TWO NUTS .....AND A LOT OF BOLTS

The list of things to do before next Saturday is such that I can now count them on one hand. One of them was to give the car an interim service. At a staggering 102,000 miles it’s exactly midway between regular servicing intervals so on Monday the car was given a quick pre-departure check at White Rose MG in Petersfield.

Whilst waiting, I stoked the fire of my Cannonball enthusiasm by reading back issues of various car magazines left lying provocatively in the service reception area, of which one included a rather apt Europe-wide roadtest of a new Ferrari. (Avoided the back issues of Hello! and Horse and Hound)

Phil, the chirpy chappy who counters my demands on the F by applying a mixture of engineering and sympathy, discovered the front pads were a bit on the vegetarian side, so having breezed in to White Rose with an appointment time of simply “Monday” and subsequently diverting Phil from a Rover 25 to check the F, I felt somewhat obliged to let him fit new ones when he offered. Anyway it made sense whilst the wheels were off, despite being a very simple DIY job.

I have great admiration for Phil. For four years now he’s listened with professionally polite  patience and interest whenever I’ve told him about home modifications or the latest garden-shed theory of engine performance being bandied around amongst owners, and I can’t help thinking that having heard my latest ramblings on track days or flower-pot filter housings, he must wonder how the car has survived as it has and with so few scars of amateur tinkery. The head gasket has been replaced (no surprise there then) and it had a new ignition coil less than a year after leaving the factory. Apart from these and a few minor essentially cosmetic fixes nothing has ever happened to actually stop the car in it’s tracks. Although this fills me with confidence that everything’s still fine, I cannot help but remind myself that eventually the egg-timer will invert and turn the accumulated sand of reliability in to a cascade of mishaps.

But not this month.

Apart from the brakes, everything is in very good shape for the age and mileage of the car and I tentatively ask Phil his opinion of the car’s chances in it’s forth-coming marathon and post-Cannonball MOT test.

“Bit better than average” he smiled.

Bob L