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Alvises watching the London to Brighton VCC run
It rained, a LOT.
Three of us had decided to breakfast at Staplefield to watch the event.
Ray in the Riley had taken the scenic route from Piddinghoe whilst Jon with his newly acquired Alvis 12/50 Woodie met me on Brighton seafront in a lashing gale at 07.30.
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| Greasy Spoon, Gourmand and Oily Rag |
We trundled up the A23 at an estimated 45 - 50 mph; that’s the mid-point of the speedo’s oscillations from 30mph to off-the-clock (another winter job)
At Staplefield, Jon drove the Woodie onto or should that be into the common land; into, because it sank due to all the recent rain we’d had. Fortunately I had a rubber mat in the dickey seat to put under one of the rear wheels and there were three or four helpers on hand to push.
We found some hard-standing and Jon proceeded to fire up his two BBQs... One for the coffee and the other two-burner BBQ for the ...
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| .. and Shepherd Neame flavoured sausages. |
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| ...black pudding, bacon, eggs... |
And of course, this is the other reason we went there...
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| The way to arrive |
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| Doing it in style...1901 Panhard Levassor |
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| 1898 De Dion Bouton |
WOW...
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| ...the 1903 100hp 11.1 litre four cylinder Gordon Bennett Racing Napier...yes, that’s correct, the displacement of each of its four cylinders is the same as the total displacement of a 2.8 litre Daimler Sovereign... |
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| The sun shines on the... |
Heading back to the Jack and Jill Inn at Clayton I lost the group when I got stuck behind some of the veteran cars so I headed back to Brighton via Ditchling and with some trepidation I drove up over the Beacon and was very pleased to have done it in third gear; double-declutching from third to second whilst driving up a hill is completely beyond me!
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To Angouleme by Alvis 12/50 - Days 6 to 8
Thu, Sep 20 2012 12:42
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Returning to Brighton...
...Plus de repas, plus de vin, plus de fun
On Monday we set off to Saint Malo and stopped the first night at Le Lion D'Or on the Loire where we discovered that Monsieur Basil Fawlty was alive and well...
Tuesday night found us in Dinan at a lovely little hotel and Dinan is certainly worth a weekend break - it’s really beautiful.
Wednesday was an 08.00 start but in the event we arrived at the port in time to hear the announcements of the industrial action; resolved for us fortunately, but afterwards, expanded into a full blown strike.
We had a lovely day trip back to Portsmouth past the Channel Islands and then the drive home - what could go wrong?Well, the driver in the overtaking lane on the Worthing by-pass had obviously had a brain by-pass as he cut from the right hand lane across me so that he could turn left. Fortunately I'd tweaked the brakes before we left Brighton but even so, our friends who were following in the Bugatti were not the only ones who thought the Alvis would fall over as I swerved and the car tried to do one of those clever stunt drives along the A27 on two wheels to avoid the "by-pass" man.
Luckily he drove off otherwise I think some damage may have occurred which wouldn't have been covered by my fully comp insurance.
And the end of the tale?
Just as we were passing Guernsey, the postman was trying to deliver the 120 Solex jet which had been stuck for nearly three weeks in the sorting office because the postage should have been 59 pence rather than 50 pence - Jobsworth?
I fitted the 120 jet (the manual recommends 115) and the car ran perfectly; slightly rich at tickover but no spitting and of course more reliable revving when double-declutching. The received wisdom is that Ethanol in petrol makes the fuel:air ratio leaner so if your car shows similar symptoms you should consider contacting the very helpful Carburretor Hospital.
It was a lovely laid back event and one which I would recommend to any Francophile but we could have done with three whole days in Angoulême as I never got to see the Cathedral, the paper mill or the famous comic museum.
We did 836 miles and apart from the spitting, the Alvis ran perfectly - enough to make the Bugatti owner go out and buy an Alvis, but that’s another story....well, let me put it this way, if we go again it may be the ex-Tony Leech Shooting Brake in front instead of the Type 40...or perhaps the Shooting Brake behind....
To Angouleme by Alvis 12/50 - Day 5
Wed, Sep 19 2012 12:44
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Race day at Angoulême
On Sunday we decided against public transport and we drove in to Angoulême; the sun was rising through the mists of the fields and it was a magical drive particularly when one of the marshals mistook us for the €300-entry rally cars.We parked and escaped before the Gendarme pressed his case for us to move on - they're not really going to tow away a Bugatti are they?
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| Panhard |
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| The winning Bugatti |
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| Citroen |
The second race was for vintage cars and comprised Bugattis, Rileys, MGs, an Alfa etc....very exciting to see them sliding round the corners.
But 30 degree temperatures were beginning to take their toll and so we headed back to the Relais before all the racing had finished and the exodus had started. This time we opted for the à la carte menu which was to prove a big saving over the €39 menu and the Paris effect was still working!
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| Alfa Romeo approaching Carnot corner |
To Angoulême by Alvis 12/50 - Day 4
Mon, Sep 17 2012 12:46
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Angoulême - Paddock and Atmosphere
On Saturday we set off bright and early to park at the local Auchan store from where we caught a bus into Angoulême. We collected the grandstand/paddock tickets and programmes and then found a coffee shop.
For those who could afford it there was a rally on Saturday which cost €300 and involved nearly as much eating and drinking as we planned to do for rather less.
The €35 tickets gave us access to the paddock on Saturday and Sunday as well as numbered grandstand tickets opposite the paddock exit and the Carnot corner at the end of the Cathedral straight. Just behind us you could look out over the Ramparts and see the cars racing round the hairpin bends below.If you just wanted to soak up the atmosphere there were plenty of cafes in the town centre where one could see and hear the race cars being driven through the every day traffic of buses and cars to the paddock.
At the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) the cars were still being displayed from the Concours event of Friday evening.Later in the afternoon we returned to Auchan to buy a picnic; did I mention that the temperature was nearly 30 degrees...
To Angouleme by Alvis 12/50 - Day 3
Sat, Sep 15 2012 12:47
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Tiffauges to Angoulême, 150 miles
Very early on Friday morning I reset the tappets to 6 thou cold rather than 3 thou hot and that made a big difference particularly when I put the hood down as I could barely hear the spitting and f***ing through the carb.
However there was a new distraction. The French equivalent of the Department of Transport came up with more deviations than the Marquis de Sade could have dreamt of; where the British would use traffic lights, the French used deviations which I'm sure were designed to show off their country to us.
The hotels in the centre of Angoulême had been mostly fully booked for months so we finally arrived at our Relais de Silence (which I had booked in April) just south of Angoulême (we had a bit of a shock in store for some of the auto-phobe guests seeking silence); on arrival there were already a couple of vintage Alvises, two Triumph Stags, a Porsche and a Rolls-Royce.
You’ll probably recognise the Alvises as belonging to Adrian Bell (who had given me a lot of advice before we booked) and Tony Leech who had been doing a meander through the Loire valley.
We ate at the hotel from a rather expensive menu but fortunately Jon's brother-in-law is from Paris...it's true what they say about Parisians...and we had impeccable service from then on!
However there was a new distraction. The French equivalent of the Department of Transport came up with more deviations than the Marquis de Sade could have dreamt of; where the British would use traffic lights, the French used deviations which I'm sure were designed to show off their country to us.
The hotels in the centre of Angoulême had been mostly fully booked for months so we finally arrived at our Relais de Silence (which I had booked in April) just south of Angoulême (we had a bit of a shock in store for some of the auto-phobe guests seeking silence); on arrival there were already a couple of vintage Alvises, two Triumph Stags, a Porsche and a Rolls-Royce.You’ll probably recognise the Alvises as belonging to Adrian Bell (who had given me a lot of advice before we booked) and Tony Leech who had been doing a meander through the Loire valley.
We ate at the hotel from a rather expensive menu but fortunately Jon's brother-in-law is from Paris...it's true what they say about Parisians...and we had impeccable service from then on!
To Angouleme by Alvis 12/50 - Day 2
Fri, Sep 14 2012 12:49
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Saint Malo to Tiffauges, 160 miles
On Thursday we disembarked at about 08.00 local time and headed off on every small side road we could find in the direction of Tiffauges (L on map) which is about 160 miles away from Saint Malo. Our plan was to drive for two hours and then stop for coffee before doing another two hours driving, stopping for lunch and then a similar laid-back schedule in the afternoon.
Our first night stop was at Tiffauges which is a lovely little town with a very old castle which boasted a trebuchet, a very nice hotel and a fabulous but inexpensive restaurant, named Archers - Veal sweetbreads, followed by Coquilles St Jacques and Creme Brulée...To Angoulême by Alvis 12/50 - Day 1
Wed, Sep 12 2012 12:55
| alvis, angouleme, bugatti, circuit des remparts
Brighton to Portsmouth docks
Le Circuit des Remparts d’Angoulême is a series of races for old cars around the castle ramparts of Angoulême, which is a lovely town about two thirds of the way down France on the left hand side. It's 30 miles inland from Cognac and 75 miles north of Bordeaux.
I’ve heard it said that Le Circuit des Remparts d’Angoulême is similar to what the Goodwood Revival once was before the organisers discovered that the Sussex Downs were paved with gold.
I was lucky enough to get to both the Festival of Speed and the Revival in the very early days before it became a part of the social scene; it was all pretty relaxed and you could buy your tickets on the gate before it all went online and retro.
The easiest way of getting the Alvis to Angoulême was to take the Brittany Ferries ship from Portsmouth to Saint Malo and then drive 300 miles over the next two days whilst sampling plenty of petit déjeuners, déjeuners et cafés.
I did book the Angoulême tickets online as I wanted to ensure we got some seats rather than just wandering around and looking over people's shoulders, besides they'd already sold out of the Cathedral grandstand seats when I started booking in August so it was pretty popular.
The seats were not expensive; €25 each for entry to the paddock for both days and €10 each for the grandstand seats for both days. If you use my sort of logic, what you save on Goodwood pays for the ferry...sort of.
I'd cobbled the carburettion together on the Alvis but was still without the all important 120 Solex jet which my engine seems to need now to combat the Ethanol in petrol that tends to make the mixture leaner. On the afternoon of Wednesday 12th September we met up with our friends’ Bugatti on the Brighton seafront before we headed off to Portsmouth for the overnight voyage to Saint Malo.
The traffic through Arundel wasn't kind to us and the Alvis popped and spat back through the carburettor which was ominous...
Woe 3
With an hour to go before we were due to leave to meet you all at the forge for the Riley BBQ I climbed into the car, admired the new hood bag and the new woodwork and the newly repaired window and I went through the start up procedure...and I went through the start up procedure...and...but as you know we never got there.
I did all the obvious things like taking the carburettor apart, checking the float level, taking the jets out...
Then I turned my attention to the valve timing...
And then I retimed the magneto...
And then I went through the start up procedure again...
Anyway after three days of repeating all of the above my friend John Copper (who owns the club which the Multimarquers went to in Peacehaven one Tuesday evening) came over to help. To cut a long story short he said "Have you tried the starting handle?"; well I hadn't, but he did.
WEIRD, there was absolutely no compression AT ALL. So there was no suction for the petrol vapour and so nothing for the spark to ignite.
We poured some petrol into each cylinder went through the start up procedure and it worked...but you wouldn't have still been at the BBQ...
John's theory is that the tappet clearance was too small and that coupled with the Alvis's Mount Ararat moment and possibly the dehumidifier had resulted in carbon forming between the valve seat and the valves thus jamming the valves open
I was mightily relieved as in a few nano seconds my brain had computed the cost of a complete engine rebuild before Angouleme in ten days time.
But I am still stuck with getting a jet for the Solex so if you think you may be able to help, please read on.
Having reset the magneto, the Alvis goes extremely well but it fires back through the carburettor on occasion which I am told is a sign of a weak mixture. Well, the jet is a Solex 110 which is designed for skinflints and people with 9 points on their licence; what I should have is a 115 which is richer.
Somewhere in the Royal Mail infrastructure is a 120, but it's been stuck there for a week. Peter Broom has kindly offered me a 125 which could be far too rich and would obviously make the Alvis significantly faster than any Humber.
Please save Loft from this dreadful experience and see if you have a Solex 115 jet which I could beg, borrow, lease or whatever to get me to and from Angouleme.
Woe 2
Previously I'd just finished repolishing all the woodwork after the Alvis gave its own interpretation of the Ark on Mount Ararat.
I was just refitting the twenty four pieces of beautifully polished mahogany when I noticed that the cable which winds the window up on the drivers side was frayed.
Now these window winders must be a coachbuilder's optional extra; Jim's Wolseley has them, my Alvis has them and a Gordon England bodied Austin Seven which I was looking at on the Internet the other day also had them.
These window winders work on the same principle as a roller blind; except that roller blinds aren't really very heavy but a sheet of 4mm glass is ******heavy.
How do I know that? Well I just touched the frayed cable and there was a noise like the Guillotine as the roller spring didn't so much let go but rather did its own interpretation of a space launch in reverse - I was surprised to see that the door was still there as was the running board...and my toes.
Obviously these "roller blinds" need some fairly significant cabling to raise the windows up; two of the windows appeared to have picture wire, one to have a scaled down version of the Titanic's mooring rope and the fourth to be a bit of waxed cotton!
Perhaps I should explain a little more about the mechanism.
I have no idea how it works.
But after a lot of experimentation (eg winding it the wrong way) I did finally manage (several hours later) to work out what was going on.
The cable has to wrap around the roller and also to connect to the window...it's so simple but I don't understand how they did it without special equipment. Although I've put it all back together it really does need a winch to get the correct tension on the spring, but then it might break...
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The cable is held in place by a 4 ba screw so the cable has to be THIN.
But finally I found Tecni-Cable Ltd on the Internet. If you do nothing else, Save this site!Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe
If you’re old enough to have a bus pass then you will probably remember Frankie Howerd (Lurcio) speaking these lines on television in “Up Pompeii” through the early ‘70s. I have a certain empathy with that but in my case “Woe” is also known “As if it ain’t broke...parts 1, 2, 3 or 4” so without further ado...
Woe 1
You left me last month with a new hood bag but a soaking wet car having driven over the South Downs through the clouds and the sort of rain us Southerners thought only happened north of Watford.
Two days later with the help of the dehumidifier, the car was dry but....the woodwork had taken a real hammering. Being a sort of upmarket convertible it has copious bits of wood trim. I'd previousl repolished about ten pieces around the windscreen where the rubber had disintegrated but this job was much more comprehensive; in all there were 24 pieces which I took out and a nice touch was that most of them had the body number from Carbodies who made the bodywork, written on the back in pencil.
Repolishing them was a production line event.
Each piece needed three coats of stripper to get the old polish off; the drive over the Downs hadn't quite stripped them!
Then I cleaned them with White Spirit.
The next step was to varnish them using a pad which comprised the best soft linen or cotton I could get and in the centre of this I put either cotton wool or some other absorbent material to act as a reservoir for the polish. This ensured that there were no brush strokes.
The varnish I used was an exterior satin finish yacht varnish. Each of the four coats of varnish was left to dry for 24 hours and then rubbed down using 0000 grade wire wool and again cleaned with White Spirit.