Been down to the darkest depths of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire today, and had a few hours at the kemble Steam Rally.
The weather was just like Burford last year, hot with a slight breeze, but very strong sun, so anti-sun measures were in force for the day.
We had a good drive down, took a couple of hours or so, probably nearer 2-1/2 as there is no direct cross-country route for us, we have to go one of two ways to the show, and neither are particularly fast.
Traders were a bit thin on the ground but the few that were there made up for it in quality. We found a very good stall with books and manuals, and selected 3 Petter industrial diesel manuals and a Lister Marine Sales JP6MG manual, all genuine and in fair nick. Strange that we paid £8 for the three Petter manuals yet he wanted £7 for an early Villiers instruction book...
Buyable hardware was a bit lacking as well, the only stall that had anything of interest was an ex-wd guy who had lots of truck stuff etc. There was a Petter AVA1 and a pump on the back of a Transit, but the cowling was rusted through. He also had a couple of Villiers engines on the floor but they were a bit ratty.
Engines were fair to good, there was a Marshall horizontal portable running without load and putting up clouds of unburnt paraffin or diesel every few seconds, pity they couldn't have got a load to hook it up to and get it warmed up. Quite a few Stuarts on view, including a couple of singles for sale, one with radiator.
PTFE's Apple-Top and pump were there, sounding very much as though the engine was running much faster than the Atomic at Burford, but probably just my imagination... Didn't see Philip, although Len Gillings suggested that a corpse lounging under a large brolly may have been the aforesaid, we didn't stop to wake him up! Had a chat with Len about his new camshaft, hope to see that in the engine sometime, but not hear it!
A Ruston & Hornsby 1ZHR was running awfully slowly at one end of the row where Philip and Len were sited, and the display board said it was a 1Z / XHR, which is a nonsense as the nameplate quite clearly states 1ZHR. They are almost identical engines but the 1Z has a higher output through injection mods. It had come from Hatfield College, and had the brake fitted still. We hung around a few engines hoping to get the owners out to talk, but few were either physically there or interested in talking, so we moved on.
We took the shuttle bus over to the Bristol museum at the far side of the airfield, all the while a selection of small aircraft were taking off and landing, including a jet Provost which was mightily noisy. The Bristol museum was very interesting in a anorak sort of way. It isn't large enough to do more with its exhibits, but has a lot of interesting stuff there to be viewed. Worth the time taken, hope to see it much expanded in future.
We left after 4pm to go to Stratton St Margaret to collect Rita's Norman engine. It's in original lightish blue paint, has a foot missing off the base but otherwise looks great. Vince can repair the foot for me next week, and I'll get the other items sorted at the same time. It has two vertical-pointing silencers that push over the (also vertically pointing) exhaust stubs. Mag looks like an ML, carb is underslung and a Zenith I think. The oil gauge is present but missing its glass. It has compression!
We got back home just after 7pm, we left SSM at 5pm and we fed nags and did shopping before getting in.
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info: