119 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

  1. Well done. tris. AOY always brings back memories. Something for everyone this week.

    Pic 13: Who’s that man with the helmet on? Dixon, Dixon. Who’s that man with the helmet on? Dixon of Dock Green. I wonder where that song (or rather chant) came from? The actor was Jack Warner, of course.
    Pic 15: How they did recycling in the olden days.
    Pic 19: Some Like It Hot, in French. The last scenes, at the wooden beach hotel, ostensibly in Florida, were actually filmed in California, near San Diego. I once had tea on the veranda there, or did they call it a sun-deck?
    Pic 20: Happy Days. The Fonz.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Good I’m glad there were some fond memories in there.

      My granny loved Dixon of Dock Green.

      I bought a dvd for my mum a few years ago and watched it with her. Oh dear. It was terrible!! But so popular at the time.

      Like

  2. Pic 1 – The Anderston Bus Station, Glasgow – it was as bleak as it looks but Radio Clyde was in one of the nearby buildings. Pic 3 – Chanteuse Billie Holliday. Pic 5 – Not sure, possibly dame Flora Macleod? Pc 13 – Just an ordinary copper – Jack Warner as Dixon of Dock Green – “Evening, all.” Pic 17 – Affiche francaise pour “Some like it hot”. Pic 20 – American TV series -“Happy Days” – Henry Winkler, aka ‘The Fonz’ top left, subsequently famous film director, Ron Howard, bottom right.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The Fonz almost added a phrase to popular culture – “jumping the shark”, the scene which spelled the end of Happy Days. Haven’t seen it for some time.
      Also saw in Italy Winkler in a western series, as a travelling medicine man, whether native or imported I know not. Didn’t recognise him until the end credits.
      The audience track in Happy Days I found hilarious. Did any live audience scream with delight when a young man – who had served his country ! – shattered the family peace by demanding soda pop rather than milk at dinner ?
      PC Dixon – proof that for film and TV characters, there is life after death.
      The 0-6-0 in pic 2 has inside cylinders and a cab window reminiscent of NBR Maude, but the tall chimney and cowcatcher suggest somewhere totally different. But an NB loco company product ? Pure speculation.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I’ve never seen any of the “Happy Days” shows. Just looked them up. They sound like they might be fun.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days

        I think audience sounds on these shows are nothing to do with real audience reaction.

        I’m not sure what happened to Jack Warner after Dixon., but I think he was still playing the desk sergeant at around 80!

        Anyone have any idea what “jumping the shark” means?

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Is pic 5 not Margaret Rutherford? (Who incidentally was related to my auntie Bunty’s neighbour in Selkirk, who wasn’t from the town originally but moved there after selling up in Dorset. She was one of the first at that game in the Borders.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. One if the best audience soundtracks is the riotous laughter on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Worth listening to if you can bear Chris Tarrant.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. It was something the Fonz did/was to do/ tried to do. Have forgotten the details but the expression was used to suggest eg a show had simply become parody of itself.

          If Dixon had continued much longer, we would have had the first serving police officer, real or fictional, to receive the queen’s telegram while still in service….😉

          Liked by 2 people

            1. Video of scene on ebay, confirms my recollection of the meaning, an identifiable point at which a show was ” running on empty.” Though one comment queried why when Fonzie water skied up the ramp, Happy Days was a good show, it had become a bad show by the time he had landed. Compare perhaps Bobby (?) Ewing’s death in Dallas, which led then to it being all a dream and he came back again.

              Liked by 2 people

            2. I just saw that there’s a Wiki article on “Jump the Shark.” The odd thing is that it’s a term so often misused. People will often use it to describe a TV series that has gone on for a long time and has run out of ideas, as if the show is on its last legs and will soon be cancelled. That certainly didn’t apply to Happy Days and Fonzie’s jump the shark episode. That episode was at the beginning of the fifth season, and the show continued for that season and then the next six. There were more Happy Days episodes after Fonzie jumped the shark than before. The show changed a lot in its style though, as Henry Winkler’s Fonzie had become more and more the star, with Ron Howard taking a less prominent role. Howard left the show after season 7 to pursue his directing career.

              Anyway, “Jump the Shark” has become an American idiom, however much it’s misused.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

              Liked by 1 person

              1. The car enthusiast will like this one:

                Automotive journalist Dan Neil used the expression (Jumping the Shark) to describe the Mini Countryman, a much larger evolution of the previously small cars marketed by Mini. In March 2011, in a review titled “What Part of ‘Mini’ Did You Not Grasp, BMW?” Neil said the bigger car abandoned the company’s design ethos and that “with the Countryman, tiny sharks have been jumped”.[19]

                Liked by 1 person

    2. The notorious ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ was intended to take the people who lived in Anderston to a proposed shopping centre which was to be located adjacent to the bus station. However, the demolitions associated with the Motorway, Kingston Bridge and Expressway reduced the population of Anderston from in excess of 10 000 to under 1 000 and so, there was no population to support the planned shopping centre. So, it was cancelled. However, word did not get to the squad building the footbridge, and they continued to do so, until someone realised the bridge served no purpose. So, it was stopped a little over half way over. I know this, because, I was one of the building squad!!

      Liked by 2 people

    3. My only real memory of Anderston Bus Station was when we travelled south for the Model Rail Scotland show which was held in one of the units upstairs (in the days before it moved to the SECC). It was a rather wet, cold and otherwise dismal day

      Despite our group having been given permission to unload and park our coach there (it was from another Bus Group company), a rather officious inspector hurried up to the stance and muttered something along the lines of “Get oot ma ****** bus station, ye cannae park that ****** there”.

      In all fairness, if I had to work in that place day in, day out, I’d probably have been a bit miserable too!

      Liked by 1 person

        1. He saw sense when someone more senior called his bluff and we were able to disembark at the stance before our driver went to park up. At least we were able to get to the exhibition under cover rather than having to brave the wind tunnel that was Argyle Street that day!

          Liked by 1 person

    1. What’s a scuttle tank?

      I wonder if you used to always have to carry petrol in the days when there were so few petrol stations (like now), but tanks were smaller and cars used more per gallon?

      Like

      1. The scuttle is the bit where the windscreen sits – it’s the highest point of the bodywork, so optimum position for gravity feed of fuel (such a simple car; it doesn’t have a fuel pump). There’s a term relating to the flexibility of chassis-built cars, “scuttle shake”; this is how much the body moves in relation to the chassis when you’re hustling it along a bit. It doesn’t really matter that much, as everything important’s bolted to the chassis, but it can be distracting.
        As for carrying a fuel can; it makes sense when your car doesn’t have a fuel gauge or a reserve tap (like a bike). No motorways or dual carriageways back then, just roads between towns, so plenty petrol stations; for example, there used to be four petrol stations between the zoo and Haymarket in my lifetime – there are none now.
        If you were to drive into Edinburgh from Glasgow, along Princes St. and onto the old A1, you’d pass a petrol station at the bottom of Drumbrae and not encounter another at the roadside until Musselburgh.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Since yesterday, using Chrome browser, I have lines forming a box around the posted comments. But with Firefox, there’s no box. Anybody else seeing this?

    I still can’t see the comments on the drop-down from clicking the notification bell. I just get a rotating buffering symbol. Can anybody else get comments using the bell symbol? It was a convenient way to find and respond to comments, but it hasn’t worked for me in months.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “Anybody else seeing this?”
      yes.
      however right click in (either) margin and they go away…
      refresh (F5) and they come back…
      Such fun …..

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks Roddy. I just tried that. As you said……Such fun!

        For me, they also go away when I type a message in the dialog box, and then come back as soon as I post the message.

        But they don’t show up at all when I use the Firefox browser.

        WordPress is a never ending circus. 😉

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Jake……Different browsers seem to display differently. I don’t have the box enclosing the comments if I use Firefox, but I do have it with Chrome.

        On my screen the bell icon is in the far upper right corner of the WordPress screen. It has a red tag on it if someone has posted on a comment you’ve posted yourself. There was a time when it would drop down the comment and you could post a reply directly from there. Very useful if there’s many many messages to search through before you find the one you want to reply to. But posting from the notification bell hasn’t worked for me in months.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Ah, I was replying to you both, but still no joy on adding the info on the steam engine in reply to Cairnallochy. Maybe because I’m cutting and pasting from another doc and WP doesn’t approve. Let’s see if a completely keyed-in message works again.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. WordPress is forever changing things.

          Just last week, they removed the “caption” facility on pictures. Now you just have to type under them. Utter Pain!”

          Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes, Danny. I use Chrome on phone – where I first looked at today’s AOY while on
      a nocturnal prowl. Moving to desk, laptop, and Firefox everything looks as it used to. Except my replies are not appearing. Several goes at explaining the steam engine – in reply to Cairnallochy and again in the main reply box at the bottom. Let’s see if this has more success. If not, appeal to Munguin for help and reinstatement..

      Liked by 2 people

        1. Well I’ll be buggered. Keyed in messages work, but not a reply that I’ve written elsewhere to save the hassle of revising and making corrections here.
          Aagh! Wait and see if it eventually pops up somewhere. Trying to avoid being a just a copy typist…

          Liked by 2 people

      1. Et voila… (minus the diacritic)

        Preserved P3/3z steam engine 148 built in England in 1868 — an exhibit at the Bulgarian National Transport Museum. Another example of last week’s Buddicom. Why the name? William Buddicom was the designer along with Alexander Allan d of the Grand Junction Railway (GJR).

        The first of these GJR 2-2-2 locomotives, Columbine, was built in 1845 and is preserved at the Science Museum in London and carried GJR fleet number 49. It was withdrawn from service in 1902 by London & North Western Railways (successor to GJR) with LNWR number 1868. (Had to double-check that as it’s the same as the building year for the Bulgarian example.) The Bulgarian 148 must therefore have been a pretty early export sale as they were in production for 57 years.

        Like

        1. Thank you, Tris. Explaining to you when I send the photies has advantages. I was just thinking… new day, fresh start, will I have another go at posting the train info? You’ve now saved me from the the WP effect on BP (and I don’t mean the petrol people). I can calmly enjoy the rest of AOY and revisit SS
          on full screen after after phone inspection while on nocturnal prowl.

          Liked by 1 person

  4. #17: A very rare thing! An ugly picture of Marilyn Monroe! I wonder if they paid the artist for an ugly picture that looks nothing like her?

    #20: Tom Bosley later played Sheriff Amos Tupper of Cabot Cove, Maine, with Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote. Also played in the 1964 film “The World of Henry Orient”, also with Angela Lansbury.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. 16. is interesting. Obviously a pulled down statue of some once victorious general. The buttons and the top half of a sash indicate a time after armour was worn, and the left hand looks like it was used to grasp reins. An equestrian statue of the nineteenth century then? The clothing of the workmen don’t indicate a modern toppling of a Confederate general so…
    Perhaps a deposed leader of one of the many South American Juntas perhaps?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Conan……After you correctly identified #16 as an equestrian statue of the nineteenth century, I noticed the cap held between finger and thumb. I (and Google) immediately thought this was very likely the equestrian statue of Spanish general and politician Juan Prim y Prats, 1st Count of Reus, 1st Marquis of los Castillejos, 1st Viscount of Bruch, born 1814 and assassinated in 1870. His statue in Barcelona was pulled down by an anarchist group in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. The photograph of the statue clearly shows the cap in his hand.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Prim

      https://elmondereus.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/la-rambla-plim-de-barcelona/

      About the monument to General Prim:

      https://barcelonalowdown.com/monument-general-prim/

      Liked by 2 people

          1. Quite astonishing detection!

            I am one of the few folk that think that good human brains, yours for instance, and free data adds up to something far more interesting than either could achieve individually.

            It seems to me that we are entering a new age without even realising it.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. Douglas…..Imagine when we had to search a library for information. And still had no idea which book would hold some little known fact. An obscure fact which might or might not be indexed. 😉

              Liked by 2 people

              1. A pal and I were out walking a few years ago and we were talking about, for some reason, the order of the monarchs in GREAT Britain.

                We got a reasonable way back… William IV, I think (fair for two people who have no interest in monarchy) but we didn;t know who came before William.

                So out came the phones and soon all was revealed.

                We them wondered what we would have done 20 years ago. There we were in the wilds able to source what was basically an encyclopaedia.

                It would have involved a trip to the local library and, as you say, Danny, finding the book that would give ou that information, then sifting through it.

                What would have taken hours (journey, parking, walking, searching, noting and return journey) took less than 5 minutes.

                Liked by 2 people

              2. Danny,

                Which is what is ‘interesting’ about your post here.

                There is no ‘obvious’ library that is going to associate a broken statue with a historical personage. Perhaps there is a sub set of a sub set in a library that deals with photographs of smashed statues that links them to their real life personas. Perhaps the likeliest candidate would be:

                “I (and Google) immediately thought this was very likely the equestrian statue of Spanish general and politician Juan Prim y Prats, 1st Count of Reus, 1st Marquis of los Castillejos, 1st Viscount of Bruch, born 1814 and assassinated in 1870.”

                I am interested.

                How did you and Google arrive at that conclusion?

                It is not obvious to a mere v 1.0 human such as I.

                I find your insights fascinating

                Liked by 2 people

                1. Douglas…..If I’m trying to identify an obscure picture, I start with Google image search. I just click on Google…then Images……then I click on the camera icon in the search box. That opens a drag and drop box, and I drag the picture into it. Then the search shows the places where the picture is posted on the internet, and takes a stab at identifying the picture by name. This is what I got.:

                  https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=simg:CAQSgAIJktcDszss_10Aa9AELELCMpwgaOgo4CAQSFLgsyxLQNZwrvzfTCukOhDjaH6swGhouDosq1nIDnopU6TpzGr5J0RmJvi7XrsA3tiAFMAQMCxCOrv4IGgoKCAgBEgSzs8ETDAsQne3BCRqUAQoYCgVldmVudNqliPYDCwoJL20vMDgxcGtqChkKBmxpdHRlctqliPYDCwoJL20vMGd6cWdiCh8KDGNvbWJhdCBtZWRpY9qliPYDCwoJL20vMDVrbTE2CiEKDmNvbWJhdCB1bmlmb3Jt2qWI9gMLCgkvbS8wNXFiMnkKGQoGaW5qdXJ52qWI9gMLCgkvbS8wMmtoNHcM&sxsrf=ALeKk03lPTsmb8lRQiZ4fPpce_w-2BtSUg:1623502635709&q=event&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4uJDPkpLxAhXPHM0KHfP7BXIQ2A4oAXoECAEQMg&biw=853&bih=386&dpr=2.25

                  In this case, the Google try at name ID was “event”, which was meaningless; but I got hits on five copies of the picture with an internet link to each. The second one (a Spanish language article titled ” La Rambla Plim de Barcelona”) looked promising. I clicked on the link, and it came up showing the picture at the top of the article with the caption “L’estàtua de Prim a Barcelona. No s’espantin. La foto és del 1936.”

                  So I had the search words “statue” “Prim” and “Barcelona”, with the date “1936.” Then a Google word search using those three words yielded a bunch of hits, including an informative English language article, and a Wikipedia page which provided all the details on General Prim. Finally, a Google image word search on Prim and Barcelona provided lots and lots of pictures of the restored statue of General Prim in Barcelona.

                  Like I said…..Google is a wonder 😉

                  Liked by 3 people

                  1. WP eccentricity is back. First post appeared routinely and uneventfully. That was the brief one earlier. Assuming all was working fine again, I came up with a longer reply to Tris and the advantages of Google against the old method of trawling through reference books. Should have kept a copy elsewhere as it has not appeared so far. Unless it’s popped up somewher else. Definitely not going to try retyping the whole thing, so let’s see what happens to this one.

                    Liked by 2 people

                    1. John…..Your post above ^, beginning “WP eccentricity is back”, is now on my screen with a date and time stamp of 13 June 2021 at o7:10

                      I’ve just logged back on after a couple of hours, so it might have shown up anytime over the last couple of hours. Time here is now 1:32 AM Central Daylight Time USA, which is UTC-05:00.

                      Liked by 1 person

              3. Cataloguing books is a pain in the arse. I had to learn Library of Congress, because Andrew Carnegie gifted the City Fathers of Edinburgh many volumes of non-fiction on which were already stamped, in gold leaf on the spine, the LoC headings. So Edinburgh became LCSH instead of Dewey Decimal, one of only two libraries in the UK. But I’m sure it saved the cooncil some money…

                Liked by 3 people

                1. Andrew Carnegie was big on libraries. He is credited with endowing something like 2500 libraries across the USA.
                  I remember reading about a time years ago when the University of Missouri library was switching to LoC. I knew a professor who was there then who said it was a mess keeping the library going while cataloging something over 2 million print volumes I think he said.

                  Liked by 2 people

                    1. DonDon….I had no idea there was a Carnegie Hall outside of New York City. I was just a kid when I first heard the old joke. A tourist in New York asks a native New Yorker how to get to Carnegie Hall. “Practice….Practice…..Practice”

                      Perhaps that joke would even work in Scotland. 😉

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. Ha ha. Glasgow, I’d say.

                      Even experienced performers are a bit scared of Glasgow. If Glaswegians don’t like you, they pretty soon tell you.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. Danny, Andrew Carnegie’s home town is Dunfermline. It is hardly surprising that he gifted it a civic hall. There is a small museum dedicated to him as well.

                      Liked by 1 person

        1. Just out of curiosity, how many of us who are not Danny, instantly thought:

          “Conan……After you correctly identified #16 as an equestrian statue of the nineteenth century, I noticed the cap held between finger and thumb. I (and Google) immediately thought this was very likely the equestrian statue of Spanish general and politician Juan Prim y Prats, 1st Count of Reus, 1st Marquis of los Castillejos, 1st Viscount of Bruch, born 1814 and assassinated in 1870.”

          That is a breadth of knowledge that just astonishes me.

          Our good friend knows an astonishing amount about astrophysics too. My screen saver remains his astonishing Andromeda Galaxy as it would appear in the sky if it were bright enough.

          We are very lucky to have a genious in our midst.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Douglas……The crucial words are “(and Google)”…..LOL.
            It really is amazing what Google and Google image search can do. Even when image search doesn’t specifically identify an image by name, it sometimes finds other examples of the picture and you can click on the internet link. In this case it was a Spanish language website with the recognizable proper nouns “Barcelona” and “Prim”. Then you’re off and running, and Wiki supplies the details. 😉

            I do like that image of Andromeda myself. Too bad that the galaxy is only bright enough, in a very dark sky with the unaided eye, to see a faint smudge of light from the bright galactic center. If it were bright enough to see all the way out to the edge of the spiral arms, what a sight it would be.

            Liked by 3 people

            1. But that is sort of the point Danny! Whether you know it or not your own brain is being expanded by something external to you. And that is data coming from a source that is external to your brain. The point being that we have always experienced that, but it is becoming more dominant?

              Liked by 2 people

              1. Fantastic images Jake.
                I was captivated by the image posted on 11th June of the June 10th eclipse with what maybe geese doing a flyby. The skein is flapping sinusoidal along the length, much like the legs of a walking milliped. A coincidence or reinforcement for the works of Schauberger and Popp?
                Minus my input above it is still a captivating image.

                Liked by 1 person

          2. Library cataloguing manually is pretty labour intensive. The last library I worked in used to have twenty five staff on the books (giggle), plus loaned staff whenever there was an event. That was before computerisation and Google. It now has around ten (this was BC, Before Covid).

            Liked by 2 people

    2. Have to leave that to Dave, who sent it to me, Conan. My first supposition was an Eastern European, but I suppose that photograph would have been in colour given it was around 1990 that they started to be deposed..

      Liked by 1 person

  6. John’s notes on No 9.

    And this is the dining salon on the Royal Train of Tsar Boris III – restored and preserved and still running as a tourist attraction, the Crown Express. The Manifesto for the Declaration of Independence for Bulgaria was written by hand on this train back in 1908.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Pic. 14 Invest in an Austin brought to mind my unfortunate ownership of an Austin 1300 in the late 70s.

    I was involved in an accident that smashed my pride and joy Triumph 2.5PI into an uninsured Kawasaki 1000 that was overtaking on a blind bend. Both braking using 70s technology with the inevitable result. I would like to have given the biker a blooming well damn good telling off but of course didn’t as he had bounced off my windscreen and I could only sit staring forward, frozen with fear, scared to look in case he was dead. Luckily and to mine and no doubt his, great relief, he stirred, got up and appeared miraculously unhurt, the lucky, thieving, uninsured git. We really don’t appreciate ABS found as standard on modern cars until we need it. It just exists in the background ready to help pull us out of the brown stuff. Not so in 1978, you hammered on the brake and who knew where you’d end up.

    I found myself without transport to get to work and given the local bus services inability, utilising 3 buses to get me the required 15 miles on time in the morning, I was forced to buy a cheap car as a stop gap. This seemed like the only option because money was tight and my employer wasn’t very supportive. My beautiful maroon Triumph was a write off so I’d to wait until funds were released pending the usual lengthy insurance wrangle that often followed an accident in the 1970s.

    The car I got, to my eternal regret and through an act of total and complete idiocy at a local car auction, was a J reg Austin 1300. I got bored you see, because buying a car you know is temporary, that your never going to love is a tedious prospect when your an aspiring petrol head so I just bid on it and phase 2 of my ordeal commenced. It only had to last a couple of months after all, so it would work itself out. Surely?

    On the bright side the Austin 1300 is the best starting car I’ve ever had, and in that respect only, can anything positive be said about it. It was a complete bucket. It turned out the gearbox was knackered so I personally, over a few nights, replaced the engine and gearbox with one I’d bought second hand. My trials had only begun however because as luck would have it the gearbox was fine but the engine burned as much oil as petrol and the clutch slipped like a bugger. The facilities I’d borrowed were no longer available so taking the engine out again wasn’t an option and I was stuck with it as is. It was without a doubt the most miserable experience in my motoring life. Still, no matter how cold it got, it started no bother which may have been due to there being so little engine compression. Short, only absolutely necessary journeys became the order of the day.

    I know I’m probably being unfair as it was an old banger but misery tends to affect objectivity. The ad says that you invest in an Austin. Maybe, but your sanity as well? Surely that’s not part of the deal?

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Tris, I’ve long had an interest in graphic art and here on AOY you’ve put up 3 cracking examples from WW2 posters. I could make out (just) a signature – Gilroy – on pic 15. It had to be John Gilroy. Many will never have heard of him but most will have seen pictures of his famous “Guinness is good for you” posters.
    I was really taken with pic 12 – Shanks’ Pony. Love how the pony’s body is a shoe with the lace making the reins. A wee bit of research (Google) shows it was the work of Lewitt-Him, the partnership of 2 great graphic designers, Jan Le Witt and George Him.
    There were many versions of the “Dig for Victory” theme but pic 18 is unusual having been dome by a woman artist, Irene Mitchell.
    I love the inventiveness and sense of fun these posters and so many others like them displayed in what were very dark days. They must also have brought some welcome colour to the drab wartime streets.
    It’s a bit ironic that probably the best-known WW2 poster nowadays is “Keep Calm and Carry On”, which apart from its lack of colour, art or humour, was hardly used at the time.
    I suppose as I’m posting this that makes me a poster too – and not quite as vintage as these but not too far from it ! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The ‘paper’ figure struck me as an extension of the material – a newspaperman. Is that a Press card sticking out from the trilby, and a shorthand notebook in fist? The apparel certainly fits – hadn’t changed much from wartime to my earky days in the hackery trade.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Back in business, it seems. The previous comment on Google and reference books disappeared into the same WP black hole as yesterday’s attempts toreply to Cairnallochy on train origins.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. The overhead valve A series Austin engine was always known as an easy starter when fitted with the SU carburettor, a constant Depression device.
    The engine was designed as an inline with the gearbox system. the 1300 along with the Mini, Maxi and land crab were built onto the gearbox and final drive to make them front wheel drive so the oil that lubricated the engine also was the oil to lubricate the gearbox and final drive/
    Most gearboxes require an extreme pressure mineral oil to limit the gear tooth wear.
    Hard to believe that Datsun used the same engine but had a separate gearbox/final drive and they didn’t leak oil from either.
    Of course the current Mini is a BMW, say no more.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. There’s a little seal where the gearchange rod goes in that always leaks. It proves that there’s still oil in it.

      I had lots of Minis.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Dave – I remember trying to change the clutch on the Austin. I had the required puller and exerted as much force as it was capable of delivering while battering the casing with a mallet. I also in an act of desperation tried heating it up with a torch and it still wouldn’t come off. We were all flummoxed and pretty sure given the force exerted that we were missing some mechanical connection.

      Lacking the funds to consult a proper mechanic I just reassembled it and lived with the slipping clutch. It wasn’t all bad news though because when I finally kissed it bye bye I broke it for spares and made a small profit financially although it was scant compensation for the stress.

      BMC were crap. Ford held their price compared to Leyland for a reason which made them the smart buy in the 70s, even though I loved my Triumphs. Having learned my lesson I went on to have 2 Escorts, 2 Capris and 2 Fiestas with a holiday from Ford involving a Colt Sapporo somewhere in between during the 80s and early 90s. I loved my Capris. Once you got used to their tail happiness you could really plant them on the corners. Working on them was easy Peasy. Happy days.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. No.1. Cheap crap Brutalist “architecture” in the pissing west of Scotland rain – what joy.

    You didn’t have to be a soulless black hearted bastard to be a Glesga cooncil architect in the 1960s but it helped.

    Liked by 2 people

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Pride's Purge

an irreverent look at UK politics

ScienceSwitch

Exploring the Depths of Curiosity

Mark All My Words

Nature + Health

netbij.com

http://netbij.com

Chris Hallam's World View

Movies, politics, comedy and more...