I was driving home today between Reading and Henley (I have to..that's where I live) and whilst stuck in the car park that is laughingly called the A 4155 I got to wondering what other Sessioneers drive, cycle or paddle.
I have a Citroen Berlingo (don't laugh..... I mean it DON'T LAUGH.. I'm connected Dudes ....if ya know what I mean.!!), three bikes (racing, touring and mountain (for the mighty Chilterns)) and a sea kayak..I've lost track of the brackets..I hope this holds together algebraically....I still worry despite my powerful Family connections...
So! What do you all use for transport?
OK! It's nothing to do with the music but it helps build up a picture of us all.
As I keep on going on and o-o-on and o-o-on about our new session at The Blythe Hill Tavern, another once won't do ye's any harm. It is my local, 200yds down the hill from the house, so needless to say, I walk.
The other (The Woodman) is about 3 miles away so I usually drive. I have been known to go by bus, or to cycle, but then I wouldn't take the box, just the flute (sighs of relief can be heard from inside the pub as I park my bike.)
I've never got round to running to a session, because that might entail running back. This could be a process fraught with difficulties after 6-8 pints. But then again, I've never totally discounted this method of transport.
Geoff, have you been drinking?
My transport's a beat-up J-reg Cavalier 2.0 i with the broken driver's seat wedged into place by a load of old compressed tobacco tins, and the boot full of drunken musician's instruments which they forget to pick up when I drive them home from the session.
Ok... does this mean we have to divulge what car we have. This IS a bit personal. So don't laugh at me either. Remember...like Rambo, "I'm Sensuhtive!!"
emm...R-reg Peugeot 106 Independence (Green).
Got a couple of sessions no more than a mile from my house, so I walk, unless the weather's foul. The other sessions are 3 or more miles away - one is 12 miles out in the country - so the car is an unfortunate necessity. (Buses in Bristol are a joke, taxi fares are beyond a joke, and there are two types of cyclist - the quick and the dead.)
Trevor
Well, I'm so pleased to be posting about something that *really* *turns me on* (yes really)..apart from the ITM of course...and that's the BUSES. I spend most of my time on the bus.
For the Thursday night session it can involve between at least two buses and sometimes four. I have so many options. It could be the No. 73 to Angel, then the 43 up the Holloway Road. Or, the 393 to Nag's Head and the aforementioned 43 OR the 271. Going home it might be a little bit of walking then then 253 or 29 to Finsbury Park, then the 106 OR the 236 and THEN yet another bus or possibly a walk up Stokey High Street.
Of course by this time we're talking Night Buses and I'm altogether shattered since it's probably 1.30 am by now.
Alternatively when I'm drunk and altogether past it I might spoil myself with a cab.
Well, Geoff, you *did* ask!!!!
I won't relate my journey for Saturday nights but yes, the buses do figure......(corrrrrrrr!!!).
Have any of the overseas sessioners guessed which city I'm in?
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that as a humble whistle player I've got my method of music-making in the handbag so car not really necessary with regard to schlepping.
I can't park at work so I catch one bus from the office into the city (or walk) and catch another bus to the pub door. On the way back it's bus to the city, another bus home and walk from the bus stop. On session day It's a total of one short car trip, two long-ish bus trips, 2 or 3 25 min walks and 3 or 2 short bus trips. Backpack straps on fiddle cases rule!
Otherwise I drive a Suzuki Sierra 4WD into which I can just get my guitar, amp, bag of music and accessories and a few other instruments. (You can get a harpsichord in if you take the passenger seat out and put the harpsi's pointy end right up against the firewall.) Sometimes on sunny Sundays I drive an MGB Mk II, into which I can only get instruments if I leave the passenger on the footpath. I have occasionally been seen without instruments on a bicycle, and going round in circles on the harbour on a small gaff-rigged cutter.
Good Grief! I have jusr re-read this.
In response to Jim Doran's earlier question...Yes I had been drinking. I'm better now (well sober anyway).
This thread is terminated due to embarrassment.
You can't get away with that - not after five of us have bared our transport statistics to the entire world at your incitement. And after that terrible Baroque'n'Roll joke, too.
I can vouch for Sensible Shoes and her intense love for and knowledge of buses. I myself am particularly reliant on the 253 and the 106.
I have a push-bike, as we quaintly call them, but I don't use it too much these days, as it's too far to cycle to work from one side of London to the other; and I never cycle to sessions, even the ones which are excellent cycling distance (eg Holloway Road, Finsbury Park) because then I'd have to stay sober. Nuh-uh.
I wish I could get a job in town again, I was *so* much fitter when I worked in Central London and could cycle there. I know it's dangerous, but... I'm very cautious. I don't do big roundabouts and that type of thing.
No way Geoff, this is a really original thread and is not to be terminated. Let's see, I use trains and buses to get to sessions, or sometimes I walk if I'm feeling really worthy. I haven't got a car, but if I had one I'd want it to be a 60s or 70s one like one of those old Mustangs :-b.. or a crappy Dodge in tasteless diarrhoea-orangey-brown with an exhaust the diameter of a football. Think "Dukes Of Hazard" - that'll be me roaring round the streets of Sydney when I get some money saved up.
White Subaru Impreza sedan, 1995. I remember when I bought it in 1999 -- I was quite jubilant, because it was the first time I'd ever owned a vehicle that was born in the same decade that I was currently living in. ;) There are no session within walking distance of me, if you don't count the ones in the living room. And buses here are horrible, in terms of schedule and route. So....no car, no sessions.
OK! I give in...the thread appears to be back on. Dow and Tish...my very first car was a Ford Falcon Station Wagon which I bought in Perth, WA, prior to driving all the way around Australia in 1980/81. It cost me A$300 and covered 15,000 miles with only two punctures and a replaced carburettor gasket....just as well as my tool kit consisted of two spanners and a cross head screw driver...and my mechanical knowledge was neglible (the confidence based on the supreme arrogance of youth is wondrous to behold).
It was a great car..as long as you did not go above 60 mph...after that it would shake alarmingly.
When I returned to Perth after six months travelling I could not sell it; even the wreckers yard would not take it, so I phoned the police and they said " Just dump it in the bush, Mate. No worries!".
So I did........actually I dumped it in next door's garden so I didn't have so far to walk home...what a card!
It's the only car of all the ones I have subsequently owned that I
still think of fondly....Australia was a wonderful place to drive around then and the car remains part of it....happy days.
These days? ...You know the rest.
Zina! I look forward to seeing your vehicle when I see you in Winter Park next February...still got the Subaru or have you moved on to a Pinto?
Geoff was it white? I've noticed everyone in NSW seems to own one of those 80s Falcon wagons in white. Was the government giving them away for free or something?!
No Dow, it was a pale blue. Australia had stopped it "whites only" policy by then. Mine was a 1966 model which makes it all the more remarkable that it got me around the whole country with both of us unscathed (apart from the slight dent in the rear bumper...car's not mine... when I reversed into the only tree on the Nullarbor...it took me by surprise...at the Balladonia Roadhouse). I'm going all nostalgic just thinking about it.
The only tree in the Nullabor, hehe. Never been there mate - that's Crocodile Dundee country. Can't get out of Sydney!... I think 1966 model is a bit before my time. Not being cheeky Geoff nor nowt like, but I think the first white Falcons I have ever come across were like leftovers from the 80s!
LOL -- Geoff, don't laugh, my sister had a Pinto for *quite* a while when we were in school; after the whole "bursts into a ball of flame when rear-ended" thing came up, we called it The Deathmobile.
Leftover from the 80's, Mark? Were the 80's really that long ago?...sheeeeeeesh....hehehe
But I think I've got you beat, Geoff, on the subject of owning an old beater, I've owned Subarus for I don't know how long, and some of them have amazed everyone (including me), largely because they were still in one piece. The topper was probably the 1980 Subaru Brat -- I loved that car!
Oh, yes, speaking of nicknames for your car, I once had a Subaru wagon that was your basic tan brown and looked somewhat rodent-like overall somehow; we called it the Millenium Gopher.
You all know the kind of blokes - geezers, chaps engaged in manual labour, who endlessly drone on about cars or football (soccer to the colonials) - or worse, both. Carburettors, pulling the choke out, and so on. But for the life of me, for the x no. of years I've been driving I have never succeded in finding out what The Big End is... as in "Oh, the big end's gone on me Escort"
Cars to me are merely a means to an end, not the end itself, as they are with these guys. And I try to use ours as infrequently as I can. Can someone satisfy my curiosity and tell me what The Big End is?
I think the big end is where the piston shaft fits around the cam shaft and thus as the piston goes up and down in the cylinder the piston shaft moves the cam around in a circular motion which is then passed on to the drive shaft and the car goes forward (or back if you are in reverse).
So, if the "big end goes" you can hear an obvious clunk and money starts to disappear at an alarming rate.
I'm pretty sure it's the articulation point of the piston shaft (conrod) and the cam shaft. As the bearings go on the big end go the conrod/piston assembly is free to move further up the cylinder and knocks against the inside of the cylinder casing giving that clunking sound and sinking feeling.
"The small end refers to the gudgeon or piston-pins which are not oil pressure fed and thus are less of a problem than the bigends or rod-bearings. These are oil pressure fed and will show up as a disinct oil-pressure reduction from normal especially when the engine is up to temp and idling. They also hammer loudly on increasing load and midrange revs constant load. See if you can tell which is the case. Piston-pins while a muisance if noisy, will not mean an immediate engine rebuild like bigends do."
Apparently, your big end typically goes when you've run the car too long with no/low/the wrong type of oil. "How the engines lubrication system works: oil is pumped through galleries in the block to the main bearings, it passes through a hole in the bearing into the oil groove in the bottom bearing shell, from here it flows sideways across the bearing, some of it leaking out the sides, the rest is forced into holes in the crank, travels through the crank and exits through a hole in the big end journal where it lubricates the big end / conrod bearing before leaking out the sides."
A great throbbing two-wheeler is what the name conjures up for me. Or a big old-fashioned wooden telly! So forgive my ignorance, and tell me: what's a Massey Ferguson when it's at home?
Be careful Danny... those Maclaren pushchairs are notorious for big end problems.
The early models though did not have the bodhran as an option but did include an elastic string stretched across which had shakey eggs and plastic farmyard animals on it. Not surprisingly they did not sell well and the bodhran /airbag/ blaupunkt sound system combination proved a winner.
I'm off to grade my assignments...can't put it off for ever.
Goon Show voices floating through my head now .... did you know, that when it started, the BBC wouldn't say "goon" because they thought it was a bit rude, so they announced the first few as the "Go On Show". The age of innocence?
Henry Crun and his sister Min .....you dirty rottenn swines ..you have deaded me (Bluebottle I know) etc.....
My cat is called Min. I have also had cats called Cat, Mouse, Doggy, Rat and Colin...the pattern was obvious until Colin came along.
So as not to hijack my own thread all of them were very good drivers apart from Colin who had a mountain bike.
Hey, they could have hung out with my cats, Moth and Rabbit. My very first cat was called Hector, after the 'Hector's House' Hector,* so I had species confusion even then. But he ran away to a neighbouring house that had a catflap and no small children.
*He was a dog. I don't know how well Hector's House travelled outside Europe. It was a French production initially, like the Magic Roundabout. Oh - now I'm getting really off-topic *and* showing my age...
Nastywee, the MF was (originally) a rather nice shade of sporty red, though.
Trouble with learning to drive on that, on a very flat farm where the MF rolled to a halt quite nicely once you let the clutch out, was that I never learned what that other pedal was for. I was too much of a flyweight then to make it work anyway. Found out years later it was actually an interesting and occasionally useful mechanical device known as the *brake*!
Boing! Ahh, Danny, that takes me back, Dougall and Florence and the rest of 'em. I used to watch the Magic Roundabout 30+ years ago, it was on in the afternoons just before Captain Pugwash!!!!!
(Cues in accordion playing The Trumpet hornpipe, runs for cover)
Actually, when I first met bb, I was expecting someone older because I knew from comments here that she knew who Cap'n Pugwash was and I didn't realise there's been any re-runs since I grew up 8>)
I used to have a fat little blob of a white cat called Pugwash and he was a *lousy* driver. Good with food container lids, though, Tupperware was no challenge at all and he could even manage glass jars with screw tops - you solve that one by pushing them off the bench so they break and you can then get at the contents. Trouble is, he couldn't *read*. Half the time he'd get nice biscuits, the rest of the time it'd be dried apricots or something similarly horrible.
I am not fortunate enough to have a session within walking distance (Well, my nearest one is about 2 miles away, but we don't talk about that one). I used to cycle everwhere, but I've been getting lazy of late and taking advantage of London's public transport system (which isn't half as bad as some people make out), and/or friends with cars. This is also partly due to the fact that I have broadened my range of sessions, taking in those which are either considerably more than an hour's cycle ride away, or which necessitate cycling across Central London, which I avoid at all costs (literally, since a tube ride doesn't come cheap these days). That said, I will still sometimes cycle the 6 miles to Powers, Kilburn on a sunday afternoon, continue another 6 miles to The Black Horse for the evening session and then be faced with the 12-mile ride back to Ealing, at some ungodly hour of the morning.
I could get to my session by the bus - if I don't mind walking 20 minutes to get to the stop for that bus route through our Midwestern weather (it's either 100 or 10 degrees except for about 2 months of the year in my opinion). So I drive. Currently our car is a 2001 Ford Escort. Compared to our prior cars (Ford Aspire and a Ford Festiva) it feels like we're driving a luxury limo...
And, we do name our cars. My first car was named the Antichrist for it's evil tendency for all the doors, except for the hatchback, to freeze up in winter so I had to invite all my dates to climb in through the hatchback...it was a good old 78 Honda Civic - man I loved that car despite it's hatred of winter.
The current car, named by my 5 year old, is Sabrina the Hushpuppy car. I live in a very, very surreal world at times.
Transport? Isn't that what the music does to us, in the thrall of the tchunes and the poteen and the craic? Yep, I'd say my "means of transport" is any solid jig or reel, or a good highland...give me that and I'm gone.
For more mundane travel, I've found that feet work remarkably well, especially after an evening of transport.....
Means of transport?
Means of transport?
I was driving home today between Reading and Henley (I have to..that's where I live) and whilst stuck in the car park that is laughingly called the A 4155 I got to wondering what other Sessioneers drive, cycle or paddle.
I have a Citroen Berlingo (don't laugh..... I mean it DON'T LAUGH.. I'm connected Dudes ....if ya know what I mean.!!), three bikes (racing, touring and mountain (for the mighty Chilterns)) and a sea kayak..I've lost track of the brackets..I hope this holds together algebraically....I still worry despite my powerful Family connections...
So! What do you all use for transport?
OK! It's nothing to do with the music but it helps build up a picture of us all.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
As I keep on going on and o-o-on and o-o-on about our new session at The Blythe Hill Tavern, another once won't do ye's any harm. It is my local, 200yds down the hill from the house, so needless to say, I walk.
The other (The Woodman) is about 3 miles away so I usually drive. I have been known to go by bus, or to cycle, but then I wouldn't take the box, just the flute (sighs of relief can be heard from inside the pub as I park my bike.)
I've never got round to running to a session, because that might entail running back. This could be a process fraught with difficulties after 6-8 pints. But then again, I've never totally discounted this method of transport.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Geoff, have you been drinking?
My transport's a beat-up J-reg Cavalier 2.0 i with the broken driver's seat wedged into place by a load of old compressed tobacco tins, and the boot full of drunken musician's instruments which they forget to pick up when I drive them home from the session.
Jim
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Worldfiddler
Re: Means of transport?
Ok... does this mean we have to divulge what car we have. This IS a bit personal. So don't laugh at me either. Remember...like Rambo, "I'm Sensuhtive!!"
emm...R-reg Peugeot 106 Independence (Green).
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Got a couple of sessions no more than a mile from my house, so I walk, unless the weather's foul. The other sessions are 3 or more miles away - one is 12 miles out in the country - so the car is an unfortunate necessity. (Buses in Bristol are a joke, taxi fares are beyond a joke, and there are two types of cyclist - the quick and the dead.)
Trevor
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Means of transport?
Jim! If you knew who my "friends" were you would not ask me that question.
I don't have a drink problem. Just RDS (Reality Deficit Syndrome)...Good Grief! More brackets AND an acronym.
I'm off to lubricate my sprockets.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
Danny, Green Independence? Of course.
Trevor
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Means of transport?
Well, I'm so pleased to be posting about something that *really* *turns me on* (yes really)..apart from the ITM of course...and that's the BUSES. I spend most of my time on the bus.
For the Thursday night session it can involve between at least two buses and sometimes four. I have so many options. It could be the No. 73 to Angel, then the 43 up the Holloway Road. Or, the 393 to Nag's Head and the aforementioned 43 OR the 271. Going home it might be a little bit of walking then then 253 or 29 to Finsbury Park, then the 106 OR the 236 and THEN yet another bus or possibly a walk up Stokey High Street.
Of course by this time we're talking Night Buses and I'm altogether shattered since it's probably 1.30 am by now.
Alternatively when I'm drunk and altogether past it I might spoil myself with a cab.
Well, Geoff, you *did* ask!!!!
I won't relate my journey for Saturday nights but yes, the buses do figure......(corrrrrrrr!!!).
Have any of the overseas sessioners guessed which city I'm in?
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that as a humble whistle player I've got my method of music-making in the handbag so car not really necessary with regard to schlepping.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by sensible shoes
Re: Means of transport?
Hey Sensible, that's my story too.
I can't park at work so I catch one bus from the office into the city (or walk) and catch another bus to the pub door. On the way back it's bus to the city, another bus home and walk from the bus stop. On session day It's a total of one short car trip, two long-ish bus trips, 2 or 3 25 min walks and 3 or 2 short bus trips. Backpack straps on fiddle cases rule!
Otherwise I drive a Suzuki Sierra 4WD into which I can just get my guitar, amp, bag of music and accessories and a few other instruments. (You can get a harpsichord in if you take the passenger seat out and put the harpsi's pointy end right up against the firewall.) Sometimes on sunny Sundays I drive an MGB Mk II, into which I can only get instruments if I leave the passenger on the footpath. I have occasionally been seen without instruments on a bicycle, and going round in circles on the harbour on a small gaff-rigged cutter.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Tish
Re: Means of transport?
Good Grief! I have jusr re-read this.
In response to Jim Doran's earlier question...Yes I had been drinking. I'm better now (well sober anyway).
This thread is terminated due to embarrassment.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
Oy!!
You can't get away with that - not after five of us have bared our transport statistics to the entire world at your incitement. And after that terrible Baroque'n'Roll joke, too.
Fire away, everybody >8>)
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Tish
Re: Means of transport?
I can vouch for Sensible Shoes and her intense love for and knowledge of buses. I myself am particularly reliant on the 253 and the 106.
I have a push-bike, as we quaintly call them, but I don't use it too much these days, as it's too far to cycle to work from one side of London to the other; and I never cycle to sessions, even the ones which are excellent cycling distance (eg Holloway Road, Finsbury Park) because then I'd have to stay sober. Nuh-uh.
I wish I could get a job in town again, I was *so* much fitter when I worked in Central London and could cycle there. I know it's dangerous, but... I'm very cautious. I don't do big roundabouts and that type of thing.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Nell
Re: Means of transport?
No way Geoff, this is a really original thread and is not to be terminated. Let's see, I use trains and buses to get to sessions, or sometimes I walk if I'm feeling really worthy. I haven't got a car, but if I had one I'd want it to be a 60s or 70s one like one of those old Mustangs :-b.. or a crappy Dodge in tasteless diarrhoea-orangey-brown with an exhaust the diameter of a football. Think "Dukes Of Hazard" - that'll be me roaring round the streets of Sydney when I get some money saved up.
# Posted on October 3rd 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: Means of transport?
No No NO! Geoff - if I were to terminate all of my alcohol-induced embarassing threads I'd be left with about a quarter of what I post...
"Maybe a good thing"
- Right! who said that!?
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
I didn't but I second it
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: Means of transport?
White Subaru Impreza sedan, 1995. I remember when I bought it in 1999 -- I was quite jubilant, because it was the first time I'd ever owned a vehicle that was born in the same decade that I was currently living in. ;) There are no session within walking distance of me, if you don't count the ones in the living room. And buses here are horrible, in terms of schedule and route. So....no car, no sessions.
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Means of transport?
LOL Dow!!
No doubt that would then leave you more scope to do the same!
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Seven year old VW Golf estate diesel, roomy and reliable. I've shifted a double bass in it before now.
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by kuec
Re: Means of transport?
OK! I give in...the thread appears to be back on. Dow and Tish...my very first car was a Ford Falcon Station Wagon which I bought in Perth, WA, prior to driving all the way around Australia in 1980/81. It cost me A$300 and covered 15,000 miles with only two punctures and a replaced carburettor gasket....just as well as my tool kit consisted of two spanners and a cross head screw driver...and my mechanical knowledge was neglible (the confidence based on the supreme arrogance of youth is wondrous to behold).
It was a great car..as long as you did not go above 60 mph...after that it would shake alarmingly.
When I returned to Perth after six months travelling I could not sell it; even the wreckers yard would not take it, so I phoned the police and they said " Just dump it in the bush, Mate. No worries!".
So I did........actually I dumped it in next door's garden so I didn't have so far to walk home...what a card!
It's the only car of all the ones I have subsequently owned that I
still think of fondly....Australia was a wonderful place to drive around then and the car remains part of it....happy days.
These days? ...You know the rest.
Zina! I look forward to seeing your vehicle when I see you in Winter Park next February...still got the Subaru or have you moved on to a Pinto?
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
Geoff was it white? I've noticed everyone in NSW seems to own one of those 80s Falcon wagons in white. Was the government giving them away for free or something?!
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: Means of transport?
No Dow, it was a pale blue. Australia had stopped it "whites only" policy by then. Mine was a 1966 model which makes it all the more remarkable that it got me around the whole country with both of us unscathed (apart from the slight dent in the rear bumper...car's not mine... when I reversed into the only tree on the Nullarbor...it took me by surprise...at the Balladonia Roadhouse). I'm going all nostalgic just thinking about it.
# Posted on October 4th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
The only tree in the Nullabor, hehe. Never been there mate - that's Crocodile Dundee country. Can't get out of Sydney!... I think 1966 model is a bit before my time. Not being cheeky Geoff nor nowt like, but I think the first white Falcons I have ever come across were like leftovers from the 80s!
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: Means of transport?
LOL -- Geoff, don't laugh, my sister had a Pinto for *quite* a while when we were in school; after the whole "bursts into a ball of flame when rear-ended" thing came up, we called it The Deathmobile.
Leftover from the 80's, Mark? Were the 80's really that long ago?...sheeeeeeesh....hehehe
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
P.S.
But I think I've got you beat, Geoff, on the subject of owning an old beater, I've owned Subarus for I don't know how long, and some of them have amazed everyone (including me), largely because they were still in one piece. The topper was probably the 1980 Subaru Brat -- I loved that car!
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Means of transport?
I used to have an old VW Beetle that I nicknamed "The Volkswagen Valdez," because it left a huge oil slick wherever I parked it.
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by cuchulain54
Good names for your car?
Oh, yes, speaking of nicknames for your car, I once had a Subaru wagon that was your basic tan brown and looked somewhat rodent-like overall somehow; we called it the Millenium Gopher.
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Zina Lee
The Big End
You all know the kind of blokes - geezers, chaps engaged in manual labour, who endlessly drone on about cars or football (soccer to the colonials) - or worse, both. Carburettors, pulling the choke out, and so on. But for the life of me, for the x no. of years I've been driving I have never succeded in finding out what The Big End is... as in "Oh, the big end's gone on me Escort"
Cars to me are merely a means to an end, not the end itself, as they are with these guys. And I try to use ours as infrequently as I can. Can someone satisfy my curiosity and tell me what The Big End is?
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
I think the big end is where the piston shaft fits around the cam shaft and thus as the piston goes up and down in the cylinder the piston shaft moves the cam around in a circular motion which is then passed on to the drive shaft and the car goes forward (or back if you are in reverse).
So, if the "big end goes" you can hear an obvious clunk and money starts to disappear at an alarming rate.
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
So - is it the actual *engine casing*, or is it the *articulation* of the 2 shafts?
Merely curious...
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
I'm pretty sure it's the articulation point of the piston shaft (conrod) and the cam shaft. As the bearings go on the big end go the conrod/piston assembly is free to move further up the cylinder and knocks against the inside of the cylinder casing giving that clunking sound and sinking feeling.
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
Danny - googled, found this:
"The small end refers to the gudgeon or piston-pins which are not oil pressure fed and thus are less of a problem than the bigends or rod-bearings. These are oil pressure fed and will show up as a disinct oil-pressure reduction from normal especially when the engine is up to temp and idling. They also hammer loudly on increasing load and midrange revs constant load. See if you can tell which is the case. Piston-pins while a muisance if noisy, will not mean an immediate engine rebuild like bigends do."
Apparently, your big end typically goes when you've run the car too long with no/low/the wrong type of oil. "How the engines lubrication system works: oil is pumped through galleries in the block to the main bearings, it passes through a hole in the bearing into the oil groove in the bottom bearing shell, from here it flows sideways across the bearing, some of it leaking out the sides, the rest is forced into holes in the crank, travels through the crank and exits through a hole in the big end journal where it lubricates the big end / conrod bearing before leaking out the sides."
Alles klar?
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Means of transport?
We had a turrible lot o' big end noise on the Massey Ferguson 3500 I learned to drive on, afore Pappy traded it in.
(When I say I learned to drive on a Massey Ferguson, lots of folk seem to think it must be some kind of sexy English sports car!)
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by Tish
Re: Means of transport?
A great throbbing two-wheeler is what the name conjures up for me. Or a big old-fashioned wooden telly! So forgive my ignorance, and tell me: what's a Massey Ferguson when it's at home?
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Means of transport?
A Massey Ferguson is a tractor Nastywee.
A great, throbbing (oooer missus) four wheeler. Still used the world over.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
a tractor when it's at home - a super-fast sports car when it's out...
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Yohan
Re: Means of transport?
My wee boy's got a Maclaren...
..pushchair. And he's good at whacking the bodhran!
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Be careful Danny... those Maclaren pushchairs are notorious for big end problems.
The early models though did not have the bodhran as an option but did include an elastic string stretched across which had shakey eggs and plastic farmyard animals on it. Not surprisingly they did not sell well and the bodhran /airbag/ blaupunkt sound system combination proved a winner.
I'm off to grade my assignments...can't put it off for ever.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
A tractor! now you're talkin'!
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Means of transport?
The big end problems he suffers from are full nappies.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Ah! Wee Mac Aoidh's No 2. A great tune.
Sorry I didn't mean that ...I was just going through the motions.
Cheque please!
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
Where I grew up (Mid-Wales), young farmers are referred to as Fergs, in honour of the MF. So there you go.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Nell
Re: Means of transport?
Zina
Millenium Gopher - that's brilliant.
When I was a lad my dad had a mini called Haha.
Dave
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: Means of transport?
I had a Morris Minor (that I learnt to drive in) which was called Min, as the O and the R had dropped off...
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Nell
Re: Means of transport?
Little Min!
Goon Show voices floating through my head now .... did you know, that when it started, the BBC wouldn't say "goon" because they thought it was a bit rude, so they announced the first few as the "Go On Show". The age of innocence?
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Means of transport?
The Go On Show? Really? LOL
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Means of transport?
Ahh! Now we are getting nostalgic.
Henry Crun and his sister Min .....you dirty rottenn swines ..you have deaded me (Bluebottle I know) etc.....
My cat is called Min. I have also had cats called Cat, Mouse, Doggy, Rat and Colin...the pattern was obvious until Colin came along.
So as not to hijack my own thread all of them were very good drivers apart from Colin who had a mountain bike.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Means of transport?
LOL Geoff -- did he have any of Will's books, or did he never make it to Montana to ride?
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Means of transport?
Sure colin wasn't a goat? = The Kid on the Mountain Bike
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Hey, they could have hung out with my cats, Moth and Rabbit. My very first cat was called Hector, after the 'Hector's House' Hector,* so I had species confusion even then. But he ran away to a neighbouring house that had a catflap and no small children.
*He was a dog. I don't know how well Hector's House travelled outside Europe. It was a French production initially, like the Magic Roundabout. Oh - now I'm getting really off-topic *and* showing my age...
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Nell
Re: Means of transport?
Boing! said Zebedee....
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Means of transport?
Nastywee, the MF was (originally) a rather nice shade of sporty red, though.
Trouble with learning to drive on that, on a very flat farm where the MF rolled to a halt quite nicely once you let the clutch out, was that I never learned what that other pedal was for. I was too much of a flyweight then to make it work anyway. Found out years later it was actually an interesting and occasionally useful mechanical device known as the *brake*!
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Tish
Re: Means of transport?
Boing! Ahh, Danny, that takes me back, Dougall and Florence and the rest of 'em. I used to watch the Magic Roundabout 30+ years ago, it was on in the afternoons just before Captain Pugwash!!!!!
(Cues in accordion playing The Trumpet hornpipe, runs for cover)
Actually, when I first met bb, I was expecting someone older because I knew from comments here that she knew who Cap'n Pugwash was and I didn't realise there's been any re-runs since I grew up 8>)
I used to have a fat little blob of a white cat called Pugwash and he was a *lousy* driver. Good with food container lids, though, Tupperware was no challenge at all and he could even manage glass jars with screw tops - you solve that one by pushing them off the bench so they break and you can then get at the contents. Trouble is, he couldn't *read*. Half the time he'd get nice biscuits, the rest of the time it'd be dried apricots or something similarly horrible.
# Posted on October 6th 2003 by Tish
Re: Means of transport?
I am not fortunate enough to have a session within walking distance (Well, my nearest one is about 2 miles away, but we don't talk about that one). I used to cycle everwhere, but I've been getting lazy of late and taking advantage of London's public transport system (which isn't half as bad as some people make out), and/or friends with cars. This is also partly due to the fact that I have broadened my range of sessions, taking in those which are either considerably more than an hour's cycle ride away, or which necessitate cycling across Central London, which I avoid at all costs (literally, since a tube ride doesn't come cheap these days). That said, I will still sometimes cycle the 6 miles to Powers, Kilburn on a sunday afternoon, continue another 6 miles to The Black Horse for the evening session and then be faced with the 12-mile ride back to Ealing, at some ungodly hour of the morning.
# Posted on October 7th 2003 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Means of transport?
I could get to my session by the bus - if I don't mind walking 20 minutes to get to the stop for that bus route through our Midwestern weather (it's either 100 or 10 degrees except for about 2 months of the year in my opinion). So I drive. Currently our car is a 2001 Ford Escort. Compared to our prior cars (Ford Aspire and a Ford Festiva) it feels like we're driving a luxury limo...
And, we do name our cars. My first car was named the Antichrist for it's evil tendency for all the doors, except for the hatchback, to freeze up in winter so I had to invite all my dates to climb in through the hatchback...it was a good old 78 Honda Civic - man I loved that car despite it's hatred of winter.
The current car, named by my 5 year old, is Sabrina the Hushpuppy car. I live in a very, very surreal world at times.
Eric
# Posted on October 7th 2003 by Jayhawk
Re: Means of transport?
Transport? Isn't that what the music does to us, in the thrall of the tchunes and the poteen and the craic? Yep, I'd say my "means of transport" is any solid jig or reel, or a good highland...give me that and I'm gone.
For more mundane travel, I've found that feet work remarkably well, especially after an evening of transport.....
# Posted on October 7th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Means of transport?
Nicely rounded off Will.
# Posted on October 7th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt