Reddog Snowdodgers

At the airport

2009-05-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

So we've got 8 hours to kill at bucharest airport so I thought I would write a short update. There may be more later depending on how much sleep I get, and how much beer I drink...

We've spent the last few days visiting some of the projects our efforts and your kind donations will be supporting.

I think we are all impressed with the work of Moldolvan Ministries and Children on the Edge. we would also like to thank our hosts at the Betania Church in Chisneau for their warm welcome and hospitality, and personnally Matt and myself would like to thank Anton and his family for having us stay the last few days.

So the adventure is nearly over! It seems very strange we left Hyde Park 3 weeks. It seems an age away but also just like yesterday! we've crammed in a lot and I think I will be spending the bank holiday Monday uploading all my photos....

Thanks again to all those who have made this trip possible, and to all those who have kindly donated to some great causes. Again, full thanks and update when I get near a computer.
Gaz

Russian Internet Cafes are Rubbish

2009-04-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

Apologies. I have a huge amount of photos to add but I can't. Just paid for an hours worth of internet at our hotel in Moscow and spent ages editing my photos to just upload the best selection, only to find these computers don't have the right plug-in for facebook and they won't allow you to upload it.

So rather than spend ages uploading each image one by one i'm just going to moan instead :-)

Anyway, other than internet access things are going well. All the cars seem to still be working (some with more issues than others) and we've had a great few days in Russia. St Petersburg and Moscow are definitely worth visiting.

The pace is slowing a bit now, which isn't a bad thing as i think teams are starting to flag. We have two days to make it down to Kiev, and then another to do the short trip to Moldova. We're already starting to plan various Top Gear-esque challenges for the cars once we get there, including drag races and stopping distances. Watch this space for the results.

Hopefully I'll be able to upload some more photos at some point. I'll just chuck one in of Red Square here.

So, some thoughts/impressions so far (bear in mind I've had a few beers):

We're the only team to not have a proper SAT NAV (although we have used google maps a couple of times)

Matt is the youngest person doing the rally, and i'm the oldest. Not sure what that says about our combined mental ages...

Russian roads are MENTAL!

But Russia is really cool.

Camping in Finland is really cold at this time of the year.

We've been amazing luckly with the weather - mainly sun all the way.

We've also been lucky with the cars, especially when taking them out in the snow and getting them stuck in massive drifts on the side of frozen lakes.

We didn't see the Northern Lights :-(

Pete Loz had to bribe a Russian policeman to let him off being booked for speeding :-)

F*cking sh*t computer won't even allow me to add a photo to this blog. So i think at this point I'll call it a night. Will try to upload photos and videos at the soonest opportunitiy.

Gaz

Photos now uploaded

2009-04-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

Internet access isn't as regular as we would have liked. Have now managed to upload two new photo sets to Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=239593&id=684650267&l=b799b17de9

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=239596&id=684650267&l=b3f63d235c

More when we get to St Petersburg!
Gaz

Off Roading and breaking the Arctic Circle

2009-04-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

We're now pretty adpet at the lovely clear Finnish and Swedish roads up here so decided it'd be a good idea to do a bit of green laning, scandanavian style. Using our rest day well we set out with the Vauxhal, Rialto and Nissan to find some fresh snow.
After a lot of thrashing about logging tracks and avoiding skimobiles we were told by a helpful local that the polive would impound our cars if we were found. A speedy exit later and we discovered a veritable playground, perfect for trying those handbrake turns and rally manouvers. Sadly this led to a 3 car pile up with the Vaxhaul hitting the Rialto and the Nissan then piling into the back of the Vaxhaul. Sum total of damage being a wrecked rialto boot, a trashed front headlight for the nissan and not a scratch on the Vaxhaul. At the same time we were seeing how far we could push the AX. Famous last words of "I wonder if we can get across this drift if we go fast enough" led to being towed out by the 4x4.

All in all a fun day.

Throughout our adventures up north we've been trialling the Lookfly base layers. They've made it through the ice hotel, blizzards and even a day on the ski slopes and the verdict is they really work. With temperatures as low as -5 we've been toasty.

Sadly the Library's free internet has no USB so the photos and videos will have to wait.

Matt

Reindeer baby!

2009-04-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

2009-04-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post from the Library at Kiruna, as we've borrowed someone's computer. Photo of the Ice Hotel below, pretty damn cool! Hoping to do a snowmobile trip tonight and maybe see the northern lights, and then on to Finland tomorrow.

Leaving the others behind...

2009-04-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

Having caught up with the Volvo and Nissan on the way to Stockholm we decide we can't hang around for the slow teams...

First proper update

2009-04-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all

Finally got internet access and time to add photos, so here's the first real update of the trip. In the first four days we covered 8 countries, driven over 1700 miles, and spent a lot of time on the autobahn. Unsurprisingly, we also found time to play s0me frisbee thanks to Flying Circus in Copenhangen.

Hopefully the facebook photos will be visable to everyone:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=237382&id=684650267&l=617f675b5c

Countries visited so far:
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, Denemark and Sweden (we don't think Legoland counts unfortunately). We also visited the original England, home of the Angles (or so we were told).

Highlights so far? Going around the Nurbugring in a 45bhp tincan of a car was exciting to say the least. I was glad i packed my brown pants anyway. The bridges across Denmark and Sweden were pretty cool, although the AX didn't perform too well in the cross-winds. And basically we've just be chimping around doing lots of random detours.

Spotters badge to Berry for finding this official photo of us going around the racetrack. Notice the difference of expressions between Matt and myself...

http://www.eykensfotografie.nl/jalbums/ring%20090412/slides/IMG_8937.html

So today's a rest day in Stockholm so we'll try to see some of the city, before heading off to Northern Sweden tomorrow. Next rest day is in Finland so we'll add some more photos there. In the meantime, enjoy our random tweets!

Gaz

2009-04-14T12:37:00.001-07:00

so we've made it to stockholm after a pretty dull drive this afternoon. Löts of stuff to add, esp photos, but weäre going out for some beers so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

in the meantime, here's a photo of us at entering Stockholm....

Still ok

2009-04-14T04:08:00.000-07:00

Made it to copenhagen fine. now heading on to Stockholm...more when we get there.

Looking fly despite bank holiday traffic.

2009-04-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Amazon came up trumps and managed to get the video camera to me. Equipped with 40Gb of SD storage we should be able to get more than enough footage. With Gaz bringing his camera too we'll be able to put together a mammoth slide show...

Struggling through the bank holiday traffic I made it up Lookfly HQ and Vince applied their logos and supplied us with a "." to complete the URL on the rear windscreen.

Everything's all packed up and ready to go including the 2nd spare wheel nailed into the boot. Not sure how we're going to fit Gaz and more kit gues we'll find out tomorow.

The out of office message's been set on work email...the countdown clock is counting...

Matt

4 days to go....

2009-04-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

With the departure date looming I thought it was best to actually get the doors sorted so you can unlock them from inside. Could be pretty handy if we have to lock ourselves in... Much sweating and swearing later, along with some dexterous finger work and we've got new lock knobs in the doors. Admittedly they aren't the straightest but at least they work.

On a slightly less up beat note the rear window heater is definitely bust. No amount of changing the relays, switches or holding a multimeter across contacts is going to replace all the heater strip that has fallen off. Guess it's heaters at full blast and an ice scraper at the ready.

A tree's worth of photocopying should ensure we manage to keep hold of all the documents when faced with over interested boarder guards and police. As an added bonus it seems that all the names and addresses match on the paperwork.

Still some last minute work to do to the little beastie to get it blinged up before the off hopefully get round to it tomorrow.

Matt

Leaving Event

2009-04-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

The "official" leaving event is this Saturday at 11am in Hyde Park. Come along if you fancy a laugh at the variety of vehicles 12 over-confident fools think will make it 4000 miles around Europe.....

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=61573452511

More thanks

2009-04-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Lookfly for supplying the team with some snazzy looking and feeling base layers to keep us going through the Rally. We'll let you know how they stand up to the elements on the journey.

Thanks to Adam at work for helping a mechanically minded fool understand wiring diagrams and try and figure out why the rear windscreen heater still isn't working.

Thanks to Alex from work for lending me tools to fix the door locks. Finally that's on the cards for tomorrow, we can drive without the fear of being locked in our own car.

A quick trip to poundland has also furnished us with some light up fluffy dice, a thermometer and a pretty random looking rubbish blue strip light. The gauntlet has also been thrown down to the other teams in Team Reddog's challenge:

Team RedDog “Pimp Your Ride Challenge”

If Xixibit showed up on your front door ready to "pimp your ride" would he proceed to laugh at the rust-bucket you call a car, or would he give respect to your pimp wagon and want to take it out for a cruise?

Team RedDog challenges you to bling up your car with whatever you can in the time left before we head off to Europe. The more useless and impractical the better, especially if you can think of a spurious reason why the modification improves your vehicle!

An impartial judge will cast his/her eye over all the vehicles in Hyde Park before we head off on Saturday 11 April. The winners will get a special prize!

Looks like we'll actually make it to Calais

2009-03-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

After nervously waiting to see if it was all just a hoax or not we finally got confirmation that we've got Eurotunnel tickets bought using Tesco clubcard vouchers. Genius.

Trying to get the new locks fitted to the doors is proving a bit more tricky than I thought. Taking half the door apart needs Torx screwdriver bits. Oddly they want to make most of the fittings on the car tamper proof...

Sadly the exhaust whistler wasn't doing great things to the fuel economy and although it did attract a fair amount of attention it was beginning to drive me mad so It's gone.

Blog update

2009-03-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of leaving all the real work to Matt, I spent a bit of time playing with the blog layout today to make it a bit more "RedDog".

Less than two weeks to go...
Gaz

Thank yous and more bits

2009-03-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Cheers to everyone who turned up to the car squash on Saturday. Not sure I ever want to do it again, or that the AX appreiciated 16(!) people in it but it was good at the time. A good afternoon's fundraising by all accounts at ASDA in Clapham, followed by a laid back evening in the Ostentatious Old Explorer pub. Thanks to everyone who went home with a lot from the "money can't buy" Auction, and anyone who donated at the evening or bought some Merch.

While in a name dropping mood big thanks to Creating Space for sponsoring the bonnet. Photos soon to be up on the blog or watch out for them on the Snowdodgers website.

Combining Tesco's car products section and a visit to Noons Breakers yard we've got yet more critical and not so essential items for the car. These range from Footpumps to warning triangles, shampoo to "TURBO" badges.

Next little project is finding a way to secure the 2nd spare wheel in the car, avoiding the chance of it flying about should we have an accident. Strapping the wheel to the roof isn't great as it'll kill our fuel efficiency and there really isn't anything to attach it to. There's not even anything in the boot to use to strap it down. The cunning plan now involves using the spare wheel cage from a fiesta to mirror the existing spare wheel cage slung under the chassis. If anyone's got any bright ideas then feel free to chip in, at the moment it's still very much work in progress.

Last thing to try out is if Redex actually makes a difference to the car....having bought a bottle I guess it's just a matter of wait and see...

Engine Oil, tailpipes and terrible styling

2009-03-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Turns out there wasn't even enough oil in the sump to get more than 1/4" up the dipstick. That along with not being able to get the plug out the sump meant I just filled up with fresh. Hopefully there isn't some horrible leak and everything will be fine...

I've been itching to pimp the car up with the dump valve whistler so set to it the other night. 1st took the tailpipe and silencer off with a bit of persuasion. Then as the tailpipe wasn't a nice straight shape, loped a bit off with a hacksaw. Slid the whistler in, fixed it in place and hey presto it sound just like you've got dump valves for that authentic race sound...well that's the theory. In practice all I've now got is an exhaust that constantly whistles, liable to attract all dogs in the area. It's probably also doing horrible things to the efficiency of the engine by restricting the flow of exhaust gasses. I guess it's the price you have to pay for sounding great?

Finally, decided to get hold of some red paint, pop some of the detail out of the dash and add a bit of stylish flair by picking it out in red...hopefully pictures to follow tomorrow of the interior in it's glory.

On a slightly more boring practical note I've fixed the cigarette lighter and fitted the clutch pedal back on after it fell off on the way to work the other day.

New windscreen and useful mirrors!

2009-03-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Shiny new windscreen fitted Saturday morning, helpful hint if you ever get it done; although they apparently aren't meant to they'll give you a pretty accurate appointment time if you phone them on the day. Much better than the 4 hour window they give you when you book the appointment. Even fitted a new tax disc holder.

Car does now make a rattle at 60, not sure if this is to do with the new windscreen, guess I'll phone up Autoglass and find out if it's normal.

Big breakthrough as I finally find how to properly adjust the wingmirrors on the car. Means I can see everywhere without having to lean all over the place.

Oil level isn't looking great and it's a horrible colour so draining and replacing that's on the cards for tomorrow.

The little beauty's still managing 50mpg, bodes well for the treck. Not sure how several stone of Gaz and kit will effect this...

Westwood be proud

2009-03-13T11:21:00.001-07:00

Managed to pick up a nice big crack in the windscreen. Arse.
However bling has arrive in the form of:
Flamed pedals,
Skull gear knob,
exhaust improvements (clearly all aesthetic)
and a very snazzy "sport" badge.

Tried to sort out the radio too but looks like I may have actually broken it trying to fix the tape deck...

Sponsorship tally is going up nicely, cheers to everyone who's donated so far.

The Story so far...

2009-03-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

Right as it's he first post I'll get up to speed.

11/02/09 - Buy the AX from Mick's garage in Corby
12/02/09 - Car copes fine on the snowy car park at work.
13/02/09 - Decided to change over to team reddog from team chimp
15/02/09 - Gaz gets a run up and down the A3 in the AX. Followed by Matt getting a blow out on the M3 heading south. Off side rear wheel changed and surprisingly the vibrations that used to happen at 60mph stop.
21/02/09 - Began collecting bits and pieces for spares.
23/02/09 - The dashboard light now magically stays on all the time. Used to be very hit and miss.
04/03/09 - Car now decked out with URLs, team number and a Leicester City badge.
06/03/09 - Ordered Tesco vouchers for the Eurotunnel
08/03/09 - Picked up spare wheel and parcel shelf from scrapyard. Bargain.
11/03/09 - Booked flights home...let's hope we get there