Please, Let’s Get Off This Ferry…
Pic: Carrickfergus Castle Web
28 May ’05, Saturday. Carrickfergus Castle
After leaving Glenarm we continued heading south, which would take us back through Larne. In a way, it was going to work out good in going back, as I was having a little trouble shifting without grinding gears and I wanted our mechanic to look at this before getting too far away. To give you a little bit more information on how we ended up getting our clutch changed, I have been hearing a bearing noise from the very first day we picked up the van and I had (me the big mechanic…) thought it was the “throw-out bearing”. Finally when we knew that we were in big trouble, I pulled in to a mechanic and said…”I’ve got a bad throw-out bearing, so please put in a new clutch and bearing for us…” He did… Now when I went to pick up “Bumble Bee”, another mechanic, the one who actually did the work, told me, “I think your problem is your transmission and not the clutch, but I might be wrong…” Again, after getting back to the garage, they did add some additional fluid to the hydraulic clutch reservoir and we were on our way to Dublin and some additional sites on the way. We had 4 days, so we had plenty of time…
Right… We did have a good ¾ of a day heading down the coast route, although the wind was blowing right in our face the whole way. Our first stop was in Carrickfergus, about halfway between Larne and Belfast. There was a wonderful castle there that we wanted to see. This is the first castle or ruin, that they had displayed with soldiers and workers (plastic dummies) from the period, all over the grounds. Some were manning their muskets and swords, standing guard at the gates, or at the ready at the cannon. We really enjoyed their display. We also found a campsite just down the road, so in the morning we were underway through Belfast and around the coast route again. The gears continued to clash every time I shifted, but I continued on, in hopes everything would “work its way in”. On our ride, we were following this peninsula to the end and then we had a short ferry ride across to the other side. As this small car ferry made it’s way across and up to the landing, it dropped the bow to unload. Seeing as we were the first car in the line, we headed off. Now you’ve got to see this, the boat is still moving forward, the bow is dropped, and the landing is a hill that is straight up. We hit the land, the cars (us) are in motion and hitting the “dry land” at the same time, with a jolt, down, and then straight up. Well, we did fine, most of the way… When we got to the top, all hell broke loose in the transmission. It could have been worse, it could have happened going on that ferry, and we were at the front, but it didn’t, and we could at least save ourselves from some embarrassment. Now we did have a problem. We were in a very small village that I knew would have no mechanic that would be able to help us, so I had to find a way to “baby” her along until we got to Dublin, which was another 100+ km away, and it was all on back roads. We didn’t make it. We made it 6 miles past a small town called Newry, and all of a sudden the transmission went out of gear and then back in and “jammed”… It was just in and just out of gear and we were finally stuck. Fortunately, I was able to coast off the road, but when we came to a stop, and I do mean “stop”, we were blocking a driveway. Now again, we had a little bit of luck. This driveway was directly next to a gas station, and they had 4 young men that came out and helped me push back “Bumble Bee” enough so that the drive was clear. Now these were young teens, that were really more interested in kicking their soccer ball than helping out
Pic: Carrickfergus Castle Web
28 May ’05, Saturday. Carrickfergus Castle
After leaving Glenarm we continued heading south, which would take us back through Larne. In a way, it was going to work out good in going back, as I was having a little trouble shifting without grinding gears and I wanted our mechanic to look at this before getting too far away. To give you a little bit more information on how we ended up getting our clutch changed, I have been hearing a bearing noise from the very first day we picked up the van and I had (me the big mechanic…) thought it was the “throw-out bearing”. Finally when we knew that we were in big trouble, I pulled in to a mechanic and said…”I’ve got a bad throw-out bearing, so please put in a new clutch and bearing for us…” He did… Now when I went to pick up “Bumble Bee”, another mechanic, the one who actually did the work, told me, “I think your problem is your transmission and not the clutch, but I might be wrong…” Again, after getting back to the garage, they did add some additional fluid to the hydraulic clutch reservoir and we were on our way to Dublin and some additional sites on the way. We had 4 days, so we had plenty of time…
Right… We did have a good ¾ of a day heading down the coast route, although the wind was blowing right in our face the whole way. Our first stop was in Carrickfergus, about halfway between Larne and Belfast. There was a wonderful castle there that we wanted to see. This is the first castle or ruin, that they had displayed with soldiers and workers (plastic dummies) from the period, all over the grounds. Some were manning their muskets and swords, standing guard at the gates, or at the ready at the cannon. We really enjoyed their display. We also found a campsite just down the road, so in the morning we were underway through Belfast and around the coast route again. The gears continued to clash every time I shifted, but I continued on, in hopes everything would “work its way in”. On our ride, we were following this peninsula to the end and then we had a short ferry ride across to the other side. As this small car ferry made it’s way across and up to the landing, it dropped the bow to unload. Seeing as we were the first car in the line, we headed off. Now you’ve got to see this, the boat is still moving forward, the bow is dropped, and the landing is a hill that is straight up. We hit the land, the cars (us) are in motion and hitting the “dry land” at the same time, with a jolt, down, and then straight up. Well, we did fine, most of the way… When we got to the top, all hell broke loose in the transmission. It could have been worse, it could have happened going on that ferry, and we were at the front, but it didn’t, and we could at least save ourselves from some embarrassment. Now we did have a problem. We were in a very small village that I knew would have no mechanic that would be able to help us, so I had to find a way to “baby” her along until we got to Dublin, which was another 100+ km away, and it was all on back roads. We didn’t make it. We made it 6 miles past a small town called Newry, and all of a sudden the transmission went out of gear and then back in and “jammed”… It was just in and just out of gear and we were finally stuck. Fortunately, I was able to coast off the road, but when we came to a stop, and I do mean “stop”, we were blocking a driveway. Now again, we had a little bit of luck. This driveway was directly next to a gas station, and they had 4 young men that came out and helped me push back “Bumble Bee” enough so that the drive was clear. Now these were young teens, that were really more interested in kicking their soccer ball than helping out