THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

I simply ask myself 'Which does most damage in the world?' I rest my case.....
I'm with Ken, who causes most trouble, garlic eaters or the crowd outside Yates' Wine bar at closing time?

[Tripps]

There was no crowd outside Yates Wine Lodge at closing time. They cunningly avoided that by shutting half an hour before other pubs, so their clients hastened elsewhere for the last half hour. Certainly happened in Rochdale.

Remember when pubs shut at 10.30 pm, and 10.00 pm on Sundays? Another world.

[Stanley]

Here in Barlick I have an idea we closed earlier on Sundays than Lancashire and there was a dash across the border late on Sunday night to Foulridge. Hot Breath had a large American car with a Perkins diesel in it and he regularly ran a boozers service on Sunday nights.
Another old memory banging about in my head. I think it was the Traveller's Rest at Foulridge that was monstered as 'the worst pub in England' once.

[Big Kev]

I think it was the Traveller's Rest at Foulridge that was monstered as 'the worst pub in England' once.

Whereabouts was the Traveller's Rest? I can't find it listed in the History of Foulridge book...

[Marilyn]

I simply ask myself 'Which does most damage in the world?' I rest my case.....
I'm with Ken, who causes most trouble, garlic eaters or the crowd outside Yates' Wine bar at closing time?

What makes you think the crowd outside the wine bar aren’t garlic eaters as well? I suspect they may well be ( my son always seemed to find a Garlic Yiros to eat on his way home from the pub late at night. Phew! He stunk!). His room stunk to high heaven in the mornings and when I complained he would chase me round the house for a cuddle so he could breathe in my face, and I would beg him to have a shower and use plenty of soap. Then I would wash his bedding and air his room.
Apart from that, he was a nice boy.
We laugh about it now...

[noyna]

Stanley wrote: ↑04 Aug 2020, 02:26
I think it was the Traveller's Rest at Foulridge that was monstered as 'the worst pub in England' once.

It was the Hare & Hounds - The Sun headline was "Britains Grottiest Boozer"

[Stanley]

You're right Noyna, the Hare and Hounds. God knows where the Traveller's Rest came from. Senior moment I Guess.....
Anyone remember Flares? 70s reincarnation of the 1920s Oxford Bags. In the 1930s, for men it was baggy Plus Fours.....



Works trip to Llangollen in 1931.

[plaques]

I always associate the Traveller's Rest with the pub on the A59 Skipton Rd towards Harrogate, its now called 'The Old Spring Well' but after 60 years of travelling this road its still the Traveller's Rest.

[Stanley]

I used to pick milk up up in that area from a pub/farm run by a bloke called Hundsdorfer, was that the Traveller's Rest or the Craven Heifer?

[Stanley]

Can you remember the days when garages gave away free, very inferior glasses? No matter how good people's taste in other matters everyone had some in their kitchen cupboards.
They used to give maps away as well. In my days of tramping I had a bunch of them in the cab and they were my go-to Satnav. (Couldn't afford to buy a road atlas, that came later!) They never let me down!

[Tripps]

You can still get the sixpenny Esso maps on eBay. Esso road map

Satnav what's that?

[Stanley]

During a soap shortage just after the war me and my mate Dennis decided to make some soap to help our mothers out. We got hold of some old chip pan fat and caustic soda and boiled it up. To our surprise it worked and we finished up with some very convincing blocks. We put them on the painted window cill in his outside toilet but when we went back to them and lifted them off the cill the paint came with them. We decided not to tell anyone about it and buried the 'soap' in the garden.

[Tizer]

That's why soap manufacturers are very careful to use exactly the necessary amount of caustic soda to do the job and no more. Residual caustic soda would be rather unpleasant and it's good you didn't try washing yourselves with it!

[Stanley]

We had enough sense not to Peter!
I loved the old forgotten brands of soap. Dr Lovelace's White Windsor was good and when I was open all hours I used to sell blanket soap which was a liquid soap in a large tin that had flecks of camphor floating in the gel. That was in the days when wool blankets were washed once a year.
I have a two volume 'History of Unilever' by Charles Wilson and that's a good read on soaps and margarine. Covers the sources of the oils and that included whaling. Surprising how many of the oils were interchangeable between the soap and margarine production lines which at Warrington were in the same factory. I delivered Best Scotch Number One Pale Skin oil there from a rendering plant in Paisley once and was told that it could go into either process. It put me off margarine for life!

[Stanley]

'Beware the banks are out to get you' this morning reminded me of something from the early days... In those days like many others in the same position we had monthly typewritten bank accounts by letter. If you were in credit the ink was black and if in debit it was red. Over many years we got used to the red ink but took comfort from the fact that the total was slowly diminishing. How many of you remember that? (It was the origin of the phrase 'In the Red' for debt.)
I once heard a story about a Dales Farmer and his Skipton banks account and I half believe it was true. An old Dales farmer had been 'in the red' all his life but as conditions improved he slowly gained ground like us and eventually got into credit, his monthly statement was black. According to the story he called in at the bank one Tuesday market day and asked to see the manager. He asked why the colour of the ink had changed and the manager explained to him the good news he was at last in credit. The farmer said that this was all right but he wanted one thing clearly understood, if they thought he was going to call in every week and ask how the bank was going on like they had done with him all those years they were mistaken, he was far too busy!

[Stanley]

The lightning reminded me of the danger of a sooty flue acting as a conductor and that led me on the the strategies my mother used to use to keep our chimney clean in the days when an open coal fire was standard, Her favourite method was to 'sweel' the chimney by sending burning sheets of newspaper up the flue on the draught. Occasionally she would throw a Little Imp on to the fire when it was burning brightly. I don't know if they worked but can never remember us having the sweep.
I see that the advent of wood burning stoves has triggered a new generation of 'soot destroyers', some things don't change.

[Stanley]

Once, in the early days of my Morso stove I had a knock on the door and a lady told me my chimney was on fore. She was right, it wasn't half puthering! I had forgotten to close the air supply down after lighting the stove and it was red hot and was evidently burning the deposits out of the flue. I shut it down and cured it.
This wasn't possible with the old open coal fires and chimney fires were quite common. Funny thing is they always seemed to coincide with washing being out on the clothes lines and the perpetrator was in bad odour for a day or two as flecks of burning soot drifted down and spoiled the washing! In really bad cases the fire brigade had to be called and that led to a hell of a mess in the house. Cracked chimney pots were often a result.
I haven't seen a chimney fire for years.... (This has turned into a forgotten corner, sorry about that!)

[Stanley]

Once of a day the essential repair kit for engine faults carried by the keen motorist was a roll of insulating tape an adjustable spanner a pair of pliers and perhaps a fan belt. Today you need a laptop and a degree in computer technology. Why do people always need more bells and whistles?

[Big Kev]

I have a bluetooth OBD (onboard diagnostics) gizmo that reads fault codes and live data from the ECU, this is displayed in an app on my phone. Certainly worth the £4 I paid for it as I was able to give the garage the relevant fault codes, and the circumstances in which they occurred, which speeded up the search for the vacuum leak that was causing the issue.

For anyone interested, the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve has a water cooler for the gases it returns to the inlet manifold. This cooler has two routes for the hot gases to take, through the cooler (once the engine has warmed up) or bypass the cooler (to assist with a faster warm up), the cooler can take between 500 to 1000 degrees out of the gases. The valve that directs these gases is operated by a vacuum actuator and the ECU controls when a vacuum is applied. On my car the diaphragm, in the actuator, has failed so that's where the vacuum leak is. The knock on effect of this is the variable vane control actuator, for the turbo, is in the same vacuum 'circuit' so when the ECU tries to send EGR gases through the cooler, the turbo actuator loses vac and creates a 'low boost pressure' error. This puts the engine into limp mode.

The cooler actuator diaphragm is not available as a stand alone part, I would need to buy a complete EGR cooler/EGR valve kit for around £600, there's also around 5 hours labour to change it.

Screenshot_20200813-080849_Chrome.jpg

The old fashioned quick fix was to plug the end of the vac hose, this has resolved the low boost pressure issue but does still leave the cooler actuator in the 'bypass' position. Fortunately the cooler is not hooked up to the engine diagnostics. The longer term potential issue with this is the uncooled gases, returning to the inlet manifold, could damage the turbo. The plan is to pull the actuator arm, to move the valve to 'cooling' and clamp it in that position.

Are you still paying attention at the back?

Gone are the days of just undoing a few bolts or giving it a clump with a leather mallet unfortunately...

[PanBiker]

I blame F1.

[Big Kev]

I blame F1.

[Tizer]

Are you still paying attention at the back?

zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz

[Cathy]

I can remember in the 90’s, I used to drive a Galant station-wagon, it was a bit temperamental first thing in the morning when trying to start it to take my child to school . Many a time I was sat in the drivers seat, rocking the car front to back so that it would start. How I knew to do that, I’ve no idea, but it would work a treat.
Coming home after school pick-up, getting caught on a red light , sat watching the temperature gauge rising and rising is another story.

[Big Kev]

Are you still paying attention at the back?

zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz

[Stanley]

I followed it Kev and it's a good example of what I was saying. All those added complications for some tiny improvement in performance or possibly to help meet some emissions target.
Mick's Rav4 is another example. It stopped running on a wet day in January and then it took over six months for the garage and Toyota to decide they didn't know why. Even a new engine and drive train didn't cure it. That plus Covid kept it in the garage and Mick drove round in a new Aygo. Mick thinks it would have been cheaper for them to give him a new vehicle, I suspect he's right, the figures quoted for replacements were mid boggling, replacement parts alone came to over £20,000. He has it back and now the AC compressor has failed. In the old days we called them 'Friday Cars'.
In the word's of Ernie's granddad; "Daft I call it". (If you know where that quote comes from you are as old as I am!)