Granada 24v Cosworth - new boots

[Captain Furious]

So I'm not sure if any of these are considered interesting or classic or shite, but you are getting a thread about them anyway. Some of the brief flirtations into old car ownership I've had in the last few years. Mostly inspired by cars that I've owned in the past, or just pure whimsical fantasies after seeing something at a show and thinking 'I wouldn't mind getting one of them' .. getting it...and then haemorrhaging money on it before getting bored and selling it at a massive loss.

 

First up, some years ago now, was a Mk1 Fiesta, the solid foundation and thinking behind wanting one of these was seeing one with no bumpers at bug jam one year and thinking it looked quite cool, so after a brief eBay hunt I found this, I forget what I paid but it wasn't a lot and it was a really solid car (apologies for shit quality pictures, this was a few years ago before camera phones had really become a thing)

 

 

A 950 Alcatraz spec popular with 50k miles (allegedly but I believe them) It had been thoroughly sealed from new and while it had left an annoying sticky brown residue everywhere underneath and in the engine bay, it had kept everything rust free

 

The plan was originally to install a 2.0 zetec but having looked into it and filed that under 'too difficult' this came up on eBay

 

 

This was anything but rust free, in fact, it was pretty shagged bodywise but had some things on it of interest, namely the supersport alloys (there was a set of 4 despite the pepperpot in the pic) and a 1.6 x-flow engine out of a mk1 XRPoo, body kit, seats etc

 

We (me and my long suffering friend who has put up with my bought on a whim, shit heap shenanigans for years) set about pulling the engine out immediately, in the middle of winter in sub zero conditions

 

 

And dropped it into the grey one

 

 

We transplanted all the other trinkets from the blue one and it was coming together fairly nicely

 

It ran beautifully but, for some reason best known to them, a previous owner had hacked through the rear brake pipes. Initially this didn't seem like a big problem, but despite changing every component in the system, callipers, master cylinder, servo, pipes, wheel cylinders, drums...we just couldn't get anything resembling a decent brake pedal. I know fiestas weren't renowned for their solid brake pedal feel and strong anchors anyway but this was catastrophically bad, and nothing we did seemed to make any difference.

 

This ultimately proved to be its undoing, I started to lose interest and was running out of spare cash to pump into it. It had a few thrashes round his field but I never did get it on the road, in the end my mate bought me out of it with the intention of finishing it himself, but also never got round to it and in the end it was sold to someone who just dropped by to ask if it was for sale.

 

Luckily not everyone is as easily defeated as us, and it was eventually finished and spotted at a classic ford show by another friend of mine, he sent me a pic but it eludes me right now, I will add if I find it.

 

So with the Fiesta Mk1 but a distant memory, what next? Well a Fiesta Mk2 of course..

[Captain Furious]

The Mk2 was intended as a harkback to my first car, rekindle that old flame. feel young again....and all that.  My first car was (as you've probably guessed) a mk2 Fiesta 1.1 pop plus which I proceded to improve* with a series of modifications such as Janspeed Exhaust, TSW Stealth alloy wheels, a 5 speed gearbox...Thing was though, I didn't realy want a Fiesta as my first car, I wanted an Escort 1.4L, but insurance costs dicated that the 1.4 just wasn't to be, so I bought the Fiesta. 

 

Meanwhile, my work colleague got himself a Fiesta 1.4 Ghia in Mercury grey, Man, I strongly envied that car, so much better than mine and he never had an ounce of trouble with it, it was the Ghia so it had a nice interior, rev counter and whatnot, the 1.4 CVH engine that i'd wanted in an Escort, but in a Fiesta! So it was actually quite potent, well it was compared to anything any of my other friends were driving back then, I wanted it, but I couldn't have one because I couldn't afford it or the insurance, times as a 17 yr old apprentice were tough

 

The truth of the matter was, that my Fiesta was an unreliable piece of shit which made my life an utter misery for most of the time I had it, the only positive thing that came from owning it is that I can now remove a Fiesta gearbox, blindfolded, in about 15 minutes.  So you're probably wondering why on earth i'd want to relive that experience?  Well, i'm now wondering that too, but for some reason I did...

 

So, on another whim, this arrives

 

 

1.4 Ghia, 2 owners, last owner since it was 2 years old, 40k miles on the clock...I'm not going to lie, I was excited.  Classic car insurance for £150 - this was a total win.  Me and long suffering friend picked it up on a trailer, I can't actualy remember why we trailored it because it was MOT'd...but anyway we did, and it sat round at his for a couple of weeks until the end of the month when I taxed it.

 

Excitedly I turned up for the first drive, well, I can only describe it as -  distinctly average bordering on disappointing.  The engine ran like a dream and was sweet as a nut, but it just wasn't anywhere near as good as I remembered.  No matter, I thought, i've not really bought it for speed and excitement, what I realy wanted was a 'project' that I could tinker with, teach myself to weld, do a full restoration....

 

I had BIG plans, I would fully restore the bodywork, cut out all the rust, replace arches, sills, wings and anwhere else that was rusty - despite looking superficially quite tidy - it was a bit of a shed in all honesty) respray it, i'd priced up all the parts and panels...in my mind this was gonna be concourse spec in no time.  But I just couldn't commit to ordering them.  Back to that not really wanting a Fiesta thing, While it would have been a great exercise to teach myself some new skills (I really, realy need to learn how to weld) what I would end up with at the end of it all was a Fiesta that I just didn't realy like driving that much and looked ridiculous in - I'm 6'6" and 18 stone, so it was a bit like Donkey Kong driving Super Mario Kart.

 

 

 

 

Anyway after a while I changed jobs, which meant I lost my company car and needed a car pretty quickly that I could use for work, since the Fiesta definitely wasn't it, I swapped it for a Mk6 Escort that I could use as a daily hack.

 

I don't know its fate after that, I swapped with someone on retrorides, its currently SORN and was never presented for its next MOT

[Captain Furious]

Anyway, after a brief and fairly uneventful ownership with the Escort, I wanted something a bit more 'interesting' (unreliable) again and this is where I am currently at

 

It's a 1994 Mk3 Granada 24v 'Cosworth'

 

Once again a friend had one of these when I was younger and I've always fancied one a bit, I was actually looking for a Jag X or S Type as I needed something that could tow a fairly large caravan, but stumbled across this on eBay and thought I quite fancy that. So I bid on it blind, won it, then trecked down to somewhere near Southampton to collect it

 

It's done starship mileage, 223k, despite this the engine sounds fairly sweet, the main issue that I was faced with on collection was it wouldn't shift into 4th gear (not mentioned in the ad) and idled a bit rough (was mentioned)

 

I fixed the gearbox which was down to chaffed wiring to the vehicle speed sensor, but I'm still a bit baffled by the idling problem, I thought it was the EGR valve and fitted an expertly designed 'blanking plate' it seemed to fix it for a while but it's since become lumpy again

 

 

I'm now thinking lambda sensor

 

I've since discovered that it's also had the cats 'hollowed out' so it's in having those replaced today.

 

I'm also reasonably certain that the automatic gearbox is going to grenade soon, so I bought a spare off a breaker on eBay for £50

 

If/when it goes I fancy a go at rebuilding one, you can buy the kits from the states and it's fairly common practice over there, whereas here people seem to shy away from them because the industry has led us to believe they're full of witchcraft and voodoo and the ONLY way to fix them is to pay an automatic gearbox specialist £1000. There is also a lot of detailed guides for rebuilding the A4LD because it's quite widely used in the states and they break, a lot.

 

So that will either be my finest hour, or a failure of epic proportions...

[sutty2006]

love granadas. lots n lots

[406V6]

Good luck fixing the autobox. As you say, they have the reputation of being impossible to fix by amateur mechanics. But they're only metal and a lot of very expensive oil. What can possibly go wrong ?

[Captain Furious]

From what I've read it's usually either oil seals that fail, brake bands get worn out or clutch packs get fried, all of which come in the rebuild kits for around £100. I've watched a few vids of them being stripped down and it doesn't look that hard...

 

But faith in my own ability doesn't extend as far as relying on it for a fix if it does go south, hence buying the spare which came from a car that was broken for its engine and supposedly driving fine right up until the point it was stripped.

 

I may get lucky and never need to try it, but they've not got a good reputation for longevity, especially when you tow with them, which is exactly what I plan to do with it.

 

Of course the timing chain could fail before this becomes an issue

[Tamworthbay]

They are such a good looking car, makes it even worse what they did to them after.

[Pillock]

That's a lovely looking Granada. I do like the idea of stockpiling consumables such as gearbox too.

[Captain Furious]

It's actually quite difficult to get parts because although to me it still feels quite contemporary, it's been out of production for 20+ years, Ford have long discontinued support for it, they don't have a particularly large following like escorts, capris etc and it's compounded further by being the 24v, which has lots of parts that are unique to that model, such as brakes, exhausts, engine components etc

 

So I tend to scour eBay fairly regularly for things which I think may come in useful.

[twosmoke300]

With auto boxes you need to be 100% sure of the fault before you strip it . The wear / damage you find inside is usually so small you won't see it .

You need to do pressure tests and really understand how it works before stripping into it

[RoadworkUK]

Those really are tremendously good looking machines, especially in 24V guise with those AMG style wheels.

 

Shirley due a massive OSF renaissance soon.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Those really are tremendously good looking machines, especially in 24V guise with those AMG style wheels.

 

Shirley due a massive OSF renaissance soon.

Let's hope there's some 24V ones left when that happens, there must be more Cosworth engines in Mk2 Granadas, Cortinas and especially 2.8 Capris than there are still in Mk3s or Bugeyes.

 

FathaN had a lovely dark green 24v saloon about 10 years ago, it went like fook, until my brother broke the auto box, the engine ended up in a Capri, the wheels on some Old Skool Racist Mk1, the rest of it got bridged.

[Captain Furious]

The car my spare gearbox came out of was having its engine pillaged for a Sierra, though to be fair I saw it in his workshop and the bodywork was about shafted

 

The later bug-eyed versions seem to be rock bottom price wise at the moment, seen several go recently for the £500-750 bracket, cosworth's too. The BOB is less desirable because it's harder to wire up. If you can tolerate the breathtaking ugliness, it's potentially an epic cheap luxobarge

[Captain Furious]

Well, I've got to be honest, lately the Granada is getting me down.

 

Firstly, the exhaust, this has never been right since I bought the car, and the reason its never been right is because a previous owner had cut open the front cats, gutted them, and welded them back together. The resulting empty 'chamber' made it sound awful, plus it had a big fart can on it which I've since replaced with standard. Originally it has 4 cats, the two mains and the two (gutted) pre-cats which are part of the downpipes. Of course, while plenty of companies make the main cats, the pre-cats are like rocking horse shit.

 

By luck, I found a company which sold the main cats with straight through downpipes to replace the 'pre-cats' and for a very reasonable price too, so I bought them. This should have put the exhaust problems to bed once and for all, but in actual fact this is pretty much where they began! a friend of a friend fitted them because he works at a tyre place and has access to a ramp, but when it was returned, the new pipes don't fit quite as well as the OEM items, and the drivers side cat was touching the gearbox crossmember. This meant is resonated throughout the whole car and made it pretty awful. He also noted that the rear gearbox mount was shot.

 

So I got a replacement gearbox mount (luckily my mate had a fairly new one off a car that had been scrapped) and while I was at it, removed the right hand cat and adjusted it so it didn't touch - it was a royal pain in the arse, because I will concede they don't fit very well, but in the end it came right and sounded lovely. Great I thought, that's the exhaust sorted once and for all, then not 20 miles later the front manifold joint on the left hand cat blew out. This is where I got slightly annoyed, because I'd supplied new gaskets yet they hadn't been used and instead they'd wobbed silicone all over it, which as we all know, shouldn't be used pre-catalyst

 

So yesterday it went back again, fitting the gasket required removing the left hand cat completely to get enough clearance, and somehow on reassembly this has pushed the centre box against the floor now, which makes it feel like the engine is bolted directly to your spine and sounds 10x worse than it ever has before. Annoying as I need to tow with it for the first time Friday and was really hoping this would all be resolved by then. I'm starting to doubt the exhaust will ever be right on this car.

 

Then there is the self-lubricating chassis, it has numerous minor leaks of ATF and engine oil, most of which I simply pretend I don't notice, but there is one which somehow gets onto the exhaust, resulting in smoke of varying severity pouring out of the bonnet\heater vents\both. I think it is either an oil cooler pipe off the oil filter housing (no longer available and a right pain in the ass to get to) or a rocker cover gasket (never were available because they're bonded to the covers and Ford's solution was that if one needed to be replaced then you bought a new rocker cover!)

 

So I now have an exhaust which deafens you and gives you the anal equivalent of white finger, an oil leak which could be caused any number of very expensive parts, that I'm now paranoid could go from minor to extremely severe under the stresses of towing and cause a fiery FTP, along with the existing idling and general running problems.

 

On their own, they're all pretty minor, but altogether it could get quite pricey and labour intensive to sort, with the oil leak and smoke I'm not sure I could sell this to anyone with a clear conscience (I mean, dying in a fire on the way home could be legitimate cause for 'neutral' feedback) so I'm thinking I may chalk it up to experience and break it. Which would be a shame, because if it was all working right I do like it a lot.

[beko1987]

I'm with you on the exhaust touching the body, mine did it on the zx for 4 months and it nearly drove me insane, and hid a variety of other new noises it developed thay I can mow hear...

 

I have a secret horn for a mk3 granada though, dad had one. If the 24v wasn't so horrific on fuel I'd have a crack in one, or a 2.0 but all the ones I see are auto and my 2.0xm auto was shit on fuel, cant imagine the granada to be much better

[lisbon_road]

Sounds very frustrating.  Take a deep breath, ignore it for a while, then settle down and think it through logically.  And call me a patronising bastard, that'll help too.

 

Good luck though, a fab car.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Who is doing this work on the exhaust for you? They sound fuggin hopeless to be honest, it can't be that difficult to fit and adjust the bloody thing surely. If you give them the car asking to fit an exhaust gasket, and they return it with the gasket fitted but the pipe permanently rattling off the floor, it suggests you are dealing with idiots

[beko1987]

I agree. At least when I realised my exhaust work was crap I could only blame myself. I could t blame the mate who welded it as we both stood there and it looked ok on his patio...

 

Does the gasket change the angle of the exhaust then? Unless it's 4" thick I wouldn't have thought it would...

[cort1977]

The gasket won't make a difference, I think Mr. Bol was saying that they should have noticed that it was touching during fitting and adjusted it so it wasn't.

 

Captain Furious it would be a crime to break that amazing looking car for the few minor issues.   If you sell it with all the issues clearly stated then of course you could sell it with a clear conscience.   If I wasn't thousands of miles away and didn't already have two cars with a massive thirst and leaky gearboxes I would be all over it like a fat kid on cake.

 

So, err, GLWTS.

[Captain Furious]

Well, that's the thing, it's a mate of a mate that did the work....I know, I know...but he works at a tyre place and has access to a ramp whereas I'd be lying underneath it struggling on the floor. I'm a bit pissed off because it wasn't 'gratis' I paid him to do it, but now he's a bit reluctant to have it back because his boss is asking questions about it being on the ramp all the time.....if it were me I'd want it back immediately because I hate to think someone is not happy with something I've sold them or done for them, but that's just me.

 

In his defence, they're a shite fit, when you get the cats sitting right it presents them at an awkward angle to the mid pipe and makes it almost impossible to seal the joint there. Curse of pattern parts and trying to mate them to OEM or other pattern parts from a different manufacturer, and it's a hideously complex exhaust system anyway. Normally I'd buy genuine for that reason, but they're no longer available.

 

Annnnyhooo, because I was feeling a bit down about it my mate and I have had it up on his ramps and faffed around with it in the cold and rain and dark and I *think* we're about there now. Certainly it's a million times better than last night, possibly a slight resonance around 3000rpm but I because of all the hassle I've had so far I'm now hypersensitive to it, anyone else would get in and say that's fine. So fingers crossed it stays that way

 

Hopefully it goes alright over the weekend and then I can start to look at the other issues

 

Re the post above about fuel economy, yeah it's not great, but then I've never really had an economical car other than a couple of years with a company car where I didn't pay for fuel anyway. 20-22 normal running around, 28 on a run (all according to the trip computer).

 

I quite like Autos, they just always seem more fragile than manuals, maybe because the ones I have have a reputation for grenading.

[Sealtainn]

That is a superb looking machine and would make a lovely pair with my pre-facelift Ghia saloon.

Hope you get her sorted out as they are getting to be a really rare sight now and it's good to see a 24v lump where it was intended to be

[Captain Furious]

Thing is, people think I'm being too anal about the exhaust, they may have a point, but the reason I bought was partly due to some faint affinity with Granadas (although the Mk2 is where my love lies really) and a lot because of the engine, so if it sounds like a shed then it's half the pleasure gone. It has to make the right noises

 

Anyway I have a top weekend lined up so I'm gonna shut motoring related issues out of my head until next week, if the exhaust holds as it is that will be a massive win

 

And thanks for the kind words

[beko1987]

Sounds like it's fixed, enjoy your weekend!

 

Tbh, after a good few miles, you could look again and see if there's evidence of rubbing anywhere

[Captain Furious]

Well I'm happy to report that it's first outing with the caravan was a SUCCESS!

 

Performed flawlessly and I had an absolutely epic weekend at Glastonbudget music festival

 

Roll on next week for Classic Ford show at Santa pod

 

[beko1987]

Not sure if tiny car or mahoosive caravan! Fuck me if it didn't shit itself towing that it'll be alright I reckon!

[Captain Furious]

It's about 18ft/1400KG (although possibly a teensy bit over that this weekend...) I used to tow it with a Mk3 V6 Mondeo Estate which handled it no trouble at all, but that had a manual box and a new clutch so I was fairly confident in giving it some stick, I try and be as gentle as I can with the Granada.

 

Didn't seem to be a problem though and the exhaust is holding, so I'm happy about that

 

Now to trace the oil leaks..

[Pillock]

That looks a proper winners combo. Imagine turning up at a Caravan and Camping Club site in that, and every bloke tending to their water butts or adjusting the awning giving you the evils. Just like I remember my grandfather and his Cortina + Ci combo being very quiet when an SD1 pitched up on the next plot.

 

I was going to point out your caravan has a flat tyre but it's just the placement of the kerb at closer inspection!

[Captain Furious]

Funnily enough when I came back from this festival last year it did have a flat tyre, I'm not sure at which point on the journey it went flat but it didn't seem to affect how it towed! Tyre was still on the rim so I don't think it was running flat for too long. I had two new tyres on it after that and kept the good one as the spare.

 

It's an awesome set up to have, but I'm quite lucky that my mate has a field which he doesn't mind keeping it in, otherwise storage could be a ball ache. 3 nights is enough though, sod staying in one for 2 weeks.

[Captain Furious]

So it is the weekend of classic Ford show and being a Ford nut i'm excitedly packed and ready to go, all pre-journey checks complete, fluids topped up, tyres checked etc etc WCPGW?

 

There is a few of us that go to this show so in total the convoy was 5 cars.  I was leading the way because I had the caravan and was therefore going to be the slowest. 

 

We met up at a convenient place and got underway.  Within 5 miles, the phone is ringing to say that the guy who was following directly behind me (who was towing a trailor tent) had stopped.  I hadn't realised because he follows so damn close he is invisible in my mirrors, but he had pulled over suddenly and was last seen sprinting round to the bonnet of his car.  So we all pull up in a layby further down and call back to see what the problem seems to be - Sudden and catastrophic overheating.  As it happened to be a K-series engined Rover 45 we quickly diagnosed that this was probably OMGHGF, and even if it wasn't his its odds of making the remaining 50 miles were bleak, so we abandoned it in a warehouse carpark where one of his friends happened to work, distributed his luggage between the other cars\caravan and one of the other guys who had a towbar took his trailer tent.  Cost us about an hour of faffing around, but it wasn't too bad.

 

The unfortunate thing was nobody really had any room except me, so 90% of his stuff (and he doesn't travel light) ended up either in my car or my caravan, including him and his passenger.  This made me a bit nervous that I was now pretty well loaded, and probably slightly over...so I took it steady, it seemed to be coping with it fine and stability was good so we carried on our way.

 

Now for some reason, which annoyed me a little bit at the time, while i'm faffing around getting all this other lads shit into my car, everyone else has buggered off and left me behind - maybe identifying that the next most likely car to FTP was the Granada and they didn't want any part of it, I don't know, but it was a straight run down the M1 and then A45 pretty much all the way to Santa Pod, so I just carried on, maybe they'll take their time so I can catch them - they didn't.

 

Then, as I was on the last stretch, literally a mile away from Santa Pod's entrance, it happened..

 

 

Doh!  Coming down the minor local roads something didn't feel quite right, it coughed a couple of times as I let off the accelerator for the corner and then just died.  I coasted as far as I could to try and get clear of the bend and that was all she had to give.  It was spinning over just fine, but would not fire or even make any attempt to.  I did all the usual checks, well, as far as I could on a fairly inaccessible engine anyway, I had my code reader with me so I plugged that in, nothing, no codes that it doesn't always have even when its running fine, the fuel pump was running, the cut off switch hadn't activated, it had petrol, hadn't overheated etc etc.  A couple of times it did a sort of cough which led me to believe we had spark and it was a fuelling problem, but with no tools on me at all there wasn't much else I could do.

 

So, evaluating options

 

1) Abandon mission completely, get the whole lot recovered home by the AA, come back in Daily with a tent
2) Get my mate with the tow bar to retrieve the caravan and take it the last mile into the Pod, then get the car recovered and come back in my passengers pickup truck to bring the caravan home on Sunday
3) Sit on the roadside and try not to cry, then cry, a lot

 

After careful consideration and consultation with friends I went for option 2, so my mate unhooked the trailer tent he was already rescuing, came back for the caravan (on a 1.6 Escort Mk6 - That car was a true hero that day) and I prepared to call the AA, but before I could, some Ford Comrades came by and stopped to see if they could help, they had a tow rope but nothing really that could tow it, almost at the same time a lady in a range rover from Midland Retro Ford came by and offered to tow it in.  SO rather than get it recovered home by the AA, I got towed into the arena by the range rover.

 

Got everything set up, had a couple of drinks and called the AA, explained the situation and they said they would arrange a recovery for the next day after the show had finished - 6pm I asked for, they said thats not a problem, it could be an hour either side of that, I explained I had a caravan, gave them the dimensions, number of passengers etc etc.  Everything was arranged, I can now relax, enjoy the show, the AA will come and pick me up tomorrow, no problem...

...Yeah right

 

AA Adventure to follow

[Captain Furious]

So We're all at the show, everything is going as planned except for the non-functioning Granada in the room.  As it happens, someone randomly decided to try and start it a couple of hours later and it fired into life as if nothing had happened.  I even took it for a 'test drive' around the field, which may have involved some involuntary* sideways action and it was running absolutey fine.  Then almost as sudddenly as it started, it stopped again and was back to how it was before - I can see this is going to be an interesting fault to nail down.  Anyway, even if it was running, I didn't want to risk another FTP on the way home so I kept the AA appointment as planned.

 

Had a great weekend at the show, I actually met some new people from the car club which the woman who towed me in ran and spent the evening getting pissed on their stand, see breaking down brings people together, but all good things must come to an end, and as the place started emptying out I was left waiting for my AA truck, which I was handily tracking through their app and had a current ETC of 18:05-20:00 - Thats not too bad, this is a classic ford show after all so I dare say there are a higher than average number of callouts occuring.

 

18:05 came and went, the ETC steadily increased in 30 min increments, 8PM came, by this time we were pretty much alone other than other people dotted around who I overheard were also waiting for recovery trucks.  I have to say Santa Pod is a lovely tranquil surrounding when you're the only ones there

 

 

I then got a message to say the recovery was being farmed out to a local garage, not unusual for the AA, but I called them nevertheless to confirm that the requirement for a flatbed had been communicated to this garage, last thing I want is them just turning up in a Transit or something which can't recover us...At 9PM the local garage arrive, in a transit van! This guy is just here to 'diagnose it' apparently they will not authorise recovery's until its been identified whether or not the car can be fixed.  It is a fair policy I guess, so I grin and bear it, have a chat with this guy about whats happened - the car was actually having a 'running phase' at this point but he agreed to continue on would be foolish given the nature of the fault and called it in for recovery, again taking the details of the car, caravan, passengers etc - he then left. This also had the effect of causing the case to be marked "resolved" in the AA app, so I could no longer track the progress

 

I call the AA back to ensure this doesn't mean that they think i've been fixed and that is the end of the matter, they say no and that a flatbed has been requested with an ETC of 00:20.  Sorry, I thought you said midnight there...so with 3 hours to kill, I thought we may as well crack the BBQ out, eat the rest of the food and drink the rest of the beer, i'm not driving afterall..

 

 

Midnight the flatbed arrives, from the same company that's just been out and 'diagnosed' it, finally, might be home by 2am...I go out to meet him and his first comment is 'oh I didn't know there was going to be a caravan, I can't take that' - apparently his truck doesn't have the correct electrics for the caravan lights, so he rings the AA and then he buggers off too. I ring the AA again because I'm starting to lose my sense of humour about the whole thing.  They tell me another truck will be sent from another firm but it's going to be another 2 hours.  so much for home by 2 then, i'll be lucky to be home by daylight at this rate. 

 

I don't have a TV, but my mate had some Samsung tablet thing, so we watched top gear on iPlayer

 

 

2 1/2 hours later truck number 3 arrives, so I go out for the meet and greet again

"is it just you mate?"
"No, there is another 2 of us"
"ah, shit, I don't have enough seats for 3 people because it's not a crew cab, they never told me there was passengers"

 

Like, seriously, you've got to be shitting me..So he goes off to phone the AA...comes back and says he will load the car and caravan up and the AA will send a taxi for us.  At this point it's getting on for 3am and bloody cold, and since the timescales the AA work in are hours rather than minutes I was reluctant to let him take away the only warm place I had to sit while I stand around waiting for them to organise a taxi - anyway he said we'd get it loaded up, get outside of Santa Pod's grounds and wait outside until transport turns up.  So thats what we did

 

Car still running, loads itself onto the truck

 

Caravan hooked up

 

As it turns out that the seating issue was not the primary concern, he also had no trailer lights, he can't plug the caravan into his truck because the truck runs 24V.  And doesn't have his trailer board with him.  So he calls a colleague who has a trailerboard and is about 20 minutes away so we wait patiently outside the Pod gates

 

 

Recovery truck #4 arrives

 

Anyway, as it turns out Recovery truck #4 doesn't have a trailerboard either, but I notice his truck is much newer and has 12V electric hookups, so I think well problem solved, lets just load it onto this one and we'll be away.  No! The driver of truck number 4 doesn't have a Class 1 licence and therefore isn't allowed to tow a trailer heavier than 750KG with his truck!  Apparently if you attach a trailer heavier than that to a 17 Tonner it is classed the same as an artic, by this time daylight is starting to break

 

So they decide the solution is to take the caravan on the back of one truck, and the car on the other.

 

 

This was a bit of a faff, because the back of the caravan was hitting the floor before they could get the necessary angle to drag it up the bed, but after about 20 minutes of adjustment it was on its way

 

 

Around 4am we finally hit the road

 

 

Arrive back around 5:30am and unloaded everything, made the recovery guys a brew and all done by about 6.

 

 

I will say though that despite the complications, the company that did eventually get us home, Crouch Recovery, were superb and did everything they possibly could to make it happen, it just seems like the AA dispatch was feeding everyone duff info, also a shout out to the staff at Santa Pod, who were most accomodating of our situation, never pressured us to be off the airfield, even came round offering us hot drinks

 

Moral of the story, probably stick with tenting..