craigdmcd

<< << Craig Mac is absolutely correct about the Wester Ross Coastal Trail round Gairloch and Aultbea. As a suggestion for a 2 day trip next year, how about heading up Loch Lomond, on to Inverary, then Oban, then the Fort William Road to Inverness or the Skye area. The second day could take in heading North West via Gairloch, up to Ullapool, then North and across to the Dornoch area and finally possibly down the road via the Elgin area. It would be a fair jaunt, but quite possibly some of the best Scooby roads in the world. >> That would be a nice run only problem we would have would be a lack of optimax i suppose. plenty of camp sites plenty nice roads and plenty midges!! >> Just have to use lots of octane booster

I think you'll find that although 10w60 is doing no harm to the engine, it has been proved that changing to a good 5w40 can provide up to a 10bhp increase as it isn't as thick and doesn't cause as much drag in the engine. I personally like the reassurrance of a slightly higher viscosity in a tuned vehicle, so use Silkolene 10w50.

Craig Mac is absolutely correct about the Wester Ross Coastal Trail round Gairloch and Aultbea. As a suggestion for a 2 day trip next year, how about heading up Loch Lomond, on to Inverary, then Oban, then the Fort William Road to Inverness or the Skye area. The second day could take in heading North West via Gairloch, up to Ullapool, then North and across to the Dornoch area and finally possibly down the road via the Elgin area. It would be a fair jaunt, but quite possibly some of the best Scooby roads in the world.

<< Very true Dougster but you were just visiting the Kingdom whereas we live here. How was your day in paradise? >> The strangest thing I find is the Forth Road Bridge - you pay to get in to Fife, I personally would pay double to get back out

Just clicked back on to see that you can take all the comical digs as a joke, nice to see a good sense of humour retained on SIDC. Now go and get yourself a wife and kids so that you can't afford to mod the Scoob as much and keep making me jealous. Oh, and incidentally, what you are doing with that lovely lady doesn't count as practice to having a wife and kids.

I've picked up the Gumball wrongly again, and I quote apologies to the people i have moaned at this week, i dont know whats up wi me just now. I thought that when people said "Gumball is some moaner", I actually thought he was good in Bed. Guess I got it wrong again

The plumber joke is superb

Gumball, you call yourself a Rangers fan!!! Get those scarfs off that young lady and give her a right good spanking for wearing them. Seriously though, I'm not offended, I actually appreciate all of your avatars. I'm just amazed at how much you've had to spend on the Scoob to get girls to look at you.

This thread is actually aimed at Gumball. The man in question now has given himself an avatar of a seemingly lovely young lady wearing nothing except 2 disgusting Celtic Football Club scarfs. I would kindly ask that you remove these disgusting garments from her and post pictures to prove that you have done so.

The missus is an Air stewardess for BA so the list is long, but usually only in a place for 2-3 days at a time, but I have been in some of these places for longer- so working East to West: Sydney Brisbane Singapore (x4) Tokyo (x2 - bought a car each time!!!) Bejing Hong Kong (x 10 approximately!!!) Dubai Tunisia Johannesburg (x2) Capetown Marbella (x3) Gran Canaria (x4 - old RoC) Iceland (for a rally) Toronto Washington New York (Started Honeymoon here - got there by Concorde) Bermuda (x2) Phoenix Los Angeles (x2) Rio de Jeniro. Or at least that's all I can remember The best places have to be either Hong Kong (phenomenal just ask Peter) or Iceland (So weird but brilliant, and they love cars more than us), and would advise people to do one if not them both in their lifetimes. As for a roadtrip, me and classicwagon were considering going to Rally Deutschland and then on to the Nurburgring next year (to try and beat a 15 min lap!) using the Rosyth ferry, but since the accident in Mull, those plans have since changed. As I've voted, I'd quite possibly consider a similar trip to Germany, the Rally of Finland or even a Weekend Run round the North of Scotland (I know the roads around the Northwest and Wester Ross quite well and would highly recommend them). Craig

Sorry if my last post is doing much the same as Chris's first post, but I just thought I'd let you know how I remember it. If anybody wants any more detail, I think we'll have to do a documentary. Graham, thanks, not only for the concern, but also for not taking pictures and posting them, very decent of you. If Chris wishes pictures to be posted, he can decide that on his own. Craig

Myself and Chris (he was driving), finished watching the rally on Saturday afternoon come over the Hill road twice (and the trophy rally as well). After this, we decided, like yourself, to head to Tobermory for the evening before the night time stages again. We headed from the junction of the Hill road and Calgary bay road back to Dervaig with Chris's brother and soon to be sister-in-law behind us in their Vectra SRi diesel. We decided to try to go over the Mishnish Lochs road, foolishly forgetting that the road was still closed for the rally, so doubled back to head over the Glen Aros road towards Salen, and then go up to Tobermory from there. As we headed out of Dervaig, we were stuck behind a camper van, that within a few passing places on the single track, very kindly pulled into let us past. As we rounded the corner after this, the road straightened out down a hill and then back up again with excellent views of the road ahead for oncoming traffic. Chris opened up the Subaru (as we all like to do), but by no means was on "full chat". After reaching the bottom of the hill, for some reason or another, the Subaru started getting a little out of shape (road surface, slightly touching the grass, undulations???), and we hit the first of 2 small jumps up the hill whilst out of shape, which from what I can remember sent us all wrong into the second "jump", which spat us out very nastily. The only two things that I can remember from that point on is after the first roll, I noticed that the window was open (it turned out that the door had flown open upon impact and bent under the car), and so I crossed my arms like I had seen Nicky Grist doing in his crash with Colin McRae on the RAC Rally (2002?). The second was seeing us travelling towards a telegraph pole, which really was S-it scary. We ended up landing on our roof, with myself asking if Chris was alright, releasing ourselves, and climbing out my "open" door. Thanks to the rally just finishing on some stages, the Rallies rescue services were very quick to the scene, even though by rights, they didn't have to attend. The actual crash was no more than 0.5 mile from Dervaig. Vincent (Chris's brother) received a very nice phone call from the Traffic Police last night to check that all four of us were all right (Both Vincent and Lorna were quite upset at watching a family member and a close friend in such a major accident). The Officer did hope that we had learned a valuable lesson from this, and stated that he can't remember many accidents as serious as this where there was as little injuries caused. He did also state that this was the case closed for them, which in itself, goes to show that they have classed this as an accident, and not decided to pursue it further. A day I will quite gladly foget if I can. Craig PS Thanks for all the well wishes from everyone that has, it proves that we are generally a close knit community.

Graham, thanks for the well wishes, it is appreciated. Corsa, the Police, Insurance and Rescue Services were all very understanding. For your information, Myself and Chris have competed in both Navigational Road Rallies and National Karting events, so competing has been tried. Chris was caught out on an Island that is notorious for it's nasty roads, (66 starters on the Saturday night compared to 160 on Friday night), and was pushing a lot less than if he had been out on an SIDC run, and am sure in a manner that you have gone harder in, on any of your own road cars. We were going to come and find you to wish you well on the rally, to be honest, I for one am glad I didn't. At least everyone else has shown a little more compasion. If anyone has the right to bear resentment to Chris, it's me( and I don't), for placing me in a near death situation, but even I can understand that accidents happen. Craig

I was the passenger in the car, and I was the one that got the worst end of the stick (although not financially). I do have pictures of the car, but will wait for Chris to want them to be posted before putting them up, it's not a nice thing to be reminded of. The reference to the thiefs is not specifically to the SIDC members, as we know that the website does get viewed by visitors, but of someone that may read the site and stole specifically from the car (seats, dash clocks, air filter box and MAF, etc). The sick thing is that the car was bad enough that without prior knowledge, it looked as if it could well have had a fatality in it (my door ripped open and bent under the car during the first roll). We are here to live to tell the tale though, which is what I am thankful for (And possibly considering going to Church every Sunday now) Craig

Me and classicwagon are heading up on Friday, probably leaving at 14.00 from Glasgow. Will head up Loch Lomondside to the Corran ferry (just south of Fort William) and then down to Lochaline to Fishnish Ferry. It's a far better drive this way, don't particularly like being on boats, so 2 small trips is better than 1 big trip from Oban. Anyone wanting to make a convoy is more than welcome to join in. Sleeping in the Legacy with the back seats down, so not worrying about accomodation, just whether we can carry enough deodorant to last till Sunday morning.

Sorry to disagree corsa, but I believe that the Tour of Mull is THE original and Best closed road rally, it's just a shame the weather usually sucks.

I worked for BMW for 6 weeks late last year, and was very disappointed after all the hype. Certainly the M3's are quick once they rev, but it wasn't nice having to work them that way. Maybe the customers hadn't run them in well enough for me, I don't know. I haven't had a shot of a WR1, but do have a 04 WRX PPP, and whilst it may not have the ultimate pace in a straight line, I do believe that I could push it hard on a decent A or B road. Oh, and the old addage about M3's being pants in the wet is absolutely true, especially with the 19" rims.

Well, what's the Balamory, did you get them off ?

That's better pictures this time. 2 real options with these (and I'm usually with the boys on this one about the hammering of a high quality socket - but not this time!). Option 1 - get some very high quality drill bits, cutting oil to cool them down, and begin the long slow labourious task of drilling them out, starting with the ever popular 3mm, then in 1-2 mm increments all the way up to approximately 12mm, but being careful with the larger sizes not to damage the threads too much on the hub. It does work, and is best to use a slow drill speed, but impatience can cause horrible damage. Incidentally, take all the other wheel bolts out so that you can yank the wheel a little when the bolt is drilled out quite a lot. Option 2, find the largest nut that will fit inside the wheel WITH A GOOD QUALITY SOCKET ON IT, then proceed to get the nut welded centrally on to the locking wheel bolt (high quality mig welding is preferable, and not something that looks like it has just come from the ass of a it rabbit!). Then when the weld has cooled, use a large breaker bar to carefully remove the offending item. This method sometimes takes several attempts to get it right. The hammering on of sockets will not work in this case I fear. Last point - once removed, hopefully with minimal damage (always inevitable), go and buy a set of SUBARU ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT LOCKING WHEEL BOLTS AND GET A SPARE LOCKER ORDERED. ALWAYS GREASE THE WHEEL BOLTS AND HUBS BEFORE REFITTING THE WHEELS!!!! I'm off to bed now as I've got a 10hour shift tomorrow. PS, just reread my post, option one doesn't work as well on scoobies (you'd probably need a new stud), so better try option 2 first.

Could really do with knowing what style of lockers they are, and how far away are you. I've been a bit of a deft hand at getting lockers off in the past (legitimately in my work of course), and would be pleased to help if I can.

I've got the Jap version but I'm no good on all this download malarky, but I just got TOCA Race Driver 2 and Colin McRae 2005 Plus. Guess I don't need to talk to the other half for at least 2 months now.

Yup, I've had one since January (wife works for BA, so I got it in Hong Kong). It is the dogs danglies, I've only had Ridge Racer (which is now beginning to bore me), but have ordered CMR and Toca 2, along with the movie download kit. I'm desperate for Gran Turismo 4, but apparently it has been put back till March 06. If you haven't tried one yet, do so, it's like having a PS2 (and then some) in your hands.

I had to drive very carefully because of that big stupid grin on my face

If you didn't know, Gumball very kindly got me the slot at Dastek at the last minute. When me and my mateturned up, there was a small que, so my friend (classicwagon) got a ride in a very quick STi. Since Gumball didn't want his underbonnet temperatures too high, we decided that my old Legacy GT-B should go on the Rollers first. The results: 267.3 lbft of torque and 310.4 Bhp

I believe the man at the controls stated that "whilst torque is important through the revs, it is still ultimately the BHP that you have to look at, just look at F1 cars, low on torque but big on bhp and they go well", not a direct word for word quote, but close enough not to be misrepresenting him, eh, Chris