The Official Test Drive

Our mighty 4x4 decided to stop working Thursday, 7 hours before the ferry to France for the first official test run.

A quick call to the AA showed that they couldn't do anything about it, apparently the timing belt had slipt 3 teeth. So ferry was missed and Friday was spent taking the car apart. It turned out that the timing belt was fine (thanks AA) but one of the carburator's butterfly valves had got stuck.

All fixed, rushed to the (new) ferry, which turned out to be 4 hours late due to bad weather and then spent another 90 minutes in the water waiting for a berth. The beautiful stench of the English Channel was combined with that of everybody onboard vomitting resulting in an aromatic arrival into Calais. Ultimately reached home Saturday evening after a series of traffic jams but most importantly "E'wn" had suvived his biggest test yet!

Thefollowing days and nights were spent fitting new seats, fixing the transfer box, cleaning the cooling system and many more engineering feets. Came back to uk Monday night with what can only be described as a new car, a car ready for the rally and with 1,500 miles under its camshaft.

The Official Route

We have finally settled on a route that we will aim to follow during the trip. Following the points mentioned previously the map on the left shows where we think we will go.

Not sure if that is actually where we will end up, but hey ho - time will tell!

We will try (if technology and connectivity allows it) to add an indication of where we actually go!

A car is born...

After much frantic ebaying, success was finally achieved and "Ew'n" was purchased for the bargain price of £536!

The Suzuki SJ410 with a 970cc engine that has driven over 130,000 miles over the 23 years of its life will carry us 10,000 miles further from London to Mongolia.