Bell's Banter 2021

[Mike Harte]

Re the earthquake, I lived for a period in the southern part of the Costa Blanca, and the area lies on a small fault line, so every few months we had small tremors. But once we had one that measured around 5, and boy did we notice it.

It happened in the middle of the night about 5 klicks away and lasted for about 2 minutes. The shaking wasn't that bad, but the really deep rumbling noise that accompanied it was the most frightening aspect.

A friend that I had made lived in our nearest village about 3 klicks away and about 2 from the epicentre, and he and his family went out with their dog for a walk a few days later and unwittingly walk right next to the centre and unfortunately the dog got burnt paws requiring attention from the vets.

Chris, does your mum up in Calpe get quakes?

[grantp]

A long time ago the company I worked for had offices on the 5th and 6th floors of a building in the centre of Nottingham.

One afternoon, in the middle of a meeting with a large group from a client, the whole building started to sway enough to make one feel unstable standing up. A strange experience when on the 6th floor. At the top of a taller building it must be more than a little exciting.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

.... lasted for about 2 minutes. The shaking wasn't that bad, but the really deep rumbling noise that accompanied it was the most frightening aspect.....

I must admit the initial tremor and house shaking, all pre my first cuppa for the morning, was over in 10-15 seconds and barely time for me to have a WTF moment... not even time to think /decide whether under the dining room table or in the garden was best! As you say its the rumbling and small after tremors that were scary and make you think what to do. A sort of was the initial shaking just the start and the 'post' tremors just warning of whats to come or what. The
post tremors are when I got the pets together and put them in the laundry so I knew where they were, just in case the big one was on its way.

.....Chris, does your mum up in Calpe get quakes?

She has never mentioned them, and has lived there for 25 years. Mind you there, when a lot of building was going on, any tremors I felt I presumed were pile drivers and jack hammers.

Getting back to today, the good news is no serious injuries.... I know of one elderly guy who went outside to see what was happening, just as his chimney came down, broke an arm when hit by a falling brick. Other than that another elderly gent with a heart condition was standing on his 6th floor balcony when it all started.... the building started to sway, he had a turn and he ended up in coronary care. Now in stable condition.

As for the wall that collapsed bringing down power cables in a busy shopping street, with loads of coffee bars was uneventful.... the one good thing with lockdown meant that everything was closed and no one in the street.

One thing I was not aware of was Australia has an earthquake of magnitude 6 or higher every six to ten years, on average for the last 100 years. Also we have over 100 per year of 3+. The post tremors we had today were all high 2's and low 3's.

Shares for insurance companies took a bit of a hit on the sharemarket !

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by E.B

She has never mentioned them, and has lived there for 25 years. Mind you there, when a lot of building was going on, any tremors I felt I presumed were pile drivers and jack hammers.

Having just looked it up on t'internet, it would seem as the most active area for quakes is south of Alicante, which would obviously exclude your mum.

Nearby to where I lived was the "city" of Torrevieja which was pretty well wiped out in the late 1800s by a quake, and fairly recently a town down near where Gordon has his place was also badly effected by one. But the most damage in recent years have been caused by the gota frias (very heavy rainfall) that usually occur during October.

I used to live at the top of a hill about 300 metres above sea level, and one year I was caught driving home in one of the storms. Luckily I was nearly home when it absolutely poured down, and just managed to get the car into the garage before the water at the top of the hill came into the car because, even up that high, the rainfall was about a foot high. Didn't need to water the garden for a few days, but a lot of places down the road were flooded, especially if they had basements.

[Lancsbreaker]

On a slightly different tack, I've been watching the news of the volcano in La Palma - although it came earlier than expected, there have been warning earth tremors for some time, so the authorities have been reasonably well prepared so although loss of property, inevitably, it seems no loss of life. Of course the likes of the Express have apparently been running the usual SHOCK headlines claiming that half the island will fall into the sea, causing a TSUNAMI THAT WILL WIPE OUT THE EASTERN SEABOARD OF THE US.......which most scientists agree is a theoretical possibility sometime, but almost certainly not the case now. Of course the Express regularly runs similar tales about Tenerife, which as another volcanic island regularly experiences mild tremors.... I suppose it does help them sell some papers but when I regularly visited Tenerife such panicky warnings were treated with contempt......

[John Elwin]

Meanwhile in France the sun continues to shine. Today I sat on the wall of a cemetery & ate a picnic lunch with three members of the MoD, a Military Attache from the British Embassy in Paris, a Vicar & a bugler.

How surreal is that? (and yes, I am sobre!)

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Meanwhile in France the sun continues to shine. Today I sat on the wall of a cemetery & ate a picnic lunch with three members of the MoD, a Military Attache from the British Embassy in Paris, a Vicar & a bugler.

How surreal is that? (and yes, I am sobre!)

I'm still waiting for the punch-line!

[bauble]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

I'm still waiting for the punch-line!

A soldier, a clergyman, and a musician sitting in the sun.
When they saw John Elwin coming, away they did run.


Scottish soldier, an Irish priest, and an English trumpeter walked into a pub.
The barman looked up said "What is this, some kind of a joke?"

Sorry, Viv best I can so.

[Peter Mallett]

A vicar a priest and a rabbit walked into a bar. The rabbit said, "I'm a typo".

[crmalcolm]

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer are out playing a round of golf. Partway through their game, they realize that the group in front is taking forever to move through the course. Frustrated, they ask the groundskeeper what's going on. The groundskeeper, visibly emotional, says:

"Well, I'm afraid the reason that group is a bit slow is that they are, in fact, a trio of blind firefighters. You see, last month they saved the clubhouse from a blaze and lost their vision in the accident. To show our thanks, we let them play for free whenever they'd like."

The priest replies: "My that's terrible! I'll be sure to say a prayer for them."

"What a tragedy!" says the Doctor, "I'll see if I can help them with their treatment."

After a moment of quiet, the Engineer finally speaks:

"Well for goodness sake, why can't they just play at night?"

[E.B]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer are out playing a round of golf. Partway through their game, they realize that the group in front is taking forever to move through the course. Frustrated, they ask the groundskeeper what's going on. The groundskeeper, visibly emotional, says:

"Well, I'm afraid the reason that group is a bit slow is that they are, in fact, a trio of blind firefighters. You see, last month they saved the clubhouse from a blaze and lost their vision in the accident. To show our thanks, we let them play for free whenever they'd like."

The priest replies: "My that's terrible! I'll be sure to say a prayer for them."

"What a tragedy!" says the Doctor, "I'll see if I can help them with their treatment."

After a moment of quiet, the Engineer finally speaks:

"Well for goodness sake, why can't they just play at night?"

We have a winner.....

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Re the earthquake, I lived for a period in the southern part of the Costa Blanca, and the area lies on a small fault line, so every few months we had small tremors. But once we had one that measured around 5, and boy did we notice it.

Mike we still get them in our area, but not as bad as further up the coast.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

I'm still waiting for the punch-line!

Ah well, I enjoyed it so much I've been out & done it again today, the weather was so beautiful. Different Military Attache this time though, having a break from submarines!

Actually, we have been playing catch-up & have buried the remains of seven WW1 soldiers in various cemeteries around the Pas de Calais. I was there to represent the Royal British Legion.

[Lancsbreaker]

Funny old game, motorsport....


Came down to Anglesey on Friday to test the Alfa 75 before this weekend's races, as we'd don some brake work. It ran fine, brakes were good, and after a few laps I was setting what for us were OK times.


Yesterday morning car flatly refused to start - an initial cough and that was it. We had spark at the (cleaned) plugs, we had fuel pressure, but no amount of cranking or several attempts at towing it would get it to fire.....


Eventually having checked everything else, I suggested unplugging the Air Flow Meter. After a few splutters, the car started on cranking over, and sounded fine.....but huge clouds of white smoke were issuing from the tail pipe, and some billowing around from the engine bay (maybe an exhaust leak as I "might" have caught a kerb on Friday...) Reconnected the AFM plug and within a second or so it died.....


Nothing else we could do improved the situation, so that was our weekend's double header races, and £500+ entry fee, up in smoke - literally......


My pal with his ill-fated Alfa Junior Z finally got out on track in qualy, only for an oil seal to blow. Herculean efforts saw the gearbox removed and the seal sorted, and hopefully he'll get out in the second race today....



Hey ho. At least Andy Yeomans got his race yesterday and should be out on Sunny Trac Mon again today, and my mate with his Alfa 105 GTV won his class, and my other mate in his Sunbeam Imp finished well despite his 1 minute winners penalty, and had great fun fighting with the big boys in the bigger-engined class - it was a combined Swinging Sixties race.....


Lets see how today goes.....

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Funny old game, motorsport....


Came down to Anglesey on Friday to test the Alfa 75 before this weekend's races, as we'd don some brake work. It ran fine, brakes were good, and after a few laps I was setting what for us were OK times.


Yesterday morning car flatly refused to start - an initial cough and that was it. We had spark at the (cleaned) plugs, we had fuel pressure, but no amount of cranking or several attempts at towing it would get it to fire.....


Eventually having checked everything else, I suggested unplugging the Air Flow Meter. After a few splutters, the car started on cranking over, and sounded fine.....but huge clouds of white smoke were issuing from the tail pipe, and some billowing around from the engine bay (maybe an exhaust leak as I "might" have caught a kerb on Friday...) Reconnected the AFM plug and within a second or so it died.....


Nothing else we could do improved the situation, so that was our weekend's double header races, and £500+ entry fee, up in smoke - literally......


My pal with his ill-fated Alfa Junior Z finally got out on track in qualy, only for an oil seal to blow. Herculean efforts saw the gearbox removed and the seal sorted, and hopefully he'll get out in the second race today....



Hey ho. At least Andy Yeomans got his race yesterday and should be out on Sunny Trac Mon again today, and my mate with his Alfa 105 GTV won his class, and my other mate in his Sunbeam Imp finished well despite his 1 minute winners penalty, and had great fun fighting with the big boys in the bigger-engined class - it was a combined Swinging Sixties race.....


Lets see how today goes.....

You've not got an air leak after the MAF have you causing the engine to draw in un-metered air (making the ECU think there's none going in as it's not going through the MAF)? Often un-plugging the maf will cause the ECU to default to other settings and ignore the air-flow...

[grantp]

It always worries me these days when I read a story of "worked fine yesterday, refused to start this morning and even towing attempts failed".

I recall a certain car at Donington that was unloaded one afternoon on the day before a race, driven across the paddock to the official paddock allocated area as the proper set up for the meeting started .... and then refused to start in the morning.

Much spannering and investigation and but still no start at which point a tow was offered by a neighbouring competitor. At about the nth attempt to jump-start some very expensive noises were heard as the motor trashed itself.

Timing slippage problem.

[andy97]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Funny old game, motorsport....


Came down to Anglesey on Friday to test the Alfa 75 before this weekend's races, as we'd don some brake work. It ran fine, brakes were good, and after a few laps I was setting what for us were OK times.


Yesterday morning car flatly refused to start - an initial cough and that was it. We had spark at the (cleaned) plugs, we had fuel pressure, but no amount of cranking or several attempts at towing it would get it to fire.....


Eventually having checked everything else, I suggested unplugging the Air Flow Meter. After a few splutters, the car started on cranking over, and sounded fine.....but huge clouds of white smoke were issuing from the tail pipe, and some billowing around from the engine bay (maybe an exhaust leak as I "might" have caught a kerb on Friday...) Reconnected the AFM plug and within a second or so it died.....


Nothing else we could do improved the situation, so that was our weekend's double header races, and £500+ entry fee, up in smoke - literally......


My pal with his ill-fated Alfa Junior Z finally got out on track in qualy, only for an oil seal to blow. Herculean efforts saw the gearbox removed and the seal sorted, and hopefully he'll get out in the second race today....



Hey ho. At least Andy Yeomans got his race yesterday and should be out on Sunny Trac Mon again today, and my mate with his Alfa 105 GTV won his class, and my other mate in his Sunbeam Imp finished well despite his 1 minute winners penalty, and had great fun fighting with the big boys in the bigger-engined class - it was a combined Swinging Sixties race.....


Lets see how today goes.....

It was good to see you, Richard, if disappointing to hear your tale of woe. Hope it gets sorted.
I drove poorly yesterday - trying too hard, didnt feel right in the car for some reason and made too many mistakes, surviving two big moments.
Worse weather today with strong winds snd a few showers but drove better with a fastest lap over a second quicker than yesterday.
I do like Anglesey Trac Mon, though, but prefer the Coastal layout, less of a “power circuit”.
Thats my last race meeting of the year done. 4 meetings only. Some good, with some good battles; some poor but all enjoyable and great camaraderies and spirit within the club.t Going to try a few circuit rallies again over the winter, all being well.

[Colin McKay]

Originally Posted by grantp

It always worries me these days when I read a story of "worked fine yesterday, refused to start this morning and even towing attempts failed".

I recall a certain car at Donington that was unloaded one afternoon on the day before a race, driven across the paddock to the official paddock allocated area as the proper set up for the meeting started .... and then refused to start in the morning.

Much spannering and investigation and but still no start at which point a tow was offered by a neighbouring competitor. At about the nth attempt to jump-start some very expensive noises were heard as the motor trashed itself.

Timing slippage problem.

I have a dim recollection of that event too

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Colin McKay

I have a dim recollection of that event too

If it sticks in my memory so well it must be deeply embedded in yours.

The strangest things can happen when things seem utterly illogical.

[Mike Harte]

In my youth, I was able to strip and re-build my push-rod pre-crossflow Ford engine almost with my eyes closed, having done it so many times whilst I raced, and I pretty well knew what everything was supposed to do. I freely admit that today's cars with all its electronic gadgets has me scratching my head.

A couple of weeks ago, the engine of my very second-hand BMW 5 Series inexplicably stopped running whilst driving gently down a hill. I pulled into the kerb, and tried to start it, and although it cranked over, nothing happened. Time to call the RAC.

Shortly after, the patrol turned up, and he plugged in his laptop and for the next 15 minutes or so he went through pages to determine the fault. he then unplugged the computer, and said he would be a few moment, went back to his van and got on the phone to someone. Apparently, he was speaking to his technical support who seemed to agree with his diagnosis.

He then returned to me, and told me that the problem was that the sensor that monitored the timing chain had closed the engine down, so he/they assumed that the chain was slack or has slipped. He said that as this was not something that could be fixed at the road-side, that he had arranged for the car to be transported to the garage of my choice, which was only about 3 miles from where I had broken down. I wrongly assumed that he had called for a flat bed recovery vehicle as the car is an automatic, but as it turned out, he was a probationary patroller, and hadn't yet been permitted to tow vehicles.


About 20 minutes later a second van arrived, and soon had the rear wheels up on his towing trolley, and off we went to the garage, where he reported to my mechanic the diagnosis of his colleague. A couple of days later, my mechanic told me that the car was ready, and apologised for the time it had taken, but he had been looking at the wrong thing. The problem was that the fuse for the petrol pump and that circuit had blown, and the problem was that fuel was not getting to the injectors. He replaced the fuse, and everything was tickety-boo.

He then told me to drive it around as normal for a week or so, and if it didn't happen again, he would put things back together in the boot, where the fuse box is hidden behind a panel. In the meantime, he showed me which was the fuse that had to be replaced and gave me a couple of spares in case it happened again. All was well until Friday, when I was just trying to pull out of a side road onto a main one and it conked out again. Luckily it happened before the front of the car actually crossed the white line on the side road, and I quickly changed the fuse, and off I went. Now the cars going in this morning for a new fuel pump.

[Mike Harte]

In other news, I see reports that the tree huggers have been blocking the M25 yet again. don't the silly blighters not realise that by causing massive traffic jams that they are helping to create even noxious gases going into the atmosphere whilst the vehicles sit there idling because not everyone turns their engines off.

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

In other news, I see reports that the tree huggers have been blocking the M25 yet again. don't the silly blighters not realise that by causing massive traffic jams that they are helping to create even noxious gases going into the atmosphere whilst the vehicles sit there idling because not everyone turns their engines off.

What they want is to stop all sport and leisure travel including flying ,and a huge reduction in traffic [ something like 80% over most of the world ] .

Oh !!! , wait a minute , this is what they did 18 months age with the lockdown .
And the end result is that it made no difference to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere , which continued its slow natural climb at the same rate as for the last 60 years .
This is because the amount of CO2 produced by people & transport is so small compared to the natural total that it is completely insignificant .

The real aim for the ER loonies is just to stop everybody being able to drive .

[grantp]

Mike,

Much the same thing happened to me a few years ago. Engine suddenly stopped without warning coming off a roundabout in a 40 limit. The person on my inside was aware enough to see I had some problems and I was able to just manage to coast off a major Dual Carriageway on to a slip road and park up mostly off the road. Friday afternoon rush hour in November. Deep joy.

AA man thought it might be the ignition pack and headed off to buy a new one from a place about a mile away. Back an hour later, takes to existing pack off and then mentions he would expect to smell a certain smell and doesn't. Car does not start. He can't tow it more than 3 miles or at more then 20mph. Not much use n the circumstances so a recovery truck was called.

Got it dropped off at my service man who loaned me a car to get home.

Turned out to be the fuel pump - the first thing we attempted to check when at the side of the road but it did seem to be making a noise so far as one could tell when surrounded by constant traffic.

A few weeks later I mentioned this to a friend and he said he too had had a fuel pump instant failure on his Volvo at a time when he was travelling a the legal limit on the outer lane of a (then non-smart) motorway.

One would have thought, given the ODBC capabilities of cars built in the past 20 years, that it should have relatively easy to spot and report developing problems with fuel pumps let alone flashing up a code if one failed.

Apparently not.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by grantp

Mike,

Much the same thing happened to me a few years ago. Engine suddenly stopped without warning coming off a roundabout in a 40 limit. The person on my inside was aware enough to see I had some problems and I was able to just manage to coast off a major Dual Carriageway on to a slip road and park up mostly off the road. Friday afternoon rush hour in November. Deep joy.

AA man thought it might be the ignition pack and headed off to buy a new one from a place about a mile away. Back an hour later, takes to existing pack off and then mentions he would expect to smell a certain smell and doesn't. Car does not start. He can't tow it more than 3 miles or at more then 20mph. Not much use n the circumstances so a recovery truck was called.

Got it dropped off at my service man who loaned me a car to get home.

Turned out to be the fuel pump - the first thing we attempted to check when at the side of the road but it did seem to be making a noise so far as one could tell when surrounded by constant traffic.

A few weeks later I mentioned this to a friend and he said he too had had a fuel pump instant failure on his Volvo at a time when he was travelling a the legal limit on the outer lane of a (then non-smart) motorway.

One would have thought, given the ODBC capabilities of cars built in the past 20 years, that it should have relatively easy to spot and report developing problems with fuel pumps let alone flashing up a code if one failed.

Apparently not.

Most modern cars will have the facility of viewing fuel pressure in 'live data' with a diagnostic machine which is generally a good indication. Unfortunately in my experience the majority* of roadside breakdown patrol men would rather justify to you why they can't repair the car and then tow you to a garage and therefore remove themselves from any responsibility.
*I am pleased to say that there are however a few patrol men who will try their utmost to get you up and runni8ng as soon as possible.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Most modern cars will have the facility of viewing fuel pressure in 'live data' with a diagnostic machine which is generally a good indication. Unfortunately in my experience the majority* of roadside breakdown patrol men would rather justify to you why they can't repair the car and then tow you to a garage and therefore remove themselves from any responsibility.
*I am pleased to say that there are however a few patrol men who will try their utmost to get you up and runni8ng as soon as possible.

I was a bit puzzled at the time but it would seem that an instant "failure" (with the pump seemingly still making a noise) was not recorded anywhere.

It was a few years ago. Maybe the devices they have now are more comprehensive.