Mondeo GLX TD Estate - Ramshackle rally car
15-10-2009, 05:34 PM
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Right then folks! Firstly apologies it’s taken so long to report back on this. It’s been non stop since returning! This year was Epic! We met some absolute legends and had an even better time than we did last year.
So… the first stint Rushden to Calais!
We did a tour of friends and family before the off. Within approximately 5 miles we noticed that the top end had become incredibly noisy since the oil change. Meh too late now… we stopped at Halfords and lobbed some rather nasty gloopy “stop smoke” in which made it purr like a kitten (no it didn’t really although it quietened a little) Noise aside all went well and we even treated it to some Redex, hoping that may go some way to stop the massive amount of black smoke the car was now generating. We rocked up at Dover with an over an hour to spare so did the only decent thing and had a game of pool on the roof!! We had to borrow some pallets to park the car on to get it level but we had a good game in the end with loads of people coming over to chat, take pictures, have a shot etc! Within a few minutes in came a load of other Ramshacklers and the party spirit started! Once on the ferry we headed straight for the bar (apart from our designated driver) and got on it.
The trip over was uneventful and we headed for registration in Calais before getting a little drunk and crashing for the night at the Formule 1 NICE!
Pics
Game on!
At the Formule 1!
Day 1 Calais to Annecy
This was to be a long but good day… 600 miles to go! We got into convoy with the guys and girls we had been drinking with the night before. About 8 cars in total, this was to be the core of our convoy for the whole rally. Now the sensible thing would be to hot foot it down to Annecy stopping only for a quick bit but no… We spend 4 hours buggering round in Reims first. We had lunch at a nice little resteraunt and got some rather funny looks as we had…
3 Rastas
4 people dressed as kiss
A male bride and groom
4 hippies
3 disco types
And a few more. We got photographed for the local paper before all getting onto the carousel and finally shooting a video of the bride and groom being chased by us who were in turn being chased by the kiss guys. It was a gas!
Anyway, the Mondeo performed well, strangely the tappets where getting quieter and the turbo seemed to be boosting harder… Great huh! Mmmm We also started to play “top speed challenge” involving down hill sections of the private motorway we were using
The Mondog topped out at a rather pants 99 mph downhill, wind behind us! Anyway we got to Annecy at around 10pm and got straight out on the beers! We also raised an extra £50 for the charity as one of our team swam the canal next to the bar we all gathered at in return for donations!
Pics
Lunch
Banter!
Our canal swimmer!
Day 2 Annecy – San Remo
Another day and more fun! This was when the weather really started to hot up. We convoyed out and up the mountain roads again having a great laugh generally “accidentally “ nudging each other in a top gear style and stopping for the odd game of “door wars” No major issues on the way until we got to San Remo… We struggled to find the hotel so ended up stuck in loads of traffic in 35 plus degree heat. As we finally pulled into the hotel car park we were greated by lots of steam and the contents of the rad dropped itself on the floor. We could see the radiator was the problem so we stripped off the grill and searched for the leak. Basically one of the vanes had cracked so we were loosing water very quickly! It was also Saturday evening, nowhere was open neither would they be the next day. So…. Where we going to have to concede defeet? Well, we got showered and headed on to the meeting place to see if we could blag something to help get us on our way (Radweld would have been pushing it, we were after some Araldite, the plan being to Araldite a coin over the split) Fortunateley one of the rallyers had some epoxy resin putty which he kindly gave us! We pocketed it, bought him a few pints and partied on!! But was this the end?
Pics
Convoy
Day 3 San Remo – Perpignan
We were up early this morning to get the car sorted. We spoke to the convoy and suggested they carry on as we would be some time. We mixed up the resin and caked it into the split before gathering as many water bottles as possible and filling them at a local café (we had about 40 litres in the end) The resin took a couple of hours to harden but it looked strong… We filled up the system and left the cap loose on the expansion tank to keep the pressure down. A quick call to see where the convoy were revealed that having refused to leave without us they were all pulled up in the starting car park and would be staying there till we arrived!! We pulled up and all 8 cars where there… Touching stuff! So off we headed to Monaco! We had a swim in the sea in full fancy dress before having a drive round the F1 circuit after lunch! At about 4pm we decided it would be wise to get moving so drove non stop to Perpignan (well after a few faff breaks to check our coolant) Amazingly the car didn’t loose one drop of coolant all day! Well done Mondog! We lost reverse at Monaco but who cares… If we needed to go backwards we just pushed!
So evening came as did the beers!
Pics
The bodge!
Monaco!
Day 4 Perpignan – Valencia
So, another early start.
We found that in the night the girls had taken revenge for our “chucking the contents of a bottle of urine out of the window at 80 with them behind us” game and vandalized our car with suncream… When they arrived we did point out that they couldn’t spell!!
We gave the car another once over, coolant was fine, oil fine – even though it was now smoking BADLY but it was all black and only at idle so I assume just a fuelling issue?? Anyway, much fun was had again with some pushing each other at toll booth antics and many faff breaks. We lost 4th gear for a while but some jiggery pokery with the linkages soon sorted that…. Still no reverse though. Many stops along the way to check coolant and amazingly our bodge held!
We arrived at the finish!! The art centre in valencia before heading out for the final party!! We ended up sleeping on the beach till 7am before heading back for a shower before our return leg home!
Pics
Blatant vandalism lol
Faff break
Rubbings racin!!
The end!!
The return
So now all we had to do was turn around and drive the most direct route back. And we NEARLY made it!! We got 100 miles away from Paris before we had a terminal failure on the motorway at 3am! Still, no problem. We got the car towed to a local garage who we signed the car over too (looks like the fuel pump gave up the ghost) got a hotel for the night courtesy of our breakdown cover then a taxi to Paris before jumping on the Eurostar home!
All in all it was an absolute legend and we’re looking forward to next year already! We may go back to a cav next year or a petrol mondeo but we’ll see! One of the teams made a great video which can be found here….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1TTyrzNVDA
We feature in the credits at the end. (about 8.35 onwards)
Theres loads more pics which I’ll put up as soon as I get chance.
So… the first stint Rushden to Calais!
We did a tour of friends and family before the off. Within approximately 5 miles we noticed that the top end had become incredibly noisy since the oil change. Meh too late now… we stopped at Halfords and lobbed some rather nasty gloopy “stop smoke” in which made it purr like a kitten (no it didn’t really although it quietened a little) Noise aside all went well and we even treated it to some Redex, hoping that may go some way to stop the massive amount of black smoke the car was now generating. We rocked up at Dover with an over an hour to spare so did the only decent thing and had a game of pool on the roof!! We had to borrow some pallets to park the car on to get it level but we had a good game in the end with loads of people coming over to chat, take pictures, have a shot etc! Within a few minutes in came a load of other Ramshacklers and the party spirit started! Once on the ferry we headed straight for the bar (apart from our designated driver) and got on it.
The trip over was uneventful and we headed for registration in Calais before getting a little drunk and crashing for the night at the Formule 1 NICE!
Pics
Game on!
At the Formule 1!
Day 1 Calais to Annecy
This was to be a long but good day… 600 miles to go! We got into convoy with the guys and girls we had been drinking with the night before. About 8 cars in total, this was to be the core of our convoy for the whole rally. Now the sensible thing would be to hot foot it down to Annecy stopping only for a quick bit but no… We spend 4 hours buggering round in Reims first. We had lunch at a nice little resteraunt and got some rather funny looks as we had…
3 Rastas
4 people dressed as kiss
A male bride and groom
4 hippies
3 disco types
And a few more. We got photographed for the local paper before all getting onto the carousel and finally shooting a video of the bride and groom being chased by us who were in turn being chased by the kiss guys. It was a gas!
Anyway, the Mondeo performed well, strangely the tappets where getting quieter and the turbo seemed to be boosting harder… Great huh! Mmmm We also started to play “top speed challenge” involving down hill sections of the private motorway we were using
The Mondog topped out at a rather pants 99 mph downhill, wind behind us! Anyway we got to Annecy at around 10pm and got straight out on the beers! We also raised an extra £50 for the charity as one of our team swam the canal next to the bar we all gathered at in return for donations!Pics
Lunch
Banter!
Our canal swimmer!
Day 2 Annecy – San Remo
Another day and more fun! This was when the weather really started to hot up. We convoyed out and up the mountain roads again having a great laugh generally “accidentally “ nudging each other in a top gear style and stopping for the odd game of “door wars” No major issues on the way until we got to San Remo… We struggled to find the hotel so ended up stuck in loads of traffic in 35 plus degree heat. As we finally pulled into the hotel car park we were greated by lots of steam and the contents of the rad dropped itself on the floor. We could see the radiator was the problem so we stripped off the grill and searched for the leak. Basically one of the vanes had cracked so we were loosing water very quickly! It was also Saturday evening, nowhere was open neither would they be the next day. So…. Where we going to have to concede defeet? Well, we got showered and headed on to the meeting place to see if we could blag something to help get us on our way (Radweld would have been pushing it, we were after some Araldite, the plan being to Araldite a coin over the split) Fortunateley one of the rallyers had some epoxy resin putty which he kindly gave us! We pocketed it, bought him a few pints and partied on!! But was this the end?
Pics
Convoy
Day 3 San Remo – Perpignan
We were up early this morning to get the car sorted. We spoke to the convoy and suggested they carry on as we would be some time. We mixed up the resin and caked it into the split before gathering as many water bottles as possible and filling them at a local café (we had about 40 litres in the end) The resin took a couple of hours to harden but it looked strong… We filled up the system and left the cap loose on the expansion tank to keep the pressure down. A quick call to see where the convoy were revealed that having refused to leave without us they were all pulled up in the starting car park and would be staying there till we arrived!! We pulled up and all 8 cars where there… Touching stuff! So off we headed to Monaco! We had a swim in the sea in full fancy dress before having a drive round the F1 circuit after lunch! At about 4pm we decided it would be wise to get moving so drove non stop to Perpignan (well after a few faff breaks to check our coolant) Amazingly the car didn’t loose one drop of coolant all day! Well done Mondog! We lost reverse at Monaco but who cares… If we needed to go backwards we just pushed!
So evening came as did the beers!
Pics
The bodge!
Monaco!
Day 4 Perpignan – Valencia
So, another early start.
We found that in the night the girls had taken revenge for our “chucking the contents of a bottle of urine out of the window at 80 with them behind us” game and vandalized our car with suncream… When they arrived we did point out that they couldn’t spell!!
We gave the car another once over, coolant was fine, oil fine – even though it was now smoking BADLY but it was all black and only at idle so I assume just a fuelling issue?? Anyway, much fun was had again with some pushing each other at toll booth antics and many faff breaks. We lost 4th gear for a while but some jiggery pokery with the linkages soon sorted that…. Still no reverse though. Many stops along the way to check coolant and amazingly our bodge held!
We arrived at the finish!! The art centre in valencia before heading out for the final party!! We ended up sleeping on the beach till 7am before heading back for a shower before our return leg home!
Pics
Blatant vandalism lol
Faff break
Rubbings racin!!
The end!!
The return
So now all we had to do was turn around and drive the most direct route back. And we NEARLY made it!! We got 100 miles away from Paris before we had a terminal failure on the motorway at 3am! Still, no problem. We got the car towed to a local garage who we signed the car over too (looks like the fuel pump gave up the ghost) got a hotel for the night courtesy of our breakdown cover then a taxi to Paris before jumping on the Eurostar home!
All in all it was an absolute legend and we’re looking forward to next year already! We may go back to a cav next year or a petrol mondeo but we’ll see! One of the teams made a great video which can be found here….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1TTyrzNVDA
We feature in the credits at the end. (about 8.35 onwards)
Theres loads more pics which I’ll put up as soon as I get chance.
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