eventful journey home today - long.

Italian electrics.

Yes you can **** off, you know exactly what was meant.

 

<Puzzled>

I remember jumping my Spada from a car, once. No worries.

 

Yes, yes, the word is jump the meaning is bump.

Anyway, this Sharma Tri-ang in your loft better be good.

 

Good boots and a set of strong calf muscles.

 

The early GL1000s did actually come with a kick-start, which was
located under the seat and took about ten minutes to fit. But they did
work sith surprisingly little effort. Multi-cylinder engines,
especially ones with low compression ratios, are surprisingly easy to
turn over. I'd imagine the 1500cc six should be about as easy to start
as the 1000cc four was.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

Sounds like the receipe for starting the Moggie 1000 using the starter
handle.

Phil

 

....are always so reliable, according to you.

<happy dance>

 

"no less reliable than a similarly aged Japanese machine's electrics"

 

Alternator: Bosch
Voltage reg: Bosch
Rectifier: Bosch
Starter motor: Bosch

etc

 

"the electrics appear to have been assembled by handicapped children
in a UNICEF hostel"

 

I remember that - DoE, yes? - but I can't recall the context.

 

It was Alan Clark's column in Classic Cars magazine, while talking
about Italian cars: "most of them are rubbish".

 

Wish mine bloody was.

Ducati alternator & reg/rec.

Unreliable expensive shite.

 

Right, yes, now I remember. Also in 'Backfire', which has gotten slung into
the re-read stack.

 

The full paragraph is:
"Don't get me wrong. I am not an uncritical fan of all that is
Italian. Most of their cars (and that includes most Ferraris) are
rubbish. They won't start on a wet day and 'skid' on shiny surfaces.
Their electrical systems appear to have been assembled by handicapped
children in a UNICEF hostel. However, when the Italians get it right
- Lancias Aprilia and Aurelia GT, the Ferarris 166, 340, 410 (racing
versions) and the roadgoing 275GTB4 - they are, in their particular
ways, the most incredible machines ever built. And somehow, although
I find practically every other Fiat loathsome, the 'baby' ones are
divine."


A favourite passage is:


"Speed, speed, glorious speed... No other sensation (or only one)
compares. It is in the nature of all warm-blooded creatures to enjoy
movement; dogs and children, content if not somnolent while a car is
moving, get fretful and fidgety when it's still. But it's when one
starts to taste the spice of danger that it becomes intoxicating.

Now it has to be said that speed kills. Broadly, the higher the
speed, the lower the chances of survival if things go wrong. One of
the most disagreeable features of VHSAs (Very High Speed Accidents) is
that they go on and on for such a long time. The giant, molten
skidmark; the spin; the shunt; the sideswipe; the somersault; the
roll... If you are doing over 120mph when things go wrong you can
suffer all of these in succession while praying that friction and
fracture don't bring about ignition. I remember Peter Riley, who
suffered a bad spinal injury in the 1962 Liege-Rome-Liege event when
his Austin-Healey 3000 went through a /lacet/ halfway down the
Stelvio, saying that the really nasty bits were the /silences/, when
the vehicle was in the air."