CitroJim's AX, C3 Picasso, Cycling and Running Tales

[CitroJim]

Thanks Mike

You can see Daffodil in flower-power guise here viewtopic.php?t=57442

I was always sorry to see Daffodil loose her flowers... I thought they suited her...

[Stickyfinger]

I had forgotten I had posted all that.... So long ago and it is still passing MoT's with a clean sheet !

[CitroJim]

I'd forgotten it was that long ago too Alasdair!

And she's got years in her yet

[CitroJim]

I have a little more voice today... I've gone from being a squeaky little mouse to a croaky frog! Being sensible about things, I'm not really well enough to run or cycle at the moment which is a shame as the weather is magnificent for both...

Today I've collected my new glasses and they seem good... For nearly £300 they should be! If they last ten years like the last pair it'll be worth the outlay...

And today I've renewed my Triathlon England race licence... £60... The cost of living is really starting to bite now Trouble is, I cannot compete in duathlons without the license unless I buy a 'day licence' for every event... That works out more expensive the amount I do...

So today, being stuck at home, I looked to resolve a small problem on my recently overhauled grandfather clock. The going train has been running magnificently and it's keeping perfect time but the striking train has been suffering occasional bouts of over-enthusiasm... It sometimes and randomly strikes more than it should and it's not good to hear thirteen strikes at 8 o'clock or 15 at midnight : It's quite off-putting and it means things are not perfect so must be rectified...

With the face off, I could see that occasionally the strike count rack would fail to advance properly and would either miss a strike or even slip back...

There are two possible causes - the gathering pallet being 90 degrees out of phase and/or the rack tension spring - the hairpin shaped spring in the bottom left of the picture - being a bit over-tensioned... I did think it was a bit weak during the overhaul and may have overdone it a bit...

I've readjusted the rack spring tension and advanced the gathering pallet by 90 degrees. So far, with a manual advance right round the dial all seems good. Fingers crossed...

On long-term test now with the face off but hands on. The face will go back on again once I'm happy all is 100% good.

I'll soon know as too many strikes on any hour really do stand out!

[CitroJim]

My clock seems to be behaving itself

My record deck failed to spin the other day and today, still not being well enough to run, cycle or play cars, was an ideal time to look at it...

The first port of call was the microswitch, operated indirectly by the tone arm, but that was OK...

The culprit was quite a surprise... The motor mains supply and the switching between 110V and 240V is via push-on connectors. One or more were a bit intermittent... A bit of 'wiggling' and it all came good... All removed and cleaned/retensioned... It now seems happy.

I note the presence of a 'Rifa' Class X suppression capacitor on the little board - the yellow 0.33uF one. These have a very nasty habit of turning into very smelly smokebombs and are best changed on sight... When they go, they go with an alarming, albeit impressive bang and produce an amazing amount of acrid smoke

Much debate has been conducted in the vintage radio forum as to why they fail and the conclusion is the micro-cracks you might just see visible in the encapsulation admits moisture over time. The last Rifa I hade go off - two simultaneously in fact - was in my Kenwood Chef food mixer whilst kneading dough... The bread was OK but the kitchen reeked of them for days...

Some new ones are on order as I currently have none in stock...

And back in action playing a jolly good record... One of my all-time favourites.

[Stickyfinger]

Close the lid when playing a record Jim, it keeps more sound in so more goes down the wires into the Amp, it makes it louder !

[bobins]

More importantly, it keeps dust off the vinyl !

[CitroJim]

Close the lid when playing a record Jim, it keeps more sound in so more goes down the wires into the Amp, it makes it louder !

More importantly, it keeps dust off the vinyl !

How dare you suggest my house is dusty Bobins I'll have you know my house is dusted every day

[bobins]

Obviously, Jim. I was merely pointing that out for the benefit of others

[CitroJim]

Obviously, Jim. I was merely pointing that out for the benefit of others

Love it!

[CitroJim]

It's been quite a weekend and busy! I've only just got to this forum for the first time since early this morning due to much else happening... I've just tied up the last of the loose ends from Saturday's parkrun by publishing the Run Report and having my usual fight with the parkrun embedded Wordpress editor used for such tasks...

Wordpress does the job. I'll leave it at that

So, Saturday kicked off with me still being worried about my voice and not feeling remarkably well by Run Directing at Bury Field parkrun... Happily, I found my voice and it was a truly wonderful event, loved by all and not least by me. I felt progressively better as the event progressed.

Being RD at parkun takes up all the morning and often into the afternoon too. There's results to process, volunteers to process, social media communications on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram and the preparing the kit for next week. One job that takes a while is to numerically sort and check the Finish Tokens... If any are missing, new ones have to be made up.

Tokens being sorted...

All that done, after lunch I had a bit of time to check over Bluebell for her planned Sunday fun... She was found to be very happy despite being idle and fast asleep for a while...

That sort of more or less wrapped up the day. Time then to enjoy this forum

Sunday started by waking up Bluebell and taking her along to Junior parkrun where I was set to work barcode scanning and beginning my training towards RD'ing at Juniors. It's a bit different from the Saturday 5K parkruns. Juniors is just 2K and only for those aged 4 to 14. It's huge fun and very rewarding... The kids really love it

Then, with recovery well in hand I went for an easy run... Only 3 miles around Bury Field but it was good to get out and run after so long on the bench

Christmas Copse on Bury Field

Feeling good after that I woke my TT bike up - it's been resting since last October - and went out to get a bit of early TT training under way... The season starts in April and I can't wait The ride, along the Cranfield TT course, showed quite clearly my recover is not quite complete - my heart rate was rather elevated compared to usual but I felt good and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was good to be out on my TT bike again. I love that bike!

FujiBlue

And then, to round off the weekend, a proper joyride in Bluebell. She is such a joy

Bluebell

All in all, it was a good 'un!

[CitroJim]

I took Bluebell to the FCF meetup today. Hugely enjoyed

Zel followed me home and we went a bit of a different country lane route back to MK which, as I found later speaking to my neighbours, was a good call as MK was a bit busy today due to a visit from HRH the King... He visited to do the final bits for MK to officially become a city...

Given my concern that Bluebell puffs out a little oil smoke on a cold startup I was pleased Zel reported no visible smoke whist in motion and being driven with a bit of spirit

So no need to have her head off and do her valve stem oil seals any time soon

She was a bit salty when we got home - both from today's excursion and her trip to Junior parkrun on Sunday...

The kids and their parents declared Bluebell 'one very cool car' after giving her a good look-over at Junior parkrun... Most of the kids had never seen such an old car and were utterly fascinated by her, especially her quaint old radio... In fact Bluebell is likely older than most of the kid's parents!

Given the level of salt on her, I gave her a good bath as soon as we got home today and have left her out in the breeze to naturally air-dry..

Dad used to say it was never a good idea to garage a wet car so she stays out now until she's fully dry... Makes good sense to me...

[Stickyfinger]

You SHOULD be using Sally in the salt Jim !....we have not waxed he undersides yet !

[CitroJim]

You SHOULD be using Sally in the salt Jim !....we have not waxed he undersides yet !

That's why she got a really good bath and then spent the night out in the air Alasdair I learned that even on bright, dry sunny days if the council had been out salting the previous night even then a film of salt will be deposited on the car... I guess the salt dries and becomes airborne as fine dust. It's pernicious stuff No wonder cars rust...

I'm keen to get her waxed as soon as we can...

Trouble is, I so love driving her there are occasions when I just cannot resist! You know what it's like

[Stickyfinger]

Yep, it goes to dust/attaches to road dirt......that is why I only drive the Activa after 3 or 4 days of rain (after the last application of road salt).

Wax shop is ready when you are...