Good Morning Thread - Come say good morning, tell us what you've got on today. :)

We have this thread on TilersForums.com and it's just been restarted because the old thread had 20,000 replies and 500,000 views. And there were 700 pages. Started to lag a bit on slow connections.

I think we had a bash of this before, but I can't find the thread, so thought I'd start another one off.

If you have time in the mornings, come post in the thread before you head off to work, let us know what you've got on and what the weather is like in your area etc. Anything at all is fine.

Posts and likes get counted towards your total stats in this thread.

So GOOOD MORNING PEOPLE - WEATHER IS NICE TODAY IN STOKE. I'M THANKFUL IT'S FRIDAY, HAD A RUBBISH WEEK. THANK GOD IT'S OVER.

View attachment 53708

 

[brianmoooore]

I tow a caravan and normally don't balance wheels but I'm rarely the one at the front of a queue.
There's a long downhill section when I'm nearly home, which has double white lines for miles. I keep it at 60 MPH, and, of course I do get quite a few cars build up behind, although I'm at the speed limit for them. This eventually opens up into a steep uphill section with an overtaking lane.
As I come into this, you see the whole lot behind you move into the RH lane as one, and it is at this point I drop down through the gears and floor the RH pedal.. If there's a reasonably powerful car at the front of the queue he may get past, but the usual scenario is for the lead car to get alongside me three quarters of the way up, then slowly begin to drop back as I'm still accelerating and he's reached terminal velocity uphill.
Totally immature and irresponsible, I know, but it's the way they all pull out to overtake en mass than provokes me, and I'm pi**ed off, because the holiday's nearly over.

 

[nicebutdim]

Mike may have opened a can of worms as there are caravan towers on both sides of this debate.

I'm not among their number

 

[Mike Johnson]

There is no debate, if you drive slowly enough you will not notice your wheels need balancing, but you may notice the deterioration in vehicle ride quality as your shock absorbers prematurely wear out.

 

[nicebutdim]

There is no debate, if you drive slowly enough you will not notice your wheels need balancing, but you may notice the deterioration in vehicle ride quality as your shock absorbers prematurely wear out.

Back when I fitted my own wheels, driving at low speeds wasn't something I did much of.

Vibration from an out of balance wheel can manifest itself at any speed, although tends to be most common in the 50-70mph range. If that vibration appears at 50mph, you won't notice it at 65mph, but it will return again at 100mph. Likewise vibration at 60mph will return again at 120mph. The physics involved is outside my area of expertise, but its effects are very clear.

 

[brianmoooore]

80MPH with caravan for hours on end, with no sign of vibration.

 

[nicebutdim]

80MPH with caravan for hours on end, with no sign of vibration.

Brings back memories of my childhood. Father driving flat out to catch the ferry and mother having a meltdown in the passenger seat, swearing it was the last holiday she'd go on.

 

[brianmoooore]

Father driving flat out to catch the ferry

Have a little story on that, as well.
On the way to Roscoff, years ago, my wife made a little navigational error, which cost us 45 minutes before I realised and got back on track.
I remember seeing a well loaded car on UK plates waiting to come out of a junction about 30 miles from Roscoff, as we passed through a small French town, and we reached the port just in time to tag on to the last of the traffic going through ticket/passport control into the inner holding area.
Well loaded car ends up in a lane almost beside us, driver gets out, walks over, and says "I've never seen a caravan driven as fast as that in my entire life". Those were the days.

 

[nicebutdim]

Looking back at some of his caravan antics, I have to credit my father with having balls of steel (that or being incredibly stupid).

 

[brianmoooore]

Another 'incident' of note was when action by French fishermen required that I moved from one port to another in a fairly short time.
Was alongside a large van up a hill, and when we came over the summit and started to go down, the turbulence from it set off the dreaded tail swing. The caravan really started to sway, and as I watched it in the mirrors, it was actually lifting each wheel way off of the ground in turn. The motorway was quite busy, but I suddenly found myself all alone - all the other traffic seemed to disappear, so I was able to use the full three carriageways to swerve across and eventually bring the speed down and get everything back under control. Once normal flight had resumed, traffic started passing again, and many were actually applauding as they passed.
Inside of the caravan was absolutely trashed, with cupboards, drawers and fridge all open with contents all over the floor.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Talking of tail swing, try a 30ft glider trailer on only two wheels, fun was had turning right at any junction, those that know what I am talking about will laugh.