Under our own steam once again

An amazing repair in th car park of our hotel last night.

We arrived knowing that despite having no oil pressure we hadn't damaged the engine. It was time to take off the sump and have a look!

First our magnificent sump guard had to come off, by no means a trivial task given it's weight and solidity. We had to jack the car up high so as to be able to get the sump out. We managed to borrow a large jack and put the front of the car on our axle stands.

Draining the oil was not an easy task but managed to get most of it into two jerry cans.

Finally off came the sump. Having removed the nuts and bolts we couldn't actually move the sump, being stuck on with the previous gasket. A couple of sharp taps and off she came.

The cause of our problems was immediately obvious. All the new pipework going from the oil pump to the new oil filter was shot. One of the pipes was sheered right through. There was absolutely no way it could be repaired without a very specialist spanner.

We were joined by Nigel. Gambier who simply put on his overalls, collected his spanners and set to helping brilliantly.

We decided to ignore the new oil filter and using the existing pipes fashion a new one to connect the oil pump direct to the oil outlet. We had the fittings for both ends but would have to cut two pipes so that the met in the middle and then find a way of connecting them. rubber pipes and jubilee clips was the agreed method but Boone had the right pipe A
and the support crews had all gone to bed. We had been joined by David Ayre who, after making some very disparaging remarks about the pipework, approved the plan.

We were joined by Charlie McGowan and Alex Howard offering incredibly kindly to help. Now the problems started because everyone had different ideas of the best way forward. Having broken the back of the problem we decOder to buy some new pipe in the morning. Fortunately David turned up and told us very forcibly that we wouldn't get any pipe and if we didn't f***ing get on with the previous idea we would be going home on a truck! At 02.30 we finally had the new parts cut and ready we just didn't have any way of connecting them.

Without any sleep I went off to find Peter Banham at 05.30 and found him as he was finishing breakfast.. Without a moments hesitation we were back by the car, Peter had the necessary pipe and we were putting her back together again.

She started first time, is leaking oil and we are nervous that our repair will blow under pressure but we are underway to Aix les Bain.

This trip is anything if not eventful!

RHC

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