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Post by Roger Holman on Apr 6, 2020 13:09:15 GMT
Yep, classed as a 'junior member at 66 is almost as good as being junior anything at 72!
With 6 cars on the go, have you too caught car owner virus?
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Post by 2robert4 on Apr 6, 2020 13:13:16 GMT
I can't beat that! I think I was a junior at 62 every day is a school day eh?
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Post by rileyrob on Apr 6, 2020 21:27:23 GMT
Ha, I think I've had car owner virus for the past 40 odd years and I'm still here even if I'm slowing down rapidly, something one can never claim the Rileys are capable of!
Actually, in real life, my name is Robert Edward Burns, my dad's name was Robert Edward Burns and my Grandad's name was Robert Edward Burns, a family tradition of naming the first born son. So I used to be REB Minor, then progressed to REB Junior and now I'm a fully fledged REB Senior ........ but not according to the RMC obviously.
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Post by Roger Holman on Apr 7, 2020 20:08:27 GMT
Rob, that takes me back to school days. There were 3 'Holmans' 1, 2, and 3 at one stage, only two were related. My brother and I, obviously related, and we were 'immigrants' from the South West into East Kent, but the other on was native East Kent. The name is relatively common in the S.West, but not a common name in the S.East.
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Post by Mabel on Apr 10, 2020 16:08:02 GMT
Well, I'm Graham Hemsley aged 66 and the proud owner of Mabel, my 1960 Riley 1.5. Why Mabel? Well, that's what the former owner called her so why change it.
I've had her since September 2012 and she's currently locked in a restorers workshop during lockdown. She's my second Riley 1.5. Before that I had a bright red one which was named for me by the previous 1.5 forum section on the Riley Motor Club site. The name given was Tom as in Tomato.
The previous forum seemed to have a lot more input from a wider base of online contributors. In addition there were non-car related sections, namely the jokes and music forums. Jokes were kept clean and music section threw up some oddities from time to time but was fun.
In terms of my own responses to technical questions I'll admit to the fact that my technical knowledge is way, way less than it should l but I try to learn from what other contributors ask and the answers given.
How to get more people involved? Difficult one that. From time to time I mention the RMC, it's website and the forum on the Wolseley 1500/Riley 1.5 Facebook group but don't know if anyone's contributed or joined on the back of it.
I used to go to a monthly RMC Noggin and Natter event but as I was the only 1.5 owner in a sea of RM owners then I didn't get too much out of it. Once we're the other side of this terrible coronavirus outbreak I'll definitely be going back to see if it's changed in any way.
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Post by Roger Holman on Apr 10, 2020 20:02:48 GMT
Graham; Thanks for that. No idea where you are, but, welcome to the club (note: small c).
Years ago, I used to get notified of the 'local' natter and noggin event, but, Cornwall being such a long thin county, they were frequently too far away to make a Sunday lunchtime trip reasonable, and the notifications dried up.
Responses on technical questions are intereting; different people have differing experiences to bring to the table, and everyones individual experience should be used to broaden the overall depth of knowledge. I, for instance, have no real knowlrdge of the BMC Rileys, but there will be bits and pieces of general vehicle maintenance to which I, or anyone else, can contribute.
N.B. RM owners are not all bad, or useless.
My own passion/love is an RMC, it is less than immaculate, by a margin, but it goes like hell, when it doesn't blow oil filter canisters, which is a challenge currently being adressed.
One of the challenges of life today is that we have been convinced (by the younger generation?) that if we don't communicate 'on line' we are incompetant, irrelevant, useless even. We may be all of the above, but for goodness sake let's keep talking.
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Post by Mabel on Apr 11, 2020 1:28:02 GMT
Roger.
I’m based in Bristol aka Brizzel.
Luckily it’s a great place for travelling North, South and West although travelling East to places like Norfolk (where mother-in-law lives) can be a pain as there’s no real cross-country motorways beyond London. Still, every cloud has a silver lining.......
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 23:35:20 GMT
OK, here goes. My name is Dave Dale from London and I joined the Riley Motor Club in September 2017, shortly after I bought my 1964 1.5. After a few posts to get me started, lethargy set in and I have not posted since late 2017. My history of posting is lost because it seems that my forum account had vanished when I tried to log in today. In any case, I have now obtained a brand new account. I suppose that one of the reasons that I have been less than enthusiastic about the Riley forum is that my first love is my Bristol 403, which I have owned for 21 years. Although I have covered well over 100000 miles in the Bristol, I rarely use the car in the lunacy that is London traffic as there is no pleasure in battling the moderns in it - London drivers don't take prisoners. I bought my Riley for purely cold practical reasons. Firstly, I use the Riley as my daily driver and I fitted front disc brakes from the start, which is all that it needed. It now copes magnificently with everything that is thrown at it. The Riley lives outside my front door in all weathers and is ready to jump into at the drop of a hat.( The Bristol is a fragile car and has to be kept in a lock-up with 4 locks on each of front and back doors ( London, remember? ) and getting her out and warmed up takes 20 minutes ). The Riley paintwork is dull but the chromework is bright and the bodywork is rock solid and well protected. Secondly, although I also have a fairly modern car as a back up, the Riley was bought in anticipation to drive daily when the London ULEZ reaches almost to my doorstep in October next year. The Riley will, of course, be ULEZ exempt. Of course, I have grown to love my shabby Riley and I never tire of driving it. My stock answer to the heathens who ask why I bother with an old car like the Riley is this: If your wife asks you to go out in the car and buy a pint of milk, you regard it as a chore. If I have to go in the Riley to buy a pint of milk, I look upon the task as a pleasure and look forward to the next slightest excuse to go out in the Riley. There was one occasion when the owner of a new Mercedes told me that he couldn't understand what I saw in the Riley. I was about to reply when his friend ( and fellow flashy car owner ) told him that one of the headlights on the Riley had more character than his whole car! I finshed off by reminding him that, apart from costing him hundreds of pounds in tax, insurance and servicing, his car was probably losing £60 per week just standing on the driveway. Where is the sense in that? To be continued........ riley@davedale.co.uk.
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Post by canuck on Apr 14, 2020 18:26:44 GMT
Finally a thread with some activity. and as such I am in. Cheeky aside, my name is Bruce Hopgood and live in Montreal, Canada. I am a member of the RMC and each year at membership renewal time I do ask myself why. The only answer i can come up with I think, perhaps wrongly, that to preserve the marque there needs to be exposure. I can't help on that front in the UK, by driving about however I think by 'subscribing' to the club I hope my little bit helps in this direction. The jury is still out. I have a 1959 MK1 Riley one-point-five, 2 owner car, referred to as George, is dressed in Black and has a solid provenance, however no one famous owned it. Being the son of ex pat Brits, I was brought up on Austin and Standard cars with the odd Vauxhall thrown in. I was Dads garage urchin when cylinder head de-coke or oil change time came around. I guess these experience was the primary schooling to my mechanical knowledge. I have owned plethora Brit cars, AH big and small, Austin Mini, even a Triumph Herald, (another story there). I suppose that makes me an enthusiast and still own 2 other cars, a Jaguar XK120 and a MGB tourer. Since a kid I always thought the one-point-five was special. The wood, the leather and the 1.5 litre motor when everything else was less a liter made it unique. Approximately 10 years ago I was trolling the www looking for a MG Magnette ZA when I came across my car for sale. It was located in a garage, 2800 km's from me, hadn't been on the road for 25+ years but .... was complete, and remarkably original. Many emails later, a cross country round trip trek, I trailered the old girl home and the romance began. The 'old' forum,(one-point-five section) was very active then and I still recall many a discussion with some of the regulars from that time. I learned much about this little car from myriad exchanges. I have written and published articles for the Record although not recently. I was saddened when that 'old' forum was discarded. I remain in contact from afar with some of the chaps from that time that don't show up on the forums anymore. So; in my garage, the car is the catalyst that brings similar people together. After that relationships develop, or don't and life goes on. I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is short let's enjoy the ride. Bruce
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Post by Roger Holman on Apr 15, 2020 8:41:16 GMT
Bruce; Hello.
Your bit about being your Dads grease monkey reminds me of my first encounters with cars, of course, back in those days they were not considered 'classics', just second hand cars.
My Dads first car was a Wolsely 14, HXP 754, black (wern't they all?) which had been a Metropolitan Police car. One of the identifying features of these cars was that the 'Wolsely' badge had been removed from the boot lid for the fitment of a 'POLICE STOP' light box. When decommissioned, the light box was removed and two corks were pushed into the holes!
Anyway, the first winter of ownership it was decided that the car would benefit from a 'decoke'. The garage that Dad rented was half a mile down the road and having removed the 6 cylinder head, it was wheeled back to the house in my younger brothers push chair (Not sure what my Mum said about that). Once at home the head was stripped on the kitchen back step, as Dad used a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to depress the valve springs, my job, 'cause I had little fingers at that stage, was to qucickly fish out the valve collets before Dads 'grip' on the valve spring gave up.
Where was health and hindrance in those days. Child expoitation would be the title these days. Dind't put me off though, 65 years and 3 Rileys later, still up to my elbows in muck.
Roger
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cygnet61
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Post by cygnet61 on Apr 17, 2020 10:30:08 GMT
Hello to all from another 60+ new member! My name is Gordon and I live in south Cambs. I signed up on here recently when I became the keeper of a Riley 1.5. My father bought this car new in 1961 so I first travelled in it 59 years ago, probably just rolling around on the back seat waiting to be fired through the windscreen in the event of a head-on crash. My father kept the car for three years before passing it to his sister who kept it for about 40 years and drove it for only 10000 miles, taking the total to about 32000. When my aunt passed in 2004 the car had been unused for a while and had suffered a bit from being in a damp and leaking garage. There wasn’t anything we could with it at that time and ended up giving it to a friend of my sister’s who restores cars as a hobby. He had the car stored up for some years until he had finished another project and then got round to bringing it back to life. It was a complete strip down with the body on a rotisserie for repairs. Pretty much everything is original with only a few parts needing replacing and some rechroming and obviously a respray in original Yukon grey. Once done, he used it sparingly for a while including it being used for my nephew’s wedding so he could go to the church in his grandfather’s car. Having decided it was time to move on to the next project the restorer thought it would be good if the car came back to the family, so I bought it back. I wasn’t sure at first because I was looking to buy something completely different but now I have it I’m very pleased to have it back. Here it is when my father owned it.......... Here it is now.............
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cygnet61
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Post by cygnet61 on Apr 17, 2020 11:35:22 GMT
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Post by canuck on Apr 18, 2020 13:47:30 GMT
Gordon, That is one lovely looking MK2 . Bravo I am always jealous of you UK chaps and the high level of fettle your cars are to. This side of the pond I am pressed to get enough bits and information to keep George rolling along happily. I never seem to have enough time even with a long winter lay over. I must admit I am more 'performance' oriented than 'aesthetic' however I would love to have George shining as so many of the UK cars do. Salut Bruce
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cygnet61
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Post by cygnet61 on Apr 19, 2020 9:30:53 GMT
Gordon, That is one lovely looking MK2 . Bravo I am always jealous of you UK chaps and the high level of fettle your cars are to. This side of the pond I am pressed to get enough bits and information to keep George rolling along happily. I never seem to have enough time even with a long winter lay over. I must admit I am more 'performance' oriented than 'aesthetic' however I would love to have George shining as so many of the UK cars do. Salut Bruce Hello Bruce Thank you for your comments on the car. I can’t take any credit for it’s current condition as I was not the one who restored it, but I do remember spraying the underside with old engine oil about forty years ago so hopefully that made his job a bit easier. I do admit to being someone who enjoys cleaning cars and have been making the most of this lockdown period to get it as clean as I can - I even use a toothbrush for all the hard to reach areas! I’ve not had a chance to drive it yet but it runs well so I’m sure it will be just as it was when I last drove it about thirty years ago. I see that you were originally after a ZA, I had a great one a while back, again family owned, forty years old with only 15000 miles and purchased from the same garage as the Riley..... You do well to keep George on the road bearing in mind the difficulties you must face when trying to locate spare parts. Stay safe Regards Gordon
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Post by Roger Holman on Apr 28, 2020 19:46:51 GMT
Really! does an Administrator have a Duty of Care to protect us? From whom do we need protection? Surely to God, if we feel unable to share our name with other CLUB MEMBERS, (not the general public, please note), and any other personal details, that is our own individual choice, not the whim or opinion of any Administrator, whoever that may be. I would seriously have expected that the Duty of Care of the Administrator extended no further than safeguarding the interests of the Forum, and its use for illegal, immoral, or fattening, purposes. Yes, we are entitled to ur privacy, no doubt, or arguement about that, but why the hell do we have to hide behind pseudonyms and nicknames? are we scared that another club member might get to meet us, or even visit,(when allowed). I belong to a number of clubs, other than this, and I can honestly say that this is the only one which shelters behind a blanket of annonymity. Are we afraid of our shadows? Here endeth this evenings rant. Roger
P.S. I am sorry if this appears to run out of sequence. It is now 21.45 29.04.20. I posted the last response last night, 28.04.20, at about the same time. Had the intervening posts been visible I might have posted slighty differently
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