Silverstone Festival

WSCC had organised a pitch at the festival so I booked up for the weekend with the group from Dorset.  We left early from the SW meeting up on the A34 just short of the M4 and heading up in a car/camper van convoy to the campsite at the Silverstone Golf Course.

We set up camp and then walked over to watch some racing and get our bearings for the drive on to site the following day.

Saturday and Sunday were excellent days good racing, access to the paddocks and meeting up with other WSCC members who'd made the trip.

Must have Eleven photo

Beer on a bus

The Dorset Tour 2022

The Dorset Tour was planned for the Bank Holiday after feedback that the National Kit Car Show was moving to Lincoln and later in the year which turned out not to be the case - once we were booked and committed.

The core attendees camped near Blandford Forum setting up on the Friday, waking up to a ground frost on the Saturday morning! Undeterred we headed off for breakfast, via Zig Zag Hill, meeting up with the day trippers.

The day that followed covered the South West of Dorset with a coffee stop at Langham's vineyard

and Casa Lovell for high Tea.

Overall travel 

As ever, Colin couldn't pass a ford!

The temperatures overnight were a lot warmer but the weather changed with rain on the way to Haynes Motor Museum for the Breakfast Club, over the Day we covered Eastern Dorset even venturing into Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire during the day.

Overall an excellent weekend - hopefully the sign of things to come ......

2022 Starts

 The weather is slowly starting to improve and so it's time to get the cars out.  Santa bought me a portable hydraulic lift which made prepping the car much easier, work included replacing the fuel hoses, the cycle wings after 'The Anglesey Incident' and a servicing.

All fuel hoses replaced with R9 for E10 compatibility and fuel filter also replaced.

Big Heads bonded to the cycle wing  (studs at top/nuts at bottom) and LED side repeater fitted.

Carbon fibre sheet for load sharing.

And a nice sunny day run to the Jurassic Coast

View over Lyme Bay

And the blog is now 10 years old...........

Stoneleigh 2021

After cancellation in 2020 the 2021 show was delated to the late August Bank Holiday weekend (but not the BH Monday) and significantly reduced in scale.  As a result the Dorset WSCC group decided to make the effort but limited to a dat trip.

I left home at 05:30 in to the darkness and fog meeting up with Dave & Adge at Sparkford.  We headed off to meet those travelling from Dorset at the Warminster Services on the A350 after an uneventful journey we arrived at Stoneleigh well before 09:00 and parked up on the WSCC stand.

Cars lined up and Adge just finishing off a quick polish!

As expected there wasn't the usual breadth of show stands and it didn't take too long to see everything of interest and meet up with other WSCC members, Westfield Sports Cars had a selection of Chesils, SEIWs and was co-located with ecoclassics.co.uk who had the electric Eleven that I'd seen at Kingswingford a couple of weeks ago, £22k for the electric kit plus the Eleven Kit at ~£12k and the MG Midget axles/wheels/steering rack so ~£38K on the road - awesome power and ~100miles range. Time flew and before long it was time to head home,  after stopping for lunch/dinner on the way I got home just before 18:00 so a 12.5 hour round trip.

Fat Rack

The later 1275 MG Midgets were fitted with a Triumph steering 'thin' racks as part of rationalisation of parts across British Leyland's products. The consensus of Eleven owners is that the earlier Midget 'fat' is better suited to the car as it has a faster ratio giving sharper response.  Changing between the two requires the rack, mounts, track rod ends and steering arms as well as adjustments to account for the narrower Eleven chassis.

I was checking over the car and noticed that the front tyres were slightly worn on the inside edges and a check with my alignment kit confirmed that the tracking was 20' toe-out.  An attempt to adjust confirmed that all the adjustment range had been used so I had two options (1) remove the track rod ends and cut them and the steering rack arms down (2) fit the 'fat' rack - I opted for the latter.

To gain access I removed the bonnet, the cooling radiator top mount, jacked/axle stand the front of the car and removed the front wheels. I unbolted each of the steering arms (2 x bolts) and steering rack mounts (3 x bolts) and slide out the steering rack complete with track rod ends and steering arms.  Fitting was roughly the reverse but I assembled the components on the car having cut 10-12mm off each of the track rod ends and rack arms.  I also needed to trim the track rod/steering arm bolts to ensure they cleared the alloy wheels as I'd needed to do with the originals.

While I had the wheels off I fitted the Mintex M1144 brake pads having given up on the ECB 'green' when I experienced significant fade around Exmoor/Porlock/Lynton.  The final step was to reset the front wheel alignment which I set to 10' toe-in, as most of the driving is done with 2 up I didn't bother ballasting the car with the driver's weight.

I went out for a drive and quickly confirmed that the 'fat' rack is much better suited to the light weight Eleven and M1144 are excellent pads; I'm now looking forward to the weather improving over the next week so I can get some more miles on the car.

Run Out Over Exmoor

Going through a bit of dry weather phase and with the forecast ahead not looking quite we planned a day trip.  Tricia and I had an early start and headed off to Exmoor.  Lots of B Roads between Taunton, Lynton and the back home, stopped off in Porlock for a coffee, 160 miles in all and back in time for a very late Sunday lunch.

Dunkery Hill looking over towards Minehead

An unplanned stop at the top of Porlock Hill to reconnect the cutch pedal and once we got home I readjusted/threadlocked it and then changed the differential oil to EP90 in an attempt to quieten it down and, whilst there gave the back end of the car a good check over.

Garage Doors and Flooring

 It's now close to 20 years since we bought the house as a new build and for almost 20 years we've had to live with the constant risk that the wires that control the garage doors will jump off their spindles, usually when it's late in the evening or raining. Well now this is no longer an issue as we have two new electric roller doors

Halfway through

Finished (close out panels to be fitted once I'm happy that they're adjusted)

Once the doors were fitted it was on to the flooring - this required the entire content of the garage to be moved so I did it in quarters.

Just about 1/2 done

Nearly finished - need to build up some enthusiasm to clear the racking!