Post by hudsonhenry on Jul 18, 2007 10:12:38 GMT
I arrived back from Garlenda meeting and the Launch of the new 500 in Italy late Friday night. from what can best be described as a challenging trip below are a few of the things that conspired to make it an eventful ten days.
As some of you know my 500 has been fitted with an 1108cc Fiat fire engine from a Seicento sporting. I thought the trip would be the ideal test for the conversion. I left the UK on the first boat out of Dover on Wednesday the 4th. The first day was, with the exception of the dreadful weather and the beginnings of a very nasty cold, trouble free with the car cruising for hours at an easy 120-125kmh. I had planned to camp at a site about 30k from Chambery but by the time I got there it was dark, pouring with rain and the site office and gates were shut so I very carefully made my way back down to the Autoroute (500 headlights and lost of rain do not make pleasant driving) and onto Chambery where I was welcomed by the glowing lights of a Novotel. I can't describe the feeling of relief when my cold-filled head hit a nice dry comfy pillow.
At some time in my 500's life the clutch pedal had been badly repaired/modified. Over half the pedal travel had no effect on pulling the cable, leaving the remaining throw on the pedal to do all the work. In order to engage gear all the free play had to be wound out at the gearbox end with the result that the clutch bearing was permanently engaged. Around town and on short trips I have had no problems but 650 miles in a day had a rather damaging effect.
By the time I got to Italy (Thursday afternoon) I had no clutch and a wrong turn on the highway saw me grinding to a halt at the payage at Savona – had I not taken the wrong turn I would have made the 20 miles to the payage at Albenga, my base for the weekend.
A quick distress call to Jimmy and Jan Dicarlo (of Italcorsa and the UK 500 club) convinced me to arrange a tow to Albenga where I was welcomed by Neil a friend of Jimmy and Jan's. Jimmy and Jan had had already arranged a place where I could set to work on fixing the car and hotel accommodation for my first night, not bad when you consider that they were miles away in Turin at the time. As well as the clutch the trip out had taken its toll on my starter motor which decided to snap into two.
Once Jimmy and Jan arrived from Turin a new clutch was sourced and changed and a cure worked out to correct the pedal assembly. A quick call to my friend Ruud of www.ruudsrugzakgarage.nl (who was leaving Holland for Italy the following morning) meant that I would have a modified pedal box to solve the cause of the premature clutch ware and therefore avoid the same problem on the way back. The starter was out of stock which meant that I had to wait until Monday for a new one so unfortunately my car had to stay on Albenga about 10km from the events at Garlenda, so near but yet so far! As all the hotels were now full for the weekend, and I wasn't feeling well enough to camp, Jimmy arranged free accommodation for me in his friend Silvio's camper van that was parked in his car parts warehouse.
On Saturday I got a ride up to Garlenda with Ruud and set up the tent on the road side.
The weekend was good apart from the stinking cold and being without a car (missed a number of things)
Monday saw the pedal box repaired and the new starter fitted – which broke on the first turn! the only option was to push start the car the rest of the way, which is surprisingly easy.
Undeterred I left to visit friends in Zurich (with whome I had originally planned to do the trip untill they got cold feet). On the Italian/Swiss boarder I fill up with what turn out to be stale fuel so the car was down on power and running erratically. I spent the next day replacing the plugs, leads and other ignition components and stripping down the carb trying to work out what the problem was. Several calls were made in desperation to Oldschool as I was running out of ideas and thought that perhaps the timing belt had jumped a tooth, Oh and Christian I did try calling you as well but no reply. In the end I took it to a garage who immediately recognised the problem from the smell of the petrol (I had thought about petrol but my nose was so blocked up I couldn't smell anything).
With the tank drained and filled with new fuel I set off for my sisters house in Paris, a good run at a steady 125kmh all the way with no problems at all.
In Paris I noticed that my front tyres were bald, tracking had moved and as a result of lowering the suspension the car has loads of negative camber. My brother-in-law is a big Mini fan so had a couple of wheels with good tyres that I managed to get swapped over. It was the first day of the holidays in Paris so I managed to get out of the city before the 1.00pm rush, adjusting the tracking by eye on the roadside as I went.
About an hour out of Paris one of my silent blocks exploded. I had to get towed off the motorway to a Police garage where they let me fix it (I had some spare ones with me – lucky I had changed the tyres as I think the Police would have noticed). I had a group of six or seven Policemen checking out the engine conversion and posing for photos. Made it to the boat on time and the last 100 miles to home was problem free.
It was quite an eventful ten days and I think I have satisfied my touring around Europe in a 500 ambitions for the moment. Or perhaps not....
As some of you know my 500 has been fitted with an 1108cc Fiat fire engine from a Seicento sporting. I thought the trip would be the ideal test for the conversion. I left the UK on the first boat out of Dover on Wednesday the 4th. The first day was, with the exception of the dreadful weather and the beginnings of a very nasty cold, trouble free with the car cruising for hours at an easy 120-125kmh. I had planned to camp at a site about 30k from Chambery but by the time I got there it was dark, pouring with rain and the site office and gates were shut so I very carefully made my way back down to the Autoroute (500 headlights and lost of rain do not make pleasant driving) and onto Chambery where I was welcomed by the glowing lights of a Novotel. I can't describe the feeling of relief when my cold-filled head hit a nice dry comfy pillow.
At some time in my 500's life the clutch pedal had been badly repaired/modified. Over half the pedal travel had no effect on pulling the cable, leaving the remaining throw on the pedal to do all the work. In order to engage gear all the free play had to be wound out at the gearbox end with the result that the clutch bearing was permanently engaged. Around town and on short trips I have had no problems but 650 miles in a day had a rather damaging effect.
By the time I got to Italy (Thursday afternoon) I had no clutch and a wrong turn on the highway saw me grinding to a halt at the payage at Savona – had I not taken the wrong turn I would have made the 20 miles to the payage at Albenga, my base for the weekend.
A quick distress call to Jimmy and Jan Dicarlo (of Italcorsa and the UK 500 club) convinced me to arrange a tow to Albenga where I was welcomed by Neil a friend of Jimmy and Jan's. Jimmy and Jan had had already arranged a place where I could set to work on fixing the car and hotel accommodation for my first night, not bad when you consider that they were miles away in Turin at the time. As well as the clutch the trip out had taken its toll on my starter motor which decided to snap into two.
Once Jimmy and Jan arrived from Turin a new clutch was sourced and changed and a cure worked out to correct the pedal assembly. A quick call to my friend Ruud of www.ruudsrugzakgarage.nl (who was leaving Holland for Italy the following morning) meant that I would have a modified pedal box to solve the cause of the premature clutch ware and therefore avoid the same problem on the way back. The starter was out of stock which meant that I had to wait until Monday for a new one so unfortunately my car had to stay on Albenga about 10km from the events at Garlenda, so near but yet so far! As all the hotels were now full for the weekend, and I wasn't feeling well enough to camp, Jimmy arranged free accommodation for me in his friend Silvio's camper van that was parked in his car parts warehouse.
On Saturday I got a ride up to Garlenda with Ruud and set up the tent on the road side.
The weekend was good apart from the stinking cold and being without a car (missed a number of things)
Monday saw the pedal box repaired and the new starter fitted – which broke on the first turn! the only option was to push start the car the rest of the way, which is surprisingly easy.
Undeterred I left to visit friends in Zurich (with whome I had originally planned to do the trip untill they got cold feet). On the Italian/Swiss boarder I fill up with what turn out to be stale fuel so the car was down on power and running erratically. I spent the next day replacing the plugs, leads and other ignition components and stripping down the carb trying to work out what the problem was. Several calls were made in desperation to Oldschool as I was running out of ideas and thought that perhaps the timing belt had jumped a tooth, Oh and Christian I did try calling you as well but no reply. In the end I took it to a garage who immediately recognised the problem from the smell of the petrol (I had thought about petrol but my nose was so blocked up I couldn't smell anything).
With the tank drained and filled with new fuel I set off for my sisters house in Paris, a good run at a steady 125kmh all the way with no problems at all.
In Paris I noticed that my front tyres were bald, tracking had moved and as a result of lowering the suspension the car has loads of negative camber. My brother-in-law is a big Mini fan so had a couple of wheels with good tyres that I managed to get swapped over. It was the first day of the holidays in Paris so I managed to get out of the city before the 1.00pm rush, adjusting the tracking by eye on the roadside as I went.
About an hour out of Paris one of my silent blocks exploded. I had to get towed off the motorway to a Police garage where they let me fix it (I had some spare ones with me – lucky I had changed the tyres as I think the Police would have noticed). I had a group of six or seven Policemen checking out the engine conversion and posing for photos. Made it to the boat on time and the last 100 miles to home was problem free.
It was quite an eventful ten days and I think I have satisfied my touring around Europe in a 500 ambitions for the moment. Or perhaps not....
, Sorry to hear it didn't go as planned but it sounds like you had a great laugh in the process. 