Funky new paint

Alan

Last Minute Prep

Back in the middle of August, some yobs tried stealing the chrome sports exhaust from our Czechalier. They failed to do so, then some one else scratched the bonnet of the car. SamSpangle you need to move Mate!
A few days later we noticed an odd noise coming from the exhaust. When the thieves tried to yank the chrome sports exhaust they must have loosen the rust on the backbox.
Now there is gaping hole. We patched it up with a tin can and the bodgers favourite, gun gum. But that didn't work and the hole got bigger.

We managed to get a second hand exhaust last Friday. Two days before setting off, we had to fit our new exhaust... here are some Pics






The old exhaust Hacked out!











More Gun Gum!













After a busy day at the office Clark Kent puts in the hours to fix our car!

Check it out. Blacked out windows

Proving that underbody sealant has more than one use!

Time for some ham

Today was all about making the car more presentable!

I’ll let the pictures do the talking :)



Masking the tyre......



Starting with yellow....



The wheel trims got it too.....



Oh yes, oh yes! omg, lol

Adding the all important stickers.....

A mighty fine job, but thinking silver was a bad choice!

Looks better in the back window....

Bob Marley would be proud.

Aint she a beut.

Ready for the rally stage!

Moody angle showing off the battle scars.

I am going to be so embarrassed to drive this to work now!

Engineering some life into the old beast!

After completing the work mentioned below to pass the MOT we now needed to try and make the car more reliable. The engine seemed fine but did have a tendency to get a tad hot. The engine sound can only be described as, “bag of old nails” but all this just adds to the cars charm.

We drained and replaced the engine oil, fitted a new oil filter and filled up with some fresh oil but sadly those nails kept-a jangling! I got hold of a cheap CD player to fill the hole in the dash and found that all 4 speakers still worked. It needs a nice big sub though ;)
Next we tackled the cooling system and managed to find all 3 water pipes brand new for £23.50, the stat was more of a pain at over £15 because it came complete with the housing it was pressed into. First we disconnected the lower pipes and drained the water then we flushed out the entire system using a hose pipe. After fitting the new water pipes and stat we refilled the system and bled out all the air. Hopefully now we will not suffer an embarrassing moment realising that our car is only good for one thing. Boiling water!

We also considered some of the moving rubber parts required to make the car reliable and inspected both the cam belt and alternator/power steering belt. After some careful consideration we decided the cam belt would be fine, but since we purchased one we’ll bring it along for all the good it might do if the engine grenades. The alternator/power steering belt looked real nasty, kinda like it’s going to snap but it was quite expensive at I think £20, so we decided to see if it will snap on the trip. If it doesn’t snap we’ll return it at the end of the trip and get some cash back, lol!

Lastly we've fitted a heavy duty battery and a 240 volt inverter to the car, so we got ourselves a power station with our own mains electricity supply!

Tomorrow I intend to add some colour to the car and put the stickers on. The wheels are getting it! I am going to buy 4 colours, one for each wheel. Should be fun, pictures to follow.........

Cunning Stunts Presents; The Mary Hinge Shavers Society

So I changed the title; a little more catchy now? :)
Personally I was thinking the page could do with some photos so I’ll add some from the initial build.

The car of choice was a nice diesel with air-con, good fuel millage and a nice chugger for the long haul. Our budget to buy the car was just £100, yes just 100 English pounds! Thinking this would be easy we set about the internet and various other means to very quickly find that while you can buy a car for under £100 it would cost £500-1000 to make it road worthy again! All the time I had in the back of my mind the fact that I had brought a car for just £50 that was road worthy and came complete with an MOT.... We continued to look but everything we looked at either came with some known issues or we were simply outbid every time. Anyways, my car didn’t have a diesel engine and didn’t have air-con, despite this we were not perturbed. So without further ado let me introduce you to my old car. Here we have a stunning example of a car with 170000 miles on the clock, 1.8l petrol, Vauxhal Cavalier on an ‘L’ plate. Even though the car did come with an MOT it would run out before the event and it was clear we had some serious issues with the brakes, lol.

In any case this car was my daily driver and continues to be so. We took the ol’ girl down for the MOT after having done no work what-so-ever and knowing there was a good chance she would fail, but we could at the very least find out if the Cav would be a good idea...... You guessed it; MOT FAILED.

001 - Nearside front position lamp(s) not in good working order [1.1.4a]
002 - Offside outer front constant velocity joint gaiter split [2.5.C.1a]
003 - Offside rear brake recording little or no effort [3.7.A.4a]
004 - Offside rear parking brake recording little or no effort [3.7.A.7a]
005 - Parking brake efficiency below requirements [3.7.A.9/10]

Now we set about the repair...
We needed to replace the CV gaiter “easy” I said! (fool) CV gaiter about £4, so cheap too. At the first attempt we could not get the hub nut off because the thread was far too long for my puny sockets. Long reach socket £8.50ish. At the second attempt we got the little fella apart, (starting to sound like Steve Erwin now!) but the damn CV joint was not going to give up without a fight. After some time with all three of us taking turns with the hammer....................After much more time had passed the onset of darkness made us give up, however we had a new plan! Universal CV joint glue on gaiter, about £15 and comes complete with knife, glue, gloves and instructions. As you can see from the photo below it went quite well with three pairs of hands!

We also went on to replace the old front brake discs and pads, even though it passed the MOT on these worn out rusty old things. Was only £45ish for the parts and took 30 minutes per side.
Next up the rear brake, we replaced the leaking cylinder and cleaned up the shoes. Cylinder was less than £10 I think. Replaced bulb (50p) and job done!
Time for MOT number two....... PASSED with zero advisories :)

Check out the sports exhaust! lol

Wheels from a police car ;)

3 ton trolley jack a must :p

Hehe sorry, couldn't resist!

....................................................

The mundane preparations

Now that the car is ready and the route has been announced. Its time for the tedious and costly part, booking ferry and accomodations for each check point.

Here is the route:

Day 0 : (28th August), Dover to Calais (France). Check in.
Day 1: (29th August), Interlaken (Switzerland).
Day 2: (30th August), Bormio (Italy).
Day 3: (31st August), Salzburg (Austria).
Day 4: (1st September), Prague (Czech Republic). Check out.

We have booked the ferry. The hostels for the start and end leg has been booked. The other 3 stop off points needs hotel booking, but we are confident that it will be done by the time we set off. Otherwise a tent is our contingency plan - what do you mean, we haven't got a tent!

We also need to sort out travel and car insurance for the trip. The driving rules for each of the countries have been downloaded from the AA website. Need to make sure we are clear on it.
Also need to prepare a list of do's and don'ts for each country.