Wednesday 30 July 2014

Well, that blew the dandruff away!!!!

Following our recent travels, the time had come to give the Morgan some attention. That would include getting the wheels off to clean them, which I always do after around 1000miles, at the same time as launching myself under the car to grease the sliding axles.

When I say launch, that does sound a touch dramatic and is frankly, a blatant lie!

The reality is more of an overweight geriatric trying desperately, in the first instance, to get down on his knees in order to place the jack under the car and from a virtually prone position pump up the jack to get the stands underneath the front axle.

Whereupon, he rolls on to his side, trying to ignore the painful reminder of his recently diagnosed hernia, and then shuffles on his back to a position where he can contort his wretched body sufficiently to see the appropriate nipple, at which point he decides that he shouldn't have worn his glasses and will be able to see better without them, so then has to effect this removal operation with greasy fingers and try to place them well away from the area where the action is taking place.

Finally the grease gun is attached to the nipple and with withering strength the thing is squeezed and the injection of the grease finally takes place.

Now, for the next wheel!!!!!

I did promise myself that I would in future just take the car to my local garage, 'cross their palms with silver' and get one of the chaps to do the greasing for me. On the face of it, this would have been a good idea, but it wreaked a bit of 'chucking the towel in' and, also of course, the wheels would not be cleaned either. So I decided that while I am physically able to do the job I will continue.

Actually it is quite therapeutic and I can take pride in the fact that although we are covering a lot more mileage than many owners, our car is just as well cared for, and looks just as pristine, as those mollycoddled cars with ridiculously small mileages!

Anyway, the reason I mentioned dandruff is that it is vital after such a gruelling maintenance session, to take the car out for a quick run, primarily to make sure that the wheels don't drop off, but also because it's such bloody good fun and immensely exhilarating, driving a Morgan without a cap and with sidescreens off, in a very fresh Blackpool breeze.

3 comments: