Hi Guys
The Alvis Grey Lady seems to be in some trouble with transmission problems
as well as a badly smoking engine. They are going to try and nurse it along
as far as they can. Problems started for many crews during the hill climb
stages. The stars of the section were the Japanese team in the Datsun who
made it look easy. The Giles Hillman Hunter now also has it's share of
trouble, in that it landed very heavily and has damaged the front suspension
rather badly and it now overheats. As predicted the Team Healey of
Dyke-Price and Onyett's fuel tank sprang a leak again. A permanent repair is
going to be the only answer, but halfway up a mountain in Tashkent Healey
parts or repairs are not easy to find!.
Some cars have now taken the advise of the organizers and lost some weight,
with one of the DB2 Astons now sporting a single roof mounted spare wheel.
The Bentley MX had a bad day with assorted problems and the 38 Packard had a
good day, I sense changes in the running order!
MORGAN NEWS
The undoubted stars of the weekend has to be the Morgan crew who everybody
had given up on. It would seem that once they had the visa thing sorted out
they broke a half shaft. Now Morgan +4 half shafts are not laying on the
side of the road out in that part of the world so they had one flown in from
France, they fitted the shaft (I bet that was fun!) and drove for 48 hours
non stop over a road they did not know, and to a place that they were not
sure of, just to catch up with the event. They have a mass of penalty points
but "we did not want to miss out on the Chinese section" was their only
comment. Great work guys. The Spirit of Malvern lives on!
By the end of the day results looked like this, the Bentley is now only 3
mins ahead of the Packard and that little Citroen 2CV only 9 min behind them
(note to self keep an eye on the 2CV!) The leading Rolls is still the P111
in 12th position and still running well by all accounts.
The Hillman is still out in front of the classics but the 356 Porsche is now
real close only 4 mins behind, plus the Hillman is now a sick car! The Aston
2/4 is only 2 mins behind the Porsche so it may come to rescue the British
honors should the Hillman have real problems. The leading Jaguar is still
the XK140 of Meeus, some 5 place ahead of the Team Healey with the fuel
leak. Two more XK's are in the next 10 cars closely followed by the MGB GT
that is in turn one place in front of the other Team Healey car of the
Hunts, they had a bad day and ended up in 28th place.
More news anon.!
Regards
John J Black
Waterloo Drivetrain Systems
http://www.waterloo-dtr.com
|