Touring the North West Coast of Scotland in two Austin Sevens, as a family

[AustinWood]

I've always wanted to eat at the Applecross Inn but never have. I've been to the Walled Garden quite a few times. When I first went a long time ago, mid 80s I think, they were just starting to get the garden under control. Since then every time I've been there has been improvements. Great to see pictures as it is now, a magnificent labour of love. Alweays excellent food.
Perhaps we'll get there again one day. It would be good to take our big Citroen, but at just over 6ft wide, not ideal on those roads.

[Charles P]

I share your cynicism about the NC500.
I drove the route in the mid 80's slowly and remember the peace and emptiness (and the Sango Sands Oasis, seeming pretty unlike any other oasis in my mind)

Keep it coming

Charles

[Oxford Jack]

"The car was running an electronic distributor and although these do fail, they normally fail completely, despite spark at all four plugs I changed to the spare baseplate, same issue. Spare coil provided no improvement and eventually, with little else to try, I fitted the spare Lucas distributor with points – this solved the issue, and the car ran on 4 once more (the electronic baseplates turned out to be fine, the problem manifested elsewhere and I will come back to this later)." 

As you know R, I had failures of two electronic dizzies last year in Basque Country, the one in use and the spare in case!. The would run for short periods gradually reducing until stopping completely. Sadly I had not packed a clockwork dizzy, in case, so had to leave the car behind and end the holiday in a modern,  being back marker behind two sevens and a Big 7.
On the return of the car (Thank you RH), I could get it to run for a mile or two before failing again. I have now reverted to Mr Lucas's finest and will no longer dabble with the occult.

Brilliant trip, your family are troopers without a doubt.
Jack

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I always carry a spare electronic baseplate and a fully built up spare (tested) Lucas unit in all the coil cars, Jack.

All will be revealed as to the actual cause, soon. There is a bit to go yet though, trust me!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Day 5

We avoided the early NC500 dash and awoke to an almost empty campsite, showered, ate some breakfast and slowly dismantled the tent. Our tent is a huge tepee, we normally travel with incredibly small tents but this one was intended to be used on a trip we’d planned in the Austin Twelve, Covid put the brakes on that holiday however and the tent had never been used. A tepee is a tremendous tent for poor weather, even I can stand up in it, the older I get the more I need to “get up” in the night and crawling out of a tiny tent has lost it’s appeal…. I can also cook safely in the tepee, something that was necessary most nights due to the horrific weather, there is loads of space for the 5 of us to lounge out, read and listen to the rain bouncing off the flysheet!

It was dry that morning and so the pack up was quite leisurely. I took both cars down to the community owned petrol station in the village, filled them up and then we set off. We left Applecross along the coastal road, not over the pass, this road is still challenging despite the lack of climb and is also stunningly beautiful, affording views of Raasay, Skye and Wester Ross. We retraced our steps from Sheildaig, to Torridon and then Kinlochewe, where another fuel station is situated. Tanya has been struggling to keep up with me and I asked if the car was okay, she mentioned it was down on power and on inspection it appeared to be running on three, again! This time one plug felt much cooler and on removing it I could see it was very white and the electrode had completely closed up. I had fitted a brand new cylinder head a few months before and experienced terrible trouble getting the mixture correct, the readings were good initially and then always seemed to show far too weak. I spent a lot of time on the Minty Lamb site trying increasingly richer needles. Despite this work it was vey obvious that the plug was running very lean and, as I touched the electrode, it dropped off. I fitted a new plug and the engine ran on four again. Prior to starting I had turned the handle over and could hear a compression leak, I tightened the plug as best I could and hoped it would take us safely to Gairloch, some 25 miles away.

               

We arrived in Gairloch a little while later and as I pulled into the drive of the (incorrect) campsite I could hear the Ulster making the most awful banging noise. I lept from the Chummy shouting for Tanya to turn it off, thankfully she already had. From the Chummy it sounded to me like a big end had run. I turned the engine over and it felt okay, no clunks and four good compressions. I tentatively fired up the engine, immediately the loud knocking started and my heart sank. The girls knew what to do and helped push the car into a small car park opposite, then sat in the Chummy together.


   
The frustration is getting to Daisy!

I do carry a spare rod and piston in each of the cars, they are machined and balanced to suit the individual engine. I ensure they fit down the bore and never use tin lids so that repair is a straight forward as possible. I’d never had to use one before, but this appeared to be the day my prep. Would pay off. I told Tanya that I ought to be able to change the run rod for the spare in about an hour. I ran up the engine gently and shorted each plug, in turn, to identify which rod had gone. The noise remained throughout, but shorting number one made no difference to the running so I removed the plug. It was white and had no electrode, at all, it was this that had dropped off and was now stuck on top of the piston smashing against the head! I removed the head and inspected the top of the piston, a few small indentations were evident, but nothing more. I reassembled carefully and restarted the engine – no knocking and running clean of four again. The relief was immense, the girls cheered!

During all of this a local man had joined us in his 1950s Morris Minor, he offered the use of his garage and tools etc. he was very kind. I explained that I was certain the plugs were not sealing in the new head. I now removed them all and could clearly see that 3 of the 4 were not sealing, there was a small black sooty leak on each of the plug faces. I determined that either the plug thread or the seating face had not been machined properly and this was causing air to leak in and thereby run the engine far too lean, overheating the electrodes and eventually melting them! I asked the man if he had any copper wire, I wanted to try and effect a seal by wrapping this around the plug threads, he did and we walked to his garage to get some. When I returned to the car an elderly gentleman living opposite had given the girls a handful of Whitworth tools, a gift to “help us”. We had certainly stopped in the right place for generosity.

I mentioned earlier that I had pulled in at the wrong campsite, the one we’d actually booked was another 3 miles down the coast. Having said our thank yous and goodbyes, we headed off in search of Sands Campsite, Tanya led and I kept my fingers crossed no more electrodes would fall into the head!

Sands provided yet another planned surprise, Tanya had arranged to meet two sets of friends there – after the mechanical issues their smiling faces, and pints real ale, was a very welcome sight indeed. Over dinner I chatted to Iain and Geoff about the problem. I had high temp silicone, plastic metal and (now) some copper wire – I needed to choose which one to use as a repair to get us on our way. Silicone won and I set it into the warmed head before heading off to the village Ceilidh for a dance, hopefully it would seal over night and stay that way.

[AustinWood]

That is another fantastic road and passes the huge sand dunes blown in by the westerley winds.

[Chris KC]

Sounds like a great adventure Ruairidh, and bravo especially to the ladies!  I have limited internet access just now so look forward to reading in more detail when I get home. Let me just say though that you definitely picked the right year to skip a trip to the Alps!!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I have enjoyed your pictures on FB, Chris, but I feel you may be correct!

Wait until you see what happens next up here…

[Nick Salmon]

What stirring adventures! One day you will write a book. I look forward to reading it...

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Day 6

The Ceilidh was fun and the beer tasty – we’d slept well and the sun was out! I checked the plugs, turning the engine over carefully I could no longer hear any air leaks, hopefully the silicone would work long enough for us to complete the journey.

       

We packed up the tent and walked on the wonderful sands, it was a glorious day and we were reluctant to leave. But leave we did and just in time – the heavens opened and rain fell very hard indeed. At Poolewe we stopped and sought shelter in a café, the warm soup was good. Seeing the open cars, the Norwegian owner, allowed us to lurk in the doorway until “less” rain fell. Eventually we made run for it, jumped in the cars and headed off. I put the hood and sidescreens up, Tanya elected to drive with the Ulster hood down, the visibility is very poor with it up.

The road follows the coast through Laid and Grunaird Island, normally views of Lewis are possible but the cloud was dark and low. Rain poured and poured, water ran down the road and burns were dark and bubbling. At Little Loch Broom the road opens up and we could motor, the Ulster was running well and the repair was holding, for now.

As we came down the incline I saw vehicles stopped, hazard lights on, and lots of water across the road. We parked up and surveyed the situation. Millions of tonnes of water was pouring down off the mountain, converging at one point, the bridge below the road we had to cross! The road ahead was flooded and I was concerned that it may be deeper than our trailer. I walked out as far as could and watched another vehicle come through, chose my path and headed off. All went as well as can be expected until we reached the point where the river crossed under the road, the noise of the water incredible, it thundered beneath us and the air pressure slapped the side of the car. Such was the shock of this assault from nature, I nearly stopped. The girls kept an eye on the trailer and felt sure that it had not “gone under”. I walked back to guide Tanya though the route I had taken. Once on the other side we could see the full route of the water, it’s power was extraordinary and I wondered in the road might be swept away. Having taken our fill we left for Ullapool, still shaking, slightly.

           

https://youtu.be/Y693ZQT_iIw

https://youtu.be/1S5r5g49LlA


It was very wet in Ullapool and I shopped for two day’s worth of meals, everyone joined me inside, it was warm!

Our campsite that night was at Ardmair Point, just north of Ullapool itself. The site was small and well resourced, we removed our damp sleeping bags and placed them in the huge dryer – it worked very well and on tumbling each of us held the warm bags against us, saying nothing, just enjoying heat. We ate in the tent again, played games and read books, the rain continued, all night!