June 2012, driving to Bulgaria

June 2012, the trip to Bulgaria

I often drive around Europe, sometimes in a hire car or van but more often in one of my old cars, I like 1980s and 1990s turbo cars i currently have 4 * 1990s Vauxhall Calibra turbo 4x4 cars and a 1989 mk4 Ford Escort cabriolet convertible fitted with a 1600 turbo engine....not the kind of cars people usually head off for a 2000 mile drive in , I do it regularly....I do take a lot of tools and spare parts and usually all is well!

I decided the best way to go was Dover to Dunkirk , not only was it a shorter route it was a lower cost ferry as well, booked on line return tickets for 2 weeks were around £25 each way, Trip to Tescos as they were cheapest for Euros , changed some pounds into euros ( for petrol, hotels if needed and in case something went wrong with the car.... ), I decided it was better to change as much as possible as it was needed once in Bulgaria as the rate was better.

I packed the car, as well as the tools I had many car spares, including...Pistons and rings, Big end bearings, head gasket, head bolts, power steering pump, loads of tubes, wires, cable ties, a radiator....

Then the important bits, The laptop , The garden tools... Brush cutter, chain saw , spade, rake, petrol, oils, generator,

Emergency food..... 
coleman duel fuel stove, cheap asda gas stove and gas cans, pans, cooking foil, Easy to cook food....Hotdogs, minced lamb in a can, cans of soup
Some blankets in case of break downs ( yes i know its the summer, but could still be cold at night! )

After that lot was in the car, we were off.....

Ferry was at 4pm Monday night ,we got there in loads of time, got off the other side, all going well, the countries were flying by...

We planned to go the standard route people use UK to Bulgaria, travelling France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and into Bulgaria via the Vidin boat , All was fine till Romania....

We were getting close to Calafat in Romania, looking for the ferry terminal location,it was going dark probably around 10pm Wednesday night , on the road that is the `main` route....we were driving on a mainly unlit road in a built up area, drunk people staggering home every now and then, occasional horse drawn carts with no lights, stray dogs in the road.....
Bang....just one loud bang and the engine stopped.........we coasted to a stop, I started checking it out
It wasn't anything i could find, i checked the engine, cam belt, water etc all looked fine, plugs looked ok...ecu light working correctly ( common fault on a vauxhall, ) i changed the fuel pump relay just in case, it still wouldn't start.
I checked the fuel pressure...there was none,  fuses were ok so the fuel pump or the wires to it had gone!

At this point some `helpful` drunk romanians turned up and started trying to push start the car, one claimed to be a mechanic, i let him look....his answer was to take fuel hose off and poke a screwdriver in and to short the battery out and declare it needed a new engine!
Then they all went away and left me alone ( with claims of coming to take the car and fix it in the morning....while i waited here on the road side!!!!! )
I was awake all night trying to work out what to do, as it went light i started work on it again to see if i could find the exact fault, as i opened the bonnet I heard a strange noise.....I worked it out it was someone snoring, just across from the car was a pile of blankets with 3 people sleeping on them....

It didn't look so bad once it was light and people turned up, the area we were outside was a few shops and the car park was used as a morning market, the gypsies were waiting for the deliveries to come , they worked   at the market.
I was parked outside a shop, a DIY shop and as the owner turned up he got his computer out with google translate and asked me why i was there, what the problem was
After a few minutes with Google translate explaining the problem he phoned someone up and gave me a price for a repair including towing me there, 50 Euros , I thought great....and off we went on a bit of rope on the back of a tractor.
After an hour we were repaired, a strange repair, an extra Mercedes fuel pump under the bonnet, it worked.....they looked quite happy with themselves, i had to help a lot as they knew nothing about the car, they had never seen a petrol turbo car, never mind a modified one but they seemed to come up with an answer to the problem quickly, as no Vauxhall or Opel pump for the car was available.

The guy with the red hat, fixed the car and showed off to all his mates about fitting a Merc fuel pump to a Opel

After the slight delay...Wednesday morning we were off

Ferry, quick trip across, and into Bulgaria

By early afternoon we were in Bulgaria, The plan was to stay in Vidin overnight and then go on to Vetren, due to the breakdown we missed out Vidin and decided to go straight to Yulievo to the house we were renting.

After getting lost a couple of times...(the GPS took us the scenic `across the mountain` route....) we got to Yulievo and as we had no idea were we were supposed to go, and had no phone signal we asked at a small shop in what looked like the village center, they phoned up for us and we were in the right place, she would come to get us, even though we were a day early....( due to not staying in Vidin )

After a few minutes we were collected to go to the house, after about a minutes drive we were there