Month: June 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

Road blog. Day 3

Arrived in lubec at 10pm after a fantastic run through holland and germany. Sad to see germany loose football. Hosted by flo who has made up a cd for our drive on 2 denmark. Copenhagen here we come. Pete and ian x ps slight problem with power stear but still rolling!

Road Blog: Day 2

Made it to Utrecht in The Netherlands for a late lunch with Mili.  We forgot to wind our clocks forward an hour so as a result turned up late.  Ian and I had a few cross words when we got ourselves low on fuel in the middle of the city, but we’d made up after a sleep and in time to arrive in Alkmaar.
 
Our host in Alkmaar  was fantastic and took us out for a night on the town.  Bearing in mind that we only has 2 hours sleep on Friday we slept through until 1.30pm this morning.  Our mission today is to drive trough Germany and get to Lubek in time for the Germany-Spain Euro Cup final.  Another wild night in the making.   My poor head!!
 
Thanks to all of the messages, keep them coming.


Yes, the Windmills are everywhere. This one’s in Alkamaar – our home for the night.

Road blog. Day 1

Made it to Dover without event. Something is making a rather loud squeal from drivers front wheel. Kicked type a few times all well again. plan to be in holland for lunch.


Me, Pete and Ralph ‘the dog’ Rover

Did you mean to search for: roadtrip


Google roadtoriga and it asks you the above, how fitting is that?

24 hours until we depart. We will be posing our daily progress on this blog, expect all the wit and charm that we can muster up on the keypad of a phone.

The car has been recently adorned with fluffy dice and a cuddly toy so we are now ready to roll!

A plan? Don’t be ridiculous…

…but we do have our first bed/sofa/floor sorted in Alkmaar – Holland and I’m working my typing fingers to the bone trying to arrange some more. However, not knowing exactly how far Ralph will take us each day makes planning quite hard. So does my deep aversion to planning.

However, with the view of doing 5-6(ish) hours driving a day, it’s currently looking something like this.

Oxford > Alkmaar in Holland.
Alkmaar > Lubeck in Germany.
Lubeck > Copenhagen in Denmark.
Copenhagen > Örebro in Sweden (yes, the places are getting strange now 😉
Örebro > ?

If anyone reading knows anything about these places or knows any ‘must see’ things near by we’d be happy to hear them. I know Pete is desperate to stop at Moomin World in Finland but beyond that it’s a blank page.

OK, well I should really start packing but before I go I’ll share the first ‘gimmage’ (image found using google image search) which I found when I googled ‘Alkmaar’ our first location. Behold – ‘The Wolky Alkmaar’


Nice.

Oh, and incase you’re wondering about the clutch. We went for option 2 ‘leave it and risk it’. Please pray for us.

Full Tank – No Leakage

Well we currently have a full tank of fuel and so far no leakage. Strangely enough you can no longer smell petrol as you drive along either.

Next we need to decide on the best solution for the stupidly high clutch biting point. Three choices:

  1. Fix it
  2. Leave it and risk it
  3. Buy a clutch plate and take it along for the ride (just in case).

Obviously the idea is to do this as cheaply as possible, so I’m loathed to take it to a garage, but I do want to get there too. Decisions, decisions.

Tank On, Tank Off, Tank On Again

On Thursday the replacement hook bolts arrived so Ian and I spent the evening putting the petrol tank back on. We had a really productive evening and were chuffed that everything went well. We only had about 1/3 of a tank of petrol in cans so the final test of our handy work would have to wait until I could get to the petrol station.

On Friday I filled the car with fuel on the way home, and honestly thought that everything was fine. However upon return home I was greeted by the strong whiff of petrol around the rear of the car. On closer inspection I could see that petrol was actually dripping out at quite a rate. So out came the syphon tube again and we decanted the entire tank of fuel in to various receptacles. Sarah managed to gather up quite a few containers from the neighbours. It was such an impressive array I thought it worthy of a photo.

This afternoon I once again removed the fuel tank and this time set about a few scientific tests to find the leak, which involved talc, a screwdriver, a wire brush and a bit of petrol that was left in the tank. After a bit of time I managed to find three tiny pin prick size holes on the tank. After a bit of a clean up and a helping of chemical metal, the holes seem to be patched. However saying that I will reserve judgment until I fill up with fuel again tomorrow.

For the record: I have now officially consumed 2 pints of petrol, do not smoke anywhere near me for the next two weeks.

Wok and Roll

Only on at hospitality club can you find invites like this…

“Hey buddy !! Do you like rice ?? If yes, Come on into our house !! If no, Come on into our house !!! If you don t really know, Come on into our house !!! We’ll propose you everything : rice and beer, rice and wine, rice and fun, rice and chill out, rice and party, rice and funk, rice and groove, rice and meeting other rice lovers !! So book your plane, train or car-sharing, and come on !!”

Shame I don’t like rice.

Posted from: www.bearder.com

Tank Off

Well after a long hard slog yesterday evening I managed to get the fuel tank off the Rover 214.


In the process I managed to drink at least a pint of petrol. On a plus point however Sarah and I did manage to get about five gallons into suitable containers, which in this economic climate is about 5 million quids worth (or there abouts).

Currently the car is still up on axel stands, the leak has been fixed (hopefully) and all surface rust removed. Today for good measure Sarah gave the tank a coat of Hammerite and it is looking pretty good.

Unfortunately in the process of getting it off the car I had to cut the two hook bolts that mount the tank. So we now have to wait for new ones to arrive in the post.

Total cost for this repair:
£2.50 WD40 (and trust me I used tonnes)
£2 Jubilee clips
£10 2x Hook Bolts

I’ll update once the tank is back on

Did we fix the petrol leak?

Nope. But check out the stripes!






Who needs a working engine with Viper stripes like these? …and yes, the do make you go faster…

Page 1 of 2

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén