Читать книгу No One Said It Would Be Easy - Des Molloy - Страница 47

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Tilbury Plus

the Model 120s were massively over-oiled. Even from new they had what many would deem an unacceptable thirst for the black-gold. Period motorcycle road tests would often list oil consumption and the normal benchmark was 1,000 mpp … miles per pint. Panthers were rarely if ever road-tested, so their performance was not generally known. Subsequent to our adventure I have obtained a Canadian road test of a 1962 model and the oil consumption was not overtly high-lighted but recorded as 1,000 mpg which most of us would gloss over without noticing the change to gallon from pint. So from brand new, they were only getting 125 miles per pint. Another wisdom which even today not all owners realise, is that the screw-in dipstick with its two lines does not mean that you maintain an oil level between the two lines. That would be way too obvious! No, the top line is the level the engine should be filled to when freshly built. The correct running level is between the bottom of the dip-stick and the lower level, so as long as there is evidence of oil there, you are ok. By filling to the top line, as we constantly did, you are over-filling the engine and it will use that additional oil extra-ordinarily fast. To compound our mistake, we economised by buying franchised agricultural oil of a low grade, and low price.

Although disappointed in the oil consumption of Penelope and Samantha, otherwise we were trucking along well. The roads were First-World-perfect but to us the countryside was pretty dull with featureless prairies only occasionally featuring bobbing oil horses to stimulate our interest. The miles seemed pretty interminable and we were excited to finally reach Laredo. We resisted the urge to send postcards to the rugby club because we didn’t quite feel we were a success yet. The earlier failure meant I had set the bar a bit higher. I was determined to win back some respect and admiration and hoped Latin America would provide it … as long as we had enough tyres to get across Mexico!