Brumhee

Confused about what?

Hi guys, Its been a while since I done a full so will give a run down of whats happened over the last few (very busy weeks). A couple of months ago we thought we would give the cam belt a check over. What we found was a little worrying, the cam belt had a large slit across the belt. Needless to say if we wanted any chance of making it to Rome it had to be changed. Cam Belt ordered I drove up to Chris' one weekend so we could change it, as well as a few other jobs we had planned such as fitting the CB radio, putting the stickers on and other peripheral things. What shouldn't have been a very long job ended up taking us 2 days!! Not one single bolt would want to come undone, and once again iTuned came to our rescue and lent us one hell of an Impact Gun. Those bolts had no chance against that monster! We had marked up the Cam Pullys, the cam belt and the back plate. Everything was good to go, put the new belt on and I drove home on the Sunday night. Its was only the start of what was a frustrating few weekends (for Chris). On the drive home the car felt sluggish and slow. When driving at 30 the engine was hunting. I organised taking the car back up to Norwich the next weekend, I was off to Amsterdam - Chris was off to hell! Firstly Chris adjusted the timing, it was better but it wasn't right. If there's one thing Chris hates, it not being right The cam belt had to be adjusted again, it needed to be right (for fuel costs alone). I got many frustrated messages from Chris over the next few days. I arranged to head up the following weekend. It was time to take the top of the engine and align the cams properly. Easy solution normally, but oh no, not on Go Nad (she has been called many other names during this process, many cannot be repeated). Off comes the top and Chris starts looking at the cams, the anger growing as he does so. Soon an expletive laden rant explodes from Chris - the cams do not have the small cuts outs that are required to line them up. We take some time and regroup. We need to find dead top, but that doesn't solve the problem with the cams. So we take a guess we line some bits up with other bits. Dead Top is found and the engine put back together again. We have Chris' old adjustable cams pulleys, hopefully all we will need to do is some fine tuning. The timing gun is attached, Chris has the car key and starts her up. She fires first time, the timing looks better but still not right, but all that is needed is some fine tuning. Saturday, I get the message I'd been waiting for - she's running smoother now. We also now have an MOT. I'm off to Chris' this weekend to finish up a few more finer jobs - fitting a CB radio, hopefully these will go smoother. I am aware that there are people who would like to meet us along the way. We have several stops that people can come see us. Firstly Edinburgh, then Nottingham, then Ace Cafe and finally Dover. I will post all the timings as soon as I get them to the thread Chris has started in the meetings section. Finally, thank you to all CCUK members who have donated and arranged collections at meets. These are really appreciated by me and Chris, and just to re-iterate what Chris said, all money donated goes to Orchid, which really is an amazing charity.

You missed sweets, not that you're getting any now Will try and do photos tonight.

Sorry for not checking in for a while guys. We spent a day a few weeks ago at iTuned in Watton looking the car over and the good news is it doesn't look awful. However we couldn't fit the exhaust due to a dodgy job thats been done to fit the current one meaning the centre pipe is unusable. Chris has yet to sort his passport but should be doing it now! Please donate any spare cash. Every little helps towards this great cause.

I'm sure we will be able to fix it once we know whats wrong. Ordered the CV Joint and Exhaust today. Hoping to fit them next weekend. Also, theres a video trailer of the trip now

Not tested it yet Briano. Need to book a weekend at Chris' (his garage is far bigger than mine) once I have the cv joint.

Took Gonad (yes we have named the car) to work on Tuesday and had the ABS light come on. Hopefully it will just be a sensor that needs replacing but with the MOT in May we need to get it of (maybe unscrew the bulb) before it will pass.

Its just some crap Halfords job I think. A new exhaust will do it some good hopefully. I'm planning to take her to work a few times which is a 120 mile round trip which will hopefully show theres no further issues.

So what’s the deal? Me and Chris (CrewCutChuck) will be driving from Edinburgh to Rome over a 4000 -4500 mile journey (we don’t have the exact route yet). We will be going through the middle of Paris, over the French Alps, take in the Millau Viaduct and through the Verdon Gorge. All this in a car that costs less than £500 (including repairs)! What car have you got? We have purchased a Gen 6 Celica GT for £420. So far only the thermostat has been replaced at a cost of £12. We still have the CV Joint and Exhaust to sort out (the exhaust works but our hearing won’t if we keep it). Why are you doing it? We are raising money for Orchid http://www.orchid-cancer.org.uk/ Orchid is a male cancer charity that supports men affected by Prostate, Testicular and Penile cancers. They push to raise awareness of male cancers to save lives through early diagnosis. Over 43,000 men are diagnosed every year in the UK with testicular, prostate and penile cancer. Orchid is the UK’s leading charity working in the area of male-specific cancers. Established in 1996 by testicular cancer patient Colin Osborne, and the oncologist who saved his life, Professor Tim Oliver, the charity provides support to people affected by or interested in these cancers through funding a world-class research programme, awareness and education campaigns and a range of vital support services. We are hoping to raise at least £2000 for this good cause. How can I help? AS always the best way to help us reach our target is by donating, our just giving page is here https://www.justgiving.com/go-nads. Also please share this as widely as possible, the more people who know the more donations we hope to receive. We also have a facebook page, much like this thread, we will keep this updated with our progress https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rust-2-Rome-Team-Go-Nads/824657470915690 again please like our page and share it. We also hope to hold more raffles for the club, much like the one held at the new year party which raised £122 through your generosity. Finally thank you for you support and be sure to keep dropping in, to check out our progress. As mentioned we had to change the thermostat on the car, something told us this wouldn't quite be up to the job! This was the first thing I had ever changed on a car that wasn't a wheel or a wiper blade. This is going to be a steep learning curve for me, but hopefully with Chris, it will be fairly painless