31st Edition of “De Nachtrit”

Yesterday evening (Saturday the 26^th of October) saw the already 31^st edition of our Nachtrit. An annual night time navigational rally over a challenging and varied collection of mostly dark country lanes in the Dutch, Belgian and German border area. But it also meant that it was an early start for me and my navigator Jos, as we had the task of carrying out the final check of the route.

But in the end that task proved rather entertaining, as the weather was rather fine and the problems with the road book or route itself were limited. So I was able to enjoy driving the car over some very fine roads in the Euregio (and some a little less, as in being typical Belgian quality 😜).

View of Chateau Beusdael with the valley of the river Geul in the background,

on the Belgian/Dutch border (B)

Land consolidation road south of the village of Vlijtingen (B)

The village of Eysden (NL) and the valley of the river Maas,

seen from the plateau above Lanaye (B)

Rural landscape north of Charneux (B)

And despite a few photo stops and a leisurely lunch break in the restaurant at the halfway point, we covered the ± 245 kilometre route fairly quickly. As a result of which we were back at Rolduc Abbey, well before the start of the event at 5:00 pm. It was a very nice drive indeed.

Plenty of time left for some well-deserved koffie & vlaai and to have a closer look at the various cars that were entered this year. To start with the wedges that were entered this year. Good to see their number had risen from 3 to 4 since last year!

And some of the other entrants. To start with this lovely ’38 Simca:

But it was also good to welcome an English entry from Club Triumph again in the person of Michael and navigator Andy with their TR6. Here flanked by two Reliant Scimitars;

And it didn’t take long before it was time for the first cars to set off at a one minute interval:

With all cars gone the organising committee’s only task left was wait for the teams to return in about six hours. All very, very annoying (not!), with a table booked in the abbey’s restaurant and the bar in the cellar open to visit after he meal.

And with the exception of one car, that had to retire because the lights stopped working, all teams returned safely back at Rolduc. With the first car finishing around 22:45 o’clock (and actually being the last to leave). See you all next year for the 32nd edition!

Testdrive for ‘t Kreng

Took 't Kreng for a spin this afternoon. This in preparation for the 31st edition of our Nachtrit this Saturday, where she'll be car of choice for the last reconnaissance. But first I enjoyed the DHC for well over an hour! Sadly earlier in the day the weather was still fairly cloudy so no picture proof of that. And after enjoying the DHC it was time to go to the shed to swap cars.

I have to admit that it didn’t go as planned, as I managed to lock myself outside the shed and outside the car. With the DHC it is pretty easy to gain entry without the keys. But not so with a FHC, even with an Edrose sunroof. Luckily help was at hand! And in the end I didn’t lose more than 15 minutes.

I wasn’t able to take ‘t Kreng for spin directly after taking it from the shed. But by 4 o’clock in the afternoon I did set of to enjoy the car. Was again a bit of a culture shock after driving the DHC. But it didn’t take long to adjust to the heavy quick rack steering and the firm but very effective brakes. Time to enjoy some spirited driving, the fine weather and the local scenery.

As a result it was somewhat later than expected when I got home. The car behaved pretty good. Though the engine would misfire and backfire sometimes and would idle randomly between approximately 1000 and 1500 rpm. That’s till I found that the choke had been pulled out a bit. Easily overlooked as I seldom use the choke on this car. And after some problems with the choke light switch, this was disconnected beside the road by the side of a very wet road deep in the highlands of Scotland many years ago. Due to a short circuit in the switch the fuse blew. And in the process the windscreen wipers stopped working. Not particularly handy in a heavy Scottish downpour. Luckily the cause was clearly marked by some sparks coming from underneath the dashboard …

But it resulted in me not noticing the choke was pulled out slightly. At least this was a problem easily solved. And after that the engine ran much better. Looking forward to the next trip this Saturday 😎

FHC resto nr. 81; Door handles

With the striping fitted to the doors they are now ready to be fitted to the car. But because I need an extra pair of hands to fit them, I started with some preparations of parts that can be fitted to the doors ones they are in the car. To start with the door handles. On the DHC they were powder coated completely black. And for this car I went the same route. Though this time I opted to have them painted in the same satin black as various body parts. Including the sills and the rear light panel to name a few. This was done because shot blasting these poor quality soft alloy parts has been proved rather difficult in the past.

And to complete the door handles I need a few more parts. So I went to the shed last Saturday to pick out all the parts I need for the door handles. To start with the parts that were gloss galvanised

Clearly some parts missing there! But then I found this box, containing parts of all the door handles I dismantled over the years. Unfortunately I overlooked this box when I sorted out the parts for galvanising. Luckily there are enough corrosion free parts in there which are in such good condition that they can be used after a good clean. 

But it clearly shows the biggest problem at the moment. A lot of time is spent in the search for parts I know I have but don’t know where they are stored! Though rummaging through all the boxes with parts also has its positive sides. As I found this small plastic box containing a complete cylinder lock set for one car (so door cylinders, ignition lock and keys of course). Rather pleased with that. More so because the boot lid and glove box lid also have matching locks!

And the last bits to go into the collection box were these plastic “gaskets” that will go between door skin and door handle. Together with two soft plastic buffers that look like they can be used to replace the old rubber buffers behind the door levers.

As fitting the doors is scheduled “somewhere” after the Nachtrit next weekend, there is no hurry yet to get the door handles finished.

Edited 21 October 2019

I checked the ignition lock’s action tonight and it wouldn’t release the steering lock. Washing it in brake cleaner and lubricating it didn’t have any effect. So it looks like I have to go for either plan B or C;

Plan B: this consists of swapping the door cylinders pictured above with the ones from ‘t Kreng and use these for the restoration together with the ignition lock from ‘t Kreng. This became superfluous when I fitted this switch panel to that car:

Plan C: here one of the good ignition locks will be used as a sample to match a set of door cylinders that has yet to be purchased.

Of the above plan B is the cheap option, as I have all parts in stock, but will involve a few hours of work to swap door lock cylinders on 't Kreng. Whereas plan C involves buying a new set of door lock cylinders, match them to the ignition lock and fit them to the '76 FHC. To be continued, but I think I do have a plan!

Out and about

Yesterday I went over to a friend’s workshop, so I could use one of the lifts there to clean the underside of the DHC. As mentioned earlier the engine lost around half a litre of oil during the recent 10 Countries Run. Nothing to worry about really considering the cause, but it did make quite a mess underneath the car. Time to get out a few cans of brake cleaner and some rags. Together with some compressed air this got rid of all the oily muck. After which its was time for more coffee and vlaai. And using the workshop’s facilities made life so much easier that I had a few spare hours to enjoy the car. Which I did!

Was a lovely drive. Even managed to collect an acorn on top of the dashboard while driving through an oak-tree-lined country lane. Judging by the sound, the acorn hit the co-driver seat’s headrest and was then catapulted horizontally against the inside of the windscreen. Timing indeed …

Also seems like I have finally found the problem with the brakes. Under specific conditions the brakes would need pretty much force to work properly, as if the brake’s servo wasn’t working properly. Well since I replaced the callipers and servo the problem had become less. But it did re-appear from time to time in what at first seemed like a random fashion. But today I noticed the problem did appear only when the engine wasn’t running properly at idle (and as such not producing enough vacuum for the servo to work properly). And both times the car was idling at low revs, just after starting the engine. Under normal driving conditions the problem so far has disappeared. Time for a little experiment. For which I used  a lonely stretch of road. The experiment consisted of switching off the engine (taking care not to activate the steering lock!) while driving, and see how the brakes felt after they had lost the vacuum assistance. And sure enough the symptoms are exactly the same! Hopefully I have found the core of the problem. Time and mileage will tell!