Burt Jones’s Re-Build Diary

[neilwillis]

                         

[grumpy old man]

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

     

Shame there's no more  

[Phssthpok]

......as that doyen of existential philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said, ".....if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

[jak]

Excellent stuff - please can we have some more    

[pistonbroke]

Just seen this thread              

Didn't know Tom Sharpe ran a Westy !

                               

[Phssthpok]

Wednesday, November10

Exhaust noise: Decide to fit an after-burner to the Westfield’s exhaust. Simple enough job: With Spanner’s help we quickly drill and tap a hole at the end of the silencer for a spark plug, then connect the plug to the ignition system via a steering wheel button. Finally, using a vacuum switch, we run an auxiliary fuel line into the exhaust, 8 inches before the spark plug. When I fire up the engine, the back-pressure will automatically feed fuel into the hot exhaust which will vaporise the fuel. Then, when I depress the button, the plug ignites the vapours and sends a flame out of the rear end. Well, that was the theory anyway. To test it out, I load the Westfield on a trailer hauled by Spanner’s Allegro and drive down to the local rolling-road and bribe Clint, the owner-operator, with a bottle of Tesco’s Russian Riesling and smuggled pouch of rough-*******. At 3,000 revs Clint gives me the thumbs up and I press the after-burner-button. With a noise akin to a Harrier jet fighter porking Liam Gallagher, a 40 foot spear of white hot flame erupts out of the exhaust, cremating Clint’s Siamese cat and setting fire to Spanner’s Allegro in the process.

8:10am - Sitting on the toilet reading an article in Health & Efficiency about some Jessie from the West Coast Reliant Owners Club. Seems some flatcap has copied me by putting an after-burner on an enemic three wheeler, but he’s added to the pyrotechnics by spraying methanol and iron filings directly into the flames. I don’t pretend to understand the mechanical hieroglyphics, but the bottom line seems to be: I need some type of fuel that will burn hotter and brighter if I really want to impress the boys and girls outside the ACE cafe. Log onto the WSCC site and ask about rocket fuel. Receive a response from a local guy called Mr Plums who says he’s got some for sale. Arrange to meet him later in a pub.

8:19am - In the sitting room. To solve the over-heating oil, I decide to change the mighty Crossflow’s anaemic, mechanical oil-pump for an electrical high-output jobbie. A quick States-side call to the illustrious Burg and Burg to enquire about the cost of their billet oil pumps. Their reply would have had Bill Gates needing a bank loan, so I slam the phone down in protest, take a long slug of Irish Vodka and decided there was always a better (cheaper) solution. Whilst I’m deep in thought (drunk) my gaze wanders to our fish tank in the corner of the room. I’ve never really shared the wife’s fondness of terminally stupid Guppies, but the little fish did give me the germ of an idea. If the tank’s electrical water pump could circulate 24 gallons of diluted fish excrement, it could certainly propel the oil around the mighty Crossflow. Of course, altering it to run on 12 volts might be a bit tricky.

12:46pm - The snug of the Firkin Gherkin. Meet up with a scruffy, one-eyed, bandana-totting, guy calling himself Mr. Plums. Despite wearing a food-stained Robin hood OC jacket, Plums claims to be a life-long Catterham owner, although the heap I saw in pub car park looked suspiciously like a Dutton with 7 scrawled on the bonnet with a laundry marker. Acting like a furtive Crack dealer, Plums ushers me into the Gents so we can examine a specimen of his rocket fuel. Plums tells me it’s the real McCoy, recycled from the defunct Russian space programme. Taking out an eyedropper, he carefully measures a single drop into the toilet bowl, throws in a lit Swan Vesta and leaps back just as an almighty bang and black mushroom cloud envelopes the latrine. At a fiver a pint I can’t complain, so I buy quart, which he’s pre-packet into a plastic milk bottle. Not wishing to be caught with potentially dodgy gear, I stuff the bottle down the front of my leatherette chaps and return to the bar. Mr. Plums doesn’t hang around, so I leer at, Joss, the delightful barmaid and decide to stay for another beer. After 11 bottles of Dutch courage, and a couple of pickled egg sandwiches for good measure, I sidled up to the overtly chesty Joss, and ask if she fancied a garlic kebab after the pub shut. She glances at the bulge in my chaps and nods the affirmative.

6:11am – on the WSCC web site. Someone has proudly posted a few digital pictures of a Smega-blade they’d just finished updating. If this car was a dog, you’d call the vet and put it out of its misery. I’m not sure what was worse, the roll-bar that had been fabricated with 15m copper gas pipe or the Draylon *******-pile covering the home-made soft-top. I mention I’m thinking of taking the wife to one of these Speed Series weekend things for a few days peace and quiet, under a canvas roof, with invigorating sound of nature surrounding us. A couple of Northern lads tell me their region is hosting a hill climb at the weekend in aid of their local Liver Unit. I decide to take the plunge and invite the wife as a way of apologising for the amount of money I’ve been spending on the Westfield. I only hope she has enough cash to cover our petrol, food and that great digital speedo I saw at Halfrauds yesterday.

10:34pm - In the kitchen. The wife’s home from her counselling session with the Teutonic, thunder-thighed, Gretchen. I smile warmly, take her coat and sit her down at the dining table. A sure way into a woman’s purse is via her stomach so I’d pulled all the stops out and made my speciality: Vesta Paella al la mode, washed down with ½ a bottle of the Co-op’s best Belgium Chianti. I mention the hill climb thingy and, to my utter surprise, she seems quite taken with the idea.

11:15pm - In the sitting room. With the wife gently snoring upstairs I quietly examine the fish tank’s water pump watched intently by 28 pairs of beady Guppy eyes. The pumps wiring seems simple enough and I shouldn’t have a problem adapting it. As an experiment I gently prod the earth with an insulated screwdriver. A suddenly flash has me blinking away the black spots. As my vision clears I squint at the tank and see 28 small bodies floating up-side-down. Oop’s.

11:55pm – decide to give up smoking tomorrow. Go to bed reading Albert Schweitzer’s account of his classic road trip across the alps on a Pre-LIt with mechanical tuberculosis. Dream the mother-in-law accidentally gives herself a course of Electro-Convulsive-Therapy after her NHS hearing-aid gets tangled up in the Westfield’s ignition system.

[Mark Stanton]

Pleased to read the re-build is still going to plan            

[scruffythefirst]

[ACW]

Ace

[Phssthpok]

Thursday, November 11

Exhaust noise: Went to a quiet wooded area in North Oxford to test Mr Plum’s rocket fuel in the Westfield’s after-burner. As per instructions, I’ve mixed in ½ a tea cup of iron filings to the fuel and then put the mixture in the reservoir tank of an anaemic Scottoiler I swapped with D’Arcy for 34 back issues of Fiesta and a well thumbed Readers Wives Special. Starting the car, I wait while the Scottoiler starts dripping it's concoction into the hot exhaust. And, wait. And wait. Damn, bl**** stuff’s not working. On the ride home, I’m waiting at the traffic lights when the Crossflow suddenly coughs like an asthmatic toad and a sledge hammer hits me in the back as I catapult away in a banshee wail of pyrotechnics and burnt hydrocarbons. Chancing a glance in my mirror, I just catch site of the rapidly receding shape of a smoking Ford Ka that had the misfortune to be besides me at the lights.

7:54am - In the kitchen, nursing the mother, father and probably the second cousin of all hang-overs. The wife doesn’t seem to have twigged that 28 of her beloved guppies have metamorphed into 7 goldfish, looking suspiciously like the very fish that recently inhabited next-door’s pond. After my post-kebab liaison with Joss I’m more determined than ever to get the SE’s after-burner sorted so I can schmooze with the type of women who appreciates a man with a volcanic side-pipe. But that’s for later, this morning I’m going to sort out the Westfield’s recalcitrant ignition system. I’ve already junked the OME set-up and spent the wife’s hairdressing money on a dicky little set from Demon Thieves. Once fitted, I can get on with the cooling system and the car’s ready to ride up to some place called Leeds for the Hill Climb tomorrow.

8:57am - In the toilet reading the local free paper. Chance upon an ad selling high colonic enema equipment. Even with my rudimentary knowledge of colonic irrigation I realise that I might have stumbled upon a seriously good tool for bleeding the gas out of the Westfield’s congenitally deformed water cooling system. I ring the advertiser. A sensuously coy female, with a thick French accent, introduces herself as Gigi and murmurs that I could come around after lunch.

1:17pm – Cowley road, Oxford. Gigi’s unpretentious address is salubrious situated above a lug-worm shop. I knock on the Formica, laminated door and get buzzed in. I’m not sure what to expect, but certainly not a leiderhosen clad dominatrix looking like John Bulishi on a bad hair day; complete with purple lipstick and bright yellow Marigold gloves. “You are a very naughty boy,” Gigi scolds in an impenetrable Basque brogue, “now you must be punished.”

I’m not exactly sure what this punishment entailed, although a large bucket of soapy water and a goodly length of rubber tubing seemed to be involved. Keeping my buttocks firmly pressed against the door, I hurriedly explain I’m here to buy the equipment for my Westfield and my bowels do not need purging. Gigi frowns, slips a white coat over her leiderhosen and wags a finger. “Naughty boy, why don’t you make yourself comfortable and slip into some nice black rubber.”

To be honest, the rubber cat-suit looked quite inviting, but I was a man with a mission and rubberise frolics would have to wait for another day. I reluctantly shook my head and said firmly, “I’m here to buy the enema equipment you advertised for sale.”

Glancing up at a row of rawhide whips hanging from the wall, Gigi smiled and murmured, “Now, you are being very, very naughty.”

An hour later, with legs firmly crossed and half a stone lighter, I left Gigi’s flat with a box full of second-bottom goodies.

3:14pm – In the toilet reading a copy of Rubber and Cream monthly I’d found in Gigi’s box. A scream from the sitting room has me hopping down the stairs with my trousers flapping around my ankles. I find the wife in front of the fish tank staring at the goldfish. “Wwwhat’s happened to the Gggguppies,” she stutters. Feigning ignorance, I suck a tooth and mumble, “looks like you’ve been over-feeding them, darling. Cut their food down for a week and I’m sure they’ll return to normal.” She thanks me for my concern, then wags a stern finger at the Guppies while she explains to the fatuous fish that they’re now on a diet.

6:55pm - In the garage. I’ve jacked up the front of the SE and Spanner has the pallor of a condemned prisoner being strapped into an electric chair as he sits unsteadily in the driver’s seat ready to start the beast on my instruction. Grease Gun is hiding behind 6ft sheet of titanium in the corner with shell-suited Wayne, the Essex AO, who has agreed to film the event for prosperity. Kerpal, Oxford’s only Halal mobile welder, is outside the garage wearing his welding gear and clutching the worlds biggest fire extinguisher. Nice to know the boys have such faith in my mechanical abilities. To quell their anxieties I’ve liberally medicated them with three pints of triple distilled Poteen mixed with half a dozen crushed chlordiazepoxide. Our plan is simple: I’ve feed the colonic irrigation pipes into the guts of the mighty Crossflow, Spanner will keep the revs up and, all going well, the motor should purge itself of unwanted air.

6:22pm – In the garage. I can’t put it off any longer, I cross my chest, give Spanner the thumb up and cover my eyebrows as he fires up the mighty Crossflow. The car starts without preamble and roars like a haemorrhoidally mean lion with every blip of the tetchy throttle. Tension mounts as the water temp gradually climbs into the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, then slips menacingly past 90. Kerpal’s deserted his post for the kitchen where he’s trying to whip up a yam Dhansak; Wayne is shivering in his Kevlar reinforced shell-suit and Grease Gun is slobbering mess behind his titanium barricade.

6:27 - In the garage. The water temp rises to 105 and, with cataclysmic visions of blowing head gaskets, I shout at Spanner to abort just as the garage reverberates with a stupendous flatulent bellow as the mighty Crossflow expels it’s unwanted gas; the temperature immediately drops into a healthy 60, and happily burbles away like a new born baby on it’s mother’s breast. Success.

9:40pm - In the garage. The electronic ignition is a doddle to fit, so I drag the Guppy loving wife into the garage to witness the mighty Crossflows inaugural firing on a brand new digitally mapped spark. Blipping the throttle for a good minute, I smile like a trout and tell her to watch, listen and learn from a master mechanic; then, with a final flourish I thumb the start button. The mighty Crossflow turns over once, twice, thrice. Frowning, I pump the throttle some more and try again. This time, the engine burps like a wart hog and a cloud of burning fuel shoots out of the carb, setting fire to my chaps. Running around the garage, screaming like a Jessie, Kerpal drops the frying pan and chases after me trying to dowse the flames with his extinguisher. Finally the fire’s out. The wife looks at me with her Diazepam addled gaze and says, “Very nice, dear, but is it supposed to do that?”

11:55pm – decide to give up smoking tomorrow. Go to bed reading Cilla Black’s evocative tale of losing her virginity to a Seight owning Northumbrian Priest with a taste for Guinness massages. Dream the mother-in-law gave herself oesophageal varicose veins after accidentally drinking a pint of the Westfield’s brake fluid thinking it was lemon tea.

[stu999]

Splendid!    

[kermit The Frog]

Accidently stumbled on this thread, and boy am I glad I did!  

7Yrs on from the 1st entire and thoroughly impressed!

[Bob Green]

One of the funniest things I have ever read.

[Blatman]

Come back P**s-pot. All is forgiven...

Well, nearly all ya Harley riding gayer