I really needed quite a lot
On the way the car had its fair share of trouble, nothing bad, just dangerous... I had tried to re-seal the carb before leaving to stop a slight leak, and used red Loctite.
For those who don't know, this is really quite stupid. The Loctite reacted with the fuel and slowly clogged the carb and its various jets, stalling the engine going uphill on the motorway. I discovered new swear words. Not fun trying to clean a carb on the emergency lane with trucks going past at 60mph two feet away, with a quite a bit of wind and -2°C.
We had left Clermont-Fd where I live Saturday morning, it was snowing, and we had the first breakdown after 30km, but it was just the idling jet, nothing serious. The journey went on nicely, and near Charleroi in Belgium I had to clean the carb again, it was the same jet again, no problem really.
We arrived in Brussels that night to meet some friends, roads were clear and nice (even though it had been snowing again near Charleroi, too), beers were had and burgers were eaten, pretty cool evening there. We took a taxi to go back to the hotel with a taxi driver that looked like he was a duke or something!
On the morning after, well, snow had caught up with us. 10cm on Brussels, on a quiet Sunday morning... too bad we didn't have time to hoon around! They don't seem to ever salt the roads in Belgium, that's actually quite nice because it doesn't make the cars rust as badly and as long as you have winter tyres you're fine anyway. Not everyone seemed to do so because on the motorway we easily passed cars even though we were doing about 50mph.
We went through the Netherlands, still snowing but at least the roads were clear. It was quite funny to be able to see the aerodynamic lines on the car once the muck had dried up:
After that it was Germany, and its maze of motorways around the Ruhr. I usually think I'm not too bad at finding directions so I'll just pass on that part.
The first real carb trouble was near Hamburg: the car just lost all its power on the three-lane motorway, luckily there was a little emergency stop area on the hard shoulder so we weren't too close to the traffic passing by. This time, it wasn't the idling jet that was having trouble, so my usual fix was useless. I spent 45mn trying to make things work, and it worked out in the end. Luckily, we were a few hours early for the ferry so we were in Travemünde around 6:30pm and had time to eat somme pizza there before embarking around 9.
Monday morning we were in Trelleborg in Sweden, and broke down after a mile. I had cleaned the carb twice the evening before that already. From there it all went downhill. The car stalled on the highway six or seven times, and cleaning the thing sometimes took an hour, sometimes 5mn, and worked for sometimes 50 miles, sometimes half a mile. Not the least bit stressful.
At some point we had to resort to call a towtruck, but I managed to get the car running before he left to get us so no harm done. After that we got thinking that the problems always came when doing about 60mph with full throttle while driving uphill. We decided to not go any faster than 45mph and no more than half the throttle. The sun was almost set, it was quite cold outside, and we didn't really like the idea of getting crushed by a distracted truck so instead of driving to Norrköping (which is about 200km before Stockholm, on the coast) we stopped in Linköping for the night. The youth hostel in Norrköping decided to take their money because we couldn't call them in time, and we had to pay around 100€ each for the night there:
Not too happy about that.
When staying there I took the toolbox out the car and into the room, along with the carb, took the carb with me in the shower to clean the best I could, cut up some seals from a hotel leaflet and reassembled the lot.
Whereas I previously used WD40 I run out of it, so I didn't really have a choice. I know I should’ve bought brake cleaner and be done with it, but I didn’t think about that at this moment.
As you can guess, the shower trick didn't work and Tuesday morning when I put the carb back on the car it wouldn't start. Three reasons: car batteries don't like -10°C, the oil must have been terribly thick as well, and I was too lazy to put the link between choke and accelerator pump because it's a fiddly job and it was cold outside.
Battery went flat, I went to get my jump leads in the trunk, except I had forgotten them in France. I then went to buy some, tried to find an understanding Swede to help us but only the cashier at the service station next to the hotel agreed (even the nearby garage told us lame excuses!). The car started easily enough, I had put that link back on again, we were ready to go! Only three hours later than first thought.
Oh and once I released the choke, the car wouldn't accelerate properly. The seals I had made were leaking a little, too, so I didn't know whether this was a blocked jet, yet again, or an air leak. I fiddled for a while, and decided on the highly practical way of keeping some choke all the way to Gävle where we were headed. I actually worked well enough, and the fuel consumption was pretty good... It's quite handy to be able to adjust the mixture live while running at around 60mph, a little less handy when you're driving through Stockholm at rush hour. This was on the way:
Filthy, filthy car. Oooh yes.
We finally arrived Tuesday evening at our friend's place, and slept for five days.
Proof we were in Sweden:
Wooden houses and a snowmobile. No arguing there. I actually drove that snowmobile, got stuck in someone's garden, swore a little and drove back home.
Funny story: the guy we went to see went for a ride on the snowmobile with the friend who traveled with me, and the latter is handicapped. He can walk alright but preferably on flat ground... So when they called me around 6:30pm because they were stuck somewhere in the forest and needed help to get out, I was working on the carb and had to go out 2 hours after sunset to find two dudes in the Swedish forest with the only direction being "just keep going on that path and after a mile you'll see a little snowmobile track turning left, follow it for a quarter mile and there we are". Awesome.
I got there, found them, helped them, we got home alright.
Two days later the neighbour says "oh by the way, some wolves have been spotted just two days ago, about two miles west of the village!"
Which is quite exactly where we were, when we were there. Let's just say it's a good thing I didn't know that when I went to help them.
Apart from that I discovered heaven on Earth, also known as Biltema. Bought thinners, brake cleaner, several kinds of grease, seal sheets, etc. Swedes seem to be quite into practical jokes: among the owner's manual you'll find the one for a P-51 Mustang. The owner of Biltema has one, I guess he found that funny (I know I do)!
After I rebuilt the carb, cut up some seals from proper seal sheet, cleaned everything to try and get rid of every little bit of Loctite left, and it didn’t leak anymore and worked nicely. Yay.
Random stuff:
Sunsets in Sweden are quite a sight
That name Dalida is because at the last Traversée de Paris, in Montmartre I went drifting past Dalida's statue (she's a French singer from the 70's), unexpectedly, on wet cobblestones...
Told you the sunsets were cool, you really should listen sometimes.
Railroad museum in Gävle:
After we left Gävle, we went to the aforementioned hostel in Norrköping, which accepted to host us for free after the mishap a few days before, very nice of them! But before going there we stopped by the Flygvapen museum in Linköping (Air Force museum):
Since the Saab planes were produced nearby they thought it nice to include a Saab 92:
Fine by me!
No one was injured, I promise.
Well-made museum, interesting things everywhere, even a DC-3 that spent 50 years underwater (brought down by a Russian MiG-15)! Lots of history, with all the appropriate context, you could spend quite a lot of time there.
After the night in Norrköping we went on to see a friend from the Cortina club, Bertil, who lives near Alingsås which is in the western part of Sweden. We stayed at his place for two nights, and we visited the Saab museum in Trollhättan, the Volvo museum in Göteborg, and the incrrrrredible underground airforce base in Göteborg.
Saab 92001: the first prototype of the 92, never restored, beautiful-looking thing!
Lightweight Saab 93:
… and a few more:
That red one without a bonnet has two three-cylinder two-stroke engines, 138hp. I like that. Too bad we couldn’t hear it running. For some reason it’s nicknamed “the Monster”, can’t see why.
Sonetts II & III (the first one on the left is a unique prototype, and the 99 on the right is actually a widened shell that was a 900 beneath, much like the Audi 100/Porsche 928):
Interior of a Sonett I:
I don’t have a pic of the exterior but it looks like this, only 6 cars ever made:
See, I wasn’t lying about the twin-engine thing.
Modern content yes, but unique prototypes, too:
The two convertibles are actually the two prototypes between which Saab had to decide for the production model:
Many of the cars are either prototypes, or the first production car, or the last car produced, etc. Small museum but if you’re accompanied by someone who knows the stuff, you could spend a week there (it wasn’t our case unfortunately).
Underground air force base turned into a museum ftw:
Saab planes. Lovely!
Sweden actually invented the smiley, a longtime ago. Another one of their practical jokes I guess.
What you can’t see is that this is actually quite steep, going deeper all along. At the furthest point it’s something like 150ft deep into the rock.
People build planes and the like here. I had never seen that in a museum before, it’s the coolest thing ever!
On the way back to Bertil’s place, we found this abandoned in a house. Not in the garage, it was in the living room. Along with several 70’s Fiat (a 600, two 850 Sport, and another one like a 128 or something):
There were two of these Saab 92’s. What a shame to see it in this state. Vandalized, parts missing, on what looked like a not-so-bad example originally.
Bertil’s mancave! He specializes in Cortinas and Cosworth Sierras. In other words, a saint.
The red one is a 2-door GT he’s restoring for a friend, the white one behind is also a 2-door, looking alright, that he uses for spares! English Cortina fans can cry, almost every Cortina there is a two-door. Usually with good enough shells!
Actual Lotus, but no papers. Ouch. In front of it, under the cover, is Bertil’s first car, which has a NA Cossie engine in it with two twin Webers (carbs missing at the moment):
Cortinas:
Interesting eclectic collection!
Some more outside:
Bertil fixed my car’s distributor (one spring maintaining the shaft was missing) and changed the Bendix starter for a pre-engaged Lucas item which makes for easy cold starting:
Lakes everywhere, guess what he does with a 400hp Cosworth Sierra, hardcore studded tyres and a frozen lake.
Volvo museum:
They make nice engines:
They started making cars in 1927, for some reason I thought they’d started much later!
Fitment:
Very nice unrestored bus:
Wait til you see it:
After visiting that museum, we went on to take the ferry in Trelleborg again, and at 11am the next day we were in Germany! Which you can tell by this beautiful picture:
The day was spent on the road going to see another friend from the Cortina club, Marcel, who lives near Rotterdam. He’s got two d*mn nice GT’s, one pre-Aeroflow and one Aeroflow. I drove the early one last summer at the Nats but it was at the trimmers, so Marcel got the other one out for a spin:
Bootful of stuff makes for a good cheap lowering.
A friend of Marcel’s got this one, too:
With this lot going in after testing:
E-Type <3
And the last picture, spotted at a service station near Brussels:
There’s quite a lot of stuff that we saw but could catch pictures of… Saab 96, Volvo Valp, Volvo Duett, etc.
That was quite a road-trip. Next time I’ll get the car ready BEFORE leaving, and add some sound deadening.
Cheers!