Like a line of dominos we all woke up, one at a time…slowly, especially Willa and I who got to bed later, staying up to talk with George.
Marijke made delicious pancakes and to be polite, we all had one…and then another and another…mind you, purely to be proper guests.
Then the group split up for the day. Kiki, Walli and Willa headed into town to tour about and Axel, Uschi and I stayed to work on the cars.
First up was Walli and Kiki’s car. It was making some grinding noises which Axel thought was the throw out bearing. After draining the tranny and checking for metal, very little was found, so decision was made to just refill with fresh fluid and carry on.
While Axel was working on one car, Uschi was at work dismantling the front end of my car. In very little time she had removed the hood, fenders and side pieces.
When Axel was done with the first car, we moved mine into the garage and continued the work. I had found some oil splatters on my firewall after one particularly long leg of hard driving and we cleaned it up and kept an eye on it. The next day there was more and we could see it seemed to be coming from the rear seal. Understandably, Axel was not happy about this as he had put in a brand new seal when he had done the motor and here after about 5000 km he was going to have to do it again.
For me this was a fascinating experience. My 2CV was being bared to it’s bones…and hopefully going back together like new.
The headlights came off, exhaust manifolds disconnected, engine unbolted from tranny and with a little urging Axel, the human engine hoist, pulled the motor out of the car and put it on a workbench. Off with the clutch and flywheel and there was the offending rear seal.
Once the seal was replaced, all the work was reversed and in no time Marcel was up and running again. We rolled him back onto the driveway and while I was reassembling the bodywork, Axel and Uschi took their 2CV out for lunch, as much to warm up the oil for an oil change, as for food.
When then got back, they did the oil change, moved that car out of the garage and moved the other back in to repair the roof, damaged by the gusty winds in SD and MN earlier in the trip. The mouldings came off, the roof material re-glued properly and then the window replaced. From start to finish, maybe 35 minutes to accomplish that.
By the time the others had returned, all three of our cars had been repaired and completely serviced and ready to hit the road one more time, tomorrow.
We voted to return to the same excellent Chinese restaurant for dinner, then into Toronto to meet with the others coming along to Saratoga Springs in the am.
We all sort of ran out of steam, except for George, who seems to have internalized a small nuclear power plant, and so we headed home.
The denizens of Toronto gave us a final farewell on our way home with a series of late night traffic jams…after 10pm! Who does that?
Everyone went right to sleep but George and Willa and I relaxed with another craft beer…or was it 2? I know it was after 2am when we finally went to bed.
[Read the story about the complete trip here.]