One of my stories,and a question. On Saturday I delivered a restoration I had finished. It was a long wheel base box. It was last on the road in 1978, still sporting the original tax disc.It had been partially dismantled. The front off,wings and all and the engine "torn" out ,bits taken off if it and lost and all covered in saw dust., moved twice and finally I picked up from the corner of a big ware house.Any way I finally rebuilt it and with 30 miles on the clock I was to deliver it from worthing to near Guildford. I set off at just before 8am to drive the 60 miles or so to David's house. I set off in beautiful sun shine ,cold but perfect weather. I toddled along at just about 45 mph and thought great! this is vintage motoring at its best. As I approached guildford the Fog came down with a vengence, I ploughed on with headlights Blazing! in their 6 volt glory. the wipers had difficulty in clearing the smoogy gunge off the Screen. So I stopped and cleaned it with some towelling. It WILL lift ,I thought, the sun will "burn it off" no such luck ,it turned to freezing fog.I had to stop and scrape ice off the screen several times!Eventually I drove through it into lovely weather, but I was frozen despite being well togged up. Made the delivery and was thrilled when ther owner drove his car again after 27 years. The question :I think you can buy stuff to spray the screen to stop ice forming. Does any one have experience of a product?

Mac,
I've recently bought some CarPlan Night Before Pre-Icer, and it's quite expensive !
Tried it last night by spraying all the car windows in the hope it would stop all the early morning scraping, after all, that's what it says it should do. 'Just wipe off the frost with a squeegee.'
Well unless I did something wrong, it most certainly did not work like that - In fact it was a solid mass of ice across the windows that was even harder to remove than the usual frost.
Not sure if this is the product you're thinking of Mac but I'm afraid, for me, it wasn't successful.
Clive

There appears to be a number of products available, but they all assume you KNOW it's going to be icy the next morning. See http://www.seton.co.uk/perl/product.pl?productid=5307 or of course put a blanket over the car!

Problem is Mac set off before the ice had formed, so apart from having a 6v windscreen heater fitted with little rubber suckers, or some solution that reduces the external windscreen temperature well below that at which the ice is forming, let's say -20C, there seems to be little one can do. Looking at a couple of newsgroup web sites, all seemed to think the screen spray was a waste of money and some users had more difficulty getting the ice AND 'preventer' off than if it had just been ice.

I carry a spray bottle of deicer with me and another one of warm water, but again this is on the known fact I'm going into icy conditions, but then it has to be a real dilemma for me to travel in such conditions, so that only happens a couple of times a decade.

I hope your client Mac, showed his approval with some very warming nectar, from the Glens of course, and then you called out your trusty servant to convey you home. AND I hope you wore something warming under that lower attire you so beautifully graced the field at Cofton with.

A medal to Mac for delivering the car.

Naomi

What I mostly do is use the clothes peg I use to hold the choke and clip it to the rear edge of the bonnet to lift it just clear of the scuttle. Warmish (and sometimes oily) air then blows on the screen. Helps a bit. I keep meaning to make a collector for the back of the rad. plus some Mini air duct hose and a sort of plastic fishtail thing off a hoover to make it a bit more efficient, if you follow me, but I haven't yet!
Regards, Stuart

In the sixties, I used a match box to produce a similar effect. I also removed the fan belt to help matters.
Bryan

.

Going on from the 'remove the fanbelt' bit, some blanking to the radiator is also quite efficacious.

In fact I have found that, except on the very hottest days in hilly terrain, I can leave about the bottom third of the exposed core blanked all the year round. The Motormeter consistently runs no higher than half way up, which by other means I have established as around 85C. (about 185 old money)

I piece of talc (transparent celluloid) slipped in between the core and the shell hardly shows, and with no other fixing it can be removed in a few seconds if necessary.

I must rush out to the workshop and cut a piece at about half way up if this cold weather is to persist!

Mike

Hallo Mc
first of all gratulation for running this forum.
About your problem .
I use a converted 12 Volt Dynamo with 35Amp
Excellent light and no problems anymore in heavy traffic. alot more safer.
For frozen or fog I use a spray . I will send you an example for test.

All the best
Your old friend
Rolf Königer

Mac,

Just the thing has come up on Ebay, type in this number in the 'search' box :-

4596769079

Naomi

Any one been out in the snow? IN the car!

Yep!
Did the 3rd Winter Cévennes Rally down here with the RP last February. We had to take a different route after the Gendarmerie closed one of the high passes (over 1700m) due to the snow. Despite that we travelled over 40 miles in virgin snow at least 6-9" deep. The Austin made mincemeat out of it, although many moderns were having problems. Mine was fitted with a pair of Goodyear Grasshoppers on the driving wheels for good measure, but I don't think it would have mattered much if I'd left the Avons in place.

I typed in "wipers" and found this. I've not had a problem of ice on the windscreen, but your story does remind me of a journey from Hull to Stockport on a February morning in 1969, that was a Saturday. I set off at 7 o'clock and was soon following a wagon deciding not to overtake because there was 6" of snow in the offside lane. Wagons then were much slower than today and a standard RN would easily overtake most. At Goole, the East/West Yorkshire boundary the wagon turned into the council depot-it was the snow plough and I was confornted with 6" of almost virgin snow. I carried on over Woodhead and observed a east bound wagon struggling to ascend and thought this is going to be closed soon. The journey took an hour longer than the usual 3 hours I normally did it in but, and on arrival at home I couldn't get the car in the garage without first digging through a 4' snow drift. My Dad asked where I'd come from and when I said Hull he said all the roads over the Pennines and closed-not to a Seven. What I do recall about that trip was that after about half an hour it was quite warm in the car, an RN saloon, and visibility was the least of my problems. It was trying to keep on a straight course where a vehicle had already left wider tracks in the snow, either the nearside wheels went in the nearside track but if you left those the ofside wheels dropped in the ofside track, I couldn't steer down the middle. See the comment about tramlines. Those were the days Dave

Fog 'n Stuff ! in the middle of June and two weeks of glorious sunshine, are we off-topic?

Dave, I did have freezing rain early one morning, about 4am (it was a early morning, not a late night), and I had great difficulty in seeing the road ahead, it was on the old A1, although I think there were some parts already into M1 status. I seem to recall having to lean out of the drivers window to keep the road in sight.

This was part of a whimsy journey to Scotland from my home in Winchester in about 1964/5. There is a article in preperation for the Cornwall mag, but some facts are difficult to pin down time wise, compared with my memories. I did end up doing LeJog, but in a round about way.

Sandy

Hello Mac,
Having recently made contact with one of the previous owners of OY 6469 from the 1950's, he remembers making the his first trip in OY (from RAF Benson in Reading to Derby) during the Suez Crisis in 12" of snow. He says that there was no traffic on the road (surprise, surprise) but OY (RP Saloon) managed the trip without problem. I think our little cars (big hearts) out perform most vehicles in difficult conditions/terrain.
Eddie

Hallo Eddie, so OY had a long trip, about 150 miles from Reading to Derby, which admittedly in the snow is a long way, especially on the roads of the 50's, no bypasses etc, (or very few), then again little traffic either.

I'm glad to hear from my friends down there in Cornwall, OY is still doing long journeys each year, next week it's Longleat I believe for you, some 180 miles each way, lets hope there's no Snow, plenty of holdiday traffic though, and are you coming up to Scotland in July?

Naomi

Not fog, but I remember in about 1965 going from Winchester (home town/city) to Arbroath on a whim - same trip as previous posting, I now know it was a family funeral - in my A7 'Cee Gee' (CG 7241) and travelling over the Scottish border on the A68 (the Cheviots) the skies were black, thunder and lightning, and the 'Hills' were awesome, the roads deserted, bar a lorry I could occasionally see on the other side of the valley's.

Eventually Jedburgh was in the valley below and the sun was shining on it like a vision. When I stopped there, at a cafe, the owner was surprised I had made it as it seems some of the A68 was washed away, vehicles had been struck by lightning and several had become stuck in floods. I do recall it was heavy rain, but I seemed to have 'missed' all the other things.........(Some say my driving has not changed since then!).

Mind you I had been on the road since 4am and I think this was late afternoon. I got to Arbroath about 11pm.

Sandy

Hello Naomi,
Yes I suppose in the 1950's 150 miles was a longish trip, especially in snow, but little did OY realise that when relocated down into West Cornwall that long trips are the order of the day. Its a long way to anywhere from down ere boy.
We will be at Longleat next weekend (the Lord being willing). Will take the coast road (A39) to miss the snow and holiday traffic (hopefully) and traverse the northern county and across into foreign parts thro' South Molton/Wiveliscombe/Glastonbury etc. to Longleat. You are very nearly correct on mileage at 180 miles, more like 179.1285....
Will be in Scotland in July (a leisurely 5 days from Cornwall), hope to see you there in your short kilt, oop's sorry, skirt.
Eddie

A39, that's the 'Atlantic Highway' isn't it?

What a name, conjures up the likes of Californian Highways by the sea, St Tropaz, Monaco even, but reality kicks in on the North Cornwall/Devon A39.

It looks like everyone’s going to Longleat then, or at least all those that matter....... I heard a rumour that there may be a A7 Rally at Malvern the same weekend as the Classic Car Show and Autojumble in September next year (2007), now that sounds a good idea, perhaps the Association should host it, now there's a thought, facilities are good, camping good, local services are good, in fact a good idea all round.

BTW Eddie, Naomi in a (short) Kilt, now there's a thought or two - but it would take some to match the elegance of our Mac in a Kilt, even through the Fog 'n stuff !!!! which brings us full circle I believe - "Mornington Crescent" - Proper Job ther' boy.

Cedric