31-03-2024, 01:58 PM
(30-03-2024, 11:02 AM)Malcolm Parker Wrote: All the above smoke stories pale into insignificance when one of the floating gudgeon pins in my Ulsteroid special gouged a groove in the cylinder during a trip to the Scottish Highlands. I changed the late cylinder head with an early head that had 18mm plugs to keep it going. It ended up doing 20 miles to the gallon of oil. It would still run and I set off on the way back to North Yorkshire, stopping in the Kwik Save in Kelso to buy a trolley load of cheap oil which at the time was £1.99 a gallon. I blasted over Carter Bar with Andy Hastings following in his similar Ulsteroid. Unfortunately he broke the crank trying to keep up by the Otterburn ranges and we both got a lift back home courtesy of the AA and RAC. Having followed in my smoke screen, Andy and the car looked black. Happy days.
The bore was damaged early doors on our way up. I think we stopped in Edinburgh on the first Sunday morning. When we set off again, the smoke from Malc's engine stopped the traffic on Princes Street
Nevertheless, he got the car to Granton on Spey, did all the many and various runs through our time there and got it back to Otterburn by re-filling the oil and swapping plugs between cars. I'm sure he'd have got it home but took the chance with a lift from the AA when Andy's car broke its crank. At that point, we were maybe 10 or so minutes behind them and I remember briefly stopping to hear the news while they were waiting for their lift. As he says, happy days. Difficult to accept that it's now 25 years since that trip.Steve