Reply to "Pre-LMC visit to Italy"

Today Saturday it was time to leave. I was driving from Venice area to Nice where I was to pick up the wife tomorrow morning. Originally I had planned to visit 3 of the previous owners (of the Longchamp), a kind of family tree for the Longchamp. All were more or less on the route, max 50 km detour. I hadn’t talked to them, maybe they wouldn’t be home, maybe they wouldn’t talk to me, but maybe they would have thought it was fun that a Dane drove down to see them. I’ll never know, because I now had other plans.

I was driving back to Modena (you can never go to often to Modena, right?), to have the transmission oil changed. The last attempt to get the noise reduced/eliminated. They had gotten super oil for me, I had been warned it was expensive, but at this point, I would have paid almost anything.

So I arrived at 10:00 where I left on Tuesday. Raffaele hadn’t arrived yet, so I could only “talk” to the two mechanics there that didn’t speak English. We got my Longchamp on the lift, and as he raised it, he pointed to some rust low on the front fender, then he pointed to the totally bare sandblasted classic car right besides us and said something. The meaning was clear, why don’t you restore that nice Longchamp? Or maybe even, I can do it for you?

Raffaele arrived, had spent the morning at the company that has bought all Ansa’s old fabrication equipment, testing out a DeTomaso exhausts. His job sounds a lot more interesting than mine I must say.

Well they emptied the pan, then took the pan off, had no new filter so it was cleaned in gasoline and with compressed air, reinstalled, pan on. All this time at least 2 people were working on the car, during my stay there 4 additional people arrived, they started working on my car as well, mostly drying of oil and dirt. All smoked cigarettes most of the time. I don’t think they were paid, they just love cars and are interested. My car was lowered, oil added, and while they checked the level the first time, I counted 6 Italians staring into my engine room. Raffaele asked about my ignition, told him about ICE and how you can change timing curve with a switch, and that it was Australian. Then we talked CHI heads, also Australian, CHI apparently does custom work for RSCorse. They also do iron heads, which is necessary in Group 4. We agreed that the Aussies are doing good work on Clevelands.

So time for first test, Raffaele by my side. Noise again lower but not gone. Back, check level, add oil, test drive. They had me do that 3 times to be sure, I doubt any Danish mechanic would have spent time and time to get it right like that. Of course they were all on my payroll I guess, but the amount I ended up paying, if you deduct the oil, there’s not much left for 2-6 people. On a Saturday.