May I offer my sincere apologies for not stocking a pair of cooling fans for one of these. That's not me in the picture btw. Fella rocks up in his E.Type That's over heating. Diagnosed 2xfugged cooling fan's. Zero time to overhaul and, surprisingly... I don't keep em. I ain't so sure if the Fella was annoyed òr disappointed. Hayho. What can you do. However, just after he left for the east coast for the ferry home the owner of the business next door came over for a nosy. I told him the story and low and behold. He has 2x cooling fan's for an E.Type. what's the chances of that?
nope. he should of tried harder. or even had better timing. bugger. it was deffo one those days for oddities. and on a Ducati note too.
Hopefully you did the right thing and sent him a text half way through his water journey home..........just for giggles.
nah, there is so many reasons why you don't start a job like that on a friday. it's a rebuilt classic (very well done by the looks of it) he would of been standing over the top of me while i was replacing them. no doubt areas of the build would of been umm, "personalised". which almost deffo would of meant working around those modifications. it wasn't a breakdown. if it was, i would of found the time. it only overheated when stuck in traffic. ie, he can switch it off when stuck in a queue. and he had to have it on a ferry on the other side of the country in less than 24hrs. that's a big no no in my part of the world. if anything goes wrong, anything i may need is at least 24hrs away. but saying that, yer man next door would no doubt of had it. i've seen his vintage bike collection, v,nice. i didn't know he had just started rebuilding an EType. silly me. and besides, it was a friday and the sun was oot. so i i went and did my banking instead. which i think the lads may have sussed is code for going to the chippy and a seat on the promenade for an hour or so. which i'm glad i did cos sat there, where i normally sit was a very clean 749. the bike that got me into ducati. i was munching away admiring it when another group of four turned up, one of which was on a v,v,clean fugly1000. the bike i ended up with cos i couldn't find a 749 in yellow at the time. it was stickerd up very tastefully. mostly to conceal it's ugliness i guess. a very friendly group of jordies totally pumped up after a blast up from Killin. so i sat and chatted to them for a bit too. i gave them an alternative route back which they seem quite excited about. and so they should, it's a belter.
Me too especially with plumbing tasks that might go wrong, as i just don't want a phone call that evening or saturday morning screwing up my plans.
aye, especially 50 or so years old plumbing that's working to a point that needs to be on a ferry in under 24hrs. Coincidently, if you look at that pic, right at the back of the workshop there is a silver pickup. that also needs to be repaired then retested and on the Luing ferry by Monday afternoon. decisions decisions, who comes first. anyways, back to the 749. i had a bit of a, fug it, just get one moment yesterday. oh dear. that's usually how it starts.
my first Ducati was a yellow 749, base model in yellow. Rear shock upgraded to Ohlins. Years later I saw it for sale with less miles on it than when I sold it in 2009. So I called the dealer up because h was interested in buying it back, asked about service history etc when he said it sis t have much I mentioned the mileage. Phone went dead and so did the advert
ah, so you wound back the clock before you sold it and the dealer put it right? so, i just need to come across one on the right day, when my head is in the right place that hasn't been moded in any way. we'll see.
I went to a car/bike show yesterday where I live. Beautiful day and some stunning machinery on show. A lot of bonnets up and wow, a stark reminder of how easy it was to work on cars back in the day… some lovely cars there taking me back to the school playground playing Top Trumps…
I have memories of getting the feeler gauges out to check the gap on the points of my old land rovers. Also for the tappets. There is something about a row of old Capris and Escorts with their bonnets up.
What are these strange things you speak of ? ...... are you local ? Back in my days as a Type IIa Landy owner , we had Rizla packets .... .... the flap on the packet , the thick brown bit at the bottom , and the papers themselves . You youngsters .... If you post things like that on a forum , you're going to leave yourself wide open ......[ sorry , poor choice of words there ] to all kinds of sordid and grubby innuendo . Don't take my word for it though ...... check out this romantic little ditty by Frank Zappa " Keep It Greasy " ......
I have memories of borrowing my sisters hair dryer to warm/dry the inside of my distributor cap on a winters morning in an effort to start the bastard….
aye, gone are the good ol'days when you could climb inside the engine bay to do a decoke in 56mins flat. then pull the bonnet down onto you if you fancied a wee sleep at lunch time that then allows every old codger this side of the Connell Bridge to say "they dont make em like they used too" and when they do, i reply, yip, you can ram yer 20k service intervals, yer 60mls+ to the gal nonsense and more often than not walk out of a 60mph crash unscathed. and while im on the subject, see those new fangled electric windows, Pah! they will never catch on. bring back the old days i say, i love the smell of 2000+PPM's of hydrocarbons in the morning. chortle.
