My Bike rides

[davep5491 360]

Some of the 'donkey' engines fitted in the back of Mr Whippy ice cream vans ran on TVO. I used to work on the vans helping my dad when I was about 14. The engines were 4 cyl. Fords which had low compression ratios achieved by fitting a thicker head gasket. A Mr. Pearce held the Whippy franchise in Nottingham ably assisted by his son Roger Pearce. On the same site in Basford they also had a factory making Golden Crumpets.

 

[IAN FINN 807]

Thanks plantfit for the photos should see if the engine will start.

[letsavagoo 961]

6 hours ago, davep5491 said:

Some of the 'donkey' engines fitted in the back of Mr Whippy ice cream vans ran on TVO. I used to work on the vans helping my dad when I was about 14. The engines were 4 cyl. Fords which had low compression ratios achieved by fitting a thicker head gasket. A Mr. Pearce held the Whippy franchise in Nottingham ably assisted by his son Roger Pearce. On the same site in Basford they also had a factory making Golden Crumpets.

 

It may have been Mr Softy I worked for not Mr Whippy. It was on Glaisdale Drive. I wasn’t there long. 
 

[Oztalgian 3,270]

Never did like soft-serve ice cream it had no taste or any texture, you were paying a lot for fresh air. Much preferred a traditional ice cream from a tub with a scoop. Divits of Mansfield had the best ice cream in our area, rich, creamy and golden yellow.

[plantfit 7,580]

8 hours ago, IAN FINN said:

Thanks plantfit for the photos should see if the engine will start.

It probably would start, I think it's a Perkins engine so chances are it would

 

Rog

[philmayfield 6,115]

I once had a boat with a a Perkins 4.108 diesel. I was taking it up to Newark Marina from Farndon on a cold March day to sell it. The engine cut out just by Kelham weir. I had forgotten to turn on the fuel tap! You can’t start an old diesel under those circumstances without bleeding the fuel system. Fortunately I had on board with me the chief engineer (later to become the MD) of Nottingham City Transport who quickly bled the system and got the engine running before we went over the weir. Another lucky escape for me!

[plantfit 7,580]

The Tugs and barges at Attenborough sand and gravel quarry were Perkins engines, four cylinder with heat exchangers and a Climax forward/reverse gearbox

 

Rog

[plantfit 7,580]

Well I done it again, saw this little Joseph Lucas cycle lamp and just had to buy it, looks a bit battered but should keep me busy for s few days next week, will look nice polished up and fitted to the 1934 Ladies Humber cycle

 

 

Rog

[Willow wilson 894]

There are those green side lenses again, must be a safety feature, they all seem to have them. Looking forward to the finished article.

[plantfit 7,580]

The description says "has some damage" but I think it's all there so you never know, I will try my best with it anyway, as for the green lenses they all have them from that age and as you say must be a safety feature, they show up well when the light is working and bearing in mind I don't think there was many street lights (if any) when these were made so they would have shown up very well

 

Rog

[Oztalgian 3,270]

19 hours ago, philmayfield said:

I had forgotten to turn on the fuel tap!

And you a pilot?  Didn't you have a check list?

[philmayfield 6,115]

I hang my head in shame. I don’t know why I’d turned the fuel tap off in the first place. My fellow sailor was also a pilot!

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

Seeing the various lights in these posts reminded me of another old thread about paraffin parking lights which were used for on-street parking. My dad had one which had to be filled and put out every night.

 

https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/2959-the-parking-light-thing/?tab=comments#comment-26192

 

[letsavagoo 961]

Phil’s narrow escape with a weir bought to mind my dice with death. A work colleague was into micro light flying so I went to watch him one weekend. He had only a single seat ‘kite’ but another fellow had a much more sophisticated craft which looked like an actual plane but very lightweight with tubular construction and not much covering but tandem seats and I was offered a place. We took off and started to climb but after 30 seconds the engine died. The pilot turned and we dropped back to terra firmer clearing a hedge by a whisker. The head came of the Rotax 2 stroke twin and one of the pistons had holed. Clean underwear that evening. It was pretty frightening.

[philmayfield 6,115]

We always said ‘any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!’ 
A large chunk of the private pilots’ practical course is to practice forced landings after an engine failure (obviously you don’t switch it off but just close the throttle to tick over) It’s not too difficult during daylight to find a suitable field but when you’re doing a night rating you’re told to aim for a spot where there’s no sign of any lights and hope for the best! On my first night solo I was in the airfield circuit when the engine blew a gasket and started to sound rough. Drinks all round in the club bar that night!

[IAN FINN 807]

We will have to call you CAT mayfield it looks like you have nine lives for sure.

[letsavagoo 961]

Having just taken off we weren’t very high Phil so there wasn’t much chance to pick a spot. I’m 6 foot tall and back then just over 14 stone and it was a very tight squeeze to get in the craft and the thought of having to get out quickly was concerning. However you’re right. If you walk away it’s all good. Your first solo sounds interesting. I’d love to learn to fly but my pockets aren’t deep enough. I used to go up with Gordon Ferryman occasionally who I believe you knew.

[philmayfield 6,115]

I knew Ferryman very well, long before my flying days. He was an old acquaintance of my father. He once had a crane hire business where they were lifting the John Player launch into the Trent at Gunthorpe and they dropped it from height onto the bank! We had our wedding reception at his pub, the Springfield, on the Epperstone bypass, just after he had converted his house into a pub. He used to fly a helicopter from his back field using petrol from beer barrels he filled at the nearby garage. He was the instructor who sent me on my first night solo with the reassuring words ‘I’m too f*****g scared to fly with you, take it by yourself.’ We were both directors of Sherwood Flying Club at one time. The last time I saw him was in the Old Coach House at Southwell not long before his unfortunate demise. I think he’d been barred from the Bromley and the Waggon. Our neighbour complained that he pinched her bottom in the Waggon but I assured her that was par for the course. I’ve got a myriad of stories about him which I couldn’t possibly tell here!
It was £9 an hour when I started flying. I think it’s around £150 now.

My one and only microlite flight was with Andy Buchan, the instructor at Caunton airfield. I don’t see much activity when I pass there now, neither do I see aircraft from the Oxton strip. Sorry I’m rambling! 

[philmayfield 6,115]

54 minutes ago, IAN FINN said:

We will have to call you CAT mayfield it looks like you have nine lives for sure.

I’ve used all my nine lives up. I’m living on borrowed time. I’ve never looked for trouble, it just seems to find me. I got my pole chainsaw stuck in a high branch this afternoon so I had to precariously climb a ladder to extract it. I’m a bit too old for high ladders really!

[LizzieM 9,507]

30 years ago a friend of mine was flying in a light aircraft with a friend on a special mission to take a liver to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for transplant surgery.  They were quite close to their destination when the engine failed,  it was pitch black and about midnight.   All they thought of was to find somewhere without lights to get down ‘safely’.  Unfortunately they came down in the Forth.  They had to swim quite a distance to the banks and Royal Navy divers recovered the sealed box containing the liver.  Both pilots survived the ordeal and the transplant patient made a good recovery.  

[philmayfield 6,115]

That’s absolutely incredible!

[plantfit 7,580]

The new (to me) old cycle lamp arrived today, got a fair bit of work to do on it so looking forward to that, this one is a paraffin lamp so a bit older than the last one I got it also has the two different colours side lenses red on the left and green on the right

 

As can be seen in the last picture the bracket to fix it to the cycle has badly corroded  and the top/chimney is missing so I will have to make a new one, all I've done so far is stripped it down into it's component parts ready for cleaning, more to follow as the project progresses

 

Rog

[philmayfield 6,115]

That’s pretty corroded Rog. It’ll take more than a superficial polish to clean that. It makes my Fergie restoration seem like a doddle. I’ve charged the four year old battery and much to my surprise it’s holding. I was tempted to put petrol in and start it up but I’ve had to strip the stuck fuel tap to free it off. Starting is unusual as it’s done from a specific position on the gear lever where a mechanical linkage pulls electrical contacts together. This was often a problem with a poor connection but the old boys used to put a spanner across the exposed contacts. I’m not a bodger so I’ll make it work properly! This restoration will take weeks with all the other jobs in the queue including two sheds to refelt.

 

[plantfit 7,580]

I did know about the starting procedure on the Fergies, suppose it's so it can't be started in gear with the driver standing at the side of the tractor and running themselves over with the rear wheel which was a common accident/cause of death years ago, as for my new light, yes it is corroded bad but only the steel bracket the main body of the light is nickel coated which makes life a bit easier, the steel parts will get some de rust treatment and a good going over with a fine flap wheel in the Dremel tool

 

Rog

[Willow wilson 894]

9 hours ago, plantfit said:

 it also has the two different colours side lenses red on the left and green on the right

 

Port and starboard?