Forgotten jubilee

Completely forgot an important milestone in the life of ‘t Kreng. Last year in early November, when on our way to do the final reconnaissance for the Nachtrit, the odometer passed 74030 kilometres for the second time in her life. Nothing special you’d say. But it meant that the car covered exactly 100.000 kilometres since her restoration was finished in 1997. And looking at a lot of those kilometres I have to admit that she’s behaved very well indeed over those past 15 years. OK there were some downs ...

With a jammed fuel pump in Milton Keynes (22-9-1998)

Losing a brake calliper in Lochearnhead (4-6-2006)

But luckily the ups were a vast majority ...

Abandoned Stelvio (3-7-2002)

Col de L'Iseran (9-9-2005)

Langstrothdale Chase (1-6-2007)

At the start for the Nacht van het Oosten (15-3-2008)

And while driving last weekend’s Nacht van het Oosten, I was again reminded of the fact how well she still drives. It’s almost a shame that I’ll have to dismantle her within the next year or so for a full rebuild. But that’s going to be the last stage in a 15 year long development of the car. So a good time to look back at a few of the better improvements over the years ...

Sparco bucket seats and a decent trip meter, making life much easier during various events.

Adding rear discs greatly improved the balance and feel under heavy braking.

Big front discs and callipers added lots of stopping power, without ruining the brake balance.

These are actually the third set up that has been used on the car. The other being Princess callipers with solid discs (prone to warping) and Ford based callipers with vented discs that are now used on the DHC.

Other improvements were fitting very sticky Yokohama tyres, which together with an uprated front anti roll bar and an alloy front strut brace greatly improved the cars handling. But the best upgrade so far is the set of front and rear coil-overs I ordered from a local suspension specialist a few years ago.

The only item that hardly has been touched all those kilometres is the engine, which is still going strong. See what the next 100.000 kilometres will bring for her! At least the preparations for a new engine are now under way, as two Sprint heads are away for testing. The best of these two will be ported and flowed to form a good base for a powerful and tractable engine.