September 17, 2024 8:35 pm
Five Pistons to Scotland…and back!
Bloomin Thistle
To Scotland on five …with a limp!
Last year, in August, my car needed some attention.
Some ‘small’, (famous word that…‘small’) rusty patches were showing through, I wanted to ‘clean’ those up; rear brake pad replacements, which should not take too long and I wanted to look at the Traction Control System; test it out, to try to understand it better, with how I drive.
Some of this work may lead to uh… further work, I am sure that I am not alone with that feeling of anticipated skepticism, time and effort will tell!
To get started in the garage, I put an ‘oldies’ music station on the radio… and cranked ‘er up a notch or three. A few songs from waaay back when the world was soo different, reminded me of the time when….here we go!
Summer breeze’ – Seals and Croft…yeah man, it was summertime in the UK ’73.
My young son was just three years old, my daughter, yet to be born, was due in a few weeks, so ‘expectant mum’ was a little large, but…camping-we-were-a-going!
We lived in a rural hamlet, basically, a single, winding country lane with old style cottages, most of them with thatched roofing, the whole population was under 200 people; a family run grocery-convenience store, a typically, charming village Post Office and the staple Highway-mans Inn [Pub]…Oh….almost forgot, tucked halfway up the hill that exited the village, a small non-emergency hospital, that accommodated elderly patients.
Halse, a twenty minute car ride, north-west of Taunton, -the capital town of Somerset – 250 miles west of London. This is where we set up our first family home; rural, farm country.
A road trip to Scotland was booked……- it was more like…‘Lets go camping to Scotland!’ Basically all planned out by the time the last five words were echoing off the kitchen walls!
Planning….Look here now… I have an Automobile Associations [AA] book of the road, a thick, well respected, hardcover-volume-map-book from Readers Digest and it shows all the campsites on route, to wherever you want to go in Europe! [a roadsters bible]…and finally….to be executed…..
‘Wait a sec….naut… soo…faast..laddie!’ … [use your best Scottish brogue here]
…But what did a 21 year old know about planning? It was not like I was a seasoned 30 year old veteran, with a few years of travel skills under my belt, so…off we went!
All the needy things were packed, camping gear, clothes, food, coolers, and our cat was going to get looked after by mum-in-law…!
The departure day came. Saturday morning, we were looking forward to two weeks of sun and fun, ‘roaming in the gloaming’ and we headed out. An hour or so to Bristol, then its all northbound to the ‘legendary’ Lake District in the middle-north England and further north, to a famous village just inside the border of Scotland, Gretna Green, the capital wedding spot for elopers. We were not eloping, its just that if you are near to Gretna Green, you have to go there to see it. Its famous!
Cinquefoil
Bristol was about twenty or so minutes away, we had left Halse about an hour ago, and merged onto the northbound motorway. At Bristol we would get lunch in a rest area.
There is a long, straight, uphill climb and I felt the car labouring a little.
The rear view mirror showed ‘some’ blue smoke trailing from the exhaust.
The engine faltered more with ‘knocking’ sounds and the scene behind me changed to thick, blue smoke….oh..oh!
Blue smoke was an engine problem.
It was generally NOT good.
Mike was a few years older than I, a very good friend, an army trained mechanic, who taught me EVERYTHING I ended up knowing about car mechanics.
I had helped him change out and repair steering issues, engine parts, transmissions, clutches, carburettors, wheel and bearing issues, half-shafts, brakes, head-gaskets…and on and on.
However, Mike was not with us, cell-phones were still decades from being invented and blue smoke…well…I could have been rich selling bucket loads of it, was now streaming…no…belching out the exhaust.
The very next sideroad, in a rural farming area, provided an opportunity to figure out what the problem was.
45 minutes later, with air filter, carburettor removed, parts and tools laid out on the grass, a voice broke my concentration for a moment…a young child’s voice….I was just about to wiggle and lift the cylinder head off -that was where I would be able to see what the problem was.
‘Hey mister, you want some help…..that’s my dad on the tractor over there and he told me to come and ask you?’
The young boy was about 8 years old, and he plonked his bike down on the grass and peered into the engine compartment…
‘Yeah, I think you do’…and off he went, on his bike, toward the field where the tractor was.
I yelled after him…’Yeah…I think I do.’
A short time passed, the cylinder head was lifted, it was found that a piston ring had broken and parts of it was embedded in the top of the piston.
A blown piston ring! Oil was being sucked into the combustion chamber and being burned and or shot out the exhaust manifold….it was NOT a good sign.
We could not continue like that…or even go back home like that….what to do…what to do.
The farmer eventually came over…to assess the situation…we talked about my intentions… ‘drop the sump’ -the oil pan, remove the whole piston, the connecting rod to the crankshaft, the ‘big-ends’ – bushings, and end clamp, Then, assemble everything, minus clamp, ‘big-ends’, connecting rod, piston and ring, and be on our way…(which way)….back or forward, was to be determined.
He offered to tow my car and take us into his home for the night, I could work on it, in his garage.
His family showed us so much kindness!
I, my expectant wife and son were so relieved!
The afternoon, and well into the late evening, was spent working on the car in the farmers garage.
The next morning, a few minor ‘look-overs’ to see if everything was ‘OK’, my car started – the engine sounded a bit ‘lumpy’, and there was a little blue smoke from the exhaust, but it was not belching out. Without the piston, there would be less power…yes, but there would also be no compression nor suction in that cylinder.
The farmers family and our family swapped hugs and best wishes, and we parted after many ‘thank-yous’…..to…. Scotland!
The journey was only slightly slower than normal, but we went everywhere on 5 pistons.
On the journey back, six or seven days later, just outside Bristol, it was late in the evening, so we did not stop by the farmer…but I remember the car hit 100 miles an hour on that downward long hill. We made it back home without any other issues.
I had to order the part…the piston ring, and it took three days to arrive. In the mean-time, I drove the car to work. Police pulled me over, for emitting blue smoke. When I showed the officer the piston in the ‘boot’, he shook his head in dis-belief.
He did believe it…but said that he would not have, had he not seen it with his own eyes!
Maybe, on reflection, we should have turned back home…..but what would be the fun in that! There would be a different story to tell! For sure.
By the way…..it rained everyday in Scotland…the weather was ‘orrible!
SPRIG O’ BEECH
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