Francis Birtles Pioneer Trip

Ah the joys of motoring in an open top car! Southern Germany yesterday, Not left hand drive, Bev's selfie somehow reversed itself.

 

 

That's a look of total concentration there Lang. Travel safe.

You could have given Bev a windscreen wiper, to make her offers of assistance easier. 

Lang, mind the pedestrian. 
Mind the cyclist, Lang.


In the best Hyacinth Bucket (It's Bücket,   Bücket) voice. 

Try this link.

www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Bean%2019...stralia%20Recreation

Thanks Zuffen, much appreciated.

A very nice run today through Serbia. Great stay in Belgrade with choice of meat or meat (very delicious) on the menu. I suppose the cigarette smoke caters for vegan cooked vegetable matter.
We did some checking today and find the Bean is getting a bit over 6 kilometres per litre. Despite coating every surface between UK and Serbia with oil it took only 1 litre of oil to top up. I would guess 75% went on the ground. A modern car could not do much better over this distance.
A bit of a worry was the reserve fuel tank as it ran for 10 minutes then cut out. Sounded like blocked fuel filter or air vent. A bit of wasted time discovered the gasket inside the fuel cap slides across the vent hole when screwed down tight. A bit of pocket-knife surgery has it on full flow so all is now good.
The brakes are not living up to expectations but I think I can slowly get them adjusted with a turn on each rod each day untill they start to drag.
At the moment I have developed a braking plan. If you sing one chorus of Happy Birthday to You per 10 kilometres per hour progress will be arrested along the straight line graph. The handbrake assist halves the braking distance.
I got a bit lazy in our route plan and anticipated Haskova tomorrow still in Bulgaria. By doubling up only to today's comfortable distance of around 400km we can reach Edirne in Turkey making an Istanbul lunch-time arrival on Monday.
Yeliz from FIVA is looking for a place to do a full grease and oil change and maybe a tyre rotation. She will also suggest somewhere close to stay.

 

Leaving Bulgaria we finished a nice warm weather run in Sofia Bulgaria. We found a delightful family hotel Zarapart. Usual early start along the beautiful wide valleys with the snow-capped ranges on the Greek border only a few kilometres to the south.
I have been running about 50/50 on coil and magneto with absolutely no difference in sound or feel between them to keep the non-operating plugs clean. Magneto suddenly stopped so we carried on with coil looking forward to another job in Istanbul.
We now have 11 countries behind us and only 6 in front including Australia.
Arrival at the Turkish border and we were instantly in the East. Views of minarets and loud-speaker call to prayer were experienced waiting in line.
This was the best so far with 3 hours getting through. First problem was our visas were not the correct type for this particular border. Park the car alongside the customs box (only 3 operating out of 25} clear of the queues of around 100 cars each behind us.
Go to the box at Gate 48 over in the bus line to get a new visa. The only problem was Gate 48 was on the outbound side of the fence. There was no way to get to it and we wandered back and forth dodging across car lanes before entering a large building between the in and out section.
A kindly gent flashed his card to let us through to join the herd of bus passengers departing Turkey for Europe. All bus passengers must dismount, enter the only passport window on foot before boarding again. 20 buses, 50 passengers each, one window - do the math!
Not too keen to die of old age in a bus queue we just walked down the line, squeezed past the customs window and got ourselves on the right side of the fence for the elusive Gate 48. Once again stumbling through lines of buses loaded with passengers, no doubt several days older than when they arrived, a young fellow issed us with the correct visas. Knowing the way back, we just pushed past the customs window in the opposite direction to the crowd having left Turkey for Europe then returned to Turkey against the tide with not a word said.
First customs man stamped our passports and sent us to Building D3. We chugged out of the first shed and arrived at the inspection point where they were opening the boot of every car. "We are going to D3 to buy insurance" "OK but come back here for inspection afterwards" We drive about 200metres to D3.
Two windows, one to issue insurance and a customs one to check the insurance paper is correct. First window discovered there was no such thing as a Bean and the head office was not working to create a new make of automobile. "What have you got?" "BMW, Bedford, Bugatti, Bentley" "Ah thats the one, Bean is short for Beantley" Problem solved.
I will not talk about the three other fruitless windows we were directed to. 3 hours and about a kilometre of walking but every single person smiled, did their best to direct us and allowed us to wander freely between Turkey and Bulgaria as we carried out our mission. Attitude is everything and we felt quite relaxed, unthreatened or bullied. Bureaucratic whirlpool but nice people.
Istanbul by lunchtime tomorrow. 

I like the flags on the rear 1/4. Tells a story.

That's a great adventure you two are having

Thanks for taking us along

Paul

We arrived late afternoon in Istanbul. Yeliz from FIVA went to a lot of trouble to find the right hotel for us and they were waiting with cones blocking a parking space for us.
As soon as she finished work Yeliz arrived to take us to the Klasik Otomobil Kolubo. What lovely club rooms.
We were joined there with a very friendly welcome by Sencer the President and the 4 of us went for a lively dinner at the Italian Restaurant upstairs (we did drink Turkish wine)
Sencer organised for us to go to the workshop of a FIVA and club member, The Vettess garage. What an operation! It was crowded with beautiful classic cars being serviced. We were given the once-over by a mechanic then I followed him through the narrow hilly streets to their restoration shop filled with even more classic cars undergoing full restoration. Each car seemed to have a mechanic allocated.
The Bean spent the day being fully serviced and adjusted. Unfortunately the old-timer expert called in to look at the magneto discovered it needed factory service. We will carry on with single coil ignition like every other car in the world.
By the time we had finished, ready to drive back to the hotel, it was rush hour. I looked up the steep hill from the workshop and tracked a bus taking 10 minutes to move 100 metres. Oh well, get a taxi and come back in the morning.
A young apprentice came with me but every taxi had their lights off as they did not want to take fares to sit in traffic. Eventually we hijacked a cab (no danger of being run-over walking down the lines of cars as they were stationary). My Google Maps said 12 minutes to the hotel. After one hour and 20 minutes I got out and walked the last kilometre. The ride included two dead stops for over 10 minutes each.
The driver at least provided entertainment when his brother-in-law? called and the conversation quickly rose to them screaming at each other on the speaker phone with the driver smashing his fist on top of the dash.
Today we pick up the car and catch up with admin. We will head off tomorrow to have a cruise along the Roman (and many other civilization) towns of the Black Sea coast.