Spoiling the vibe
Charlotte had hoped to be soaking up the sun, but…
It was on a jolly gal’s day out to Goodwood when I first heard the donk. It was a dull and intermittent new noise that reverberated its way up to the cockpit, from way down below. At low speeds and at high speeds, on bumpy roads and on smooth, the donk audaciously interrupted our quality mother and daughter time and I felt aggrieved when I had to pull over in an attempt to determine its cause.
As Shazam for diagnosing weird and unwanted classic car sounds hasn’t been invented yet (although Škoda has released a smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence to listen to an engine, determine its fault and suggest a fix) I had to do it the old-fashioned way. With my back to the Tarmac I shuffled beneath the front of the car, using my eyes and a bit of elbow to seek out anything that was misaligned or jiggling beyond desirable tolerance.
The steering and suspension joints appeared to be OK, and the rubber bushes were all present and correct. Much like the cartilage that protects our knees, bushes absorb impact on a car’s joints and connected parts, so had any of them been warped or disintegrated it may have been allowing metal-on-metal contact and been the root of the pesky donk’s cause. My search continued at ground level as I scuffled towards Frisky’s rear end. I eyeballed the entire length of the exhaust, looking out for broken or missing support brackets and mountings that might be causing it to shake loose. From a standing position I gave the tailpipe a gentle kicking to establish it was securely in place, then surmised that it was safe for mum and I to be on our merry way.
Remote learning
It was when I was out on another jolly, this time not in FSK, that a second irritating noise disrupted my vibe. Ping! Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping! As I paused to watch the spectacle of a hovercraft take off into the English Channel from Portsmouth towards the Isle of Wight, dad chose his moment to bombard me on Whatsapp with videos of his detective work, because as I enjoyed a day out, he’d taken it upon himself to get the car off all fours and find out exactly what was wrong. By filming his investigations, he hoped that in my absence I’d be able to learn something remotely.
Video ten of eighteen contained the eureka moment; a leaf had shifted in the offside rear suspension and he suspected the donk had been caused by it rubbing up against the chassis bracket, which was bent slightly inwards. To persuade them to part ways, he wedged the edge of a chisel between the bent bracket and the leaves, and gave it a gentle tap. He then carefully hammered the out of bonk leaf spring back into line.
He also found two offside rear spring and shackle bushes showing some signs of deterioration, but with a road trip imminent, dad deemed them serviceable enough to do their job, so we put their replacement on our to-do list for a later date.