Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JamesV6CDX]

Hey everyone

A year and a bit ago, I bought a 3.2 Elite with a broken cambelt, which had of course trashed the valves - and very slowly rebuilt it with replacement heads, and got it going / through an MOT. More recently, I have done wishbones, brakes all round, track rods, droplinks, etc. Also replaced a knackered lambda, sorted the handbrake.

Goes without saying I did the cambelt kit, water pump, and all the top end gaskets, thermostat and such. I've also just had 4 new matching tyres and an alignment (and it's driving spot on).

In a few hours, in the early hours of this morning, we are setting off to Dover, and boarding a ferry across to Calais. From there, we are spending almost a month driving the Omega to various places, including South of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

We don't have a route / itinerary, nor any accommodation booked. Literally just going to drive and see where we end up 

Here is the old girl tonight after I just changed the oil/filter and rear brakes and brimmed the tank. Watch this space for more updates



Needless to say I have a box of tools and various spares, including HBV, crank sensor, MAF, throttle body with DBW gubbins, fuel injector, coil packs, water pump, belts, pulleys, gaskets, alternator, crank pulley, sealants. I also have a small jack and a stand.

Getting a decent level of breakdown cover to drive one of these old things abroad is nigh on impossible - but I have faith, I know almost every inch of the car now and it's in fantastic fettle

[Doctor Gollum]

Sounds like a good day out

Enjoy the whole adventure good and bad.

Depending on where you stop, pull Fuse 18 when leaving the car 

[JamesV6CDX]

Sounds like a good day out

Enjoy the whole adventure good and bad.

Depending on where you stop, pull Fuse 18 when leaving the car 

Good shout. I actually refitted  the  locking wheel nuts just in case. Because finding it on bricks would really give me a sense of humour failure 

[Varche]

I have got a set , well six actually, wheels and radiator and some other bits if you run into trouble like wheel theft. 

There are some truly excellent villages and towns in Spain. Loads of castles. I look up medieval villages and towns - find them fascinating. Trujillo is my favourite known, Medellin my favourite unknown. The latter was the home village to a conquistador. Has a castle, cathedral splendid buildings and also a Roman amphitheatre and still used Roman bridge. There is a place in the Americas named after it ( has drug cartels)

I would say to have a meet up except we are in sodding congested England at the moment trying to sort a fairly hopeless situation with my very elderly dad. We will have to go back to Spain for meds running out, paperwork, medical appointments and to keep house insurance valid but sadly will be unlikely to be in a position to entertain before returning but you never know. We aren’t far from Loja, near Granada.

Send me a pm for my WhatsApp number.

While I am in UK, I am looking out for a good Atlas. Mine is 2016 and is falling to bits. I have hand annotated it with places of interest and hotels we would use again. It shows scenic roads in green- often worth the deviation if you aren’t on a mission to get from A to B. Plenty of wretched static and some mobile speed cameras around. Unlike in the UK, you can make good progress on roads ( apart from the big cities which do have jams. )

It would be interesting to see a “ blog” on the forum of your holiday adventure! I do hope you have a good one. Life is about creating memories

[Varche]

We use booking.com for accommodation. Just figure out where you will be when you need a room and put in your requirements. Then choose. From 1st Sept on you should be able to easily get a room.

From memory the French go away for all of August ( the Spanish certainly do) and the roads are busy on the coming back day(s) ditto hotels.

[STEMO]

Sounds fantastic, James, and you certainly deserve it. Looking forward to your updates, hope you have a great time 

I'm not at all jealous, btw 

[Nick W]

Needless to say I have a box of tools and various spares, including HBV, crank sensor, MAF, throttle body with DBW gubbins, fuel injector, coil packs, water pump, belts, pulleys, gaskets, alternator, crank pulley, sealants. I also have a small jack and a stand.

Getting a decent level of breakdown cover to drive one of these old things abroad is nigh on impossible - but I have faith, I know almost every inch of the car now and it's in fantastic fettle

Sounds fun but Needless to say... Where's your sense of adventure? And no spare gearbox?


The full tank of petrol in this car



cost me £25 two weeks before the photo was taken. You're looking at its best side. I spent another £75 on a replacement engine out of a mk4 Cortina from the breakers, checked the lights, kicked the tyres, added a GB sticker and four of us headed for Dover. The evening put aside to service the new engine was absorbed by several attempts to get the engine in with a misaligned clutch - Ian must have had a knock on the head before he did it - and being to scared to try the monstrously tight spark plugs so close to the departure date. Everything was paid for by tips from my bar job. The plan was to sell it if it made it home, but it didn't miss a beat in over 2000miles in 14 days driven by a twenty year old. That was enough to press it into daily use - 30,000 mile p/a - and many, many passes at the drag strip:



see what I mean about the good side?


I collected my Omega three weeks before taking my parents to the same spot(it was their house), and only opened the bonnet to check the fluids. Like the time I drove a borrowed Cortina home on
2cylinders, I didn't want to find something I didn't have time to fix. I can report that an 800cc Cortina with five people in it does about 10mpg

[TheBoy]

Sounds like a blast - keep thread up to date with your adventures, good and bad. And some nice piccies when time and internet allows

[dave the builder]

Indeed
what a great "holiday"
I hope you have an issue free road trip 

[Varche]

Fantastic Nick.

My first attempt at a round Europe trip failed. Me and my mate Steve initially thought of a 500cc bike and sidecar. Then common sense prevailed and we bought a morris 803 with semaphore indicators from a garage " with guarantee". We quickly found that it was gutless and acquired very cheaply an A35 with a hugely powerful 1000 cc engine and if I remember correctly an extra gear. The transplant and a hoard of spares ( bulbs, hoses etc) and the shell of the scrap car ( it had failed on no brakes) was ready to get rid of. We tossed a coin and I lost. Steve pushed it occasionally on the three mile mostly downhill trip to the village tip whilst I steered it. I did have an emergency brake in the form of a fence stake to ram through the gear change hole. Amazingly despatch was achieved without incident though the turn into the tip was a concern. I guess I would still have been in prison now if the cops had caught me.
Sadly the massive power increase ( you could get the tail out on the skinny crossplies) showed up a massive problem with the chassis that had been covered up with duckhams oil tin and underseal. ten degrees of negative camber on one side wasnt a good look. So we got our purchase price back. The trip never happened.........

Second attempt at round Europe was a success. That was 1980 with my mate John. Viva HB 1100. Miserable car. No power, reasonable handling for a car loaded to the gunwhales.( we even took a suit and white shirt and tie to break the bank at Monte Carlo. The car had an intermittent misfire from the North Circular until we returned home 3 weeks and 2 or 3 thousand miles later. Throttle butterfly spindle bearing was oval shaped. We also lost all braking in the Alps with me cooking the brakes trying to make good progress but found a donor car in a Swiss garage car park a few days later. Swap of pads and we were good to go.  That and one other Viva in Belgium were the only ones we saw all trip. Opel pads in those days were all different to Vauxhall. Oh forgot to say. We hit French soil and the rad sprang a leak. We pulled over and bought two cafe au lait and a raw egg. Worth a try in the rad and to my continued amazement to this day, saw the tenure of the car out. John ripped the exhaust off on a mini roundabout that had a large raised metal thing for the centre of the roundabout. We actually effected a repair on a campsite.

Memories - what life is all about

 

[Nick W]

Back in the eighties, we spent an amusing afternoon on a campsite in Provence drinking beer while watching the neighbours change the propshaft UJs in their Lada Niva using various rocks and copious swearing

[Rangie]

Nice trip, car looks great 👍

[Sir Tigger KC]

Awesome!    Have a great time. 

[Varche]

Back in the eighties, we spent an amusing afternoon on a campsite in Provence drinking beer while watching the neighbours change the propshaft UJs in their Lada Niva using various rocks and copious swearing

On our trip we stayed at a campsite near Cannes. Two blokes with motorbikes picked up two girls. The guy on the Kawasaki Z900 was wearing shorts and the girl a bikini. He dropped the bike. Local hospital scrubbed them and coated their extensive grazing with something pink( Iodine derivative?). They were in so much pain that they deliberately drank themselves into oblivion to sleep. The bike wasnt roadworthy despite them using my hammer to make the threepenny bit front wheel more round.    So they hired a small hatchback to take it to Calais on route to Blackpool. A group of us lifted the bike , on its side, into the back and it sat on its bump stops. It immediately spewed out oil in the boot.  I would have loved to find out if they made it home and how they fooled the car hire company dropping it off at calais.

[countrywoman]

Did a week trip to Sweden with one of the lads from my hot rod club in my Dodge Challenger, ferry took a day to get there. met some folks he had seen the year before, watched some illegal street racing. Alternator packed up and battery died so one of the lads we were seeing took the battery of a brand new Volvo hire car and gave it to us, Volvo ended up with my old Joe Lucas battery. We drove across Sweden to catch the ferry and then from the port to Worcester on that battery, flat as a road side hedgehog the next morning!!