Marquire
Well-Known Member
Some of you may have read in the competition riders section of my weekend from hell which culminated in the gear box in my stupid lorry gouing CLUNK leaving me with no reverse.
Well on monday I phoned the man who looks after Freddy (the lorry's name LOL) and his tow truck is also kaput so he said I'd have to bring it over to him. Luckily it had dried up sufficently last night for me to do a HUGE U-turn in the field rather than reverse out using my now no-existing reverse gear. I still appeared to have 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th gears at this point so I decided to bite the bullet and drive it over to him, 15 miles away with OH following in the car.
All was going well until 5 minutes in when another CLUNK happened and I was reduced to 2nd and 3rd gear only. I was peeing my pants by this point in case it totally gave up the ghost. I got back into 3rd gear by some quirk of luck and had no choice bu to drive it the rest of the way (around 14 miles) in 3rd gear at a top speed of 25 mph. The roads to my repair man are of the country variety and after 10 minutes I had a tail back of around 20 cars, all very pissed off. I was too afraid to pull in to let them pass in case I couldn;t get it back in gear at all so I had to keep on crawling along still in 3rd. I was also too afraid to change down into 2nd whenever I had to make a turn and this just added to the general scariness of the drive. It ended up taking me 30 minutes to go 15 miles! By the time I reached my destination I had an adrenalin headache and my arms and shoulders were rigid from gripping onto the steering wheel.
I haven't heard form him today so I have no idea of Freddy's prognosis. Hopefully it's nothing too serious (i.e.expensive). My OH has now suggested I get a tractor since I like driving at the heady speed of sub-30mph followed by a queue of irrate motorists. I'm not sure my nerves could take it!
Marie
Well on monday I phoned the man who looks after Freddy (the lorry's name LOL) and his tow truck is also kaput so he said I'd have to bring it over to him. Luckily it had dried up sufficently last night for me to do a HUGE U-turn in the field rather than reverse out using my now no-existing reverse gear. I still appeared to have 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th gears at this point so I decided to bite the bullet and drive it over to him, 15 miles away with OH following in the car.
All was going well until 5 minutes in when another CLUNK happened and I was reduced to 2nd and 3rd gear only. I was peeing my pants by this point in case it totally gave up the ghost. I got back into 3rd gear by some quirk of luck and had no choice bu to drive it the rest of the way (around 14 miles) in 3rd gear at a top speed of 25 mph. The roads to my repair man are of the country variety and after 10 minutes I had a tail back of around 20 cars, all very pissed off. I was too afraid to pull in to let them pass in case I couldn;t get it back in gear at all so I had to keep on crawling along still in 3rd. I was also too afraid to change down into 2nd whenever I had to make a turn and this just added to the general scariness of the drive. It ended up taking me 30 minutes to go 15 miles! By the time I reached my destination I had an adrenalin headache and my arms and shoulders were rigid from gripping onto the steering wheel.
I haven't heard form him today so I have no idea of Freddy's prognosis. Hopefully it's nothing too serious (i.e.expensive). My OH has now suggested I get a tractor since I like driving at the heady speed of sub-30mph followed by a queue of irrate motorists. I'm not sure my nerves could take it!
Marie
