cros wrote: ↑Thu Oct 22, 2020 9:43 am
petermcpete wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:03 am
Morning all, over from the other beige forum as this seems to be the direction of migration for the good threads...
I've got a selection of European tat, both cars and mopeds, of which I can only keep about half running at any one time!
Job for this weekend: find out where the terrifying amount of play in the Toledo's steering is coming from.
Cheers, Pete
Hello, welcome. You'll not find me griping about the beige so I'm deeply shocked to hear of any decline in the standards over there.
With that unpleasantness out of the way I'm hoping to hear more of your Toledo - I've got a hankering for one myself.
At some point i'll do a full write up about the Toledo with pics, it's a great story and i'd like to get down the detail before I forget. Here's a summary (this got out of hand):
A few friends and I bought it unseen off AS back in 2018. It was based halfway between Pescara and Rome and we flew out with a suitcase of tools and spares. It was the owners holiday home car, and had done about 100 miles total in the last 10 years pottering around the local village it was based in. Supposedly the local mechanic had given it a good service before we picked it up....bollocks (among many things, we discovered the headlight was in the wrong way up...). The brake pads were virtually metal, and it was pretty ropey mechanically, although the bodywork was great. Still, always up for a challenge.
Inevitably that meant that on reaching an autoroute and getting up to 60mph in 35 celcius heat, with 4 lads and loads of tools, it lasted about 5 miles before the radiator sprung a leak and sprayed all over the windscreen. Initially I was surprised it was raining when there were no clouds, before it dawned... Thankfully I'd packed a bottle of Radweld which did the job.
We went up through San Marino, Switzerland, Liechenstein, Austria, Germany successfully over the next couple of days - that was where the next problem reared it's head. We were staying in Freiburg, and pottering back from the a visit to the black forest the wheel bearings rapidly deteriorated...wouldn't have lasted much longer. A couple of pics here
https://autoshite.com/topic/33031-trium ... ce-needed/ from where people on the beige were very helpful in out time of need.
Managed to fix them in the morning before we got kicked out of the AirBnb...we were booked in to do 6 laps round Spa in the evening with the Belgian OldTimers club...so pedal to the floor, made it there just on time. On the way the brakes worked there way down to just metal on metal, so braking for every corner at Spa was interesting. Got a video somewhere... we then stayed in the village of Spa and the Belgian beers were consumed in unnecessary quantities.
Next day, got to see some 80s F1 cars racing, as well as some 20s and 30s cars, got to go in the pit lane and talk to all the drivers, it was amazing! If anyone heads down there, the organisers were the BEHVA - Belgian Historic Vehicle Association, and they were great.
After this we headed back home, with a couple of nights stop in Bruges. After Spa, the brakes were shot - we started mainly using the dogshit handbrake, and the starter motor had also packed in, meaning a push start required at every petrol station or food stop. This also resulted in a nervous hour stuck in solid traffic going through various tunnels under Brussels, bricking it that if we stalled it we'd have to do an uphill push start in rush hour traffic. But, we made it.
We made it back to the midlands after that, the only fail of note being the windscreen wiper flying off on the M1 just outside Leicester, having made it the previous 1650 miles absolutely fine. Overall we went through Italy, San Marino, Liechenstien, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, UK...not bad.
Also, the whole time around Europe we had a small British flag on the aerial, had lots of waves and people were friendly.
In 2019 we took the car on a Scotland roadtrip and it didn't last the first day, someone took it when we were parked up. Bastards.
Since then it's had the radiator replaced (with one from a Honda Civic, perfect fit, £20 from a scrappy. Fuck paying £200ish for a proper one). Also a new UJ on the steering shaft, UJ on the driveshaft, new fuel pump, a full service and a few other bits i've probably forgotten about....
Here's some pics:
- toledo9.jpg (203.53 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Lake Como
- toledo1.jpg (196.91 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Lake Como
- toledo2.jpg (113.06 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Liechenstein Castle
- toledo3.jpg (194.16 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Doing the wheel bearings in Freiburg
- toledo4.jpg (120.95 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Made it to the ferry
- toledo5.jpg (153.68 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
Scotland trip, this is halfway between Skye & Cairgorns
- toledo6.jpg (158.24 KiB) Viewed 4199 times
2cv got stuck in the sand, Toledo to the rescue
- toledo8.jpg (146.85 KiB) Viewed 4199 times