Gone quiet again?

Today was the day of our club winter crank-up at Denham Village hall. I always try to take an engine that people haven't seen before and decided on the Marshall badged Chinese diesel. The first challenge was extracting it from the middle of a crowded workshop in the process of which I pulled a muscle in the back of my leg. It was very cold and I couldn't even wind the engine up fast enough on the valve lifter to bounce once over compression, but I loaded it up anyway and sure enough, by the time I got to Denham and unloaded, the temperature had risen just enough for a reasonably easy start. A few minutes later the engine spluttered to a stop - Mr. stupid had forgotten to check the fuel and it had run out! Never mind, not too far from home so I popped back, collected my can of 'red', took some advice on bleeding the fuel system (I'm not very diesely) and we were away again.

A short while later I prodded the piece of plastic hose between the fuel tap and pump to investigate an annoying drip and it promptly split practically from one end to the other - Chinese c**p! Never mind I thought, not my day, so I shut down and enjoyed the fine spread of hot dogs and soup.

All the while the only other engine there, an Amanco celebrating its

90'th birthday, chugged away without a hitch, so as you can imagine my antics with an engine probably less than 20 years old were the source of much amusement and ribbing.

But I had one more trick up my sleeve for the entertainment of our little gathering. Carrying the recalcitrant Marshall back to the car at packing up time, I lost my footing, 'put down' the engine rather heavily and performed a forward somersault over it, landing with a roll which those observing later scored a 'perfect 10'! Scuffed paint and a broken pulley flange (more Chinese c**p) for the engine and a few grazes for me, but it was somehow the perfect end to a less than perfect engine day

- wonder what to take next time?

Enough what, canter, and bit for you?

NHH

May I commend this piece to the committee and hope somebody had a video camera when Nick performed his Gymnastic routine. Next please!

Mart>

campingstoveman wrote (snip):

Fortunately not!

NHH

Less balletic than Nick, I have sustained a chair-and-computer injury.

I have one of they office chairs with a spider of legs & wheels & the legs are (were!) of cast aluminium. Last week, I rolled the chair back to pull a sheet of paper from the printer. One of the legs gave way with a sharp report & I lurched sideways into the cupboard with a curious noise that an albatross might recognise. No injury resulted.

I was in the middle of something, so propped the chair up against said cupboard & carried on, albeit with a list to starboard.

Hazel came home & opened the office door just in time for me to forget & reach behind me for another sheet off the printer. CRACK! said another leg. I described a neat parabola to the floor, the sharp corner of the old computer standing next to the cupboard behind me giving me a smart one on the side of my ribcage. It hurt quite a lot, but I didn't want to worry Hazel, so made little of it. "Cracked a rib" I thought & certainly it was painful enough for a couple of days but is receding quickly now, so perhaps only soft tissue damage.

On the upside, the second hand office furniture shop was able to supply me with a new spider wheelie assembly for just £15! This one is steel ................

Regards,

Kim.

The stationary engines I have been working on lately all sit in large,

4-wheeled chassis so not really relevant for this forum. Stationary because none of the vehicles are really runners at the moment. The Gaz69M has T&T but suffers from rough running. The Trabi needs a lot of work before it is ready for an MOT (tyres so rotten they split when I tried to inflate them)

Michael

Mmmm, Trabi - always been attracted by 'minimal motoring'

NHH