Spontaneous surgery

The panda is lying motionless over in Ben's garage. It is mid-way through a big operation...its status is stable. After tootling over to see a nice mechanic called John (a friend of Ben's) - we came back with instructions to strip the engine right down and take the cylinder head back to John for skimming. He'd had a look around and decided it needed skimming. Having been told the job was "a piece of piss, 15 minutes tops" we settled in for what turned out to be a 4 hour marathon engine strip!

We took a while to get going, consulting the Porter manual, then the Haynes manual, staring at the engine again, then back to the manuals. But after giving the floor and ourselves a good coating of coolant we got going.

Bits were coming off here and there, there were ratchets going, spanners being whizzed around and allsorts.

It was hard work undoing some seriously rusted nuts, with the exhaust manifold and cylinder head being the hardest bits to crack. But with 3 of us there (me, Ben and his brother Ross) we persevered and cracked it in the end.




So the net affect of all this is that our little panda now has a half empty engine bay. The cylinders as you can see here, are all present and correct. So we pushed the Panda into its new home (Ben's garage) and carried on with some other tasks - I did another 25 letters asking for sponsorship, whilst Ben began the secret project which we hope to show you soon.


Meanwhile today - the cylinder head, now separate from the rest of the car made it over to the garage for skimming.

We have the pleasure of putting it back together again soon, before we move onto other areas, namely gearbox and fuel tank.

Upgrades, decisions and modifications

After heavy snowfall through the night on Friday - we had a really productive weekend on the Panda front. First of all was the decision about the route we will be taking. Of the three options we've plumped for the northerly one - passing through Moscow. The chance to screech the Panda through Red Square is one not to be missed. We can also make use of the travel guides for Latvia and Lithuania that we already have - and the map of Western Russia.

During the day on Saturday Ben and I did a tour of local car spare and repair shops in the hunt for useful bits and bobs. Then we proceeded to modify the car.

The 95-piece toolset came into its own as we replaced the fuel filter (with a new see-through one), the distributor cap, rotor arm and air filter. We also ran a piece of ducting up from the manifold into the air intake to give the engine some warm air for these cold days.

Here you can see how the engine looks with all it's shiny new bits.

After that, we replaced the lame "meep meep" horn with a real "hooonk hooonk" air horn, so that we can be heard as well as seen.

We've also got hold of some other bits and pieces for our next workshop session - including radiator cleaner, a rocker head gasket and some rather natty orange plastic paint which will be adorning some parts of the car (its a surprise!).

Route

The event organisers played their joker last night by announcing the route for the event. There was always a chance they'd do something out of the ordinary - and they didn't disappoint. Obviously they didn't get enough buzz from the 8,000 mile trial run across 11 countries last year - and have 'modified' the route to incorporate a minimum of 13 countries (plus 1 repeated) this time round.
The options are outlined on the home page of this site, but they are broadly as follows:

1) Start in London - progress through France, Belgium and Germany, then the Czech Republic to the first 'checkpoint' (a teashop somewhere!). Then - roar up through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Russia to Moscow - before descending south through Kazakstan, into Uzbekistan and the second checkpoint - onto the moutains of Krygyzstan, back into Kazakstan, Russia and across Mongolia.

Sound tough...hmm....maybe look at option 2

2) As with 1, through western europe and to the tea shop in Prague, then across Poland and the Ukraine to Kiev - then joining route 1 to take in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Krygyzstan, Russia again and the sprint finish to Mongolia.

Interesting...but the coup de grace could be option 3

3) The same initial route to Prague, but then a dramatic dip southwards through Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan and then to Uzbekistan to join the other racers for the final flurry across Krygyzstan, Russia and Mongolia.

So we're left pondering those mighty options - in the meantime thanks to my former colleague Chris who kindly donated to the cause.