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On Friday 30th October we flew to Palma to collect
an
XK120 Jaguar
previously lovingly restored by
ourselves. On arrival we checked her out to make
sure she was ready for the 1,000 mile journey home
the following Monday.
On road testing her, she started to overheat so we
did a little diagnostic work and found that the head
gasket had partially failed. If we stood any chance at all
of driving her to the UK we desperately needed K seal
to temporally fix the fault. After 2 days of searching
(due to a Spanish bank holiday) we managed to find
some. We were now ready to continue our journey.
On departure from Palma the sun was shining and
8 hours later we arrived in Barcelona. We decided it
would be better to drive through the night when it
was cooler to keep the coolant temperature down.
Our journey took us over the Pyrenees’, Mont Blanc
and over the world’s tallest bridge, the Millau Viaduct.
Sounds fabulous you might think but in reality it was
cold and dark and in an open top car not much fun.
Arriving in Paris at 4.30am the car cut out dead ... in
the middle of
5 lanes of traffic!
We managed tomove
it on to the hard shoulder to find a fuse had blown!
We were soon back on the road and arrived in Calais
to the sky darkening and the heavens opening! All
was fine, we were wearing waterproofs. Then the
wipers decided to stop working. Visibility was poor
to say the least. It was starting to get very dangerous.
We could do nothing else but pull over and wait for
the rain to clear. Finally we reached the tunnel and
arrived back on British ground at 7.30pm.
After an
enormously eventful journey
and a little
rest, I think we may be ready for our next road trip!
COMMERCIAL FEATURE
Road Trip - Palma to Hortonwood
in 34 hours!
Here at Autotech Performance we will not only collect your vehicle
from your home or workplace here in Shropshire but occasionally go the
‘extra mile’ and even travel as far as Majorca.
30
JANUARY 2016