Road trip to Bulgaria

I am just planning a road trip to Bulgaria from France. Checking with Google Maps the total distance is 2500km.
My wife will be driving her yellow 1997 20VT with a roof box on!!! Not a great look with the roof box on, but we need the space for luggage. I will be driving our much older 1990 Saab 900i convertible with our 3 dogs on board.
We have decided that we are in no rush so will take 10 to 14 days to get there. I was just wondering if I should check the oil or just go for it and loose the coupe paranoia for a couple of weeks?
The plan is to leave France around the 13th October and get to Burgas on the Black Sea around the 23rd ish.
Looking forward to the trip. We are used to long road trips, but usually not quite this long. The poor old Saab has done several 1000km trips in the last 12 months. Just a clutch to change before we leave, but the Coupe is ready to go now.
Probably stop in Chamonix for a couple of days, Verona for a couple of days and several days at a friends place in Rejeka, Croatia. From Croatia it will be a run through Serbia and into Bulgaria for a stop close to Sofia before the final drive to the coast.

Sounds like an awesome road trip, check the oil on both the engine and gearbox before you set off, and then as you say go for it, safe travels

Thanks Joe,
I hope you are up for posting items to Bulgaria instead of France from now on?
I doubt there are many coupe parts available there.

There arw very knowledgeable people about the Coupe in Bulgaria, as far as I know. Probably parts won't be so hard to find, but it's better not to find that out the hard way ;D

Sounds like a tremendous trip you have ahead of you especially in the coupé ofcourse.

We set off on a road trip to Italy from Scotland on Tuesday morning too.

Hi Rosso,
Hope you have a great trip to Italy. The weather is looking good for a while yet so should be a nice drive.
Frazer

DPD deliver UK to Bulgaria

Fantastic news Joe. I like DPD too. They are very good.

At the risk of veering off-topic, yes - DPD successfully delivered my engine mount from Poland yesterday afternoon in good time.

Poland/ Bulgaria....clearly a good place to be if you like Coupes!

Enjoy your trip! And hope you have a no problems. Coupes tend to like the longer trips!

Regards

MM

Well....the good news. The Saab is running well and there are no issues with border crossings due to covid-19.
The bad news. We arrived in Croatia but the servo on the coupe gave up the ghost just 1 hour from our friends house. We managed to get there OK.
More good news though. The Fiat dealer was up the road from the house and they now have the car in for repair. Looks like we will get the car back on Friday if they can get the parts in time. Touch wood.
I am actually not really bothered as we can stay with our friend as long as we need to. Hopefully we will be in Bulgaria next week, but could be the following week.

The trip so far has been good. Chamonix was very nice. Long time since I have been there so good to go back. Also stopped off at Lake Garda in Italy. Would have liked to have stayed longer but could not due to Covid restrictions (Only 36 hours transit time allowed for Italy).

Well done for making the trip, and for getting in some sites as you travelled through

You timed it just about right I think judging from all the on going lock downs occurring through Europe again. Hopefully the issue with the servo will be a quick and easy fix- and you coupe will be up and running in no time ready for the next leg!

Keep us updated on how things progress- and I hope Covid does not stop too many plans.

Regards

MM

Just a thought, is the servo on a Barchetta any good given it's LHD?

Thanks MM.
The part is a problem at the moment but will keep looking.
The Covid situation is getting worse but hopefully we will be there before any lockdown.

Good call on the Barchetta. Unfortunately according to Fiat this servo is unique to to 20VT. No other models share the same part!!!!! Typical.

Hey Frazer, I've been looking on ePer and I don't think the 20vt servo is unique (seeattached). The servo only is 9945763 and servo + master cylinder is 7757603. There is no separate listing for LHD/RHD and the only change shown is change 3908 "2.0 origin servo brake on 1.8 adopted 15-07-1999 chassis 0068434" which I think means that the 1.8 versions got the same servo as the 2.0.

9944763 is listed as being common to a wide range of other Fiats, Alfas and Lancias. There's one on eBay located in NL https://www.ebay.nl/itm/264482131979 or a used one in Germany https://www.ebay.de/itm/353242652814

There's one here in Poland http://sklep.euroforin.eu/servo-bra...pra-tipo-lancia-dedra-delta-p-14445.html

Or here in Italy https://www.italianstorage.com/sear...f8bk5g6he19kvd0p2q1&keywords=9945763

There's some info on the French Coupe forum that may be of some use (I'm not registered, not sure if this Google link will work)
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.fiatcoupe.fr/forum2/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D2%26t%3D3502&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjZucm-qMXsAhWAThUIHS7EDC04RhAWMAJ6BAgJEAE&usg=AOvVaw3SyNFLNjj1DrxO8Wzuckdz

Bonne chance!

Still looking...searching for 7757603 returns mainly master cylinders but sometimes you get lucky...

https://www.autoricambisubito.it/84...6v-pompa-fr....html?id=8480&lingua=2

Ok I don't know what happened there but the 20vt part wasn't being shown. Forget those 2 previous posts.

For LHD it's 60813533 (servo + master cylinder) with no part number shown for servo only

For RHD no part number shown for servo +master cylinder together but servo only is 9948319

But I don't know the difference is between LHD and RHD, or what is special/unique about the 20vt?

LHD assist unit is in the engine bay behind the battery, RHD is inside the car under the dash drivers side.

Dave,
I really appreciate the assistance. Very kind of you.
I am not sure why the part number is listed as the servo and master cylinder also. Seems strange.
We may have found a second hand one in Belgrade, Serbia. We have to go to the bus station to collect it at 0400hrs to collect it from the bus driver!!!!
I am not holding my breathe though as it is likely from a different model, but cheap enough to take the risk.
The Fiat garage are removing the servo today / tomorrow as we have another lead about 50km away. He has several servos on the shelf but doesnt know what one we require exactly so its a trip there with the old part if the one from Belgrade doesnt fit.
Frazer

Makes my failure to start and eventual abandonment coming over the Alps on the way to Turin last year seem trivial by comparison! Seems like it was several years ago now...

I hope you get it sorted, even if it's only a temporary fix to allow you to continue the journey.

We decided to leave the car in Croatia and continue in the Saab.
Good news. We crossed the border to Bulgaria just now and found a hotel.
Still a ways to go but at least we are now in Bulgaria

Pleased you're back on route, coupé can wait.

We made it to the final destination yesterday. Just have to sort the Fiat out but no rush for that.
2500km in a 30 year old Saab fully loaded isn’t bad. It was never going to be plain sailing so all in all pretty happy with everything.
Surprisingly there was not one restriction at any borders the whole way here. Not what we were led to believe when looking on line.
Even better is that there is a bar less than 200 meters from the house. Result.

Shame it's closed under Lockdown, Fraser!

Lol. No lockdown here.
There is a spare room if anyone fancies a visit.

Sounds like an awesome trip Frazer. Glad you made it even though the Coupe didn't quite.

Does this mean we all buy Saabs now?

Always fancied a 900 turbo.

I've done multiple road trips to Sofia, Bulgaria as I have a girlfriend there. The first was the Winter of 2005/6 in my venerable Punto GT Mk.1, now with another Punto enthusiast, to make a first meeting in person.
CHeWie in Grangesises
Later a couple or more times in my Alfa 159 Ti. Once early this year on a "Grand Tour" of Europe to visit some of my computer hobby enthusiasts and drop off and collect various monitors and system units. I'd planned staying two weeks in Sofia, and then returning via Athens, the ferry from Igoumenitsa to Bari, and up the leg of Italy for another two week stay in Grangesises, below the Sestriere ski resort, where I had planned on viewing apartments for sale there, for an intended purchase.
Sofia Road Trip - Stage 1
Sofia Road Trip - Stage 2
Filthy Beast
Grangesises
That got rather interrupted during the last few days as Italy went into lockdown!

A word of warning, there is a growing use by foreign EU countries of the reciprocal legislation to enable their authorities to claim speeding and other fines from U.K. motorists (or rather documented Vehicle Keepers), some of which have "delegated" this to the nasty Parking Enforcement companies here.

Finally found a second hand servo. The car should be back on the road this week.
Thanks for all the help. Various people on the forum went out o their way to assist.
My Croatian friend found the part in a scrap yard about 50km away from his home.
Fiat have been very helpful too. They removed the old servo so my friend could take it away for comparison.
Once the car is fixed I still have to plan picking the car up. Usually no big problem but with Covid restrictions this could be tricky. We’ll see though.

This is sounding like a great result, forum power at its best

Definitely. Getting sorted now.

Finally got the car back. The car was delivered to me in Bulgaria yesterday. This morning I gave her a quick wash and took her for a drive. All good and nice to have her back again. Its been about 2 months since dropping the car at the Fiat dealer with the servo issue.
Thanks for all the help here on the forum. In the end the part found in Croatia was correct and Fiat fitted it. Fiat were very good and were happy to store the car whilst I organised getting her collected.
The transport company were great. Not easy for them at this time when there are a lot of restrictions when crossing borders with the Covid-19 virus slowing everyone down.
Very happy and a nice Xmas present.

That's great news Frazer, a similar feeling to what I had when my Plus was delivered to me in Turin having been recovered from the Alps. Here's to a less (bad) eventful / more (good) eventful 2021 for all of us and our Coupes!

Congratulations for lasting the pace and keeping the faith, a great present at just the time we need a little bit of good news

Great news to hear you made it.

And very good timing to have finished this all just before the EU has shut the UK borders - Appears brexit has occurred a few days faster then the UK had screamed for! Well done on making the trip and really glad you have got your coupe back just in time for the holiday period.

Regards

MM

Thank you all.
The car looked a sorry sight, but a quick wash and I was in love again.
We are looking for another car as we have 3 dogs and they are not allowed in the Fiat anymore, but we will always keep the Fiat. Too much fun.
For anyone interested Bulgaria is an interesting place. Very chilled out place and very nice people. The roads are pretty bad though!!! Worth a visit.
Hopefully 2021 will be an improvement on 2020. Once the borders are open and people are moving again it would be good to meet up with a few Coupe owners here in Bulgaria.

Have you moved there full time Frazer?

Hi Joe,
Yes. We now have residency here and are looking for a house. Fancied a change from France. Its certainly different. So far we are really enjoying the place. I hope you are well and managing through lockdown. I know its tough in France at the moment.
Frazer

Ah that's great Frazer. Nice to have a chance to change things in life. What about the language?

Lockdown this time has been easy enough,I'm working in a big empty house on my own. Then go home and just see Gill. She is the one that has to be carefull,driving school kids about everyday.
I will be glad to get out and about traveling again.

Good luck with Bulgaria mate.

Sounds like you have lockdown sorted OK Joe. Good to know.
Language is not so easy, but will make the effort (again!!). So far not too bad although I'm being a bit lazy as a lot of people speak English here. Makes it easier than France, but still no excuse.