Manchester Meet-Up

LOL thanks bud. Afraid that one isn't long enough :(

I found the battery charger and the 2nd battery is now on charge. I mean, I shouldn't have any problems, but just incase I do, at least I've got a backup with me.

I just hope the 2nd battery isn't totally knackered (was taken from my old car and so hasn't been used since May).
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. I'll just have to keep the revs about 4000rpm to make sure the battery gets sufficient charge :p ;)

Braeden, I'll try and get down for 10:30. It took me about 10 minutes to get down today, so it's really no trouble. We could plan a way to destroy all the french cars too :D
 
HAHA!

Mark, as soon as a certain Don sees my spoiler, he'll go out and buy a good ol' british car :p Probably a damn sight cheaper than an old frenchie anyway :D
 
GT3, the Birch service station (labeled MOTO) between Junction 18 and 19 on the M62 Eastbound :)

cymatty, I know :p I gave Gilly your e-mail address as I was going out and so couldn't give him any details. Hope that was ok with you? :)
 
You guys better be up now :p Got a lot to do today.

The weather so far looks good, couple of raindrops on the car but it seems to be quite sunny now.

Anyway, I'll see you all in a couple of hours :)
 
Just got home now.

Absolutely awesome day. Had a brilliant laugh and joke with the guys, saw some lovely cars and did some great driving. The day wouldn't been complete without some problems though, and as always, I was the one to have them.

Set off this morning, got to the roundabout leading to the motorway and the car cut out (faulty coolant temp sensor). Got it going again and headed off to the service station. Got there just as thedazman had pulled up. Paradigm and a couple of others were already there but nowhere to be seen.

Firestar, Paul S and a couple of others turned up and we had a chat while waiting for the others. I went to start my car to show them the loose alternator belt, and what's this... it's dead! Luckily, I brought another battery with me, but it took me a while to get them swapped over by which time loads more people had turned up. Including some nice screeching of tyres from yours truly, Gilly :p

We had a chat for about 30 minutes while we looked at all the cars and took a few pics and then set off... that's when my car decided the coolant temp sensor would play silly buggers again. Gilly couldn't stop laughing, and his face when I finally got it going was priceless.

Got loads of pics and videos to post up later, and I'm sure someone will fill you in about the rest of the day.

All in all, today was great. Brilliant turnout for something that was organised in a week. Hope to do it again sometime :)
 
Great pictures guys, just about to post a couple of pics myself. Only got one of my car at the services, as I left it outside the 2nd meeting place and hitched a lift with cymatty due to the problems I was having. So, that's why it's not there in the shots posted.

However, glad to see I made it into at least one of the pics.

That junction where Daz locked up... that was really bad. It was basically just over a little brow and came out of nowhere. Even I had the misfortune of locking up, much to the dismay of a passing Land Rover.

I've got a pretty good video of the 'traffic light' grandprix where we all set off tyres screeching. I, like always, took things too far and left Paul behind me sat in a cloud of smoke... quite impressive actually.

Regarding the motorway turnoff and me crawling up the hard shoulder, I wondered why everyone had moved over into the left hand lane and proceeded to storm past them. When I realised the junction was coming up, I had to move over in front of Si and then noticed him indicating to turn off. I moved over onto the hard shoulder and waited for a gap (also got a couple of honks from Gillys horn as he passed - thanks :p). Cheers to Mark for letting me out :)

 




Oh, the snaking on the motorway was so cool to watch. All these little blue blobs darting around. The best bit of the meet was at the service station when we all set off. It went from a bit of laughing and talking to the roar of 10 cars firing up and revving... well, 10 when mine decided it would get going.

Alternator belt is now tensioned again. My dad had a bit of a play tonight, and he just moved the tensioner bracket on the underside of the alternator. Just think, if he had been able to do it sooner, I would have been able to join in the fun on the way to the 2nd meeting place.
 
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:eek: I didn't realise I was that small. Quite a good pic though, the group one. Glad I don't look like too much of a ****!

I love it how you can see the outline of my chest :D :cool:

Some awesome pics have been posted, and the cars look really good. Mark, nice one on getting the shots of Gilly driving off. And Barry Smalley, yep, the 205 was absolutely awesome! Very very nice car!

Braeden, didn't get much of a chance to talk to you, but the car looked really nice. Shame it's no longer yours.

Anyway, I'm just going out to see the girlfriend, so will edit and post the video when I get back. :)

edit... Oh, I got some footage of that crazy cow lady yelling at the jag :p
 
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Hey hey, welcome back Deadly! :)

I've just got back from my night out with the gf, so am going to get to work on the video editing right away. Got a few minutes of decent footage.

ROFL @ the burger remark... that was absolute comedy!

Gilly and Coco were absolute mad men (in a good way). It didn't take long before I lost sight of them. The only reason I knew where I was going was because I saw cymatty and Deadly in the distance. I don't think they had the balls to keep up with the two Clio's.

I also found out that the Saxo VTR is a very understated car. Top notch handling, good performance... made my Rover feel like the grandad mobile it is :(

cymatty, don't mention it mate. You put in a lot of effort too, all I did was create the thread with a couple of details. You did the rest. It was indeed a great meet, and I too would like to see it repeated in future.

And yep, cheers Trickle for paying at the pub. I was short of a quid, so I owe you a pint at the next meet (same to you Firestar and cymatty who bought me both a drink - top guys). Lovely car btw!
 
I think Mark tried ringing you early on andi, but said you didn't answer. That would be why :(

Not bad roads are they... I've got some nice footage of the main straight where Deadly just boots the Pug. When I took my car out on the first loop, I overtook Daz down there and then locked the wheels when I came to that junction just over the brow. Did that catch you out?

Would be good to have you at the next one. I'm sure it won't be too far in the future. I'll hopefully have the car all fixed by then :p
 
Hmmm, perhaps Paradigm phoned you then? No idea.

andi, I can't remember how the route went, but yeah I think you're on the right tracks with that junction. There's a sign for it, but you just don't expect it to be there so soon.

Anyway, video is done. It's not very good but does show some highlights of the day. Shame no one caught Coco's "burger" statement on camera... that would have been good. It's a 19mb file, and so, can anyone host it for me? Cheers :)

Daz, yeah, we all saw your tyre marks ;) I locked up there too. Was quite scary. I'm quite impressed at how my car handles though. For a mini-barge, when the tyres are upto temperature it does keep on gripping. At the S bend over the bridge, I knocked it down to 2nd gear and was doing about 30 around there, then floored it and went into the other S bend at full pelt! Awesome. I also took a few corners pretty quickly, on the wrong side of the road and go into the corner wide... awesome stuff! Really enjoyed it. Would have been better if I hadn't had to worry about the car though :(

edit... video is now uploading to temporary webspace. Could do with someone to host it for me though, please. The video can be found here. It is uploading at the moment though, so won't be available for another 20 minutes or so.
 
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Video is up now for anyone who's interested.

Sorry it took so long :)

Oh, I just realised I spent "staring" wrong... sorry about that. Thanks to westy for pointing it out.
 
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Superb stuff paradigm! You've captured every single detail in your story, brilliant!

ROFL @ the barmaid walking past. It all started when Gilly decided to watch her go past, unaware that the rest of the table had their eyes on him.

Looking forward to the final part.
 
I'll just add a little more to paradigm's story about when the few remaining people got back to the 2nd pub.

As has already been mentioned, there were several delights on the roads (lots of bikes, and quite a couple of kit cars - 4 in fact) which roared past us and made us grin. Then, of course, we've got the not so delightful cars... a Rover 200 with limo tints driven by a blondie, a Peugeot 106, which when it came into view had some awful music playing. As it drove past, a couple of us pointed out the hideous Lexus lights to which we all had a good chuckle at.

As for my dying car, the alternator belt was very slack since the tensioner bolt decided to give way when I went down to the services on the Saturday. I charged up a second battery on the Saturday night as a precaution and took it with me when I left the house on Sunday. Got out of my estate and set off towards a roundabout which contained the motorway turn off. I got to the roundabout and put my foot down when the car died.

For a couple of weeks, my car has suffered from starting/stalling problems and I've recently realised it's all down to the coolant temperature sensor. The sensor is reading the engines' temperature incorrectly and thus flooding it with petrol to compensate for the low temperature, hence the stalling. After looking quite bewildered with what had just happened, and several repeated attempts to start the car, I got it going and was on my way again. I set off down the M62 and got to the services some 10 minutes later.

Pulled into the services and started chatting to the guys. Mark turned up and I proceeded to tell him about the slack alternator belt. I opened the bonnet to which several members had a good old poke about, when I decided I would start up the engine to show them what it was like. What's this... click click click click. There wasn't enough power in the battery to get the starter going :eek:

I got into a slight panic and was so lucky that I had brought the second battery with me. The best bit was trying to get the bolts undone that held the battery down. In the time it took me to get the battery swapped, cymatty and Coco had both turned up and they all had a good laugh at my expense as I swore and cursed my british built car.

Never again will I slate french cars, when for a good percentage of the meet, I couldn't even get mine going. :(

I'm glad to say that all is now good. I went and picked up a new tensioner bolt today and fitted it tonight. I'm hoping to replace the coolant temp sensor tomorrow and then all should be fine. Just need to get the water pump and cambelt replaced before the RR, and I'll be good to attend any further meets.

Looking forward to the MM2, as the first one was an absolute success. My thanks go to everyone who turned up :)
 
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The camera mount was ingenious, even if it didn't work out the way it was hoped.

Downloading the video now Mark :) Was getting 80kb/s+ but had to limit it to 40kb/s due to my dad playing CS:S and complaining :(

Oh, I've been sorting through my pics and will post some new ones up soon... gotta keep this thread alive for a couple more days.
 
Right, that video was just very cool! Nice bit of driving, and the first bit of footage was brilliant. Glad you got some of Gilly in his hat, I just have this picture as he was taking it off...

gillyhat7wd.jpg


Then he decided to play it cool and do this...

people2np.jpg


Nice to see that I made it onto the video too :p What the hell was I doing?!?!
 
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