Daveyboy20 aka Rusted Pistons new bus thread has inspired me to update my bus bus thread.
I've done about 10K mile in the van over the last couple of years. it been awesome !!. Loads of Wales trips ,Devon/Cornwall trips , Forest of dean trips.
I went to Fort William to ride the wordcup DH track last year with no problems( apart from the mpg).
All was great .
This year I decided to go for a biggie . I've never been to Jogn O'Groats and thought it would be cool to go in the van...just me and the bike .
It's a long way from Oxfordshire !!.
The first day got me to Gretna ,and went to see the Robert the Bruce spider cave
the next day I went back to fort william via Glencoe for some more DH. I spent a couple of days there riding the bike ( nevis range)
then headed north along Lochness up to inverness and on to John O'Groats .
No drama !! No rain !! Lovely.
I stayed there for 2 days , had a giant bike ride to Dunnet Head ( 30 mph head wind on the way back !)
Got the obligatory pics:
That was 6 days in and time to head home ,stopping at gretna on the way.
I set off at 6am, quick pic whilst there was no-one around :
and headed south ......
After 4 or 5 hours as I was coming out of Perth and it all went wrong .
Getting past a lorry at about 3500 rpm, good oil pressure and temps I felt the power dip closely followed by a right
racket ...at first I though the exhaust had fallen off as there was no smoke and the oil pressure was there but after a few seconds it became clear is was bad . I pulled into a layby and got out and everything looked fine .Started it up again and it was rattling like a bag of spanners ......completely done .then came the grim realization that was was over 400 miles from home with a dead van.
After freaking out for a few minutes I called the breakdown folks . The cover I have is free with my insurance and I always wondered if it would be ok .I needn't have worried because they were great . The dude came within an hour and was super cool .
At first I was adamant I wanted to stay with the van and get relayed back but the dude said my best bet was to leave it and rent a car to rip home and they would bring it back in a couple days ......it was a tough call but that's what I did . I got my bike and cool box and got dropped off and the rental car place. got a car and canon balled home . I got back at about 9pm ....a long day on the road .
I spent the next few days freaking out about whether the bus would make it back in one piece , it arrived at 1 in the morning on the back of a trailer a few days later un scathed!!...
My life just about revolves around the bus in the summer so I was fully gutted it was knackered right at he start of the summer (all this happened early may) .
So, I started into full blown emergency "save the summer" engine mode and got stuck straight in.
Strangely , it was completely seized when I got to it . SO, it either seized as I switched it off in the layby or some on in the yard started it and it seized ....we'll never know ...doesn't really matter I guess .
Here's the money shot anyway ..literally :
Broken crank !!!
Not a lot I could have done to stop that happening really ...it's a (was a!) good crank .
It didn't look to have caused too much damage though.
heads good, rods,piston,barrels and cam/followers all look to have survived.
The cranks FUBAR though:
)
