Disaster Strikes:(

Things started off so well... We left London at 12.30 Saturday lunchtime. By the time we had got down to the channel tunnel in Dover, the car was running very hot. as it was now 5pm on a Saturday we decided to stop as soon as the temperature started to get close to red.

We soldiered on the next day racking our brains, trying to think what would be wrong. I went through a simple diagnostic procedure and came to the conclusion that the radiator was blocked. we tried to find a replacement but Saturday in Germany was proving fruitless.

I attempted to clear it with "wee stain remover" that was acquired from a service station. I used it because it dissolved lime, which is what i believed was blocking the rad. After two attempts at this, we had improved the situation fractionally, and were now using the two interior heaters to remove some of the heat build up.

We had managed to keep the running temperature to just below the start of the danger zone. This was extremely difficult as we were on German autobahns doing 45mph on the flat and 35mph uphill with traffic passing us at 150mph+. We arrived in the Czech Republic at about 10pm on Sunday. The car had got a little too far into the red at one point at a very long uphill climb where we were holding up everything including massive articulated lorries and cars towing caravans. We had passed a breakers yard but being Sunday there was no one about. We intended to go back in the morning (Monday) and find a replacement radiator, but when we started the car on Monday, things were far from OK.

We had a lot of noise and a very unbalanced engine, it was...[Read More]