Another danish restoration

[Duze]

Hi all 86 fans.

During the summer 2014 some friends and I decided to do a road trip around Europe. This post is about this trip.

The premisses would be that we would drive our old cars and so we did. We would drive a Volvo 142 and my Corolla AE86. Also we would try not to use the motorway where ever possible.

During the initial planning during the winter of 2014 we talked about going around Germany visiting various car manufactures and their car museums. The plan changed a bit though. We discovered that the ferry between Harwich and Esbjerg would shut down by the end of 2014. If we were to take our cars to Britain it would be now of never.
We decided to drive to Amsterdam and then to Britain via Eurotunnel. We would then drive around Britain and finally take the ferry back to Denmark.

Let the Epic Euro trip begin :-)




This is a crude map of the route we took through Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain. The entire trip was about 2700 km. My odometer said 3000 km, but using GPS we could calculate that the smaller wheels on the car gave an error of about 10%.






This is just before we are leaving. I'm waiting for my friends to arrive. The car is packed and ready to go. Both cars had packed various tool and what not should anything happen. And of course also some duct tape, zip ties, extra petrol, oil and water. Especially the water came in handy later...

We had packed a tent so that we could drive all day and just camp out when ever we felt like it. We had also booked some hotels along the way. Quite nice since it was pretty cold during the night even though it was mid august.






Here we are in Amsterdam. We had rented a lovely little apartment here. We spend a whole day in the city walking around and just sight seeing. What a beautiful city. I'm definitely going back there someday.
The cars are holding up just fine. They use a little oil and water, but nothing serious.




Taking the Eurotunnel across the channel is so easy I would recommend it all who what to go to England and drive around. All in all I think the train trip was about 45-60 min.
A small tip: Buy your tickets in advance and save a lot of money!




The first day in England we just drove and drove to get as far west as possible. We ended up finding a hotel for the night since all the camping sites we found were closed because of the late hour.

The next morning we drove to the National motor museum at Southampton (http://www.beaulieu.co.uk/). Great collection of cars and motorcycles and the trip there was very beautiful.

After that we headed for Cheddar Gorge where we would camp out for the night.




What a view! We could pick any spot we wanted so we took this. Next we drove to Cheddar Gorge (http://www.cheddargorge.co.uk/). This is definitely also worth a visit if you enjoy nature and old caves.

After Cheddar Gorge we drove into Wales to see a small hill called Pen y Fan. Once again, WOW. What a sight. Due to lack of time we didn't reach the top of the hill, but the view and silence there were breathtaking.

We drove back to England and headed for Stoke-on-Trent where we would camp for the night.
Out mission here was to go the biggest amusement park in England called Alton Towers (https://www.altontowers.com/). They had some serious roller coasters and water rides.




And speaking of water rides. Yes, that is my shoes and socks hanging out for drying! The reason for this stop is that there was a rattling noise from the Volvo. We couldn't find ant issues so we drove on. When we got home we found out that one of the links for the prop shaft had worn and broken. We were very happy that this didn't break into total bits on the trip.




Here we have landed in Liverpool right next to Enfield stadium. I'm not a football fan at all, but our host at the hotel was and boy did he have some stories to tell

The next day we went into Liverpool to shop and try out some of the local pubs. Cheers. This was a great city and I really enjoyed it. BTW if you like The Beatles this is the place to be.
After a good nights sleep we headed for Harwich International Port.




Some say that is the Corolla but I don't recall ;-) The engine was all of the sudden very hot so I pulled over immediately. It was just pissing with water all over the place. The water pump had finally given in. We are about 150 km from the ferry and we just had to get there in time. I added some fresh water and were able to drive on. Luckily we managed to get to the ferry without any more problems.




Finally we arrived at the ferry. We added some more water and oil and were able to get home to Denmark. We were very tired now and looking forward to the 18 hour trip by sea.
The final 150 km in Denmark from Esbjerg to home would be a breeze compared to the rest of the trip.

As I wrote before we drove 2700 km. The old trusty Corolla did an average of 13,5 km/l (including error correction) which is more than approved. The water pump is dead but that is also the only mechanical thing that went wrong with it. Other that that it just drove and drove.

Looking back, it is a trip I will never forget. The places we saw, the people we met. It was a fantastic trip and truly a once in a life time thing going around UK like that. Driving the old cars only made the trip even more memorable.

The next post will be me changing the water pump and other engine bits and bobs.

Cheers.