Monday 13 April 2015

11th & 12th April. Bending things and breaking things.

A trip to Normandy in France this weekend with a few mates provided a fantastic laugh and a great time. However, it was slightly tainted by a couple of unfortunate issues.

The first was when we stopped to let an old lady cross the road on a Zebra crossing and a French white van man decided to drive into the back of us! The crash caused damage to the inner and outer rear valance and bootlid. Thanks to help from some of the crowd we were with, we managed to pull some of it out and get the boot opening and closing properly again. 

before...
after....

The second issue was worse on the 'going home' part of the run. The clutch had been getting quite difficult to operate smoothly. In fact, sometimes, the pedal seemed to stick and wouldn't  release at the biting point when it needed to. Luckily, we managed to get the car home ok, and the following morning the gearbox and clutch was removed for inspection. 
Investigation revealed that the fingers on the pressure plate were badly worn and also not quite in line in places. 

Even more investigation also revealed a broken engine mount. I suspect this was caused by the amount of 'jolty' pulling away we had had to do with the awkward clutch. 
So, a replacement engine mount has been fitted and a new clutch has been ordered. Hopefully, it will arrive in the next few days and all being well Gertie will be back in action on the HCR this weekend. 
       It's just a pity just this will now be two years running that she has had to compete with accident damage! 

No comments:

Post a Comment