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Trip to the "War and Peace Show" 2005 in Beltring,

598
0
16
Location
Karlsruhe, Germany
Hi y'all,

here's the short story (well, sort of...) of our trip from Germany to the War and Peace Show in Beltring, UK, with the Deuce named "Dr. Mo" (perhaps a little explaining needed here: DRMO on the bumper --> Doctor Mo [Dr.=Doctor]).

May 2005
Long before deciding to buy a M35A2C with the 1D turbocharger from ( <http://www.reo-trucks.de> ) , my buddy Frank and I planned to visit the War and Peace Show" in Beltring, UK <http://cm.thewarandpeaceshow.com/gallery/2005>. Frank for the third, and me for the first time. We initially wanted to take his Hotchkiss Jeep as a ride. Due to a lucky condition Frank suddenly had an option on "Doctor Mo", the deuce, and bought it, so we radically changed our plans and decided to take the deuce to the UK.
In the following weeks we spent a few weekends in order to change the wheel brake cylinders, the master cylinder, a brake line, rear view mirrors, windscreens, put in new grease packages for the wheel bearings, a few new tires and had numerous odds and ends to fix. The truck is in a very good low mileage condition, but sitting around for years took it's toll nevertheless. See <http://www.m35-deuce.de/gallery/may2005/ >

July 15 - 17
The start of the journey. Last repairs. Oil-change (dispose of the old oil by filling it into the tank, I love these multifuelers!) . Draining of the brake fuid. Other fluid checks. Filling a few barrels with a diesel-gasoline mix, which were picked up for nothing at a local gas station (to keep the costs down). They pump this out of the tanks of the cars of people who erraneously fill diesel in their gasoline tanks and vice versa. The gassies have to pay a lot of money to dispose this stuff because it's hazardous waste, and are therefore glad to get rid of it. Deuce drivers on the other hand like that stuff :)). One man's junk is another man's treasure....
Last minute installation of the VIC-1 intercom, which arrived on the last possible day!! Absolutely great and invaluable to have something like that on board. And cool - looking. Last minute descision to take a radio-shelter along, for our baggage and as a safe housing for the "deuce-sauce". Last minute deal with drop sides and rear panel, which we picked up and mounted at 2:00 in the morning already on the trip.
We drove the route
Gummersbach (near Cologne) - Bertincourt - Bruxelles - Brugge - Dunkirk (Ferry) Dover - Beltring
On the way in Belgium we teamed up with our friends who came along with a Bundeswehr Unimog / Kraka and a Firefighter Unimog.

July 18
Paddock Wood - Beltring
In the middle of the night, better at 2:00 in the morning, a few klicks from our destination, both waterpump v-belts must have snapped. The temperature climbed quickly, and about 150 yards from the entrance of the show-ground we decided that it is good for now and there's no use in ruining the motor, so we shut Dr. Mo down and were towed for the rest of the trip by Frank Flicks Unimog to our lager.
Next morning we fixed the belts, no problem, thank's to Frank Flicks' advice (and his store) we had everything needed in our "care-package". Thanks a lot to him, by the way, without him and his knowledge we probably would have had quite a hard time.

July 19 - 24
War and Peace in Beltring
Perhaps the greatest exhibition of military vehicles on this planet! 6 days of dirt, dust, exhaust-gases, and noise from 1 cylinder to 16 (?) !! All day long! Heaven on earth!
We even participated on the Saturday Vietnam - Reenactment show "Rolling Thunder" (thanks for that experience to Roger Jerram and his team!).

Frank (the one knocking on "steel") http://cm.thewarandpeaceshow.com/gallery/album09/IMG_1912
Mark (on the right) http://cm.thewarandpeaceshow.com/gallery/album09/IMG_1913
Frank and Mark (and a unknown deuce) http://www.freyhaven.de/tagebuch/beltring/bilder/bel70.jpg
More Beltring pictures of our group on http://www.freyhaven.de> <english version> / diary



July 24 - 26
Starting the home trip, in the evening.
I managed to knock the shit out of a delivery van while switching lanes on a bridge in order to drive onto a highway. The fender was ruined, the mirror totaled, and the tyre shredded into pieces. Of the van, that is, of course. Dr. Mo only had a little scratch on the dropside and paintmarks on the rear tyre. I was seriously underamused, but it turned out not too badly. I paid the guy 50Euros for a new tyre and mirror, and he and me were a happy bunch! I didn't even feel the deuce hitting him and shoving him onto the high boardwalk on that bridge! He probably was trying to sneak quickly by, even though I had the turn-signal flashing. Thank god I didn't push him off the bridge completely.
Well: don't mess with a deuce. Guess we both learned that lesson.

The following 28 hours we drove ca. 1200 kilometers through 5 european countries, switching drivers every few hours. What a great trip! We stopped by on the Netherlands at REOMIE to pick up a new tank (the original one developed a bad leak, but thanks to a pressure-belt construction Frank and I made we managed to stop it, at least for the rest of the trip), sideracks, new oilpressure-sensor and a few other things.
The rest was uneventful, the deuce performed like a clockwork ( hehe: "clockwork-olive" is the name of our movie - just a joke ), and we took our times driving it through the night.

I have never driven a vehicle as heavy as this (and as uncomfortable as this, as a matter of fact), so this was a first-timer for me, and __god-dammned__ I absolutely loved it! I truly envy everyone who owns a deuce and hope, that one day, maybe I'll have one, too ( er - dunno how I will bring my wife to agree to that ;-) ). Thanks to Frank I was able to have "been there and done that" !

Cheers,
Mark and Frank
 

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Longhunter7

Member
923
8
18
Location
Northern Illinois
Great story!

roger-wilco-66,

Great story and great pictures! It sounds like you guys had quite an adventure.

How large is the War and Peace Show? I can imagine that it is well attended!

It's great to hear from the members from across the "pond", and I hope you will post often. 8)
 
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