get more miles for the same amount of fuel you clearly reduce the CO2 emissions but using less fuel is clearly not in the interests of the people whom sell it so the excuse of nitrous oxide emissions was used to kill the development even though the exhaust could have been cleaned up. I see the same monosyllabic thinking behind the thrust of governments with electric cars for the masses. One big problem is the cost of these cars. The second hand electric car market has not being going long enough for electric cars to have bottomed out and to show the real cost of an electric car. How many years for £30,000 to reach zero? I think less time than a comparative ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). I can never see an electric car becoming a useable classic. My El Cid is worth more now than I paid for it.

 If Europe are to ban ICE in 2030 then why is Euro6 compliant engine development still being pursued? Is it because Germany can’t go completely electric? I, for one of many, will not be going electric. I don’t use my cars or bikes very much since Covid so an electric car permanently on charge would be a really significant electricity cost for a pensioner and I reckon with failing memory I would forget to put it in charge so when I needed to use it I couldn’t. Having a gallon of fuel around is a great stop gap for me and my ageing ICEs.

 Information from the Petrol Revolt website.

Everyone knows of the con from all the manufacturers who produce diesel engined cars and that they have fiddled the exhaust emissions with their plug in electronic assessment of engine performance giving completely false information. They all have to pay compensation for this but those figures are still with the DVLA and Genghis Khan is relying on them for ULEZ. All the diesel cars should have to pay ULEZ because what is in the log book is not correct. The car industry is getting away with murder if you believe in the TFL 4000 deaths from emissions. What other false information is being used? All of the legislation and statistics that are quoted needs to be questioned. Any government figures need to be looked at in the light of what they want to show and what the government wants to tell you. Which may or may not be true? Let us have a look at inflation. The Office of National Statistics (Government info) says that the rate of inflation if falling. My wallet tells me otherwise. We are not in a recession. Who would notice when food banks are so short of food because the poor can no longer give away food. The only people who claim everything is satisfactory are those who have so much money they would not know what a recession looks like and that includes the politicians. It is about time they threw in the towel before there is nothing left of the country. This reminds me of a nautical tale I remember from my childhood; a sailor was lost at sea for months and when his boat was recovered all that was found was a set of false teeth and a note; I was so hungry, in desperation, I began eating myself. The hunger was all consuming.

I see the greed of those in power will achieve the same for the country.

May 2023

 

May 2023

 

May has been a busy month with the London Classic Bike Show, the LE Club AGM, 2CV Club meeting, a Funeral some repair jobs on the El Cid and making useable brackets for use with my cheap action camera filling in the month nicely. I’ll begin with the funeral of our 2CV friend Keith we have him pictured with his Charleston he was a man of many parts involved in sailing, scouting and his favourite, bees.

In his honour we managed to get a few of us together to give him a send off with a 2CV, Van and my Burton. His death had been quite a surprise from diagnosis to funeral in just a few months and he managed to sell his car in between time. He will be sorely missed as a stalwart of the club.

After many years and having the exhaust blowing all the way back from Barcelona it turned out that it was the cross box that leaked the most. It has now been replaced with the one from the van. Four hours to do the job with crawling in, under and around the El Cid propped up on axle stands to make enough room to extract the cross box from underneath. I must be feeling a bit better to be able to do that job.

Having bought this waterproof action camera years ago and used it on my trip to the seven highest motorable passes in India, the highest at 18,300 feet there is an urge to have more of my motorcycle travels recorded. To do this properly good kit is required none of which I have and not wanting to waste money if it doesn’t work out but still wanting to try it I needed to do some testing for the Buell. One problem from the outset is the positioning of the camera. Mounting it in a suitable position on the handlebar at a strategic point is problematic. Outside the screen gains wind noise but within the screen has poor vision. My first efforts had too many little connectors and the camera would move on bumps in the road. I could not get the screws tight enough to balance the weight of the camera. I found that 2mm hard rubber sheet was great at gripping on the handlebar brackets and the screws did not have to be too tight. Steel brackets marked the paint finish on the handlebars. I wanted the camera easily removable and used the clip bracket supplied which has an adhesive pad on the back. I made an aluminium stalk for the LE and Valiant to see how that worked.

Types of bracket: An alternative mounting of the clip bracket. The one with too many connectors.               

The Stalk mounting of the clip bracket.

Testing the brackets. Buell

Valiant

Still a little bit bouncy but not bad for a first effort.