29th July 2012
Christine and I had decided earlier in the year that we would attend a few events on Mainland Scotland during the show season and picked out a couple of events on consecutive weekends in the Grampian region. This allowed us to have some time visiting my Sister in Kincardine O'Neil during the week. The first was to be a visit to the Museum of Transport in Alford and the following weekend at Drum Castle for the JEC Grampian region's annual gathering.
I spent some time getting the Cabriolet ready for the trip and we were all loaded up and ready to go over on the Saturday ferry from Stromness to Scrabster. It was a beautiful day as we made our way down the A9 towards Inverness before heading out to Grantown for the lovely trip over to Tomintoul and by the Lecht Ski centre to pick up the North Deeside road to my Sisters place.
Along that stretch of the A939 Tomintoul road there are quite a few big dips where the whole car is forced down low on its suspension and I noticed occasionally there was a kind of 'zing' noise from under the car. Not a mud flap hitting the road but more of a thin metallic sound. The big heat shield came to mind and when we got my Sisters I removed it (not too easy without removing the exhaust system) This cured the problem for a good while but eventually a louder noise started which sounded suspiciously like the gearbox tail resting on the cross member. Not much we could do about it until we got home - must be that the big rubber doughnut mounting had failed.
Heat shield
Rear mount
GMT
bus pass into Aberdeen
Walking
Banchory show washout
Drum castle very wet and muddy through estate
clean car and more rain
heard my name
Best 80's Jag
next day off home with a rough noise as box was resting on x member