Boot Sale Boo

"Boot sale boo" by Booclick on audioboo.fm

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Shake yer booty

Just got back from a test run to the local boot sale. The newly set up clutch works a treat. Must remember not to drive in my sandals though. Bought a nice dab radio which I might cover in green fur. Made it up the hill in 2nd gear for the first time.

My newlywed American friends say they want to stay in Althea when they come.


-- Post From My iPhone

A stitch in time

Thanks to the clutch cable being badly adjusted (another corner cut Chris and Mucker) the old clutch gradually wore away and cost me £500 to replace. I spent about an hour today with a drill and a couple of spanners and set it up properly.

At one point I had released the tension on the cable and discovered the lever that attaches to the clutch was loose and rattling around. A phone call to Arthur the clutch man reassured me that it was normal and I soon had it back in place.

There were two positions for the pedal end of the cable retainer, one too loose and one too tight. I drilled a hole in between them and with a few little tweaks it was perfect.

The kit I bought on eBay was unnecessary after all but I'll keep it just in case.

Birthdays, blown up bass bins and blinded boys

On Saturday morning I loaded Althea with the amps, furry speakers, a pair of backup speakers, mixing desks, cables, lights and bubble machine and headed off to DJ at Jilly's 50th on Mersea Island. Althea drove better than ever with her new clutch and prop shaft all the way to Mersea Island which took us about two and a half hours including traffic avoidance. The leaky fuel pump meant that she still struggled a bit on long hills but nothing like it was and we averaged 55mph all the way. At 67mph she started to wobble a bit but it felt more like a wobbly wheel than the new prop shaft. The engine is sounding much healthier now it is working properly and not just spinning wildly with no resistance. I even passed a few trucks on the way up hills too. It was delightful.

I set up the sound system at the venue and decided to use just the furry speakers. I had left the sub unit at home due to the age of the buildings I was worried about doing structural damage. By 5pm I was playing tunes from the vast library of 70s cheese I had downloaded (by request I must stress not by choice).

There was a very nice woman who came and sang a few songs but apart from that I played pretty much non stop (barring a few momentary computer freezes) for 7 hours until midnight when thanks to my horribly over driving the poor furry ones they gave up and died. I'm pretty sure I can fix them so I'm not going to worry.

Earlier I had fused my Mackie mixer too thanks to a dodgy mains extension but again I'm not worried I know what's wrong and it can be fixed.

The biggest stress of the night was when little Max managed to burst a glow stick I had given him, right into his eye. The scream he let out was far more spine chilling than any I have ever heard especially as when he looked up there he was with one eye glowing bright yellow, and it went on for a good twenty minutes. His parents washed it with water but still he screamed. The paramedic arrived and washed it then put Vaseline on it and he was fine. Even though it said suitable for 3 years plus on the box I will not be doing that again.

Young Max enjoys a sticky chewy thing the next day

Next day I replaced the furry speakers, set up the system to run remotely controlled by my iPhone and we waited for "The Trafalgar Tarts"



This was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The preamble was all about how without Tenalady (for older ladies with bladder problems) and powerful pain killers, all this would have been impossible. Then the dance started a little loosely and descended into chaos. I wished I'd had a video camera. Will have to get one asap.

It won't be long now before I have a few weeks off and there's The Big Chill in the middle of that too. Maybe I'll treat myself to a video camera of some sort soon.

She's Back!!!

I am sitting here filthy and wet having just put the new prop shaft on in the rain and dark. I took her for a spin down to Dulwich and back and she's great. She still struggles up the hill but not as much now and I think once the fuel leak and clutch cable are done that will be a thing of the past too.

I am one happy blogger

Freudian fun

The new prop shaft arrived yesterday and it looks very professionally done. It has the Ford Transit engine UJ on the front and the Morris UJ on the back now so I have removed the adaptor plate from the gearbox. The prop shaft guy said this might have been the source of the problem as it didn't have a centering pin and could have allowed shaking.

I have just returned from Clerkenwell Screws and Nuts where I bought some fresh nuts and bolts and tonight I will screw it all together, in the dark, wet greasy road. Hopefully the next post will be about how good it felt to drive Althea again. But regulars to this blog will not be holding their breath.

"Give me a lever and I can move the world"

I wonder if Archemedes knew that one day I would be laying underneath Althea with my legs sticking out into the road thanking him for inventing the lever. It has been a day of serendipity and friendly neighbours.

Yesterday I crawled underneath and tried to get the bolts that hold the prop shaft on loose. They were hard to get to, rusted in and it wasn't long before I had given up and decided to cut and drill them off instead. That was when I realised I had locked myself out and had to get Peter the caretaker to climb in through my window. I'm sure we looked a sight.

This morning I went to the hardware shop to buy metal drills and goggles and came back with some special sockets for removing rounded off nuts and a length of steel curtain rail instead. I decided to have another go.

At my garage I met the neighbours who are having a 90th birthday party in the grounds and they thanked me for lending them a couple of plastic chairs. Someone mentioned that they had forgotten the covers for their gazebo and I loaned them the covers for mine. The frame for which was destroyed at Glastonwick this year (see post not yet posted) but I kept the covers just in case.

As I started the job the man who has the garage near where she is parked offered to lend me allen keys and electricity. I took a couple of 8mm allen keys off him and destroyed one of them.

I decided I needed something like a traffic cone to put in the road to stop cars running over my legs and found one about three yards away on the pavement.

I tapped the 8mm allen socket into the first screw and slid the curtain rail over the ratchet spanner handle and pulled with all my strength. Something had to give. Either the screw would break, the curtain rail would break or the spanner. There was an almighty clunk and bits flew everywhere. I expected the worst but found that the screw had turned. I worked out a system of moving Althea very slightly to position the next screw and after three more of the same the front end was off. The back was very similar apart from having to use the thing for getting rounded off nuts off with.

While I was doing all this a 60 something woman came and told me how much she loved "that old bus". She told me how much she loves the movies and collects the posters. Sher told me about all the places she's been to to visit the locations and how many times she's seen Titanic. She talked about how if she had been a bit younger she would happily live like a gypsy. It's so nice how the community seem to have adopted Althea. She really does bring out the best in the nice people and the worst in the not so nice.

The prop shaft is now in the garage. I am filthy but very happy. By next week hopefully she will have her new one and I will be able to take her to get the fuel pump and clutch cable sorted.

Below:mucky me, the gazebo and the prop shaft,