5 Attachment(s)
kowalski's "i gotta start from somewhere" patrol gq
yay,
i had a quick view on the members map. chances are i'm the first member located in hungary :D
gotta celebrate this with a cold beer.
nevertheless, i'd like to introduce my lovely patrol. she hasn't got a name until today, but i'll find something sooner or later. might as well depend in which situations we'll be together :jawdrop:
i try to make a short description, but i'm afraid this might get longer since i often tend to talk too much.
when i first came in touch with off-roaders, i was driving an eighty-something mitsubishi pajero (shogun, montero) with a 3 litre v6 petrol from a friend. from that point on i instantly was sucked in. so much fun, so much power, on the other hand: so much control needed. a few weeks later i was looking for my very first own car at the age of 30, until that point i always had the luck to drive a company vehicle. sure i never even got in the near of driving something offroad-like.
back to the car, it was a 3.3 diesel '82 datsun patrol. it looked so nice on the pics but after we arrived at the place, i was just completely shocked. putting it short, a distant look from far away from across the street was the best thing that car had to offer. the lower chassis levels around were foamed out with pu-foam and painted over, blueish-strange exhaust smoke at the exit, seemed like it was running only on 4 or 5 cylinders at best. best thing was the gear shift, when i switched from 1st into 2nd, i could clearly count every single blade of grass, cause there was a hole as big as a football through the baseplate. not to mention the frame, which was a complete mess. the funniest thing was, it was only possible to stop the engine after you put it in 5th and slowly let go the cluth :jawdrop: don' ask me how this happened or what this had to mean. if anyone has an idea, i'm open to any info on that issue.
with a sack full of experience and a bunch of sadness my friend and me went home to forget this "car" fastest possible. approximately, 2 weeks later i found another patrol. now it was another model, a '92 gq 2.8td, short. a decade younger, and much more interesting it was a quite fast decision, that i want this car. on one day at afternoon i was telephoning with the seller, at 9:00 in the morning and 600km later my buddy and i were having a first look at the car. i was sold instantly, not knowing what will await me later afterwards. seems like car purchasing is not one of my strong abilities :biggrin:
nevertheless, after switching owners, continued our journey from where we started. at half distance, we stopped at a gas station for a short break. the ex-owner showed us a fuse which we "shouldn't put back in place because it messes the electrics up". curiosity was stronger than expected and i put it in. after a few seconds the fusebox began to smoke interestingly, so we stopped the engine and took out the fuse.
from that point on i started questioning qhat the heck i did a few hours ago. restof the trip was without any complications but i was glad to be back home. first thing i gave the car to a friend who took care of the electrics. he re-wired a bunch of cables and placed them back where they belonged. now i have to clear the papers to hopefully soon being able to move it legally. the frame has a bit of corrosion at the neuralgic spots, but step by step i'll put this car back in it's glorious shape. after a bit of research i found at least 2 pre-owners of the car, from which one of them i had a nice phone discussion a few days ago. it was really cool to get infos about the history of the car specially if they are useful ones about the repairs being carried out the at last.
end ofmay we have a big international off-road festival here in hungary, so i'll be happy to join. it will be my first festival and also my first festival with my own car! i can't wait for it to happen to test the cars' abilities and mine, too :)
mods which i have planned are 5cm coil spacers and 8cm wheel spacers per axle to get them tires on the pics enough space for turning. i'll see how much this influences off-road performance, but it definetly will improve with the goodrich mud-terrain. more to come...
