Tag Archives: a frame

Tuesday 12th August 2014 – YET ANOTHER TOW JOB

caliburn tow in Frod Transit A frame les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis time, we used the A frame.

For a change, I was up early and went down to Pionsat to pick up Simon. Then we set off for Riom. I dunno if anyone else has had issues at the Ford garage there but they aren’t half miserable. They weren’t able to fix Simon’s Transit and instead of being embarrassed about it, I found them to be nothing but surly and uncooperative. I struck them off my list of local garages ages ago, and I reckon that Simon has done now.

It took ages for me to work out how to use the A frame – it’s been something like 15 years since I last used it, and of course Simon’s Transit is a big, heavy vehicle – right on the legal limit of 2.5 tonnes on the A frame.

Anyway, eventually we sorted it out and off we set for Montlucon. I would have been much happier with the trailer or even the towing dolly but Simon’s van is far to heavy for both of them and well over the gross weight for Caliburn.

It was quite an interesting drive to Montlucon. It’s all up mountain and down gorge and along canyon, not like anywhere normal, and of course Caliburn only has a small engine so we didn’t get up to anything faster than 70kph, and then not very often at all.

With the weight, going up the steep hill was a struggle but coming downhill was even more exciting, with Simon’s Transit threatening to overrun Caliburn in places.

Not only that, it’s a busy main road and we had to pull over every couple of miles to let everyone past. So it took hours to do the journey.

But anyway, we made it safely (after a fashion) to Montlucon, to find that Barratts, the Ford main agent, was closed for lunch. Luckily, they had left the gate open to the yrd so we could get in there and drop off the van. I had to reverse the whole train right across the carpark so as to put Simon’s van into a parking space, and much to my surprise, it went straight in. That was astonishing, considering that with the A frame pivoting in all directions and no driver in Simon’s van of course, it usually goes off anywhere excpet where you need it to go when you are reversing it all.

Simon bought lunch, for which I was grateful, and then we went back to the garage to negotiate. I know the service manager there and we soon sorted things out, and then we went back to Pionsat.

Simon made a coffee and then I came home and made tea – another aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit.

I’m glad that it all went okay – I was having all kinds of ideas running aeound my head about the million and one ways that this could all go pear-shaped. Still, it’s all in a day’s work, isn’t it?

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Tuesday 15th June 2010 – Errrr ….

… well, yes!

The broyer arrived here comfortably on the back of the trailer. And the trailer looked extremely comfortable on its new tyres too.

So once we unloaded it, Terry set off back to pick up the tractor. And after a while, Terry turned up – riding the tractor, with the van and trailer nowhere in sight.

caravan chassis trailer folded up on A frame les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn fact, the trailer has folded up, as you can see.

There was clearly not enough ground clearance on the trailer and what it looks like is that as Terry has turned to go up a hill, the front end of the van has raised (as you would expect), the back end has gone down, and the jockey wheel on the trailer has grounded out.

And instead of the trailer riding up on the jockey wheel, the weight of the tractor on the trailer has kept the trailer flat and the A frame has given way instead. After all, there was probably well over a tonne of pressure on it at that precise moment.

Mind you, if there were to be a problem with the trailer, here would have been exactly where we expected it to be. It wasn’t as strong as it might have been and we did have to weld part of it as you may remember. And I have to say that our welding was fine and it probably held it together.

It was our intention to replace the A frame in early course and so it will just have to be in earlier course.

And of course there is nothing wrong with our theory about all of this. It’s the practical side that has let us down.

terry messenger mowing field tractor broyer virlet puy de dome franceAt least the tractor did actually arrive here and Terry did end up by mowing that field as planned so it wasn’t all in vain. We did what we set out to do, and that’s something.

The next question of course is “how does Terry get his tractor back home again?”. And that’s something that we can deal with without too many issues. Steps have already been taken in that respect as you will find out if you read on below.

caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceInside my barn is another caravan. It’s the one I lived in between 1998 and 2003 and the interior was trashed by rats when I was ill. But never mind the interior – the chassis is in much better condition than the other trailer, having been stored inside a barn for the last 12 years.

So once Terry went off to mow this field, I set about taking the caravan body off this chassis. You can see that I’m well-advanced here and I reckon I’ll have it finished and the trailer outside by tomorrow afternoon.

Next step of course will be to put the flooring and the tyres off the other trailer onto this one (so we won’t be wasting what we’ve already spent) and we can use that to get the tractor back to Terry’s.

It’s all good stuff and all of this isn’t half solving a lot of my space and storage issues. It’s an ill-wind indeed that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

But talking of ill winds and blowing, we were blown another depressing November day with another 25.5mm of rain. This weather is totally absurd. I’ve never known anything like it.

And in other exciting news, there’s a CREFAD (the organisation that gives encouragement and assistance to businesses in the Auvergne) meeting about eco-building and renewable energy taking place shortly, and I’ve been approached this evening to see if I would like to sit on the Panel. Is the Pope a Catholic?

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Wednesday 3rd March 2010 – I didn’t get as much done today …

old cars ford cortina mercedes 240d w123 les guis virlet puy de dome france… as I was planning to. First thing I did was to put the battery on charge for the Escort and while that was brewing away I carried on down in the field where my garden will be.

It was quite a reasonable day this morning and so I cracked on, and I managed to uncover the scrap Cortina and the W123 Merc. Of course, the Cortina will never go anywhere much under its own steam. It was built in 1980 and spent its entire working life on a salt mine and by the time it was scrapped in 1994 it was rotten in places that Cortinas don’t even have places. It was driven through the night from Middlewich to Brussels in 1995 and since then it’s been moved around Europe on a towing dolly or an A frame, finally coming to rest down my field in 2000.

old cars ford transit les guis virlet puy de dome franceIts purpose is the provide spare parts for XCL – the Cortina Mark V estate that was my pride and joy for many years and which is languishing in a lockup garage in Montaigut. XCL has many happy memories for me – that was the car in which I came over to Belgium from the UK in 1993 with all my worldy goods in the back and for a few years we drove for tens of thousands of trouble-free miles all over Europe.

The Merc on the other hand has another significant memory for me. I was stuck without a reliable car after the Senator and I parted company in 1997 and I had to go to the UK to pick up a caravan for down here (the one that I lived in and was trashed by rats). A lovely girl called Annette from Guyana or Trinidad or somewhere like that and worked in the Guyanan or Trinidad embassy in Brussels wanted to go to visit the UK for a while too on a kind-of conducted tour so a decent car was essential if I were to take her. So I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for something respectable and he produced the Merc. And I had a lovely week in the company of Annette all around the UK. She really was a lovely girl and I was quite upset when she was transferred back home to the Caribbean.

We had a torrential rainstorm this afternoon so I decided to take the towing dolly (which you can see in this photo with the Subaru that Ric and Julie gave me being towed by the old LDV back in 2001) round to Bill’s. He has an old car he needs to remove from off the public highway. I got round there and asked him when he planned to move the car, to which his response was “well we could do it now if you’re free“. No straps, no chains, no anything, but so what?

We winched the Rover on board and with nothing to hold it on I set off to turn round. First bump in the road the Rover bounced out of the wheel traps and the car’s towing eye wedged up against the dolly’s mounting bracket. So when we finally got everything into position where Bill wanted the Rover to be, I had to jack the car out of its position with a trolley jack, two axle stands and a huge pile of blocks of wood. And all the time it was teeming down with rain.

It was just like old times when I had my taxi business back in the 1980s, doing crazy things with old cars in torrential downpours. I was soaked to the skin and I took ages to dry out afterwards. I’m trying my best to get warm now before I go down with pleurisy or something.

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