Ferdinand
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Thanks so much to all the many volunteers who made this event possible. It was great to discover so many different checkpoints all night long, and always a big relief to stumble across the next one as confirmation that we're still on the correct route.
We were a little uncertain as to whether we would actually make it all the way to the finish. The old BMW was experiencing a few difficulties in the deep fresh snow.
Other than the usual stuff, like barely being able to scrabble up icy steep hills or almost getting bogged down and stuck in the deep snow on West Eels, our biggest worry was the amount of snow filling our engine compartment.
The first indication of trouble was the way the headlights kept intermittently dimming out.
Oh-oh. That can't be good.
So much snow was packed into the engine bay, piled halfway up the backside of the radiator, it eventually caused the rad fan to stop turning. That, in itself, is not a terminal problem as long as we keep moving forward and air continues to flow through the portions of the rad not yet blocked by snow. But, with the fan not turning, the engine would rapidly overheat anytime we stopped at a checkpoint.
The fan is joined by a viscous coupling to the water pump, which is driven by the alternator/fan belt. When the rad fan gets jammed with snow and stops turning, the viscous coupling eventually overheats, then the alternator/fan belt starts slipping, the alternator stops turning or otherwise cuts out due to excessive snow ingestion, and then the headlights subsequently fade out, which is the signal to us that the water pump has probably also stopped turning.
If ignored too long beyond that point, really bad things could start happening...
We were forced to make frequent emergency stops to dig the snow out of the engine compartment, before it could set solidly into ice.
Then, while blindly hacking away in the engine compartment with my snow-brush, I managed to sever the wire leading to the oil pressure sensor. Thereafter, the exposed end of the wire would occasionally ground out against the engine block. Already concerned with imminent overheating, engine meltdown, or a potential head gasket blowout, we really could have done without the added distraction of that very alarming bright RED oil-pressure warning light constantly flashing on and off in the instrument cluster!
Still, even if left stranded somewhere deep in the Hastings woods, we were reassured by the fact that we wouldn't starve because Stephen very generously also gave us a bag of those famous cookies.
Rallying is so awesome!
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