Driving time is here again

My idea was to post this video when the Blue Lord eh,  I mean when King Blue is on the road. But I can't wait, this is too nice to let it wait. And so appropriate.

So for the sad days that are to come this weekend or until tuesday (the final official step: dutch APK (TÜV, MOT). 

Enjoy it.

Registration of a new king

Well isn't that nice. The new registration came yesterday by mail from my RDW friends. I have had my thoughts over the registration number, I even checked it via a site that claimed to be able to predict the approximate code by sales recods, actual plate codes and other data. I believe this is possible, but the random factor is immense. What about the personal influence of the RDW servant? At least I (as this servant) would try to mix car and code at a sensible explainable way. In case of the Blue Lord I think my RDW officer was my type of guy or girl. KB-170-X came up out of the proces and we as a family fully understand this sensible "choice". King Blue sends you 170 kisses.
Have a nice day.

Blue Lord becoms a king, King Blue,
king of the road

Connections

Connections, that's what's it all about. At least in an Alfa Romeo.
During my drive to the RDW the tachometre illness struck the Blue Lord again. Spontaneous accelelations from 0 to 240 kmh in 1 second!! What a car, one would say. But no, this one's due to a connection failure just besides the battery. A failure I thought I'd handled, but now it struck me like a lightning in the blue sky (what a great song, btw: Mr Blue Sky).

The @$£#%¥-multi way connector had some trouble with the moist air, so in years it corroded failureously... On the interweb now I found a company that sells these multi connectors, over in Luton, United Kingdom. The connectors I ordered are the connectors with an optional sealing. So the autumn and winter moist can't get any hold of the precious connections.
The installation of this connector is a tricky job; it can't be done outside the car, the location in the car is just a little awquart and stresses the leg muscles. Thereby the connection has to be done correct, no messing with the line colours, and a good connection of the cable ends. An adequate pair of pincers is essential too. The original Mate n Lock connectors pair of pincers costs about € 270 ! That's not the money I wanted to spent to fix a few cable connections. Maybe this would cost an entire wire web for the whole car...
At my local spare parts shop an old mechanic called 'grandpa' showed me how to fix the connectors with a Teng tools standard pair of pincers: costs € 25.
Now it's connecting time!

The package that came over the Channel

Lots of fresh and good connecting males and females

The 9-way connector with the blue seal

Make a drawing of the cables and their colours and do the job step by step


Mighty fine stuff

The right tools are important in this stage

Try the tool on the connectorparts first, do some practicing

And when you're persevering, this will be the result,

only the first side of the multi way connection

The second part from the old connector

Rusty, mwaah. Clean mwaah. Replace it? Yes

The matching of the colours is most important here.

After some practicing, I succeeded in making a fine connection with the cable

Looks fresh and sound

Even my tachometre and temperature gauge are working well again.

Let's hope the RDW will connect me soon, so the Blue Lord can be on the road again. Then filling this whole in my dash is the next on my list. Is there anyone who has a nice old radio for me?

RDW National Service for Road Trafic :-)

The RDW, our National Service for the Road Trafic saw the Bleu Lord wedneysday. In the burning heat, temperatures rose to 36 degrees Celcius, the bleu one was inspected. Well at least, in the morning of this day when it became 36 degrees, I was there around 9 o'clock in the morning.

Ready for the road.

Pip was anxious to accompanie us.

 Turning the 33 to the Highway, on my way tot the inspection.

You should've heard the boxer growl.

The inspection did not go as aspected; I hadn't mentioned that I swapped the old 1350 ccm engine for the more powerful 1712 ccm from my old Tulipwoodracer, the QV.

This delayed the proces, but eventually did not frustrate it. The public servant asked me to declare where the 1712 engine came from. So I did. And I only had to fill in one form. The servant had to read the exact engine number on the block. I thought I'd be clever and make a little note beside the battery, good visible in the engine compartment. The servent however had to read the exact number where it was engraved in the cast iron block. That lasted a while because my note wasn't correct, I forgot to copy the code properly, so I myself had to sand the block and read the AR code instead of a A code to the public servant in duty.
After that the inspector checked the underbody and weighted the car: 1068 kgs in full armour.
After the inspection the bill was around 160 euros, just to register the car.

In the inspaection hall a rather fine C6 V6 HDI rolled up from behind.

The 33 with the unknown engine...

Some foreign bugs flew inside the hall

Underbody: check

Even Marianne was pleased to see any progress, at last (left side)

The second part was to establish the amount of taxes (BPM) I wouold have to pay. Therefor I had to declare what amount the carbon dioxide was  the car produces. This was the funny (!) part. Several forms and notices I checked to establish the amount. More than one hour I spent reading and calling to the Tax services call center. I had to calculate the amount for the declaration, knowing that my car was older than 25 years, and the taxes would be put on € 0. In the mentioned heat I was calculating like a cockchafer to find out the (BPM) taxes. (Dutch citizens have te calculate their taxes, and when they're lucky the calculations will be checked immediately by the tax office servants.)

In despair I read my declaration form to see what I had to do when the amount was calculated, when I read in the last line of the form, in small capital: cars over 25 years need not to make a tax calculation, taxes will be zero....

Have a nice day.

At least the 33 had some fine company on the parking lot.