These, are the voyages of the starship Turby D.

[spitroen]

To modern.

[russ92xmsed]

Glad your having a great time Jaap. window cables...annoying, but not serious. Could be worse!


My uncle, in the 80's, was told by a French mechanic to use a brick when his handbrake cable snapped over there on Holiday their Astra!
French climate must have an effect on cables!

[captainhaddock]

That's it Russ, indeed having a fabulous time. One small XM mishap but today second very small.......After refuelling we went shopping and coming back we saw Diesel underneath dripping .....I checked the connections on top of the tank and it was wet there so something is not diesel tight there and throwing diesel out ...so nothing serious at all. All good now after driving again!:) Great ride in the old barge through all this great country side. But modern no, more old. Old fuelpipes!

[russ92xmsed]

Oh no! At least diesel won't catch fire!!

Must be leaky pipes as you say.

[captainhaddock]

Well, Dervy Diesel is being worked on as I type but hold your horses, it's ALL right!

A lot of seriously nice adventures later, it drove us in great lazy comfort all the way up north, through miserable rain and thunder to get us to the cathedral in Lier. Lier is an 800 old town in Belgium where wehad a break.

However Dervy decided not to want to go further after returning from our (yes yes yes Sunny terrace)

Not to worry, the ÁA man in me came awake; quite hazily and after giving some hammering with a steel bar and adding some extra amps from my coffee maker/Phone charger/air mattress and tyre compressor/jump starter she came alive once again!

Now, I have to say she's been good starting ever since but......the starter is going on her way out and since I parked the dervy diesel just about next to a starter/alternator specialist in my home town, I asked them and decided to treat her to a new Mitshubishi! Don't like to get stuck in the near future on ferries or in the Irish rain;)

Having it put, in won't cost me much, postage of a starter motor to Ireland would be about the same! Besides I'm still enjoying last's nights performance in the Amsterdam concertgebouw of the great concert of Hugh Laurie and going to the next family party tonight with clean hands!

http://www.youtube.com/user/HughLaurieBlues

Go if you have the chance, he's going to the UK next!

[russ92xmsed]

Oh no Jaap! Well at least you have it sorted now. Well done. Clearly it didn't want to drive up north. Maybe you have just experienced the French shrug!!


Sounds like a good concert. Huge Laurie is great. Very talented.

Enjoy the party...with your clean hands!!

[captainhaddock]

Hugh Laurie last night was fantastic!

And Dervy Diesel starts like never before.
The 2 bearings of the old starter were shot to pieces, and relais was bad, I saw the old starter in pieces and didn't bother to take them home. A miracle it got us that far in a way after the damage done to it. Got a better one now far stronger. (1,2 KW instead of 0,8 if I remember correctly)

I don't like people working on my car but this guy I knew from the past and has 40 years experience, total costs incl. vat was 174 euros. A free lesson in why NOT NEVER to buy Chinese starters on top of it including visual evidence in abundance on top of it. So all good now.

So no dirty hands for me and no postage costs, I am all happy with this happening and the solution to my problem (other than having to bring the car at 8 o'clock this morning after arriving home at 2.am thanks to Hugh and traffic jams at mid night. This is by the way standard in the Netherlands due to mowing of grass instead of road works....

Last tip: if you ever need to change your starter motor, (forgive my bad English) always count the cogs on your cog wheel of the starter. The starters for these diesel engines may be similar except for this, so if you put the wrong one in, you'd destroy your 'starter ring gear' if this is the right word.

[CitroJim]

Ring gear is exactly the right word Jaap there is absolutely nothing wrong with your English at all. I know many native speakers who are nowhere near as fluent as you; both in written and spoken...

Pleased to hear all went well with the starter motor and all is again good...

[beko1987]

Sounds like a worthwhile spend of €180 to me!

[captainhaddock]

Absolutely, starting Turby is a different experience now!

Starts within 0,22 seconds all the time now.

I thought to be saving money by refuelling in Germany but that was a mistake... A BMW that crashed for no apparent reason was the second cause of traffic jam, after about 1600 Hells angels on their great motor bikes that were having a rally, causing the first serious traffic jam.
I can report, that achieving 160 KM/per hour is very easy going on the Autobahn, going faster suddenly becomes a really slow process.
I didn't get the chance to go over 180 km p/h on the GPS due to traffic but all in all quite OK for the old lady. Fast enough for me and nice to try out every once in a while.

Other than that, nothing to report except that I found out that I can only open the doors with the remote, none of the keys operate the locks so I do carry spare batteries just in case, must look into that. Did get stuck sending Liz away to get the car with the spare key.......:~)

Going home now, entering the UK tonight. I can be spotted tomorrow going from Folkstone to Holyhead spending my last night in that area

I'll update when I'm home, first 3000 miles approximately were fine, worst fuel consumption not under 42,3 MPG including a lot of fast driving with roof and windows open mostly. I think I like this car!