Cima Racing is Rallying an old banger around Europe to raise money for BEN Donate Now!
It made it home!
16 October 2006
Now that was an adventure! After the false start in Harrogate, we finally managed to coax the Safrane home yesterday afternoon.Upon driving the car, you become aware of a number of not insignificant faults. First among those is the fact that there's no oil. Where the oil should be is filled with water, with some black colouring mixed in to make it look a bit like oil.
That's not a problem, though, as there's no oil pressure, or certainly not at anything below about 3,000rpm. Of course, if there's no oil, you don't really want to be spinning the engine particularly quick. Added to that, where the coolant should be is pretty much nothing, apart from a bit of oil.
The solution? Coax the car up to about 55mph and then stick the cruise control on. It's just a bout ticking over, so there's as little strain on the engine as possible, and there's enough air being forced in to keep things relatively cool.
Until we get to a roundabout. They became a challenge, with the best solution appearing to be forcing the auto box into a lower ratio, slowing to about 30, and then haring across the roundabout and hope there's no traffic.
Sadly, that means taking the bends pretty quickly, which is not something you want to attempt on the tyres fitted. There's four different brands, and I haven't heard of three of them.
Not that we could slow down too much anyway. Pressing the brake pedal simply makes the car shake violently, but doesn't seem to have any effect on your speed. That'll be fun coming down the mountains in Switzerland and Italy!
Despite having pre-planned stops, we decided to keep going and just drag the car as far as we could. Sky high engine temperatures and an odd smell of fuel meant there was a very real fire hazard, so there would be no fuel stops.
Fortunately, we just made it back. After hurling the car into an open area near the house we simply abandoned it and left it to cool down or catch fire.
And cool down it did. now the hard works starts...
Labels: Staples2Naples 07
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