Oh, Lucky Jim
by Bob McDermott (published in the Isetta Gazette June 1982)
you know how some people have the Midas touch where everything they touch turns to money, and others have green fingers and all they touch grows green and healthy. Well, I'm sure that I am one of these, except that I have brown fingers. I suppose I've always had my lucky streak, certainly as far back as I can remember -
Then I got this Isetta.
Originally i had a company car, an ordinary one with a wheel at each corner. Due to a change in comapnies I had to turn in the car. My Dad had owned the Isetta originally, having had it for about two years and servicing it regularly. I'd always coveted it, so when he bought himself a minivan he offered it to me.
It was great, seemed a little low on power, but I assumed that was because I was used to a normal car, but then, one day, it stopped....DEAD!
Anyway, I rang my wife to have her bring my tool box out to me, but while she was on her way I discovered that their was no valve movement up and down, and it dawned on me that my bubble was rather sick. In the end it was the RAC who trailored it home. Have you ever tried to trailer an Isetta with a breakdown company? If it's not a normal car, or a Reliant, then they don't fit on the trailer, do they? After a considerable struggle we got it home, whereupon the RAC driver deposited it at the end of my drive, up which we had to push the car.
I dismantled the engine as far as I could but when I reached the point of removing the blower wheel I found that I needed an extractor tool that I didn't have.
Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to join this club, and rooting through an old newsletter found the name and address of Richard Jones, who lived quite close to me. I rang Richard for help.
It turned out that Richard was a lot more use than my small son who had managed to find more oil than I believed possible, and had taken on a new colour -
Anyway, with Richard's assistance we stripped the engine down to the timing chain case to find a neatly sealed off timing chain oil drip feed whipped off my the flailing timing chain, and that the pressure flapper valve had somehow disappeared. Then we found that the top ring of the piston had broken some time ago and had wrecked the piston and barrel, and I entered a period of depression where it seemed that before I repaired anything I had to repair something else else first. Apart from the ruined piston, the barrel was scored, the head was badly pitted, and the little end in the connecting rod which FELL out, and so it went on.
However, at long last, we began to reassemble the car again, and finally reached the point where the new tappets had to be adjusted. For some reason they wouldn't stay adjusted, and to make matters worse, I only leaned on Richard's Isetta for a couple of seconds, but then that wouldn't start either. In the end we sussed out that we had adjusted the tappets with the push rods on the lip of the followers instead of in the cups. Richard's car had somehow lost every bit of clearance in his tappets, and both valves were wide open, and I'd only briefly brushed against it, honest.
After a few more hours we were both mobile again, and celebrated with a trip around the block at midnight.
When I finally coaxed my wife into talking to me again we fixed up to visit Richard's home to see his film of Burford. Try as I might, however, I could not persuade her to come in the bubble. She followed behind in hernormal car.
I had not known such power, my wife had difficulty in keeping up with me. Well, that is, until she passed me quite easily 'cos it had stopped again.
When you normally run out of petrol, you put some more in, but for some reason I had got it into my head that it was tappet trouble again (re Richard's problem of the night before) and even when I found it wasn't I was still in trouble, I had stripped the thread on the stud holding the rocker covers on.
Well, a telephone call brought Richard along, and we pushed the car off of the road while we pondered what to do. It was a this point that I pushed the car over Richard's foot, but he was quite nice about it really.
A galoon of petrol and Richard holding the rocker covers on with his hands, and we finally arrived at Richard's home. He found a new stud, replaced the rocker covers, washed down all the white painted surfaces, and settled down to watch the film. By midnight it was time to go. Car started ok, but only as far as the bottom of the drive, where it conked out again and refused to start. I got out and leant on Richard's Dad's motorbike to have a good think (A mistake, I know, the back wheel was flat the next morning!) I finally decided that looking at the spark plug was a good idea.
It wasn't. Two hours later I finally finished rebuilding the cooling shroud around the engine having snapped the spark plug in two and then dropped both parts down into the fan. A new plug was sparking beautifully, but still the swine wouldn't start. It was about now that I went home in my wife's car as I had an exam the next day (eek! in 4 hours!)
My luck held true. On the way home I decided to call at my Father's to borrow his car for the exam, but in doing so had to move my sister's Mini first. I put the key in the lock and the whole thing came off in my hand.
The next evening we dashed over to Richard's to find the car fixed. Seemingly the brass fuel tap had been assembled wrongly so that when it was on, it was off, if you see what I mean. Then we found the sump fixing bolts were fingertight. This delighted me since we had found a problem before the whole engine had siezed. Perhaps my luck has changed. In fact, I'm convinced my luck has changed.
Editor's note:
Bob's luck didn't change. Between him writing this article and its publication (a matter of a month or so) the car had caught fire twice, the silencer had fallen off, and the transmssion chain oil had found a way into the back brakes so that the car crept with the handbrake on.