The misadventures of a fatbloke and 13/60 Herald named Poppy

[Fatbloke]

First let me introduce myself and my car. My real name is Mike. I’m a 46 year old (today) ex grass roots prop forward who is working successfully to turn all that 1st team muscle into fat. I’m a sales manager for an automotive wiring harness manufacturer supplying a well know Japanese car/bike manufacturer in Swindon, Turkey and Italy. Married to Anita with 2 daughters.



My car ownership CV is as follows.



Mike

Morris Marina 1.3
Red
UMW 534T
Owned

Vauxhall Viceroy 2.5
white
RLF 410W
Owned

Hyandai Stellar 1.6
Red
C442 HMR
Owned

Citroen BX 19 TZD
Black
H822 YMR
Owned

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.8TD
Burgundy
M569 MTF
Company car. (Chose from choice of Sierra or this)

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.8TD
Burgundy
N69 UDP
Company car. Replacement after writing above off

Vauxhall Vectra 1.9TD
Blue
T?
Company car. New Job. Chose. Left job after 6 months

Ford Mondeo 1.8
plum
P?
Company car. Inherited

Ford Mondeo 1.8
green
S?
Company car. Inherited

Alfa Romeo 156 2.0TS
very dark Blue
X802 TAV
Company car. Chose and loved it!

Triumph Herald 13/60 convertible
Red
TXC 44J
Owned and still own (obviously!)

Ford Mondeo 2.0 TD
Grey
BK51 FZY
Company car. Inherited

Honda Civic 1.6
Black
CP04 NWX
Company car. Chose from choice of any civic I wanted!

Honda Civic 2.2CTDi
Black
LD08 EEX
Company car. Chose from choice of any civic I wanted!

Honda Civic 2.2CTDi
Red
DE12 KPX
Company car. Chose from choice of any civic I wanted!



Anita

Mini 1000
Blue
KNT 734P
Owned

Mini 1000
Black
?S
Owned Rebuilt from above and one with a sound shell

Citroen BX 19 TZD
Black
H822 YMR
Owned inherited from me

Fiat Multipla 1.9 TDX
Silver
X? then M13 ALP
Owned

VW Touran 2.0TDi
Black
M12 ALP
Owned from new (2004)




My Spannering CV is as follows.



1985. 17 years old. My Dad made me “help” replace the engine in My Mum’s Talbot Horizon after I’d wrecked it in a flat out thrash coming back from a camping trip in Tenby.



Late 85. Bought my 1st car, a Marina, and learnt how to service it.



1986. Engine would lose all its oil if driven any distance over 55MPH decided to rebuild the engine. Well, watch my future father in law rebuild my engine. It still lost all its oil over 55MPH. so sold it and bought the viceroy for effortless motorway cruise to London to see my future Wife.



1988 Got a Job in Reading and commuted from Swindon. The Viceroy was too expensive to run so bought the Stellar. Also bought my future wife’s 1st Car (Mini) and learned to service them.



1990. Replaced gearbox on the Stellar as 5th was shot after all the motorway miles. This was done on the road outside our 2 bed terrace over a weekend as I needed to drive it to work on the Monday. (be impressed please. I was!!)



1992 Mini failed MOT in style. One of my Dad’s mates knew of a car with a sound shell but shot mechanically, so I acted as dogsbody to him and built one good car from the two bad ones. (God I hate flatting back!!) Gave it to my wife as a wedding present.



1993. Replaced gearbox again on the Stellar as 5th was shot after all the motorway miles. Car now done 210K! and only ever serviced engine which I think is really rather impressive, (and changed GB (Twice) not so impressive) but decided to buy my father in-law’s Citroen.



1995. Got my 1st company car and could now afford to pay someone to do any work on my wife’s cars. Sold the Mini and gave her the Citroen as she was expecting our 1st born. Moved to a house with a garage but promptly converted it into a downstairs loo and an office (I Know! What was I thinking??) and put my weapons of car destruction beyond use. (Hung up my spanners)



2001. I was in a very bad and stressful place at work and badly injured my knee playing rugby which ended my playing days (Well mostly). My Wife decided I needed a hobby and suggested I buy a classic car to help relieve the stress. And the rest, as they say, is History!!



Well, at my wife’s suggestion, images of shiny TR6’s and E-types came to mind but I soon realised that these were:-

A. Way beyond my budget.

B. Way beyond my Budget.

C. Way beyond my spanner skills.

D. Only had 2 seats. Which would be a problem as we now had 2 young daughters (6&3)(That’s their ages at the time, not their names.)



So, good sense prevailed for a change, and I started doing some research which involved endless hours looking wistfully through issues of Practical Classics, Classic car weekly etc.



I’d decided that it had to be a convertible and had to have 4 seats (and it had to be red!). It also had to be fully useable and not require restoration. Mercs and Stags came to mind but had to be dismissed for reasons A to C above.



PC then ran an article on “cheap convertibles for summer fun” which included a Herald and I was smitten!! PC said it was “as cool as a class a cucumber, really easy to work on with plenty of spares availability”. And, it was within my budget. It was ideal.



After reading various horror stories in PC, I was determined to do this properly and not rush out and by the 1st car I saw. So I got a copy of PC’s Buyers guide, Joined TSSC and got a copy of their buyers guide too, and then rushed out and bought the 1st car I saw!! Which was in Birmingham.



I lucked out though. She was in good condition having been restored in the early 90’s with photographic evidence and ran/drove really well. Although she hadn’t been used in “a year or so” the owner volunteered to put her through the MOT and carry out any work required. A deal was struck and I went back a week later to pick her up with the fresh MOT. I’d hired a trailer to bring her home as it was quite a long drive for her 1st time out and I didn't want my first experience of classic car ownership to be soured by breakdowns.



The Girls were waiting excitedly, and my wife not so excitedly, when I pulled up. We immediately drove her off the trailer opened the hood and all piled in for some top down classic motoring and all fell immediately and hopelessly in love with “Poppy” as the girls insisted on christening her.


Thus began our long and (mostly) happy relationship with “Poppy”



To be continued…if you haven't already lost the will to live!

[Topaz]

What a great story - many thanks for sharing that with us. The speed I type it would have taken all night to do that - my computer skills are about as good as my mechanical skills - non existent

Looking forward to part 2 . . . . . . . . . .

Mike (another one, perhaps not quite so big and 14 years older )

[zipgun]

So ,now you do arm wrestling? My legs are skinnier than your arms

[JPB]

Wow! You're only the second person I've encountered who owned a Hyundai Stellar, this is almost as epic a feat as owning a Talbot Tagora Diesel and using it to tow a Sprite Major to stationary engine rallies.

Any chance of an autograph please?


That is one very handsome Herald, by the way.

[kevin]

Lovely story, lovely car too.
looking forward to reading more about it

kev

[tractorman]

Wow! You're only the second person I've encountered who owned a Hyundai Stellar, this is almost as epic a feat as owning a Talbot Tagora Diesel and using it to tow a Sprite Major to stationary engine rallies.

Any chance of an autograph please?


That is one very handsome Herald, by the way.

If you're a prop forward, you can admit to owning a Stellar - who's daft enough to take the pith out of you???!!!

Nice story though; Mother's Herald was the same colour, though a hardtop. It was an old banger when she bought it and gave us plenty of "interesting" experiences! I specified Mother's car as the family car was an 'F' reg Mini Traveller that Father used a heck of a lot (as a vicar with three parishes in the days when vicars used to look after people and visit them). He sold the Mini (it was rotten too) and bought a Honda 175 - and did 14K in its first year!

Father swapped the last Minor for an early Herald 1200 in 1969 - it also gave us a lot of stories as it was the first car I legally drove on the road (ie I drove it on my 17th birthday). That only lasted a couple of years though (terminal rust) and we got a FB Victor with a very interesting clutch!

[Fatbloke]

Err yes. I guess the Stellar isn't exactly the car I am most proud of.

But in Mine and it's defence. it was the newest and lowest milage car within my budget which was important as it was going to be a high miles motorway hack.

OK, it was a bl**dy horrible drive but you got used to it with those sorts of milages. and like I say above it did over 200k mile in my ownership with nothing more than routine servicing and consumables.

I know I replaced the gearbox (twice) but I could have probably got away without doing so as only 5th was a problem. It still worked fine in 5th but the noise drove me up the wall. The cr4p stereo wasn't good enough to hide the noise either.

It was probably the most reliable car I ever had.

There was a Hyandai dealer in Swindon and they were quite popular here for a while. Most of the mini cabs around the town were Stellars.

However, this did mean that whenever I pulled up anywhere in the town, someone would get in the back a tell me where they wanted to go!

I have to admit that I was quite supprised it was the Stellar you picked on when there was a Fiat Multipla on the list too!

Hopefully, there will be more on the herald tonight...you have been warned!

[JPB]

I was quite supprised it was the Stellar you picked on when there was a Fiat Multipla on the list too!

Oh yes, so there is . I missed that one when I read the post first time around. I like those too because Fiat dared to be different, but always thought the Stellar especially awesome. On another forum that I visit from time to time, there's a member who has or had a Stellar, in fact he might be a member here too. Ray, are you out there?

[Fatbloke]

Poppy is a Triumph Herald 13/60 convertible built 23rd May 1970 but not registered until 9th March 1971, according to the heritage certificate. So she was 31 years old when I bought her.

She was bought new by Mrs Norah C. of Solihull from Archers Ltd, Shirley, Warks. she was then sold to Mrs Rosalind H. of Great Barr, Birmingham in May 1979 and then swapped between her and her husband Mr Reginald H a couple of times Making 4 previous owners on the V5. Before me but I like to think of it as just 2 really. It was this couple that had her restored in 1993. I bought her 21st July 2001.

After our “honeymoon” drive and a night’s sleep I decided that she ought to have a full service. 1 month later (I’d been enjoying driving her too much) I ordered the parts required and did the service. I quite enjoyed myself. I discovered that working on cars can be quite good fun when you aren’t up against a deadline because you need to drive the car to work!

During this month I’d also discovered that it is indeed great fun driving around in an old car with the roof down. Children point at you and other drivers wave or give the thumbs up. I discovered that you can’t go anywhere in a hurry. Partly because a Triumph Herald doesn’t really do “hurry”, but mostly because so many people want to stop and chat about how they learnt to drive in a Herald, had one those a while ago, didn’t see many of those around today etc. All rather nice, jolly, and sociable stuff. Of course there were also a very few who wanted to tell me how the Vitesse was a much better car, what a lot of low life Trotsky scum the BL workers were that built it and kn*bs in brand new BMW’s who considered it a personal affront that I was taking up the bit of road that they wanted and because I was in an old car assumed that I would be travelling very slowly, which I don’t! These people, I tried very hard not to biff on the nose.

I knew, that with an old car that there would always be a few jobs that needed to be done and I wasn’t disappointed. I noticed that she became slightly incontinent in the oil department and that the original foam padding in the front seats was disintegrating and redistributing itself around the somewhat tatty interior of the car.

So I immediately set about taking out the period radio to send it away to be converted to FM and have a headphone plug added so I could play a Discman through the radio too. This was done by The Vintage Wireless Company. They told me that the radio was a 1968 Motorola and actually older than my car. They also told me that the “below dash” console and speaker housing were also period and original dealer fittings for Triumph and other British cars and were really quite rare and valuable. Feeling smug about this, I fitted it all back in and now enjoyed playing period music on my period radio (Via my Discman) in its period housing in my period car. (I use an MP3 player now. I can move with the times!).

The seatbelts fitted in the rear by the previous owners were 3 point ones with the shoulder strap coming up from the wheel arch and over the top of the rear seat. Having lived with the car for a bit, this didn’t seem that safe to me. The back of the seats in the convertible don’t seem strong enough for this. I felt that if we were in an accident, the force of the passenger going forward in the belt would cause the belt to buckle/tear the back seat frame which would then impale said passenger as they went back again! As I was carrying my children in it I thought this would be bad so I had them changed to static lap belts which I deemed, in this instance, to be safer than the 3 point ones fitted. I also had the front original statics replace with new inertia belts…..and then had to fit extensions to these belts!

This was the time of the demise of leaded fuel in the UK. PC were banging on about the evils of using unleaded and how it would destroy our engines without the copious use of additives or going the whole hog and getting a full head conversion. It was whilst reading one of these articles of doom, that I realised that the unleaded conversion that the previous owner told me had already been done was in fact nothing more than a “magic tube” fitted into the fuel line that somehow “miraculously” converted unleaded fuel into safe fuel. So I went the whole hog and ordered a new unleaded head and got my local garage to fit it. I was still in my very stressful job working very long hours and travelling a lot so didn’t really have the time to do it myself and didn’t want to waste valuable driving time. That was my excuse and I stuck with it! (PC now seem to think it was all a storm in a float chamber and not to bother unless you’re doing high motorway mileage! Hmmmm!)

Over the next 2 years or so, we enjoyed visiting many car shows and driving around the countryside. I continued to do the routine maintenance myself but got professionals to replace the tatty carpets with a nice new moulded set. Replace the under dash mill boards with new Vitesse items (I liked the additional map pocket on them!). Had the steering column replaced as well as the front vertical links and trunions. Well no-one told me you were supposed to oil them! I also traced the oil incontinence to the gearbox. I topped it up and vowed that I would do something about it. So I bought a drip tray to protect our newly brick paved drive.

The one job I did do myself during this time was the hydraulic side of the clutch. The circlip in the end of the master cylinder broke meaning the link bar between the head of the pedal and the piston in the cylinder was flapping about. So I fitted a seal kit to the master cylinder, removed the gearbox tunnel and fitted new pipe and slave cylinder before bleeding it through from the dubious comfort of the half padded driver’s seat. All without any dramas at all….until my youngest daughter came out to watch and sat on the old (Cardboard?) gearbox tunnel. I thought it was rather cute and touching that she wanted to be with her Dad. She then decided she couldn’t really see, so stood on and then jumped up and down on the old tunnel which decided enough was enough and collapsed under her. This wasn’t quite so cute and touching, but I managed to resist saying bad words and ordered a new plastic tunnel and decided to replace the worn gear stick springs and bushes etc while the tunnel was off.

I also decided that being on my drive in all weathers wasn’t doing her any good even with a good outdoor car cover fitted. So I rented a lockup from the council a five minute walk from my house.



To be continued if anyone is still out there….

[Topaz]

To be continued if anyone is still out there….

I'm still here Not bored yet - in fact I don't think I ever will be reading about Poppy - thanks for Part 2 and looking forward to Part 3

Mike