Eunos Chump

The Jaaag passed it's MOT last week (needed rear ARB bushes, headlamp alignment), which has persuaded me to keep it on for another year.  I was sick of the rubbish audio and playing my meagre MP3 collection via an unreliable cassette adaptor, so I've given it a massive-ish upgrade. First step: upgrade the front speakers.  Old ones were shot, and an unusual size which meant I had to lash up some adaptors to fit some 6.5" Focals.  I used uPVC soffit board for this - it's cheap, unaffected by damp and easier to work with than MDF. Snug fit for the Focal ISC165s.  They had good reviews, are reasonably priced, and quite slim so even with the adaptor rings they were no deeper than the originals. Step 2: underseat subwoofer. This is with the seat fully forward, normally it's hidden.  It required a permanent 10A feed, which I was able to take from the power-seat feed.  There was also a connection to the system control lead on the head unit, the R...

I wented to DEVON and it rained and TRAFFIC and more rain and CREAM TEAS and really-narrow-roads and BORED.  I love dodgems!  I am the self-appointed world champion of dodgems, FEAR ME. This is for sale in a tiny motor museum.  Not rusty but at £1000 is at least 50% too much. Just 14 miles on this, somebody didn't like biking Barn conversion we stayed in, which was lovely - just as well given the weather.  We spent 2 entire days eating grub and watching Game of Thrones... I was happy with that.

The world tour is over, we bought this CLK privately last night from bloody DEVON.  I was a bit cagey about spending this sort of money with no come-back, but the folks seemed honest and the car was exactly as advertised. There was precious little mobile signal in the village, so I ended up doing a bank transfer from my iPad in a graveyard. It has the indignity of the 4-cylinder 2.3 motor, but apart from it's super.  I want one now...

The Saab is DEAD... the differential bearings are on the way out, it can't be driven at much over 20mph and it probably needs a gearbox.  I'm done with throwing money at it so it's for the chop, and a replacement is being sought... First candidate, this CLK.  At the top of our budget but good history, no rust, new tyres, interior tidy (driver's seat often get ripped up on these), but there's just the small matter of it being 150 miles away in South Wales. We decide it's worth the trip and hoof down the M4 in the Jaaag.  Within 5 minutes of arriving we're on our way home again - there's fresh overspray and even MASKING TAPE on the front wings, and the rears contain wob that must have been applied by Lionel Richie's girlfriend.  New tyres are a mix of Chinese rings'o'death with about a dozen coats of tyre shine. We stop at the services near Cardiff, where they have about 4 sandwiches for sale.  We head back to England, blowing the ...

Roger has been sold!  I took it for an MOT today and it failed on front disks; those are more than £100 each and combined with the fact it runs really poorly at the moment (despite me spending several hours on it this week), I just wanted to wash my hands of it.  So it's gone to the garage that did the MOT for £350.  I feel relief. I had a mobile aircon specialist come and look at the Jaaaag the other day.  Unfortunately the pipe between the compressor and condenser is leaking in several places.  And the condenser is buggered. And the receiver/drier.  Oh, and the compressor is also toast.  Works fine apart from that.  I am now resigned to a summer of driving with the windows open.

This is the motor museum at Jurby, I spent around 4 hours here having a proper look at all the rammel.  I had some tea and Victoria sponge too.  #BikeLife I wish my bike had a picture of a cock on it - if only as a warning to other motorists. Various skips outside the grandstand. I stop off at the Tiffin Tea Shop, and being a tough Southern biker-type I demand 17 cans of lager.  Unfortunately they don't have any, so I settle for a cream tea with the very strongest tea available; light brown tea.  I neck that bastard straight down, impressing some pensioners on the next table. I spent Friday morning as the only visitor to Murray's Motorcyle Museum.  He's a really friendly, chatty bloke and told me many, many slanderous tales about various people, both on the island and in the motorcycle industry.  He gave me tea and biscuits and let me have a sit on some bikes too. I'm home now after a miserable Iron Butt-style r...

I'm on the Isle of Man, cleverly avoiding all the TT crowds and price gouging by visiting when EVERYTHING IS CLOSED. This is that pub on the corner of the TT course.  At least this was open, for manly drinks Mountain section is a fantastic bit of road, but a little too busy for 3 figure speeds. Scenes from Jurby Junk, a big junkstore recommended to me by someone on Autoshite.  Good shout!    I'm travelling extremely light with just my top box, but managed to fit in a horrific Manx doll which is going to be a present for some lucky person.