Yup a Superb weekend, (well week in fact! ) , thanks so much to all the organizers,
So i thought i would give a brief insight into the convoy journey...
The driving convoy started on Wednesday morning, Dan & Sam met at my house on route to the tunnel and then we all met at the Hotel where Justin & Ben were staying about 5 mins from the tunnel..
- 20190724_075834 (Medium).jpg (168.69 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190724_084055 (Medium).jpg (213.42 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190724_095525 (Medium).jpg (306.67 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
So we left the hotel around 10am and checked in, unfortunately we had a few issues actually getting on a train as there were some earlier trains that were cancelled which had a knock on effect to ours, so after them trying to load us on 2 trains, we finally got on the 3rd one, this we would find out later on would cause us problems, anyway we finally boarded the train and off we go...
- 20190724_115127 (Medium).jpg (317.77 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190724_130935 (Medium).jpg (259.73 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
So we get to France, by this time its around 2pm and the temperature is hovering around the 36 degree mark, the heat was mental, we traveled around 15 miles and all of a sudden Dan notices a smell which initially we thought was electrical, this turned out to be very very Hot Brake pads ! but only on one corner..
- 20190724_154753 (Medium).jpg (345.1 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
This turned out to be a minor hiccup and just needed freeing off with a little WD40 on the caliper pistons and work in and out a couple of times, and off we went again, into the Heat !
We traveled around 100 miles and unfortunately Mike & Georges car sir-came to the intense heat with fuel issues, this was initially thought to be the fuel pump relay and having stopped for a bit the car got going again, unfortunately this wasn't the cure and we had to fit a fuel pump (luckily mike had brought a spare with him) ..
- 20190724_181124 (Medium).jpg (190.69 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
We battled on and finally got to the overnight stop in Arnhem around 9.55pm
- 20190724_202715 (Medium).jpg (187.84 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190724_215654 (Medium).jpg (120.79 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190724_235237 (Medium).jpg (89.14 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
So Thursday morning, off we go again...
- 20190725_095915 (Medium).jpg (157.65 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
Unfortunately fuel issues struck again for Mike & George, we changed the fuel pump fuse as this was starting to melt so we put it in an inline fuse holder to keep it cooler, this worked for around another 100 miles but..
- 20190725_133032 (Medium).jpg (282.87 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
The heat was too much, Mike decided to call it and get his car recovered, we all felt terrible for you Mike and George, Il let Mike go into the detail about what happened after for them, so we were down to 4 cars, it was 39 degrees outside and there was no let up, Gareth and Dan/Sam had no A/C so they were really suffering, both days my car developed a buzzing fuel pump due to the fuel becoming so hot, Justin/Ben had an intermittent misfire But against all the odds at around 4.20pm we made it !! ...
- 20190725_171947 (Medium).jpg (349.38 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
To say we were relieved was an understatement !!
The cars all behaved whilst driving to the different places planned for the event, il post some pics of these in a separate post,
So we come to yesterday, driving home from Hamburg to Calais in one go, yesterday was a whole 12 degrees cooler than wed/thurs, this as you would expect made a massive difference, we left at 10.15am and we stopped for fuel and toilet breaks 3/4 times, other than this we drove and all the cars were faultless, the only minor thing we had was Justin's Miss fire returned as we got to the euro tunnel, I don't think there are many 38 year old cars that could do what these have done, thanks to all of you, it made the convoy an epic adventure!
My car went over to 77k on the way home..
- 20190728_115226 (Medium).jpg (173.32 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
We also had other weather extremes on the way home ...
- 20190728_162434 (Medium).jpg (104.6 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190728_163951 (Medium).jpg (240.37 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
some other way home pics ...
- 20190728_170630 (Medium).jpg (143.15 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190728_174056 (Medium).jpg (134.88 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190728_180657 (Medium).jpg (124.52 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
Back at the Tunnel
- 20190728_192742 (Medium).jpg (329.14 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
- 20190728_192924 (Medium).jpg (277.89 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
We also had a Space in our carriage on the way home for Mike and George, you were there in Spirit guys
- 20190728_210806 (Medium).jpg (248.59 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
And finally Driving into the Sunset ...
- 20190728_211250 (Medium).jpg (91.62 KiB) Viewed 3713 times
Thats it Folks, our Hamburg convoy adventure, it was great to see everyone, bring on the next one !