So I arrived in Santiago De Compostella last, night under my own smoke I should add.

Had a great time at goodwood, I had a bit of a bad start on the thursday by forgetting to fill up before I left the house (after sleeping in by an hour) so i ran out of fuel around antwerp, thankfully i was with a bunch of folks and we filled up a spare can and were back off in 20 minutes or so. We breakfasted in brugge, before catching the chunnel around midday.

Over night in canterbury whilst we got suited up for goodwood, then on Friday we caught the last of qualifying and had a walk around and of course some pimms and lemonade.

The sun came out so we took some pictures of the cars, then the ferraris started being all italian and temperamental whilst I felt a little smug. The alternator packed up on the 330, and the 328 started misfiring, we swapped batteries around to get us home, the misfire was down to a loose wiring harness, the alternator was toast though, so we bought a spare battery, charged them both up, and its enough to get the 330 back to holland.

The seven was going pretty well, a bit antisocially loud, but I'm getting used to it, even if my ears aren't. It got a bit hot on the way to London on saturday night as it seems not to suck in water from the expansion tank despite being quite happy to push it out there, over the space of a few hundred miles it starts to get a bit warmer but not worryingly so, just a few degrees at idle telling me the thermostat housing isnt quite full.

Highlights for me were the Lola's/Gt4's, and the ferrari breadvan/gtos, the vulcan bomber was something else, for something so big it looks amazingly agile and the noise, oh the noise.

Sunday it was overnight to La Havre, and i drove down through le mans, then gascogne in the south and camped in the forest somewhere. Didn't touch a single motorway, and most of the driving was down very small provincial roads which was wonderful.

Tuesday I crossed the col de something into spain, and headed towards santiago de compostella where i noticed a bit of a rattle and my fan promptly fell off. Oh well. The rattle turns out to be the bolt holding the bracket for the alternator under the water pump pulley, that was easily tightened back up again as it had come out and was hitting off the pulley causing the rattle.

The fan, not so much, i'm not sure what happened first, but the thread has been stripped completely, and the dog drive has torn the hole in the fan apart completely so I've ordered a new one from burton power which will arrive tomorrow (UPS Permitting.) and I'll continue down to lisbon from here.

I expect that the air is coming in via the water pump due the bolt coming out which would make sense. I brought a load of instant gasket etc, in case i need to take it off and seal it up properly anyway.

The rest of the car seems pretty good, lots of things coming slightly loose, so I've been out with the spanner this morning. Nylocs are a lifesaver, literally, I can't iterate just how important it is to use these and good quality washers everywhere you can.

Now i'm going to have a beer, ogle spanish girls, and have some lunch before seeing some more of the town. Some people might say that a seven is not a practical car, unreliable, and totally useless for long journeys, they might be right, but right now, I wouldn't want to be driving anything else.

Cheers


David
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quote:

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Originally posted by irvined
ogle spanish girls

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Glad you're having a good time and the car is holding up.

Sounds like a fantastic trip!

Have a great time!

You may have planned it already, and I don't know your route, but on your way back up through France you may want to cross the Milau Bridge.

It's a fantastic bit of engineering and has some amazing views (it's taller than the Eiffel Tower!).

All the best,
James

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milau_Bridge

[Edited on 23/9/09 by James]

I will watch this thread carefully as I'm like the idea of this sort of trip, but mostly cause I want to see the Spanish Girlies!

Excellent

Keep the updates comming


RD

Driving to Spain is one thing ive always wanted to do, I would like to do it next year, ideally with a couple of cars, but with a passenger if I had to do it in one car.

[Edited on 23/9/09 by prawnabie]

Hi,

I am planning a trip to Spain, Gib and Portugal next year, hopefully the car will stand up to it after I finish the rebuild afterr the accident this year.

I am looking at going Last week of July and first week of August.

Regards

Bob.

Nice to hear that you have made it into Spain. Let us hope that you make it back to Holland ok. Best of luck with the rest of the trip and enjoy yourself. Keep the pics coming.....

TimR

quote:

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Originally posted by Hammerhead

quote:

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Originally posted by irvined
ogle spanish girls

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pictures please

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Ahh Mike, Išve moved on from Spanish girls now, its all about the Portuguese lassies. So far they have been getting high ratings on the David Irvine chart of excellence.

I'm now enjoying portugal, I was planning on staying in Lisbon for only a day or so, but the scenery is just so nice I've had to stay another day or so.
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More scenery
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As for the car, new fan arrived from Burton Power and is now fitted, although its great at cooling down in traffic, its blocking the airflow at higher speeds causing the temp to climb a bit, so im going to move it behind the rad, but this will involve having to put some spacers in the mount for the oil cooler. The kenlowe fan is mahoosive, but pretty powerful. I had to fit a bigger fuse, but its certainly way more useful than the one I had, and more importantly, it spins.

The water pump I've left for now, the bolt holding the tensioner arm snapped, its not leaking (yet) and im not going to touch it until I have to as its a can of worms I'd rather avoid opening.

Tomorrow I'm off to the GP circuit and then algeceras and over into moroc, weather and beer permitting.