In the Autumn of 2020, almost on a whim, we went from placing a deposit on a new kitchen, to deciding to move house. Finding a house with enough storage and parking for two normal cars, three military vehicles, two trailers, somewhere for a workshop, a good view of the Southern sky for my astronomy, in addition to the usual things like schools and a home office; was a challenge. We spotted a property in Durham on the last day of October and got a viewing early November, placing an offer the same day. Christmas holidays and covid have slowed the process, but by late February, we completed.
We still own our old house at present, 'though it is on the market. To save money and avoid unnecessary people contact, we decided to move everything ourselves with my aircraft trailer. As a result, the move and workshop strip out and rebuild would be spread over a few weeks.
I'd been packing the contents of the workshop for a while, but not so much in the house. A few house things were boxed, but we couldn't do too much as we were trying to keep the house presentable for viewings.
The first four pictures show some of the preparations for moving the fleet. My
old garage was only just wide enough for the two Jeeps with a small gap to
squeeze between them. My workshop was almost lots under boxes.
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THE BIG DAY - February 24th
We found out the owners were going to wait at the house to hand us the keys, rather than us collecting the keys from the agent. This meant we could drive across in convoy, me with the M201 and Lynne with the normal car towing the B-17 trailer. It was around a 12 mile drive via the back roads through Houghton-le-Spring. I always try to avoid motorways if I can, as I don't feel safe with other drivers travelling well over the speed limit. Most of the trip to Durham was on 30mph limit roads. I put a couple of small cameras on the Jeep to capture some images of the trip. The garage door is just tall enough for the Jeep with the roof up. It won't be tall enough for the "Follow Me" light box, so I may have to raise both garage doors.
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February 25th
The following day, we started bringing the workshop contents across and also the GPW. Everything was parked up in the garage.
I'd also use the garage to store the workshop units until I put a new MDF floor
down in the new workshop to protect the original wood floor.
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Faith the Dodge joins the Fleet at Durham - March 22nd
On March 21st 2020, Faith the Dodge was placed on axle stands to sit out covid. I suspected the Dodge would be out of use for some time and it had already been six months since the last event in 2019
when the Dodge was parked up in the container for the winter. The battery had been removed at that time for maintenance
charging over the winter. During 2020, I made two visits to Faith to run the engine and exercise the brakes etc, each time with fuel that was months and then over a year old. Both times, Faith fired up without problems after a good prime.
Now on March 22nd 2021, it was time to bring Faith to the new house, in preparation for the work on the garage to allow all three vehicles to be garaged together.
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The first step was to get the Dodge back down off the axle stands. After that, the 6 volt battery was fitted and the Dodge started up - now on fuel that was around two years old!!! Once running, the Dodge was backed out of the container to allow ten gallons of fresh fuel to be added through the left side fill cap. This wasn't accessible while in the container.
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After plenty to time to warm up and load up the container contents, I set off on the short three mile trip back to out Washington home to check over the Dodge further and to blow up the
tyres before the journey to Durham.
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Once my daughter finished school for the day, we loaded up a few more odds and ends and began our trip to Durham. We travelled the same back road route as we'd taken the Jeeps in February. My daughter took a few shots to record the trip over which went without any problems. It was a great feeling to be back behind the wheel after 18 months off the road and 12 months and a day locked away in the container on axle stands.
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