IoM Day 4

After last night's downpour, my final day dawned clear and sunny. I needed to pack all my stuff away and be on the outside of the circuit before roads closed at 12.30, ready for the afternoon practice session, and then to be at the ferry terminal in good time for the sailing at 4.15.

So I had a nice lazy morning, with a couple of coffee brews while the tent dried out in the sun and then a nice long chat with Roy, who had arrived yesterday on the other Crusader.

 

Pretty reluctantly, I packed everything away and loaded Anna up again, ready for the journey home.

We headed up to the TT Paddock and had another look around; a coffee and cake in the Manx GP Supporters Club tent and then I went and got a spec in the grandstand to watch the 2 practice sessions from there.

In between the 2 sessions, I wandered down to the paddock and saw this beautifully prepared Enfield 500 Classic Senior bike being pushed into scrutineering. I hadn't seen any Royal Enfields in the programme and it turned out to be a late entry, being ridden by Adam McLean, who went on to get a great 5th position in the race on Saturday.

And then all too soon, I had to head off back down to the ferry terminal for the journey home.

The crossing was very much smoother than on the way out! Anna behaved impeccably on the journey home, in fact felt super smooth (relatively!) keeping up with the traffic on the journey through the Birkenhead Tunnel and home down the A41. As we got home her trip meter ticked onto 377 miles, so our adventure had added another 220 miles of running in. 

There are definitely some bits to attend to now - a good service and torque the head back down; adjust the pushrods after bedding in and seal the valve cover properly - hopefully that lot will sort out the oil weeping from the top end. And then I've noticed that the steering head stem has slackened off a bit, which was causing the front end to shudder under heavy braking - not nice! I also want to have a look at the front brake - I think I need to get the brake shoes relined with a more modern compound and may even need to get the brake drum skimmed, as the braking performance from the front is a bit iffy to say the least.

All in all though, I'm super pleased that we got this adventure under our belts with no big dramas and look forward to our next one once she's had some TLC. 

Postscript: I had a message from Roy on the day after I arrived back to say that his bike had blown a hole in the piston on the way up the mountain. He wasn't sure if it was running too lean or if he'd overdone the mix in his "special" fuel concoction. I'm still not sure if he was joking or not....