Friday 29 May 2009

Germany, the Nurburgring, the tow truck

For Steve's stag we drove to the Nurburgring. All went well for 400 miles until we arrived at Nurburg. There was a tight right hand hairpin in the road which simultaneously seized my left front brake caliper and my left half shaft. Rubbish. The brakes cooled and backed off enough to get us to our campsite with a slight knocking from the rear axle. Once the tent was up and the fire blazing I jacked up the car and took the brake caliper apart. I did this 3 or 4 times over the weekend and now it seems to be performing well. The drive shaft on the other hand never did get mended. I couldn't diagnose the problem in the woods so we had to get towed home. Needless to say #36 never made it around the ring, but to be fair it wasn't quite ready, however, I now have something to aim for. We made it home eventually but not without the much needed help of some locals, Andreas Wollschlaeger, 30 years racing at the Green Hell and Kenneth Harris of NurburgMotorsport who was very helpful and let us use his lift gratis. Cheers!

Saturday 23 May 2009

98400 miles: Bilstein sports all round

Today, Steve and I installed a set of Bilstein sports to firm up that ride. Nice and stiff now. The wife says she needs a sports bra when riding in the car now. The job went well, although I have noticed that the left control arm is an original early style skinny arm and it is bent. This is affecting the camber and tow on the left side and will need to be replaced with the later style arm as the right side has already been done.