Antero and I made it home to Finland today, so I thought I'd write something about it as well as share the pictures we made.
On the 19th of July I took a nightboat from Turku in Finland to Stockholm. Arriving in Stockholm the next morning at 06:30 the roads where empty and wide so I quickly got to Helsingborg where I took a short ferry to Helsingor in Denmark and after some more driving a 45 minute ferry from Rodby to Puttgarden (Germany) where I arrived around 18:00 and made camp, happy to have travelled 800km in a day.
The next day there was "just" 450km left to drive to my parents in the North of The Netherlands. I have enrolled in a local sailing event every year since I was 15 and this year was no exception. Of course the GS was put into service as a tow car.
On the Thursday before RRG I joined The Doctor, Jonkheer and Jonkheer's brother driving to Belgium where MrJ, Berendd and Dennismo also arrived.
On Friday we took the ferry from Dunkerque to Dover with 7 cars, on our way to the RRG camp site with a stop at the Red Hill trainstation where I picked up Antero who arrived in London by airplane the day before.
On Saturday Antero and me joined the Nightmares to the Beaulieu museum which was well worth even more driving.
On Sunday I was in the second session of the track action and I enjoyed it really much. I pushed the car as hard as I could and it felt very good. Unfortunately I didn't set any decent "number of points" as I misunderstood the finish box system.
On Monday morning Antero and I where the last of the EU guys to leave as my parents' comfortable "retro" cotton tent needed to dry before folding.
On Monday night we camped with The Doctor in Belgium once again. Tuesday brought a visit to The Doctor's and Berendd's workshop after which we drove to my parents' place where we stayed for the night. On Wednesday we camped in Southern Sweden.
By now we had renamed the Citroen GS to the Citroen Grand Tourer, as it's amazingly capable of these kind of long distance motorway trips at rather high speeds.
On Thursday night we were supposed to go on a ferry in Stockholm. Unfortunately, after 5281km on this trip and 9000km since I bought it last year the car failed for the first time while just entering Stockholm on the Motorway, a couple of minutes after we had left a very hot and very stuck traffic jam.
This was a horrible place to be broken down in, right on the middle of a bridge.
My immediate suspicion that the SEV Marchall contact breaker cassette was the problem would later turn out to be correct, but despite replacing the thing with a spare within the first 5 minutes after breaking down it wouldn't run. This was probably simply because I didn't fit it correctly as I was stressed by the trucks racing half a meter from my head.
After about an hour of unpleasant messing at the side of the motorway, including a walk to the gas station to fetch more fuel (in vain of course), I decided the ignition coil must be broken and we called a tow truck.
By now we were to late for the ferry we were scheduled to go on, so the tow truck delivered us to the side of the check-in line at another ferry terminal that was closer by.
Due to the amazing Googling skills of a friend we called in Finland we got several address of car parts shops close to the center of Stockholm. Yesterday (Friday) in the morning we walked to a small dusty shop were I convinced the seller to just sell me whatever old fashioned type coil he had lying around. We got something in an old box that said "Made in West-Germany". Perfect.
For some reason at some point along the motorway the day before I had decided to fit the old contact breaker cassette back rather than refitting the spare one properly so after fitting the new coil of course nothing changed. This was however quickly realized and after fitting the spare cassette properly the car ran immediately. If only I had fitted it correctly before...
We finally drove the car onto a ferry directly to Helsinki at 16:00 and after a good meal and a rather fun night we were happy to get home this morning.
It was an amazing trip, and I wouldn't have wanted to mis it. The breakdown doesn't change anything to the amazing capability of this 33 year old car that I drove 5300km in 4 weeks averaging a respectable fuel economy of 8.5L / 100km.
Here's all the pictures, mostly made by Antero at the Beaulieu museum and the RRG show day: www.siert.nl/forum/RRG10/
On the 19th of July I took a nightboat from Turku in Finland to Stockholm. Arriving in Stockholm the next morning at 06:30 the roads where empty and wide so I quickly got to Helsingborg where I took a short ferry to Helsingor in Denmark and after some more driving a 45 minute ferry from Rodby to Puttgarden (Germany) where I arrived around 18:00 and made camp, happy to have travelled 800km in a day.
The next day there was "just" 450km left to drive to my parents in the North of The Netherlands. I have enrolled in a local sailing event every year since I was 15 and this year was no exception. Of course the GS was put into service as a tow car.
On the Thursday before RRG I joined The Doctor, Jonkheer and Jonkheer's brother driving to Belgium where MrJ, Berendd and Dennismo also arrived.
On Friday we took the ferry from Dunkerque to Dover with 7 cars, on our way to the RRG camp site with a stop at the Red Hill trainstation where I picked up Antero who arrived in London by airplane the day before.
On Saturday Antero and me joined the Nightmares to the Beaulieu museum which was well worth even more driving.
On Sunday I was in the second session of the track action and I enjoyed it really much. I pushed the car as hard as I could and it felt very good. Unfortunately I didn't set any decent "number of points" as I misunderstood the finish box system.
On Monday morning Antero and I where the last of the EU guys to leave as my parents' comfortable "retro" cotton tent needed to dry before folding.
On Monday night we camped with The Doctor in Belgium once again. Tuesday brought a visit to The Doctor's and Berendd's workshop after which we drove to my parents' place where we stayed for the night. On Wednesday we camped in Southern Sweden.
By now we had renamed the Citroen GS to the Citroen Grand Tourer, as it's amazingly capable of these kind of long distance motorway trips at rather high speeds.
On Thursday night we were supposed to go on a ferry in Stockholm. Unfortunately, after 5281km on this trip and 9000km since I bought it last year the car failed for the first time while just entering Stockholm on the Motorway, a couple of minutes after we had left a very hot and very stuck traffic jam.
This was a horrible place to be broken down in, right on the middle of a bridge.
My immediate suspicion that the SEV Marchall contact breaker cassette was the problem would later turn out to be correct, but despite replacing the thing with a spare within the first 5 minutes after breaking down it wouldn't run. This was probably simply because I didn't fit it correctly as I was stressed by the trucks racing half a meter from my head.
After about an hour of unpleasant messing at the side of the motorway, including a walk to the gas station to fetch more fuel (in vain of course), I decided the ignition coil must be broken and we called a tow truck.
By now we were to late for the ferry we were scheduled to go on, so the tow truck delivered us to the side of the check-in line at another ferry terminal that was closer by.
Due to the amazing Googling skills of a friend we called in Finland we got several address of car parts shops close to the center of Stockholm. Yesterday (Friday) in the morning we walked to a small dusty shop were I convinced the seller to just sell me whatever old fashioned type coil he had lying around. We got something in an old box that said "Made in West-Germany". Perfect.
For some reason at some point along the motorway the day before I had decided to fit the old contact breaker cassette back rather than refitting the spare one properly so after fitting the new coil of course nothing changed. This was however quickly realized and after fitting the spare cassette properly the car ran immediately. If only I had fitted it correctly before...
We finally drove the car onto a ferry directly to Helsinki at 16:00 and after a good meal and a rather fun night we were happy to get home this morning.
It was an amazing trip, and I wouldn't have wanted to mis it. The breakdown doesn't change anything to the amazing capability of this 33 year old car that I drove 5300km in 4 weeks averaging a respectable fuel economy of 8.5L / 100km.
Here's all the pictures, mostly made by Antero at the Beaulieu museum and the RRG show day: www.siert.nl/forum/RRG10/
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Ax GTi Turbo
