I thought I would relay our Le Mans trip for you all. It was quite a challenge getting there!! We were meant to be off on the Tuesday, to come home on the following Monday. I’ll add right here that Steve bought the car as is, and is not responsible for the standard (??) of workmanship on it (apart from the fan mounting).
We had planned that Steve Wallace with his 1960 Zodiac
(302 powered) would drive us all out there, that’s myself, Jon Hughes, and
Rajesh Patel, over from South Africa for the event. We would be towing my Ford
Pop bodied trailer with all the gear in it. Steve was to come over to me and
collect Raj on the way down to meet Jon, at the hotel in Ashford, so we could go
straight to the ferry in the morning.
Steve arrive on the Tuesday morning, with a new gas tank in the boot, we needed to change this before we left as the old one leaked. This was planned. This is also where all planning started to unravel!........... As Steve pulled on to the driveway, I noticed that the rad was leaking……Ho hum! Luckily my neighbour does rad repairs for a living, so it was duly pulled out and rushed round for emergency repairs. The reason that it leaked was that the electric fans were sagging on to it, so I pulled them out too and made up some proper bracketry for them and welded it all in.
By this time we had replaced the tank, and got the rad back (5 holes and £20.00 later). I then looked at the fans wiring, which was totally carbonised as it was burnt out. Steve was duly sent off to the local car shop (100 yds away) with a shopping list of wires. After rewiring the fans (properly this time) and nearly fainting at the total abortion that passes for a wiring loom, I the had to look at the wipers, as they did not work…..,15 mins with an AVO meter later, and I had got high speed working, so that would do for now. We thought we were on our way then. The trailer was loaded up and wheeled round to hook up…………..err…. Steve, where’s the tow hook?
Back in the garage and robbed the Pop store box for the tow ball, and hooked it all up & plugged it in, …..and it all worked!! It was now 8pm!! So we loaded up and filled up with gas, and off we went. I was well looking forward to getting to the pub for some well deserved beers and some food as we had worked straight through the day to fix the car.
On the motorway, with the diff whining like a blunt drill
(its shagged!!) we cruised along finally relaxing after a hard days
thrash…………and the car started to hiccup……we tried ignoring it for 30 secs, but
gave in and pulled onto the hard shoulder. We poked around under the bonnet, and
I found a loose connector on the solenoid, tightened this up and she ran again.
Hmmmm…. That was a bit too easy……….. 5 mins later, hiccup……..and it cut out
again.
Stripped out the fuel filter, and it was clogged with debris from the new tank (it was flushed before fitting), luckily it was the type that is cleanable, and we were on our way again. Its now nearly 10 Pm, and I’m very hungry and dying for a beer!! 15 mins later and Steve says, Shit!! We’ve got no brakes!!! I thought he was joking at first, but no, we really had lost them. Fortunately, it was on a deserted stretch of motorway, so we gently cruised off to the next junction and stopped at a safe place. Upon inspection there was fluid all over the o/side rear tyre, so it looked like that was it, no le mans this year :o(
The AA were called and arranged for it to be trailer back to my place. We caller Raj, who was waiting in a pub for us, and informed Jon that it looked like it was off. Raj got a taxi home, and on the way, spotted us, and got the taxi to drop him off!! A small result at last.
The AA eventually turned up and we finally got home at 3.30AM. We had missed the ferry, and missed the hotel, which was paid for too. Tired, hungry, and unhappy, we all crashed out and went to bed. 4 hours later, we were up again, calling the ferry company to see if we could get another sailing, which we could, at 6.30 that night, but not with the trailer. Hum. Bugger. A big fry up later, courtesy of me, and we are ready for the days challenge.
We stripped the brakes, and it turned out that the COPPER, Yes COPPER, brake pipes had sheared off on one side, at the slave union. This was because it had not been properly secured to the axle, well it had not been secured at all…………. New brake pipes later, properly secured to the axle this time, and I bled the brakes. So far so good……..until I checked the slave cylinders…….passenger side completely seized, driver’s side, one piston seized. Also the handbrake did not work, as most of the parts for it were lying inside the drum………..
Off to OCW in Perivale for new cylinders, except they are not ford 8” cylinders…..in fact they do not match any cylinders in the entire catalogue of parts at all! Arrrrggghhhh!!!!!! It is now 2pm, and we had run out of time.
Emergency plan B comes into effect at this point, which is dump the entire contents of the car & trailer in my house and only take what we absolutely must, as we were ALL going to fit into my Camaro, including all the camping gear!! God knows how you get 4 guys in a 2+2 Camaro with all the gear, when it has a boot only big enough for a toothbrush!! But somehow we managed it!! A big thrash down the motorway, at a slightly elevated 70mph!! (honestly officer!) got us into Dover at 5.45Pm for our ferry. Finally we could relax!! Errrr……..No! The ferry had engine trouble and would be delayed about 3 hours, Hmmmmm.
So we set off to the bar for one (?) of the finest, most well deserved beers of our lives, mmmm that tastes real good. Several beers (not me, I was driving) later and the ferry finally gets going at Midnight. We arrive in France at 2 am local time. Strangely, I don’t feel tired at all, so we set off for the long drive down to Le Mans. This was quite pleasant, as the roads were clear, the temp was warm (about 68F) and we made several stops with good chats with all the other drivers that were driving down along with us. 5 hours later we arrive at Le Mans, hurray!!!!!
We meet up with the rest of the team, and all the work and driving finally take their toll, and I have to crash for half an hour as my body has reached shutdown. I guess 4 hours sleep in the last 47 hours is not enough, lol! When I resurface, I crack open the first of many beers for the next few days, and we all introduce ourselves and pitch our tents. There were 16 of us in total this year (it grows each year) and it was my first Le Mans. The team is pretty well organised by now, and we have a proper fridge freezer on site with a big gennie, together with 4 barbeques for the cooking. At least we have a good supply of cold beers at all times!
What follows is 4 days of petrol head bliss, cars practicing till midnight each night, hot sunny weather all day (40 deg C!) cold beers on tap, cool cars in the campsite, scantily clad girls and chilling out in abundance. The racing was excellent, with the public being able to get extremely close to the track, (less than 20 feet in places) and there was a terrific 1 hour race of all the old Le Mans cars from bygone era’s with Stirling Moss still caning a Jag round at silly speeds, even though he is in his 80’s I believe now. It was great to see these classics drifting sideways around the bends, they may be priceless, but it does not stop them racing. One went into the wall, and one lost its rear wheel complete with halfshaft in front of us! The proper competitors for the full race were not really my type of car, 16,000 rpm screamers in works prototype bodies don’t light my fire, but the sportsman class had some notable exceptions.
These were the totally awesome sounding C6 Vettes, powered by big blocks, the Panoz cars, with big block fords, and a Spyker with a V8 as well. Also the Astons were lovely to look at, but had high revving V12’s so did not sound so good.Standing in the middle of the track at 3 am with the race in full swing, you can hear the Vettes start down the 3.8 mile Mulsanne straight, at about 100mph, shifting up quickly to 180mph, and then flat out for over a minute till Arnage, the next bend, and I can tell you, the huge, and I mean HUGE growl from these awesome sounding cars, makes my skin crawl with goosebumps even now as I remember it! They are only second to Fuellers for their wow factor. All too soon it came to an end, the Audi’s won (again) for the overall win, with the Vette’s taking 1st & 2nd over the Astons, who had total failure at the 23 hour mark, one ran out of fuel, and the other broke the rear suspension, but managed to get out for the last lap to take 3rd place. Racing is a hard master.
I have total respect for these cars as they run flat out for the 24 hours, there is no tactical “cruising” to make the cars last any more, it’s a total sprint from start to finish. The stresses on the engines must be huge, but they stay together (mostly). The cars are very battle weary at the end, duct tape is often seen holding them together and this year the track itself was breaking up under the strain. Going home, it was another 4 am start, also with a new problem….the French don’t have petrol stations!! We drove on, and on, and on………until I really began to sweat as the car was beyond the red on the gauge, with no station in sight. Finally we found a station, that was a 24 hour, but only with French credit cards! I managed to eventually flag down a French motorist, (one who did not think I was going to attack them!) and using my very rusty O level French explained that we needed them to buy fuel for us and we could give them cash. They obligingly agreed, but I think they might regret it now, as while we filled up six more desperate English cars pulled up with the same problem, and asked for the same help!!
We were now ok though, and made the ferry with 10 mins to spare, ooh that was tight! And back to the rat race that we call England. I dropped Jon off at home, and also Steve and Raj and then home to my house.The Camaro behaved impeccably throughout, which is good as it was not serviced for a big trip and it is no spring chicken at 18 years old now, but she never missed a beat. It was quite an ordeal doing this trip, but great fun because (in spite of?) the problems, cant wait till next year!!! Since then I have sorted Steve’s brakes out for him, fixed the handbrake, fixed the indicators/headlights/some of the wiring, and will sort out the oil leak where the previous owner put the oil filter about 3thou away from the headers, which have chafed through it………… looks like Steve will be leaving it here for a bit then! Mark Blackpop Harley for all the photos http://www.hotrodphotos.co.uk/LeMans2005.htm