Sunday, October 20, 2013

Time to start on UNJ

OK, after my roadtrip in September UNJ needs some TLC.

 The Viscous coupling (otherwise known as the viscious coupling!) started to fail, making all sorts of horrible noises high up in the Alps. It was possible to get hold of the fan blades (engine off of course) and rock them back and forward feeling the bearing on it's way out.

So, as a solution we took the fan blades off completely to reduce the load on the viscous coupling and drove the car all the way home. Who says these cars don't have good cooling and like to warp cylinder heads for fun?

Anyway, the picture shows the "stub" which I have now removed and will be replacing with an electric fan kit in due course.




Meanwhile, whilst turning round having missed a turn off overnight we made a slight misjudgement which resulted in us rolling backwards into a barrier - the result can be seen below. Not too bad and I have just touched it in quite heavily with paint to keep the evil rust away.

Next thing to comment on is that the starter motor failed towards the end of the trip meaning we had to jump start the car on and off the ferry! What I found having started to take it off was that actually the connections were loose and one of them has fallen off now!

This is what can be seen above - I am now pondering on how best to replace it.

Finally, the  instrument and rear lights failed which some very nice French policement pointed out to us! Ihaven't sorted this out yet either but there's no hurry as I won't be using the car until next year when another raid on Europe will be on the cards.

Still had a great trip though and loved the swim in the Med and storming the Stelvio

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