Wednesday 23 October 2002

Sierra Diff info

Are there any Ford experts out there who knows the origins of the crownwheel/pinion set used in the normal Sierra 7" diff ?
I like to change ratio from 3.9 to something like 4.4 but without shelling-out £500 for a motorsport cwp set!  Working on the theory that Henry would be more likely to use components already available rather than making them from scratch. Have looked at internals of single-wheel Transit diff but pinion shaft is shorter.
 
Anyone explored this area before (or know someone who has) ?
Any advice/pointers greatly appreciated.
 
Keith.

Tuesday 22 October 2002

Some Buckler History

I received the following interesting e-mail from Mike Parrott
 
I read the bit about ERD96 on your website and was interested in the tax applied to completed cars back then.  I've either forgotten, or was not aware of the way the car was bought.  Trust my late father to find a way around any taxes !!  Derek Buckler brought the car to our place in Bournemouth in a completed state.  I remember he had his elder son with him.  He was just a young boy at the time.  I thought you might be interested in this additional information.
I enjoyed your website. 
                    Regards,
                            Mike Parrott
 
Some of my Buckler stuff can be found by clicking the links below
 
 
and this is the piece Mike read that mentioned his Dad.
 
 
 
Michael
 
 

Friday 18 October 2002

Next Years Manx Trial

I have heard that next years Manx is un-likeley to take place. Apparantly there have been some changes in the management of the main lamd owner (forestry) and the new guy is a bit "anti". Faced with the un-certainty Jonathan is reluctant to go ahead.
 
Michael

Sunday 13 October 2002

Escort Bonnet Wanted

WANTED light weight bonnet for Mk 1 ford escort contact Jonathan Laver enquired for Exeter event jonathan@jlclassics.co,uk
 

Tuesday 8 October 2002

Welcome Paul Wheatley

Welcome Paul. In your application you explain you are building a Liege. We have a couple of Liege drivers here. Simon Robson and Peter Davis. Simon in particular has a lot of experience in preparing one for Classic Trials. btw - Why not put a Fireblade engine in it?
 
Michael

Sunday 6 October 2002

My Edinburgh 2002

    Along with a number of other Gassers I en-larged my Edinburgh Trial by starting at The Rugby Truck Stop and turning up to the Moto Sevices in Mini Convoys. Wow, Moto Services must win the prize for the most boring start ever. It needed at atmosphere injection! The scrut was great, just MOT and reversing light. He must have known some of us were going to back down Bamford in the dark!
    Agnes Meadow was a bit of a shock when I saw the cars in front diverting off to the right, sending me scurrying for my tyre pressure gauge, only to find that class 4 didn't have to do it!
    I thought Clough Wood was a bit rough this year, lots of loose boulders as there were on quite a few of the other sections. It started to drizzle before Litton Slack and we arrived to see everyone failing, The queue was building as competitors were coming back down the main track which was wasting a lot of time. However, this was changed by the time we had our go and we were directed down the grass at the side after stopping just before the A boards!
    We saw John Parsons blast up and were told he was the first clean, then he was followed by the guy in the ex-Greenslade Reliant and he cleaned as well.
    There was plenty of grip on Great Hucklow but boy was that deviation rough, I had to beat my rims back to shape afterwards. The penalty for low pressures!
    I had a little nap in the queue before the control, which was manned by the guy (sorry can never remember your name) who upset the MCC committee by not having a front seat in his Beetle and after fitting one upset them even more by painting a face on the front! He was telling me he has a Marcos now and plans to take it sprinting and hill climbing. The desent to down to green lane to the main road was pretty rough. Did the Class "0's have to go down there?
    We spent another hour at bottom of Bamford and in the absence of any sign of authority Mike Pearson and I helped re-organise the queue so one of the locals could get his van and trailer out of his house. The organisation was creeking a bit here but it was good to see C of the C Graham Weekes smoothing things over with competitors at the foot and personally asking everyone about the event.
    I though Bamford was great, rough and slippery. We failed of course, spinning to a halt on the greasy slab towards the top. Thats where a lot of failures were and I added to the delay by taking ages on the long reverse down. I enjoyed Haggside as usual then it was off to The Poachers Arms for our compulsaty rest halt. We were scheduled at 13.11 and got there at 16.40, three and a half hours late! We weren't surprised when the last three sections were cancelled.
    I really enjoyed my Edinburgh despite all the delays its still my favotite event.
 
How was your Edinburgh?
 
Michael
 

Friday 4 October 2002

Meet up on the way to the Edinburgh Start

Hi Gassers,
 
Just to let you know that some of the Classical Gas Community plan to meet up at 1am to 1.30am at the BP Truck Stop on the A5 a couple of miles North of M1 Junction 18.
 
We promise that if we then travel together to the start we will not be in groups of more that three and we will keep more than 1/2 mile apart.
 
I know it will be a bit early for the bikers but we might see a few car drivers there for a nice coffee, butty and chat.
 
From the BP Truckstop it's then a nice simple drive up the A5 to the Edinburgh start.
 
Michael

Bugbear Virus - the latest pest

Hi Gassers,
 
I am posting Norton's words of wisdom about the latest major virus threat.  btw I have found that even if you don't have Norton you can still use their tools to check out your system. This is the link. http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.bugbear@mm.removal.tool.html
 
Michael
 
 
W32.Bugbear@mm is a mass-mailing worm. It uses its own SMTP engine to
send messages. It can
also spread through network shares. It has keystroke-logging and
backdoor capabilities. The
worm also attempts to terminate the processes of various antivirus
and firewall programs.
Symantec Security Response has seen that because the worm does not
handle the network resource
types correctly, it may overwhelm shared printer resources, causesing
them to print gibberish
or disrupt their normal functionality. It is written in the
Microsoft Visual C++ 6 programming
language and is compressed with UPX v0.76.1-1.22.
Virus definitions dated September 30, 2002 or later will detect this
worm.
For additional information, visit the following Internet address:
http://securityresponse1.symantec.com/sarc/sarc.nsf/html/w32.bugbear@m
m.html
_____________________________
2. Removal tool
Symantec has provided a tool to remove infections of W32.Bugbear@mm.
If your computer is
detected as infected with W32.Bugbear@mm, then download and run the
tool. In most case, to
tool can remove the infection. To download the W32.Bugbear removal
tool, visit the following
Internet address:
This is the easiest way to remove these threats and should be tried
first.

Wednesday 2 October 2002

Message for Giles

Hi Giles,
 
I have removed you from membership so you can re-join using your original nickname of "Giles".
 
Note to other members - Giles dropped me a note saying he couldn't log on to the community because Microsoft had dropped him out becuase he hadn't logged on for 30 days. To keep your membership alive you need to log on to the community at least every 30 days even if you don't post any messages. You can re-join of course but if you want to use the same Nickname and/or password you need to let me know. I will then delete your original membership and you can re-join using the old sign-on's.
 
Michael
 

Tuesday 1 October 2002

Banning Trailers

Michael has had a couple of nibbles recently about triallers who use trailers to get their cars home from an event.  I suspect he thinks that they should be banned.
I would recognise that as a valid point of view, albeit one that I don't agree with.
But as with all types of legislation the question to be answered is: How do you enforce the ban?
With an overnight stay on Buxton, Babbacombe and Penzance/Newquay/Lands End, how exactly would one ensure that there were no trailers used to carry home the competing car?
In addition, if one were able to frame the rules to sort out the above problems, how ould one cope with the genuine breakdown?
A similar scenario exists for one day events: the theory may be great but the practicalities make a mockery of the intent.
Over to you, Michael.
Hope you have a good Edinburgh.