Thames Water, a flood, a broken exhaust and a pased MOT saga

[shaun]

Last Thursday, I was returning from the local area club meet and around 23.15 encountered a very badly flooded A4130 between Wallingford and Didcot. Standing water over black tarmac undisturbed by no previous vehicles is not easy to spot with Jensen Interceptor original headlights. Admittedly Thames Water had a lane closure in place and an area coned off but when I approached the green light and passed the coned off area and fed back onto the correct side of the road, the presence of around 4 inches of standing water was not immediately apparent until the bow wave came over me and visibility was lost momentarily. Fortunately I didn't loose direction and remained on the left hand side of the road. However, the engine was stuttering and I had adopted the no silencer mode for the left hand bank.

Pulled into a luckily placed side road and engine died. Sat for a couple of minutes and tried a re-start. Fired first time but what a noise. Got home after probably waking up a couple of local villages.


Upshot, silencer had parted company from the main exhaust pipe. Some people may remember a similar occurrence following a car park incident at the International a few years ago.

Effected a temporary fix on Saturday morning and went for MoT this morning.
Got it fixed properly. So much easier on a ramp. All good and may thanks to D J Matthews a proper old school garage in Didcot.

[Richie]

Glad all is well Shaun.
I well remember "a similar occurrence following a car park incident at the International a few years ago"...
Windsor 2016... I still shudder at the thought of what might have happened and, in many ways, rather bizarrely, I'm glad this happened. It taught me such an important lesson.
My manifold actually parted company with itself!
It sounded great! Full on NASCAR!

Here's the video courtesy of Martin Ritchie...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/z4ZBxuzaHanaPkjj6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jens]

Once there was a Swiss car in the quiet areas of Germany ...

[shaun]

That became very noisy?
That one...…….?

[shaun]

Just a follow up from my exhaust issues. It didn't end there.
Set off this morning for the Ace Café. Pulling away from my house after travelling no more than 10 yards is a wheelie bin lying on the road. Could have driven around it but stopped to move it.
Walked back to car and there is a liquid pouring out from underneath. A bit of rudimentary sample analysis showed it was petrol.
Upshot, apart from separating my exhaust, the water I hit had dislodged my fuel filter. Not pulled it off but seriously affected the jubilee clips around the pipe. Seems it was just about ok when I went for MOT on Monday but not today.
Very lucky as if I hadn't stopped, I dont know what the end result may have been.