The Crittenden Automotive Library

The Artful Bodger 2 - Really Cheap Motoring

The Artful Bodger 2 - Really Cheap Motoring

Stan Potter
DriveWrite
November 24, 2013

Stan Potter can fix anything. Here he tells of running repairs in Europe and the thing is - you could still do this today. Let's go back in time:

One day at work a friend approached me and asked if I knew anybody who wanted an old Minivan with a rusty rear sub-frame. He had a new car coming at the weekend and the Mini was blocking his garage. Being me I said “how much?” He said £10; I put my hand in my pocket and told him I only had £8. He agreed! I got the car home, jacked up the rear end and with the help of large quantities of Plus Gas changed the sub-frame. It was a bog standard van with a rear seat.

The first modification I made was to fit side windows using a hand operated nibbler. This improved my wrist and arm strength no end. I owned and drove this car for 4 years and took it to every country in Europe except Portugal and Scandinavia. From Hamburg to Vienna and Barcelona to Rijeka, in Yugoslavia. All this at 45mpg on petrol at 25p a gallon and Colway remould tyres at £1.99 each. This was before I was married and my trips on the continent were made solo. This gives you a great incentive to meet people and with any luck pick up a few words of the language. On one trip I stayed at a camp site in the middle of Amsterdam.

Being on my own I used to fold the front seats forward put an air mattress down and slept in the van. I used to carry a small one-man tent which I used to reserve my space. I would slacken the guy ropes and park on top of it. I would always recognise my tent; it was the one with oil stains on it! I left Amsterdam and drove towards Harlingen along the Afsluitdijk. This is a twenty mile stretch of motorway with the North Sea against one side and the Ijsselmeer on the other. As I approached Harlingen the engine temperature started to rise. I looked under the bonnet and found the bypass hose between the cylinder head had a small leak in it. So putting on my bodging hat, I waited for the engine to cool down then loosened the radiator cap, topped up the coolant with lemonade (it was all I had) turned the heater on full, and drove gently to the end of the motorway. Leaving the pressure cap loose stops the cooling system pressurising and the coolant squirting out and by driving gently it is possible to keep the engine fairly cool so you loose as little water as possible. Then I tried to find the nearest British Leyland dealer (as they called themselves then) It was back in Amsterdam!

So I gingerly retraced my track to the camp site I left that morning. Using the excellent Public Transport system I went to the garage I had identified to buy a bypass hose. In the UK it was possible to obtain a convoluted hose which when clamped between two ½” spanners it was possible to replace without removing the cylinder head. In Holland only a solid hose was available. So back to the camp site to remove the cylinder head. I slept well that night.

I woke the next morning to find a block of flats had appeared during the night. I was wrong. It was a Winnebago camper with a matching trailer. On the bottom deck of the trailer was a Jeep with its windscreen folded down on the top deck, a speed boat on a second trailer. This rig was owned by a retired American couple. They had decided to tour Europe for a couple of years before settling down in Florida. (How the other half lives). Seeing me apparently doing an engine rebuild on my (cute little) car, they invited me in for a meal. They got steaks out of the freezer, defrosted them in the microwave, and put them under the infrared grill. Replacing the hose was no problem; I greased the head gasket and reused it and set the valve gaps; got the engine running and continued my trip.

On another trip - in England this time - I had one of the rubber joints on a drive shaft break up. This was at Easter when a group of us had gone to Caister Holiday Camp. It snowed. So I spent best part of a day underneath a jacked up car lying in 6” of snow. I nearly got Hypothermia. I owned this car for 4 years but eventually there were a lot of little things going wrong and I had got bored with it, so I took it to a local breakers yard. The guy said “not much call for minivan spares. I will give you a tenner for it” PROFIT! Goodbye faithful friend. Onto the next adventure.