Thames Valley Meeting 13/12/06

Hoods at night at the Lambert arms Johns Robin Hood 2B (Old Smokey)



My Robin Hood S7

Last night was our last TVH monthly meeting of the year. Once again it was an informal meeting with a lot of topics covered. For the run home Myself, John, Tim and Alan decided to have a drive up Aston hill on the main A40 (the start of our Chiltens run back in June) followed by a drive through Marlow to pick up the A404 and A4.

Thames Valley Christmas Lunch Meeting

Today myself, Becky and Tasha went to Milletts Farm Centre , at Frilford just outside of Abingdon for the TVH Christmas lunch. We had a dry run up with Me and Tasha in the Hood with Becky following in the tintop. Once we had meet up with everyone we all sat down to a Carvery meal. Afterwards we went for a look round the garden center and Tasha went to meet Santa. The run back home was a wet one, but I can report the new weather gear stood up to the job well with only a few drops of water coming inside the car, most of which came in from under the windscreen seal. A job for looking at and sorting out next year.

Fitting the Sidescreens

Sidescreen held in place with masking tape, so that I can mark them in the right place to fit the lift of hinges. Its a bit of a job a case of measure twice drill once, get it wrong and its game over!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearside sidescreen fitted. Now to do the same thing again to the offside.

Offside screen in place. Note how the sidescreen fits under the lip of the hood to keep the rain water out. (well I hope thats how it works! time well tell LOL) Just the two side mirrors to fit at some point.

A New Hood for the Hood

The hood frame down and held in place with a press stud on either side of the rear panel

The original hood frame modified to fit the new hood cover
Note the surrey top still rolled up on the roll over bar.

This photo shows the original hood fitted to the S7
back 1993. Note the small quarter windows in the
side which gave not very good visibility.

The new hood in place. The hood its self is held on with press studs around the windscreen and the rear GRP panel.

Here we can see the rear of the hood. Note the bigger quarter windows. With the hood now on I have all the fun and games of fitting the new side screens. Will update you all on that job soon.

Trevor's Sylva Mojo build

Trevor Bennett a member of the Thames Valley area Hoods has just started a new build of a Sylva Mojo kit.
The kit itself is on order and Trevor already has his donor car.
So why not pop over and have a look at his new blog spot.

http://sylvamojo.blogspot.com/

The above photos show what the kit will look like when it is finished

Mis-fire

Back at the end of August the Hood was layed up for 5-6 weeks due to an accident I had in another car.
The Brands Hatch kit car show was its first run out in all this time and as you can see from Beckys post on the show the day didn't start the way we had planned. The Hood had a bad mis-fire which I traced down to the spark plugs which I just gave a quick clean and off we went.
Since then there has been a mis-fire only at high revs, so with a TVH meeting tomorrow night it was time to replace them.
So tonight I have fitted a new set of NGK spark plugs with the V grooved tip. After a quick test run (it was freezing) the problem is all sorted.

Thames Valley Hoods

You may have seen in this Blog that I mention the Thames Valley Area Hoods a lot in my posts, this is my local area of RHOCaR (Robin Hood Owners Club and Register) run by our Area secretary John Peech.
http://www.freewebs.com/oxonrobinhoods/- TVH website.
http://community.rhocar.org/- RHOCaR website

Our area meetings (always the second Wednesday of the month at 8pm). are held at : The Lambert Arms, London Road, Aston Rowant, Oxon, OX49 5SQ www.lambertarms.co.uk

They are informal meetings with discussions on all things Robin Hood kit cars.
We also run events throughout the year.

TotalKitcar Brands Hatch 06

Today Chris and I went to Brands Hatch to the Total Kit Car Live show. After a rather shaky start, having to dig out the tool box and correct a horribly mis-firing S7, we were finally on our way and arrived at around 12.30.
After parking our pride and joy and admiring everyone else's we met up with Peter 2B from our car club. we had a wander over to the paddocks, where the manufacturers on display were preparing their cars for a trip round the Brands Indy circuit. There were a few other stalls selling all sorts of bits and pieces, but alas not as many as previous years. we had a good walk up and down the paddocks, having a look at some of the beautiful machinery on display. Robin Hood Cars were conspicuous by their predictable absense, but there was still plenty to see. after a spot of lunch we stood by the track for a while and watched some of the cars hammer round the track. its a shame most of the public passengers were wearing crash helmets (although it was for obvious reasons) - i would've loved to have seen the looks on their faces!
another quick walk round the stalls, a token look at the car merchandise shops dotted around the track en route back to the car parks, and then time to call it a day.
the weather was kind, the journey there and back was virtually trouble free - the major signs for a good day out.

happy motoring, Becks xx

More Photos From Duxford

Hawker Hunter F6A

SR-71 Blackbird
The last Hood of the day
OOH ERR!!!! Whats Becky planning now?
A pair of Supermarine Spitfires

I W M Duxford car day

We went to the Imperial War Museum Duxford for the club car day.
The RHOCaR stand was arranged by John and Helen of the Herts area.
The day started for me with a trip over to John house, where we met up with Graham B. The three of us decided to take the backroads with Becky, Tasha and Mark setting off later in the tintop taking the motorways.

The three Hoods made good time up to Cambridge where we meet the rest of the T V H group and we made our way around to the club stand. Becky joined us an hour or so later and we set off for a look round the American air hanger which is the home of the only Boeing B-52 Stratofortress on public display in Europe.
Also in this hanger are a B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Super Fortress and the high speed high flying SR-71 Blackbird.

After a spot of lunch we started to make our way up to the other hangers for a look about when it came over the speaker that the B-17 Sally B would be firing up her engines and taking off to go to an airshow in Kent, some thing we had to see and just made the day.
This was followed by a fly past by a Spitfire - how cool.

We made our way around the rest of the hangers which had so many planes in them, it was all too much to take in with a one day visit.
Duxford are lucky to have eight Spitfires on display which seven are airworthy with only the Supermarine Spitfire Mk24 on static display.

As we made our way back to the club stand we saw the Sally B return from her trip to kent. what a way to finish the day off

The Thames Valley Farnborough Air Display BBQ

Today we had an event for the Farnborough Air Show.
Becky had arranged with her boss for the Thames Valley area to spend the day at her works offices in the staff car park watch the air display and bbq.
We started the day off by meeting at the Ely pub on the A30 just outside of Camberley, where we formed a convey of Hoods and tintops for the trip to Cove with Martin acting as rear gunner in his Sumo should anyone get lossed on route.
Becky went on ahead of the group to open up and set up. Once we had the ok from Becky that our route was free from all the air show traffic we set off .
We got to the office to find Becky already putting together the bbqs something she is very good at (drives me up the wall all them little nuts & screws GGGGRRRRR).
The air display started with the two Airbuses (340 & 380) followed by a number of fighter jets.
In the mean time both the bbq were alight and John our area sec wanted the display to stop so we could cook our food and not miss anything ( no hope of that happening lol!!)
After eating we all sat back and looked to the skys as the aircraft put on their show.
The fly by of the day had to be the Battle of Britain group
We even put on a display with our Hoods too!!!!!!!!!

Uxbridge Auto Show 06

This show is run by the Rotary Club of Uxbridge and has been held every year since 1984 with all proceeds going to many charities.
We got to the show ground about 9.30am to find a couple of the RHOCaR Surrey area guys already setting up for the day. With the Thames Valley guys & gals not going to get to the show till around 10.30am. So Me, Becky & Tasha took a walk around the classic cars & autojumble before it got too crowded & too hot.
We got back an hour later just in time to see the T V H gang roll up to the club stand and we pitched in to put the marquee up. With the temp rising we were all glad of some shade.
We then set to at taking a look at John's sons Ford Escort RS Turbo. It had dropped all its coolant out of the radiator just as it got in to the show ground, we found the split in the bottom of the rad but with the limited number of tools that we had to hand it was a lost case, so the AA were called out.
Next we checked the Co2 gases on Johns 2b Hood (Old Smokey) only to find it was spot on (shock!!! lol) Good news as it's MOT time for it.
With one more look round the show it was time to pack up and head for home

Brooklands British Sports Car Day 06

Right I'm bang up to date with this now!!!!!!!

I took the Hood along to Brooklands today for the British Sports Car Day - normally a busy event but not today! What with the Goodwood festive of speed & the Classic Le Mans on all this weekend, plus a wet start to the day the turn out was low.It was good to see Concorde all back together just the interior fittings to go in.

The Chiltern Hilltop Run

The Chiltern Hilltop Run on Sunday June 11th , which had been carefully planned by Steve from Chinnor in the preceding weeks.
Start point was the Lambert Arms Hotel on the A40, just close to J6 of the M40. It has a lighthouse in the garden so you can't miss it !!
There were Bacon butties and coffee on hand at the start, as organised by Steve, with a landlord keen to show us all his facilities. This as a possible new meeting venue for the future, a quick poll of those present met with approval. Plenty of side rooms, and separate bars, no television, and a spacious lawn that he allows all sorts of cars clubs to park on.
We were joined by Peter Bell, and Stephen Altwasser from the Herts group, for our journey which was to end in a rendezvous with John and Helen Tween and the Herts group at the Grand Junction Arms, in Bulbourne.. Also along was Peter Wright in his good-looking MGB.
After photo's, Steve gave a briefing of the route and handed out direction notes .
A climb up the first of the two 'Aston' hills, on the main A40, with plenty of roadwidth and sweeping curves , was very satisfying, and only ended with a stop to turn into a narrower road for the descent.
We rode on through Chinnor, until the roller coaster ride over Chinnor's speed humps took a toll on Peter Bell's 2b, which died on a narrow section, bringing everyone to a halt, delaying one or two non-sympathisers who then forced their way past hurriedly.
The vibrations had loosened Peter's HT lead , which was quickly spotted and he was soon back in action.
A short ride on, and we assembled for the next photo prior to the climb up Kop Hill. Nice sweeping road again, narrower this time,through trees with the hot sun flashing intermittently, and the descent was just as curvy.
Hope we get to do this run out again soon