Chip, the All American Bus

I was only thinking of a euro trip last night and had thought of this thread.
Did you go to northern Africa?

 

Thanks Nick.
I'm embarrassed it's taken so long to finish. The bus comes out of winter hibernation next weekend & I know damn well this won't get done after that coz we'll be camping!!
Hopefully it inspires someone to get in & drive!! (or finish the welding)!! haha

 

Later this year! In the syncro. If I can get the bloody exhaust off, but that's another story...

 

Cool, where, Maroc?
My old man took his van there , it kind of finished it off

 

Its threads like this that give me a kick up the arse I need unfortunately I forget quickly and cant be bothered (to find the bits I loose as I am so messy)

 

What goes up Mt Ventoux, must come down.
Some faster than others...
..so after a few more photo opportunities we went 'over the top'.



Now, our brakes had been playing up you may recall. So I took it steady.
But this bugger came flying past!!


His moment of glory I guess coz. I knocked him off the edge further down.

 

At least your issues are hereditary lol

 

don't say that! When I've recovered sufficiently from the shock of what I discovered yesterday (validated by @Dicky this afternoon who thought I was exagerating) I 'may' post pictures of what we're going through to get this syncro prepared for the trip. Chip's travels are nice & fluffy

 

uh oh that doesnt sound good!! on the other hand the europe trip looked awesome.

 

C'mon, wossup with it?

 

Patience. Chris came round earlier for a brew & for 5 minutes or so we looked at it, poked it & then walked away from it. I'm currently pretending it's not outside. Don't spoil my Saturday!

 

The descent was a blast. (there's another loon just coming past us on the left if you look closely)


At the end of the road the first town with an Aire was Malaucene, a small but beautifully formed medieval village surrounding an elevated church.


As we tracked north west so the weather started to change. Clear blue skies gave way to grey and rain became more frequent.



It would have been nice to stop in Montelimar for some nougat, but the weather was trash so we did what most tourists do & carried on through



The road to home...

 

France threw another surprise at us. We've driven up through Lyon before so for a change we decided to carry on NW from Montelimar towards Clermont Ferrand.
Never knew, but this area is known as Puy-de-Dome after a dormant volcano.
What a stunning area & our pictures don't do it justice but many more can be found on the web. We were travelling through rather than stopping but it is certainly on the list of areas to spend more time in in the future.

 

Great write up, loved reading about your American travels as well

 

Within another 5 days or so we were to be back across the Channel. I may have said before but we really engaged with France and the people we met this time, in a way I must say we haven't before. It really is a stunning and diverse country that offers massive opportunity to the traveller.

Typical Aire, only us parked up on the edge of a quaint village with free electric and water!


Poor visibility due to the weather but it is an amazing area


As we travelled north and the elevation dropped, so the sun came out again. The roads are glass smooth and quiet.

 

There's always time for one more job though
The swivel seat had become harder to operate, I mean it had had a lot of use over the last few months!
At another Aire, I decided to spend an hour one evening & strip it down. Dead easy & carries the reward of a glass of vino!

This Aire was at the side of the village car park. No electric but water & waste disposal was down by the bin. Nice evening....


So the seat slides out, leaving the swivel plate which bolts through from under the seat. Remove the 4 nylocs and the centre of the base twists up & out.
Set too & clean off all the old horse hair and gnarly dried grease.



I'd got the moly grease left over from doing the cv joints & used this on the gearshift gubbins as well. General purpose is just as good, if not better, but only a light smear is needed around the base of the moving parts. Too much & all the muck will collect again.





Jobs a good 'un & it really does make a huge difference when this is all cleaned up!

 

On up through Chablis. More excellent roads, great weather, shabby chic that is unique to France



etc etc....

 

Continue north & to the east of Paris & you're back in the Champagne region again. Familiar roads and towns from just a few months before when my son Josh joined us for a week. It seemed an age, but then not so...if you catch my drift.


The flat lands of the 'bread basket' of France are easy but monotonous travelling as you approach the north of the country


Dunkirk

 

And so we left the continent!
However....who wants the holiday to come to an end? haha. mmm, something was happening that weekend along the south coast we seemed to remember


...and so the travels went on.

"The New Forest is nice isn't it? Yeah haven't been there for years. Ah OK then may as well head on to Dorset then? Yay Monkey World....."

& the old buses' wheels kept turning....to be continued & thanks for travelling with us so far xx