Casablanca Challenge
It is over a week now since we
arrived home safely after our Moroccan adventure, where the weather was sunny
and even warm (up to 28 C).
Very tough (proper) rally with long stages and tight time schedules, long climbs
(with dangerously high side drops). All twisty in tarmac but usually narrow,
with uneven road sides (gravel) and potholes. Great rally roads and wonderful
scenery. I enclose several low-res pictures.
Our
Magnette had a rough time, but we soon settled down confortably in second place
competing for the Morocon Trophy (for cars that started in Southern Spain)
trailing a 4.5 liter Alvis from german friends Helga and Rudy Friedrichs. But on
the last 3 days of the event we cracked and broke one steel wheel per day! Very
unexpected. After 53 years of good and loyal service (including the 2007 P2P and
last year's Safari) it seems they all joined to say "enough is enough" ...
Fatigue as they say, but I presume the hard PU suspension bushes and us cutting
corners may also have had a saying in this. Impossible to find replacement
wheels there so I had to weld (!) two of them to keep us on the road
(another one went down the mountain never to be seen again...).
Would you believe we received the six 15 x 5.5 Elantra steel wheels the day
before we left? But of course we never bothered to adapt them in a hurry and fit
them... Cracking wheels was the least of my worries...
Apart from that, we also broke one of the rear "U" bolts holding the rear axle
springs in place... And after the end of the rally, when riving north to
Tangiers with no spare, the diff finally broke (including banjo), draining all
the oil onto the pavement... With no drive we had to get a trailer and a taxi
but we managed to get the car pushed into the fast ferry and cross to Spain,
where we had another trailer and taxi waiting for us... Overall a
good experience for next year's Peking to Paris! (Unfortunately one competitor
went over the edge and died - or vice-versa, not yet known. The car, a pink DS,
rolled several times some 60-70 metres down. His wife was all right. This marked
the last 3 days of the event.)
The Magnette is still on a trailer somewhere on the way here from Spain. But I
am having it sent to the UK for a final preparation for next year's P2P: - we
will need to select a new complete rear axle; - the new stage 2 engine was a
disapointment, burning too much oil and not enough power; - and there is a
number of other small details that need attending to.
Jose de Sousa
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| Broken U-bolt | Welded wheel | |
