collection mission to SPAIN!!!! COMPLETED IT M8

[wuvvum]

30 minutes ago, chadders said:

North Walsham?

Yep.  As far as I can tell it's the only road called Laundry Loke anywhere in the country.

[Cavcraft]

If that 'Micro car fixer' was in Britain, he'd be shirtless with a 24 pack of Carling on the floor and 7/10ths of his arse hanging out of his jeans.

[stuboy]

4 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

fromage et onions non?

[egg]

So four hours on from when Mr B last posted, hopefully homing in somewhere near his mum's gaff by now....

Surely next stage on collecsun threads is GPS tracking...

[wuvvum]

3 minutes ago, egg said:

Surely next stage on collecsun threads is GPS tracking...

Didn't Fowler already do that on one of his threads?

[sutty2006]

He needs to use the Waze app, and use the feature “share my journey”. Post the link on here…… etc. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

Just now, sutty2006 said:

He needs to use the Waze app, and use the feature “share my journey”. Post the link on here…… etc. 

Better something like the iPhone stalk my wife Find My app - that only shows location not the intended journey. Gotta keep some mystery in life?

[LightBulbFun]

28 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

32 minutes ago, egg said:

Surely next stage on collecsun threads is GPS tracking...

Didn't Fowler already do that on one of his threads?

11 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Better something like the iPhone stalk my wife Find My app - that only shows location not the intended journey. Gotta keep some mystery in life?

when @st185cs was very kindly moving REV about for me, he used that feature so I could track his every move by GPS   

 

 

then we can all stalk Bollox and the mighty brown shitbox that could

[Dave_Q]

I feel that the technology level of the mission should match the car, ergo no GPS.

A postcard that arrives 2 weeks later and a telegram that says GOT TO DOVER SAFELY, STOP

[Mr_Bo11ox]

'KIN NORA

Only had a blowout didn't I, on the flippin motorway as well. Thought 'Jesus they need to sort this road surface out' then looked and saw there was nothing wrong with the road surface at all. Pulled over next to an orange telephone and found the RH rear tyre flat. Fuck!!! The last thing I want is to be fannying about beside the Autoroute. Now get this. This very morning I decided to check the spare. It was present, but almost flat. I pumped it up at a service station and it held air but was very badly cracked on the sidewall.

So, I got my hi-vis on and changed it. Wish id timed it as i was FAST AS FUCK. I reckon 6 mins between stopping and setting off again. I thought 'this spare isn't going to last 2 minutes once it gets some heat into it' but to my amazement it held on and I left the motorway 10kms later.

Driving along I was thinking 'Jesus I've got a right problem here. Now I've got not 1 but 2 shite tyres and no spare!!! And it's a holiday weekend and I've got to do 600 miles on Sunday!!!! And I can't wait till Monday and go home a day or two late cos my Volvo is clogging up some poor sods driveway in Peterborough!!!! HOLY SHIT OMG ITS A FUCKING DISASTER AAAAARRRGGHHH-

After about an hour of driving and stressing I went past this place.

Now obvs it's in the shiters DNA to crane his neck when passing a yard full of knackered old shit cars. In doing so I saw the word 'pneu' and also that there were 2 geezers stood in the doorway despite it being 6.10 on Friday evening. I thought 'there's bound to be a couple of 13" tyres in amongst that lot he can sell me' so did a quick U turn and went in.

He had a great workshop full of rammel including a 2-dr Jeep Cherokee in full yellow and black 'Renault Service' livery. I explained the problem, and said I was open to any ideas including secondhand tyres or even a new pair of a different size, as long as they were 13 inchers. After some ratching he turned up a new pair of 155/80 13  tyres from well known liquorice allsort recycler 'Habilead' 😀 I told him that would solve my problem and to name his price.

€130 the pair!!!! LOL he clearly detected the stress in my voice but I would have paid more tbh just to get this problem outof the way. Cash only so I had to zip to an ATM and come back, but at least I have some raw materials to keep the job rolling.

Hopefully I can find someone to fit these for me tomorrow. To my surprise my mum has a flippin compressor (has your mum got that? If not ask her why not) so if all else fails I'll have to find a big hammer and some metal bars and fit em myself (and get vibration white finger driving home on unbalanced 'Habileads'). Jesus!!!!

[RoadworkUK]

I've just been upstairs to throw all my books away. None of them are a patch on this thread.

I'm going to print it out later.

[Split_Pin]

Those do look nice, there's something appealing about brand new narrow-section tyres. 

[egg]

Blimey, so you did end up with new hoops in the most unlikely way!

[Spottedlaurel]

13 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

After about an hour of driving and stressing I went past this place.

Sorry to hear about the blowout.

I know that place! Moulismes, a handy stopping point when travelling between the A10 and A20. I saw this 504 there last year:

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Apart from that, 'Doc Brown' has been going absolutely great guns. I left the Autoroute at Limoges then drove across country to Poitiers then Chatellerault. All on RN and D (dépertementale) roads. The last bit from Poitiers onwards was 'all time great drive' material. The weather cooled a bit and I was just zipping across open countryside in the evening sun at like 70-90kmh, which is the Simca 1100 'sweet spot'. Just check out these roads

Attempted a cheeky Vmax near here, got to an indicated 115 (about 72 mph) then remembered the lousy state of my tyres so slowed down again. Anyway it was glorious, just perfect driving conditions and I was able to really bond with the small brown car. 

Here we are at Mutha B's gaff having a brew. 1100kms covered so far. Fantastic!!!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

2 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Sorry to hear about the blowout.

I know that place! Moulismes, a handy stopping point when travelling between the A10 and A20. I saw this 504 there last year:

Yes!!!! The 504 is still there!!!

[egg]

Garage Patrier goes down in AS folklore then...(street view)

[Spottedlaurel]

Streetview shows they had a Bluebird 910 in the yard back in 2022, sadly gone last year:

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I don't know who it was that mentioned the farty exhaust sound on these things but they were right, it does make a great sound. Also the gear shift is really baulky and unhelpful so I've taken to double declutching on the downshifts to help it along. It all makes for a great 1970s sitcom badly-dubbed car soundtrack

[Spottedlaurel]

That middle area of France seems to contain a lot of older stuff. Away from the northern and coastal climates, and not overly rugged or demanding terrain.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just looking on EBay, £130 will get you a set of 4 brand new Toyo 155/70 × 13 hoops, wish id never looked now

[tooSavvy]

No...Mr.B.

Two keeping you going are worth [..more than] four on the W.W.W. ... 😉

Ariston.... &..&..&..

🚙💨

[Mr_Bo11ox]

You're quite right there Savvy, I was convinced there was no chance of finding some new tyres that would do the job, I was all out of ideas so finding these was like a flipping lottery win 

[tooSavvy]

..... Yes, MonAmi.

*Get those fuc#inn RH lamps out of the Bloo scrapper though 👍

🚙💨

[dollywobbler]

Just the right level of panic and adventure. Amazing.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

1 minute ago, tooSavvy said:

..... Yes, MonAmi.

*Get those fuc#inn RH lamps out of the Bloo scrapper though 👍

🚙💨

I don't think I can be bothered TBH, the headlamps that are in, are so hopelessly dim that I'm not worried about dazzling anyone with them!!!!!

[Wibble]

I’ve always been quite disciplined in not looking on here during working hours but that’s gone out the window since Wednesday. Epic thread by the legend @Mr_Bo11ox. Thank you sir and Godspeed!

[Soundwave]

28 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Just looking on EBay, £130 will get you a set of 4 brand new Toyo 155/70 × 13 hoops, wish id never looked now

A non-emergency purchase might have been better value, but can you put a price on adventure?

[egg]

47 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

That middle area of France seems to contain a lot of older stuff. Away from the northern and coastal climates, and not overly rugged or demanding terrain.

Possibly due to the 'empty diagonal'

[Sigmund Fraud]

14 minutes ago, Wibble said:

I’ve always been quite disciplined in not looking on here during working hours but that’s gone out the window since Wednesday.

Tell me about it ! I had a high-stakes job interview yesterday afternoon, but instead of brushing up on my management speak or memorising the company strategy and organograms I spent the entire morning checking the progress of Mr B's madcap adventure.