Alan & Evi

Hi folks, Sorry to to have kept in touch. It's actually been a really bad year for us both. Evi's mum, who we were both very close to, died earlier this year from cancer. I lost my job, and although I was eventually able to find another job, I was unemployed for several months, the job I now have is only seasonal, and I've taken a massive income cut. The job market really is as tough as they say! On top of all this, our lovely baby has put itself off the road, and needs the engine pulling out - work in progress. Unfortunately, I forgot about the TLF Christmas party last year, but we are really looking forward to meeting our old Lotus loving friends again next Saturday. Can you please put us down for 2 meals, as follows:- 1 x Pate and marmalade 1 x Avocado prawn cocktail 2 x Roast Turkey traditional Christmas dinner 1 x Christmas Pudding 1 x Chocolate Fudge Cake See you all soon. Alan and Evi. 1. MJK 2. Avril 3. Bibs | Soup, Turkey, Xmas pudding (xtra brandy pls!) 4. Laura 5. Kim : French Onion Soup, Beef Bourguignon, Toffee Waffles and Ice cream 6. gt111 - onion soup, turkey, chocolate fudge cake 7. Mike6 : Soup, Turkey, Xmas pudding 8. Stirling : FOS, Turkey, Christ Pud. 9. Mrs Stirling : Possible FOS, Veggie option, ( possible request for seasonal veggies as opposed to rice ), Pud... not sure what 10. Moxie: Avocado and Prawn Cocktail, Moules Mariniere, and dessert TBD as long as it's gluten-free (I'll also buy International Poolboy and "evaporative pint" if he shows up) 11& 12. Dave & Ann XL 2 x Avocado & Prawn Cocktail, Beef Bourguignon, Apple Tart & Ice Cream. Where's the best place to stay overnight please Bib's? 13. Paul C - Brie, MM, waffles 14. Vicky - Prawn, BB, tart 15. Martyn: House Pâté / Turkey / Chocolate Fudge Cake 16. Kimbers: Brie, Beef, Toffee Waffles....and I promise to keep my pants on 17. rroymond -?? 18. PFD: Soup, Beef Bourguignon, Toffee Waffles. Kimbers that one tough promise! 19. Cliff: Brie, Beef , Apple Tart..... is anyone offering odds on the Kimbers promise thingy? 20. obione: Pate, Beef, Chocolate Fudge Cake...will be driving... 21. Mat Grant - onion soup, turkey, chocolate fudge cake 22. Mattthesparks Brie, Turkey, Xmas pudding. 23. Alan Morgan - avocado, mussels, apple tart 24. Barbara Morgan - avocado, turkey, apple tart 25. Exploded - Onion Soup, Beef, Hot Chocolate 26 &27. Alan & Evi - Pate, Avocado, Turkey x 2, Xmas Pud, Choc Fudge cake.

Hi folks, Loved the weekend, but can I suggest that everyone who stayed at the Thistle hotel Saturday night carefully check your bill, if you didn't at the time of checkout. Our initial bill presented to us was for £189, which was eventually after much scrutiny reduced down to the correct amount of £118, a massive overcharge of £71! A small part of this was due to being charged for an extra glass of wine and 1 bottle of sparkling mineral water, which was actually ordered by another couple sat at our table, and so this was obviously a 'one-off' mistake which would not affect anyone else. However, the main proportion of the overcharge was due to being charged both the correct discounted rate for the meal and wine for 2 people at £50, and also being charged for the same meal and wine again at the hotel's normal rate, which I recollect was around £60. I am concerned that the same mistake of charging us for the meal and wine at both the discounted rate and the normal full rate may have been repeated for all guests within our group. I would be interested to hear if anyone else experienced the same situation. One good thing that came out of it is the receptionist then validated our parking token without our having to pay the £5 overnight stay fee, I think as a form of apology for the mix up. Perhaps we'll see some of you at the Ace this coming Wednesday - we'll certainly be there. Al.

Cheers Leigh, We'll be coming from Didcot (didn't know you were so close), so maybe we'll hook up on route?

Hi folks, We will be driving up tomorrow (Saturday morning) to come to this show for the first time, eating and staying the Saturday night at the Thistle Hotel, and returning to the show on Sunday. Presumably everyone who is coming up for the Sat and Sun only (NOT Fri also) will be checking into the Thistle (if that's where they're staying) after the show on Saturday. So my 3 questions are:- 1. Is there a TLF communal area to park at when we arrive, and if so, what should we do to be parked there? (I noticed a photo from (I think) last year's show which had a number of you guys all parked together in it). 2. Will there be a convoy of us travelling back to the hotel after the show? Without really knowing what to expect from this weekend, we really are coming for the social aspect of this much more than the show itself. 3. Is there a group (or anyone at all!) of us travelling up either the M1 or the M40 on Saturday morning, that would like to hook up with us at some point for the journey? We would either join the M40 at junc 9 (so could meet at M40 junc 10 services) or would join the M1 at junc 15A (so could meet at the services there), and we could be flexible with whatever time would suit other people. Look forward to seeing many of you.

Can we also add our thanks for being able to be part of such a great day. You babies grumbling about your air-con should have tried doing it in a 'non-air-con' S3 Turbo! Dave L, I got Bobbed big time again, but for the 2nd time (the 1st was at last year's MPH show where we met Bibs for the first time). You would think I would have learnt then, but twice bitten..... We've met that couple with the red Countach twice before, driving as a pair in convoy with them once - the 2 greatest Guigiaro shapes of all time together! Martyn V, the only comment I would have is that the Beaconsfield Services group really should have tried to leave a little closer to the planned departure time. Leaving at around 8-25 (agreed for 8-00) meant that we arrived for our coffee and bacon butties with about 3 minutes to spare - shame really, cause I was looking forward to the meet at the pub. Never mind, it was lovely to meet everyone again, and look forward to the next one.

Hi guys, Hope you won't mind us joining you at Beaconsfield services tomorrow at 8-00am (we'll be there just before that) for the run up the M40 in convoy (we like convoys!). I've not been keeping up to date just recently, and only just noticed the on-going list for bacon butties. I did actually place a request on the 4th page of this thread (1/5/11) for 2 bacon butties, and I hope if I add this to the list now, we'll still be able to have them. If not, we'll just have to go hungry! 1. Officer Dibble + 1 ( bacon butties x 2 ) 2. Oneshot + 1 (bacon butties x 2) 3. Dodgy ( what Alex GT3 says x2 ) 4. Nijeninja (1x bacon buttie and a cuppa tea if there's one going) 5. Dodge1979 + 1 (BACON BUTTIES X2) 6. Martynv 7. Mr Oogie Boogie + 1 8. Alex --GT3-- (FULL english in a bun) 9. bibs (mmmm, bacon) 10. sparky + Tracy 11.Hopo 12. fsrowsell Espritmania (bacon butties x 1 for Alan & his milk float) 13. Changes...+1 buttie and large mug of tea 14. Alan & Evi (bacon butties x 2) 15. Mangel + 1 ( bacon butties x 2 ) 16. Dave Walters + 1 17. MartinL ( bacon butties x 1 ) 18. GasmanGT3 + 1( I x bacon butty, 1 x veg sausage butty if that possibe, 1 x tea 1 x coffee) 19. Davebarny + 1 20. Trevsked 21. Chris +1 22. PaulEspritGT3 + 1 (bacon butties x 2) 23. Cliff 24. The car's all polished and really looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Alan and Evi.

Currently trying to negotiate the day off work (con another driver into doing my shift for the day!). We'll definitely be there if I can get off work, will keep you all posted.

Lotus, TVR and Ginetta, every 3rd Wednesday of the month. We'll be there again this coming Wednesday (15/6/11). We LOVE it!

The oddest symptoms can result from a detached earth wire.....power then feeds in all sorts of strange directions and everything goes mad!! Yeah, ME! Thanks again guys, working some horrid shifts right now, so probably won't be able to have a play until next Wednesday, but can't wait. Sorting out problems with the interior, even electrical ones, is SO much more civilised than crawling head first on your back under the ar** end! The tips on checking the earth and live feeds separately to verify where the fault lies was brilliant - all I had tried was to put my tester across both wires to get a dead reading, and then scratched my head. I'm sure I'll be able to sort it now. Hope to be seeing some of you either at Gaydon or Donnington. Cheers, Al.

Thanks for your help guys. I'll be getting my meter out and in there to see what's going on. I really wanted to make sure there wasn't a simple fuse I didn't know about which I might have tripped whilst rummaging about in all the wires.

1/. Trevsked (Trevor, probably Sport 350 unless I can find a Sport 300) 2/. Sparky. (98 GT3) 3/. Gasmangt3 (96 GT3) 4/. Bazza (Essex or S3) 5/. Bibs (Who knows...) 6/. Alan & Evi (S3 Turbo) - Oxfordshire 7/. nigeninja (s4s) 8/. Moxie ('77 S1 & '83 Turbo, but leaving them at home for obvious reasons) 9/. Dodge19779 (S4) 10/. Dodgy ('81 S3 Turbo) 11/. Mattwatts S1 12/ internets (98 GT3) 13/ Skiing (NA S3 - most likely with new / rebuilt engine by this point...) 14/. Hopo S3 ...... probably now the Turbo........ 15/. Nelly9000 (79 S2) - Southampton 16/. fsrowsell (92 Highwing) 17/. Wookie (Mantis/Mantula) 18/. obione (91 Turbo) 19/. Alex --GT3-- 20/. PaulEspritGT3 (GT3) - Redditch, Worcestershire. 21/. Hopo's mate in the other car..... S3 Na most likley 22/. Rich H S4 23/. Jez S4s Just added our location. Still keen for this, but why such a poor showing at the Ace these days? We've only just started going in the last few months (now that our baby's running so sweet), just as almost everyone else seems to have got bored with it! Let's face it, you can't beat the grub...

Thanks Andy, I'll have another scrummage around in there when I next get a chance.

Can anyone help please? I have just finished putting all my instruments back together after replacing a load of blown instrument bulbs. Whilst doing so, I had a good root around inside to see what goes on inside the binnacle. I now find that the volt meter is completely dead. I've checked the dial itself using a 12V supply, and it still works fine, so it would seem that there is no electricity being fed to the gauge. The low charge warning light does not come on when the engine is running, and the alternator appears to be keeping the battery charged - I've run the car with all the electrics switched on, and it keeps running ok, without the battery going dead. It would therefore seem to be a problem with the electric supply to the gauge itself. Is there another fuse that I'm not aware of (apart from the 8 in the glovebox)? Could there be a problem with the voltage stabiliser? All the other gauges appear to function and read correctly, so I think that would rule that out. I really don't know what I could have done to make it suddenly stop working. Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks folks, Al.

I wanted to get some badges off my BMW and was recommended to run boiling water over them from a kettle - it worked a treat, they just pulled off so easily leaving absolutely no residue. HOWEVER, I don't know what effect this would have on a fibre glass body - perhaps someone else would know?

Thanks Simon, that's so kind of you to offer. I've discovered the cause of my problem now - a faulty vacuum switch on the Mode Flap circuit. The end cap has come off this cheap (£16-91 from SJ's) and nasty little plastic device, causing the return spring to fail to push the tiny little cam probe back out. This resulted in the vacuum circuit remaining permanently open, and the demisters constantly on, with no supply to the central face vents. I've extracted the offending valve so that I can glare and swear at it profusely, and hope to order a replacement from SJ's tomorrow, along with a length of new vacuum tubing and a couple of elbow joints. In the process of extracting the valve, the vacuum tubes came loose and whipped themselves up into the bowls of under the dash... I figure the easiest way to connect it all back up is with some new tubing and the flexibility that a couple of feet of extra slack will offer. My life has never been so fulfilled since joining Lotus ownership!