Paging the MX5 Poofs

The problem comes if you get a dizzy spell or angina - in a car, it will
either pass or you'll be able to pull over. On a bike, you're likely to
fall off.

 

I had that ear infection thing a couple of years ago I got a really
dizzy spell while driving in the car - it was like being in a roller
coaster. I pulled over and barfed up it was so bad. Gawd knows how
horrible that would have been on the bike.

 

Pfft. I grew up - as Pete obviously did - with cars without power
steering. I swore against it, on the grounds it would rob the driver
of that vital feel, that flickering lightness that precedes loss of
traction. Then I drove some gawdawful Yank tank, that had pinkie-light
power steering, that courtesy of its medieval worm and peg steering box
arrangement was geared for manual, as it had about five turns
lock-to-lock.

That hardened my attitude, to an extent that driving towcars like the
Triumph 2000 and Austin 1800 wouldn't shift, even though I had to use
both hands on one side of the wheel to park the 1800 against the
camber. No, I just developed biceps.

Today's cars with PAS (pretty much all of them) have it sorted to a
great degree: they retain feel (once you get used to it) while managing
to be light enough for gurlie kiddies to manoeuvre. I wouldn't like to
drive my Vectra without it.
That's always exciting. My old Dad had a SAAB Turbo with semi-fucked
PAS: one of the valves was shot and it was an 'orrible job to change
the rack - but because we were used to POS with manual racks, we could
cope with the heavy at parking speeds steering. The problem was that
beyond a certain steering angle, the power would cut back in. This led
to entertainment when turning right into a side road across traffic.

As the gap appeared and without thinking and certainly without
remembering, I'd hoof the throttle, there'd be a whine and a wheeze
from under the bonnet and the thing would rocket forward, tightening
the turn viciously as it went. Involuntary U-turns were not entirely
absent from the menu.

Great heel-and-toe practice, though: stand you in good stead with hill
starts when the handbrake fucks up.

My old XJ6 was vile to drive around town, because of the imbalance:
PAS, light as a feather - power brakes, would stand on its nose with
one toe - throttle, heavy and notchy - clutch needed both feet to hold
it on the floor in traffic and the gearchange was Massey-Ferguson-like.
When the fuel pump became unreliable and the engine would just die with
no warning, all of a sudden the steering became impossible to turn and
the brakes just went away, like putting your foot on a stone with about
as much effect.

Great practice for high-risk urban motorcycling, I realise now: I was
always looking for the escape route, always planning what I'd do when I
could hardly steer or slow the thing: even at walking pace, a couple of
tons of steel has a lot of inertia. It did me over when parking one
day. Blasted great barge of a car at the best of times, with invisible
extremities. There was one space on the street where I wanted to be,
between a car and a builder's skip. Went in nose-first and up the
kerb, locked hard over to drop it back off the kerb and land it
parallel, that always worked best. It died on me, with a front wheel
on the pavement.

After clearing the brown trouser moment, I went and tapped the fuel
pump, as usual. Nothing. Come to think of it, no ignition lights
either - no battery. The bump up the kerb had dislodged the battery
and shorted out the +ve terminal against a steel strut, killing the
whole thing. Fortunately, prying the battery off the strut and back
onto its tray restored life and all was well - but a strange and
unpleasant moment all the same.

I never bothered, I was always to busy. Got rid of the thing after six
months when the tax and MoT ran out and couldn't afford the four tyres
it needed. Got more than I'd paid for it - there's one born every
minute, thankfully.

 

Or when you've just rebuilt one and got the torque settings a long way
out - and you don't really know what you're doing. Learning curve -
more like a hairpin!

 

They'd call it 'drifting', these days. You come to the point where you
want to straighten out and the thing wants to keep turning, so you
proceed down the straight at a bit of an angle, until you can wrest
your foot off the gas. Alternatively, with a very tight one, it can be
difficult to get it to turn in at all, so you have to 'persuade' it a
bit and unstick a tyre.

 

BT,DT. Fortunately, my Alfa-engined and transmissioned Escort was
never questioned. They were far too busy peering at the suspension.

 

A man with your experience - I'm surprised, Champion. Brake 'banjo'
fittings - because they look a tiny bit like the shape of a banjo,
right? The diff housing in the middle of a RWD car's rear axle - that
looks a bit like a banjo, too. Allegedly.

 

I'd guess you're right. 'Park' is always a mechanical thing, it slips
a pawl into the autobox somewhere, preventing rotation.

 

This will only happen if they haven't done their repair job properly. Now
you should be fitter than you have been in years and if you are living
life to their regime, getting fitter by the minute. You should be eating
a low risk diet. You are taking drugs to thin your blood and reduce the
risk of nasty clots in places you don't want them. All in all your risks
should be about as low as they are going to be and certainly better than a
week before the pains, so why not ride? Ace will be along in moment with
his usual knee jerk response to say I am talking bollox but my experience
is that other than bone doctors the medical profession has not got a
fucking clue about the effects of motorcycling on your health good, bad or
indifferent. Tell the cunts to put up or shut up and ride if you want.



in a car, it will

 

What do you reckon the courts would say if you were involved in an
accident in your car and it came out that your GP had advised you not
to ride a motorbike? I'm guessing that you must have asked him if you
were ok to ride a bike or he never would have considered the
possibility but I would have avoided all mention of riding bikes or
driving cars then nobody could accuse me of disregarding his advice.

 

and nowhere near as fun to play.

 

<thread swerve>
On the subject of SOC

When the new owner of my ex MR2 was handed the keys I pointed out the
Immobiliser transponder. I told him it was a One and Only. Not to lose it.
Ever. This being an imported 1993 Jap product. It could be OEM or it could
be Jap Halfords retrofit. If it's OEM it could be almost impossible to
circumvent.

I just got A_Phonecall

I wonder what he plans to buy next ;o)

 

He'd already asked the question about cars, and I'm just playing things
safe.

If he reckons it's advisable to stay off bikes until June, then that's
what I'll do.

 

Actually, thinking about it there is one thing.

I was given drugs which suppressed the conversion of nor adrenaline to
adrenaline as part of my problems appear to be stress related. They
worked but they did not actually stop adrenaline production, they merely
slowed down the rate at which it happened. This led to some very
interesting things happening while riding.

I learnt from it that in the normal course of events that seemingly
innocent events while out and about produced a strong fight/flight
response without my even knowing about it. A car for example sticking
it's bonnet out a foot at a junction. Which, under normal circumstances,
would cause me to just move a little towards the centre of the road, bang
it down one, nail the throttle and cover the brake. Perfectly normal
everyday stuff which happens every half a mile and meat and drink to any
experienced bik^H^H^Hmotorcyclist.

Not with the drugs though.

While my immediate external actions changed not one whit what happened
inside was a different matter and I found that 10 seconds or so after the
above occurring, when I was just chugging along with not a care in the
world I would get a huge delayed adrenaline rush as the demands from my
glands overtook the effects of the chemicals and everything kicked in, at
totally the wrong time.

Easily solved, after talking to the quack about the dangers of their
stupid pills and his obvious lack of knowledge about the effects of their
side effects we decided that as I wasn't going to stop riding it would be
best if I stopped taking them so I did and I survived and I saved the NHS
zillions and cost the fucking drug companies lost profits as a bonus.

 

I'd have thought that riding a bike would be the best thing to get you
feeling OK again.

If it doesn't, can I have the Alfa?

 

Cane wants to sell my stuff on eBay - you want my Alfa.

FFS, can't someone nearly die around here without the vultures circling
over the scraps of their life?

 

On my old Rover 800, the power steering valve in the steering rack jammed
hard a-port - left to its own devices, with the car stationary, the
steering wheel would crank smoothly anti-clockwise. Luckily it broke
while parked at home.

I tried driving it up the road, purely as as an experiment. It was
actually drivable in a straight line, if I held a steady bias on the
wheel. Until, that is, I started smelling smoke. Parking it was hell:
roll a bit, carefully shift grip hand over hand, then use both arms to
wrestle the wheel round; roll a bit; select reverse, let the steering
spin the other way, roll a bit, and so on. My arms ached the next day.

After parking, I opened the bonnet, only to see the casing of the PAS
pump smoking gently. I then made the mistake of touching it to see just
how hot it really was: surprisingly I didn't leave my fingertips behind.

 

No.
HTH

 

<Takes plunge>

What about Katie?

 

I'm trying to remember the first car I had with PAS, but failing, but
then I didn't have anything very large until the Rekord Estate which I'm
guessing had it.

Part of my pleasure in my MX5 not having it, is that it's another thing
that can't go wrong, which given an ageing mass produced car seems an
advantage to me. No aircon either.

It takes a bit of heaving on the wheel to get it in or out of a tight
spot at walking pace, but at anything above that speed the seat of the
pants directness is wonderful.


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