Thought I'd add a little update to this, as its fallen behind
upgrading the speakers
To my surprise I found these in the front kick well
They were tested and left in position.
Then to replace the rears, the 25 year old original hanging paper speakers have had their day
Replaced with some well spec'd cheap Kenwood items
Pretty chuffed they fitted under the stock retro covers too...
Replaced the front pads for EBC Black stuff, just normal street pads, finally
Painted the calipers blue
Snapped my breaker bar
Painted up the pooty window trims a bit better, until I fit the shadow trim I've stored somewhere
Bought a Kenwood new headunit as the Nakamichi was past its best. Also some new E34 engine mounts, hopefully should raise it enough to clear the sub frame
And, onto the road trip at the start of the summer...
Through many trials and tribulations the old girl got me around Europe and home again (4,600 miles in total)
Where do I start, Friday morning... Got the car back with fresh aux belts and wheels balanced at 10am and with a boot packed to the rafters, we set off for Dover to make our rendezvous with the guys from Club Golf IDF, just outside of Metz, France. The car ran faultlessly, reasonably comfortable cruising at 70-80mph and nowhere near over heating. We decided to stop at Reading services on the M4 for a few road snacks, which turned out to be a fatal floor (or blessing in disguise). The fuel pump refused to work after a few Greggs pasties and bottles of pop were purchased.
This AA guy was a legend! Followed us from the M4 to the local GSF, to try and get us on our way. We had the back seat off its mountings and used the onboard hammer to shock the pump into performing.
After trying 4 places for an in tank pump at 3pm on a Friday afternoon, we decided to change the filter to maybe give the pump an easier life and get on our way back to South Wales. Baz at DB Autos managed to source us a new pump and was being delivered in the morning.
The pump struggled on until Newport, just before the tunnels... Stopped in the outside lane at first, then wouldn't get going again so had to use the slight incline to get us across to safety. Gutted!!! 20 miles from home!!!!
Nei bother, with spirits still high and laughing and joking about the situation the next day (Saturday) we got the new pump fitted
Took the opportunity to refit the wooden Nardi wheel and the new USB/CD player (which as it happens was a complete God send)
The pump turned out to be a nightmare, first the little seal in the assembly twisted and stopped the pump flowing at its maximum, so anything over 3k and the engine would splutter. So using my engineering skills =-) I used a small Allen key to podge it out and have an all or nothing pump. This in turn made the pump super loud with less than half a tank of gas, but heyho it worked and the car was back on the road
Our ferry was rebooked for Saturday evening, which was a breeze this time. Cruising along the M4 with an old Saab 900 turbo for a while was ace! We managed to get on the truck level to stop the underside of the car grounding out on the higher decks
There weren't many pictures taken at this point, but we thought "Flat Out" was going to be the plan to get down to Austria before supper time, to make up for the two or three day delay.
France, Belgium and Holland was much of a muchness really, although the highways were alot smoother than the UK equivalent. Almost forgot... We hit a contraflow somewhere in Belgium and found an upside down hatchback in the outside lane, pretty scary stuff! The passengers had obviously been ok as there wasn't anyone to be seen, so squeezed passed and carried on. Germany was epic, 100mph on the clocks and slowly munching through the huge mileage that still lay ahead, beautiful sunrise in the mountains and the new head unit churning out chilled out beats!
We bought a 10 day Austrian road tax pass and proceeded through the mountain roads
By this time I was completely ball bagged! No sleep from Saturday 8am, fixed the car, sniffed what felt like a gallon of petrol in the process, driven through the night and it was now around 3pm Sunday. A 10mim break was needed, a euro RedBull and pesto sandwich refuelled us for the final push!!!!
