Feel the Power.... or not.

Yet more problems with Uncle Festa. Yesterday the battery light came on whilst driving Sarah to work. After much faffinig around with the Alternator belt, it soon becomes clear that the Alternator has died. The Hayes Manual comes to the rescue once again. The replacement Alternator is fitted and to my surpise works fine first time (My mechanical knowledge must be improving!!!)

Uncle Festa... A new beginning

Well our new pride and joy hasn't quite turned out the dream machine we thought. We're joking at the minute that something brakes every day. Well where shall I start? First of all we realised on the first morning of owning the car that there was a huge puddle of oil underneath. We wheeled Uncle Festa in the garage to take a carefull look and found that the Oil hadn't been changed in so long that the oil filter had actually rusted through and oil was literally pumping through it when the engine started. Quite how it got home from Chelmsford I will never know (the previous owner must have known this and overfilled it with Oil, It just goes to show you have to be carefull what you buy on Ebay....)

The saga continues once we try to remove the sump plug, it would appear that the previous owner had a bodge at that too and made the plug completely round. Over the next day we try various method of extracting the tight little bugger, but to no avail. In the end I purchase a pump which extracts the oil via the dipstick, this works a treat and the rest of the job takes no time at all. That couples with a change of Oil filter makes Festa run like a dream.

You gotta Start Somewhere....

The Plymouth - Bamako Challenge is a mad-cap adventure across Europe and through the world's largest Desert. During the Event the cars are subject to a Wet English Winter, The freezing trip over ice overed road of the alps and thousands of miles through blistering desert heat. Your Abviously thinking we must be spending Thousands of pounds on specialist cars designed for such extremes. You would be dead wrong..... Each team has only £100 to spend on a car and a further £15 in Race preperation. The basic rules of the Rally are.

1) Cars must cost less than £100

2) Maximum Budget for Rally Preporation is £15

3) Once the Rally is underway. There is no help provided by the organisors. EACH TEAM IS ON THEIR OWN !!!

4) All Vehicles must be handed over to the organisors once we reach Bamako. These will then be auctioned for Charity.