A few years ago when on the way to Beautiful Dazes fest in the old trusty rusty, lifting off the juice coming into a corner the revs didn't drop. A bit of consternation, and a sharp dab on the accelerator we were back to normal. Hmmn. It happened a couple of more times with the same results, and being only a couple of miles from the site thought check that out before we head home after the fest. We ended up next to a bunch of "Youngsters"who passed the hospitality before I had even got out of the van! A fun weekend ensued of much merriment and games of " Get the Old Farts wrecked" and " I can keep up with the pups" carried on untill pass out o clock. Come Monday morning it was time to head home and say fairwell to our new mates. You may have noticed there's no mention of checking the sticking accelerator. Well we were having so much fun we d forgot. We were in for a hell of a reminder... We d got from Exeter along the M5 and were on my favouriite bit of motorway, the split level section between Bristol and Minehead. Coming down towards Bristol I decided to let the van have the bit. 60 65 70, let's be naughty and do a bit of Merc mugging. 75 80 85. "By! She sounds WELL" Traffic backing up ahead,contraflow. Ease off,nothing. Quick sharp dab. Nowt. Again. Nowt. Dab dab. Nowt. Dab dab stamp STAMP. We re now getting faster! And faster. And FASTER!!! 85 90 95! Engine goes BAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH Hippies go AAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHhhhhhh... Take a breath AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHh Hard shoulder no chance, lane chocka. Chuck out the anchors HARD and fly into the road works like a rusty Millenium Falcon but faster. By standing full on the brake pedal we dipped to 50 just before the first speed camera. 5 miles of contraflow lay ahead and we weren't going to stop in that if it could be helped. Aint got a deathwish! By heavy use of the brakes I could get down to 50 for the speed cameras, but with a mile to go they began to start fading. Oh joy. Alternating the hand brake with the foot brake cut down on the fade and got snuck under the last speed camera and out the otherside. Luckily there was a service station a short way ahead and screamed in there Silence apart from we could here our rapidly beating hearts! The 1st fag I rolled was a mess, hands shaking so much; the 2nd not much better. I opened the engine bay and "What the fluffy kitten!!!!!" Now here's the mech tech bit; the connecting rod for the carbs was laid on top of the engine! The throttle operating rods were still attached to this and when it fell out it opened them full chat! The ends of the rod locates on ball brackets and.when I offered it up to them it was short of reaching them Huh? inside the rod itself is a plastic cup being pushed out by an internal spring to keep it in contact with the ball brackets. One of these cups had disintergrated and off popped the rod. I suppose when the accelerator 1st started sticking thatd be the cup splitting, so there may be a bit of advance warning. The connecting rod description is overly simple as I m still finding bits in the engine bay. To sort it out I gave the ball brackets a couple of clouts inwards so the connecting rod would reach,and its still running like this to this day no probs. This is all standard pancake engine gear. Just as I was getting the last bits and bobs out the engine bay I hears behind me "Has its laggy band bust? Heh heh heh" I drew myself up to my full 6' 3" lean,mean, fest fatigued, adrenalin fueled best and stared him right in the eye with my bloodshot,blackringed,dialated pupil gaze whilst gently tapping a 4lb lump hammer in my hand. He quickly apologised and got a shift on! Jeez I looked a state ! Just before we set off on our merry way we got a text from the Youngsters. Went summat like"Are we still OK? You went flying past us just before Bristol. We were waving like mad to you and you just blanked us" As you guys know we were a bit busy. And were still knocking about with the Youngsters.
