GARAGEKUNGEN´s PLAYGROUND |
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ENJOY SOME
SUMMER PICTURES... The idea of this side is to mix some, maybe fun, moments. Some sort of describing text might go with them as well...
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| Summer in Sweden
has it´s advantages, especially if you have a nice set of wheels. Due to the latitude it
is very long days and one of the best way to spend the time is cruising. There are many car meets, as car hobbie is pretty strong, and if there isn´t - we just take the car for a spin. Here is a short true story from the summer that just ended way too soon.
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One of my GREAT friends, whom I
haven´t seen for a long time, has put together a very nice - hard to beat - contender in
our little challenge (you might have read about it here on my web site). I hate to admit
it, but right now he is in the lead... There is always a possibillity in every disadvantage, and I took the liberty of inviting my self (and my family) during vacation to get together and ofcourse to prove what this new car was all about. It turned out to be a treat (in many ways) and I will do my best to let you share my experience from this meeting. The car looks great, even my kids wanted to "test drive" it in the garage when they first saw it. First out my elder son, Sibbe...
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... and then Tor | |||
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Then it was time for the "old
boys" to take it out, and this was for a real drive. Ofcourse we first asked the
wifes if they might wanted to use the car. First they looked excited, but when they looked
inside it, they hesitated about the lack of rear seat, "- There is no place for the kids ???" We didn´t want to argue too much about it, and made us ready to leave instead.
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First stop. The local gas station. There are five "great things" you never can have "too much" of when your´re out cruisin´ - FUEL - is taken care of here. |
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Kivik (name of the town) is a small
country town, in southern Sweden, and there is only one place to go to if you want fuel.
There are only the common types of octane to choose from, so ofcourse is this daily driver
tuned for the highest grade of those. Some people seem to believe this car needs octane booster or other chemicals, but noo - this baby runs on the very same stuff as any other car... with the small exception, it wants a lot (and I DO mean) A LOT moooore of it...
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Minutes later we where heading north. There was a cloudy sky, but we believed in improvements later on during the day. Why let a few clouds get in your way of taking the car out for some air... | |||
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About "get in the way",
here we just got some tourists ahead of us. They where "sailing" (drifting in
the wind, driving slow...) 35 mph on the 55... or was it 45 mph road... well, I couldn´t
help myself from taking a "action picture" of the owner, as he is just in the
mood of over take the other car. Just for once, he looked some how concentrated in
driving. Otherwise he had a lot more relaxed attetude... This car drives and handles superb. It didn´t show any "suprises" at all during the drive, in braking-, turning- or (ofcourse) acceleration conditions. The passing was no problem, as this car has plenty of another "great thing" - CUBIC INCHES -. By the way, in the picture you can find a few of those mandatory options that every daily driven car needs...
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After about 1/2-hour drive we where
forced to the road side. No it was not by the Swedish highway patrol... - Now it broke down, or went too hot, was probably some of the comments in passing cars... |
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... no, the answer was much more
"natural". A man got to do, what a man got to do... |
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Back on the road again, we where
pleased to see our assumption about the weather seem to be right. That´s a good sign,
becouse in Sweden it might as well turn the other way and start raining. And I believe Alf
when he says; "- Driving this GTO in the rain, on street slicks, is not fun at all. Good handeling does not prevent hydroplaning, and the 1000 horse motor doesn´t make it any easier..." Then he told me about when he drove the car home from a race and ended up in a rainstorm in the middle of the night.
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I´ve already comment the interior
of the car (as well as the driving pose of the owner). Well, you might as well see the
rest of it. This is how it looks like during cruisin´: Meters - meters - meters - and sandles...? A-ha, full covering cotton clothing is just for race cars on race tracks...
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Finally at our destination, after
45 minutes drive. Goran was already waiting for us. He drives another style, still very
fast, street race car. He has had the car since the -80:ties and improving it all over
those years. It run with complete original interior (front seat sofa) which seem to still
fool some hot guys on the street...
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This picture shows another of those "great things" one never get enough of - WIDE TIRES - The more the merrier... | |||
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And, the reason for this trip...
get some good ice cream ! To do that one need to have MONEY (another of
those items). Don´t get me wrong here, we had ofcourse the intention of bringing some with us home to the rest of the family. But, unfortunatly the drive home takes too long time (and it is sooo warm in the car), so it wouldn´t be much ice left in the ice cream when we got home. So we where forced to eat aaaall of the ice cream our selves...
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Maan, we where so filled, so
stuffed with ice cream, we just had to shake it down by some more cruisin´. Goran took
the lead and guided us through the old parts of Åhus. These parts are very popular for people to just walk or hang out, warm summer days. There is probably not a better way of recovering from almost too much ice cream, than looking at people (Swedish girls... did I mensioned LONG LEGGED SUMMER DRESSED SWEDISH GIRLS...) when you pass them slowly in a whineing, rumbling pro-street car.
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Well, why don´t fill the whole
day, and visit another fellow gearhaed living a couple of miles away (gas was bought to be
used - not stored, right ?). Suddenly we heared a new strage sound through our ear shelters, on top of the whineing from the blower there was a "tick - tick - tick" turning to a "tap - tap - tap" in a matter of seconds... Nothing to do but switch off the motor and roll to a hault...
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It didn´t took long for Goran to
find out his rear mirror was "empty", and he was soon back to join us. Some more info about his daily driver, as this picture shows what it´s all about. He runs a Chevy SB of 400+ cubic inches. Dual carbs through the hood on high rise manifold and God knows how many stages of nitrous he has planted between those carbs and the heads... (always ready to use) He is a machineist (very maticular) and builds custom front ends to cars (Bjäreborn front ends, world famous in whole Sweden...) when he doesn´t cruise/race his Nova... Overall a great guy, who I´m previliged to learn to know.
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Flip the hood, wrinkle the forehaed, hmmm - whisper - whisper - this was funny... - more whisper - hmmmmmm... | |||
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When the distance remaining to our
friend was about 1 mile, we desided to tow the car the last part of the way. So, here we
are - still cruisin´... |
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At last we got there (the diesel
smell from the towing truck didn´t fit in the picture of a perfect day...). We had
entered a country farm with generously built garages. The garage doors were wide opened -
these guys really knows how to treat a good fellow gearhaed !!! We generally HAVE FUN (the last and from my prospective the most important part when cruisin´), and a lot of it. But maybe just now, it wasn´t on all time high level...
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Once inside the trouble shooting
started right away. It turned out to be a very well equipped place, probably due to the
family owned trucking company in general and the interest for "real cars" in
particular. About our little failiure. It´s not that hard to understand why we encountered a previous unknown problem during our cruise, it happends all the time when new combinations are tested. The important thing is to understand how to avoid it in the future.
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It didn´t take more than 15
minutes to locate the problem. A sheared valve spring, on one of the intake valve, on the
left hand bank. This will be dealed with in "no time" if we just get something
to force compressed air into the cylinder during the time for removal and reassembly of
the springs...
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As I alredy said, this was like a
mine of tooling and "good to have" parts... but how we searched and looked there
where nothing pre-made that would do the job right. "- What are you all looking for ?" Goran asked, just back from outside. When we described the problem he just replied (in his slow accent): "- That will a leak-down tester take care of, and I always have one in my trunk..." I don´t need to tell you that NOBODY believed him (if it wasn´t to be found in this "well of interesting pieces of everything" how could it possibly be found in the small trunk of a race-Nova) - but here he just pulls it out...
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I needed to get an explination how
this could be possible. Because this was suppose to be one of the fastest race cars around
- not the Mac Tool bus... Eat this, all of you who have been left in the dust by this dark deep purple Nova. The guy travel with all his tools, side-by-side the nitrous bottle and 2 gallon of water... "- I don´t like to be stranded in the middle of the night. If I can´t beat ´em this way, I just need some more punch, and I can take care of that..." I must admit, I start to like this guy...
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Parts on the floor, everybody
gathers. Time to evaluate the situation. Some springs are in one piece, other try to
multiply by dividing proceedure. After discussing and meassuring we borrow a spring from our hosts (as I said erlier, they love "real cars" too, and have a fair amount of spare parts on the shelves) Reassembly went smooth, and 20 minutes later...
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...time to start her up. Leak-down
tester back in the trunk of the Nova and the motor was spinning as nice as it looks. It´s a Jim Oddy built 572" All Aluminum Chevy BB under the 14-71 HiHelix supercharger and electronic Fuel Injection. Developing more than 1000hp just the way it appears. To back up the numbers, the car run 5.78 @ 123 mph on the 1/8-mile track (in the way it is driven to, and back from the track). This was a short description of the power plant in this daily driver. All this mechanicing had made us hungry again, so before we where allowed to leave we had to have cup of coffe and try some of the freshly home made appelpie - hmmm, great taste !!!
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It was dark when we finally started
up and left for home. Goran in his direction and we headed south. Motor was rumbling like
it never done anything else, 45 minutes later we pulled in on the drive way. This is how it is when driving one those "real cars", always a lot of fun and sometime a small adventure... If you recognize the car, you might have seen it in |
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