Hi Col. Elias.

What a trip it was for EP and I.

We must have clocked 1000km in 30 hours!

Thank you for the invitation to join in the 43rd Birthday Drive.

Pity, we were the only fortunate guys from Singapore to indulge in the Malaysian hospitality.

I would like to relate and share our experience:

Preparation: Thursday The Mini 1000 was sent in for full service: Discovered oil leaking from differential and gear rod oil seals.--  Replaced. Front brake discs warped - removed and machine skim. New EBC Green pads fitted and brake fluid flushed. Rear brakes checked and adjusted. All grease nipples properly gratified. New TM plugs installed. Ignition timing found too advanced 20* - cause for overheating? Reset to 8* Flush radiator coolant, added Water Wetter Castrol 10W40 GTX oil and filter, Front tyres 70% worn, replaced with new Yokohama 350s, selected one of the better old tyre as spare. One wheel nut with chrome cap was damaged - no suitable spares available from SouthEast, Better to transferred one wheel nut from a rear wheel.

Friday 5pm: Collected car, picked up 2 new special chrome capped wheel nuts from David Chan of David Auto Service. $11 each, expensive but grateful that it is available. Noticed engine was running better, and temp improved but still hovering near 3/4 mark - not happy. Not leaving until this matter is resolved..

Friday 930pm: After dinner, decided to ask mechanic to remove water pump for inspection, which found to be in good working condition. Decided to replace the 2 core aluminium radiator to the old trusty 3 core copper unit.

Saturday noon: Engine running cooler but temp gauge indicating a shade above 1/2 mark.  Suspecting the gauge's accuracy, decided to call Eng Peng for a mechanical mercury temp gauge for verification. Eng Peng's water temp gauge proven that the car's electric unit was some 20 degrees optimistic!  What a relief.  Great ! Finally the trip is on. All system go!

First night 6pm:    Crossed the 2nd link. Car felt good. Eng Peng drove quite briskly.Checked the speedo calibration against the road markers - good, only 3% optimistic, must be due to the new front tyres. EP kept to indicated speeds of 130+, keeping pace with a Nissan March. As this is only a stock standard 998, except for the K&N air filter and 1 5/8" exhaust pipe and silencer, we could not overtake the March. Very soon we noticed the March was held up by slower traffic, EP seized the opportunity and overtook the Nissan on the left lane. With the March behind us, we found that this Mini is capable of reaching indicated 150kmh down hill !! Must be the TM Plugs!!

Some vibration was felt from 100 to 120 kmh, but smoothen out above 120. Decided to keep to 125 and above!  Must balance the front wheels in Ayer Keroh or KL

745pm:Reached Ayer Keroh toll. Had dinner at Restorant Lee. Got ripped off!!   *^%@&*!%...   Found a money changer and felt much relief. All tyre shops were closed.

9pm:    Left for KL

1045pm: Reached Subang Jaya

12 midnight: Drove to KL Jalan Petaling for the famous Hokkien mee in black sauce. Met a couple of bikers, friends from Singapore.

Sunday (Event Day)

730:    Leave for Gombak toll after BATU Cave.

830:    Met up with the good Col. Elias at a BP petrol station. He led us to a tyre shop nearby for wheel balancing.

900:    Rendezvous with MSVCR MSM mini owners at Gombak Toll. There were 12 minis and other classics like  1965 Volvo P1800 coupe, 1970 Mecerdes 280s and a 1970 Volvo 164. The MSVCR Minis presented were in different trim and colours. A couple of cars had the Sports Pack wheel arches and side skirt fitted. Most of these body kits were local made. The wheels were of 13 inch variety shod with 175 50 series tyres.  One cannot help but notice the super wide 2 inches wheel spacers fitted to extend the wheels out, matching the contours of the sport pack arches. Imagine the extra load on the wheel bearings. "Troubles Incorporated".

1015: The Drive begins. Col. in his great sounding Cooper S led the group to Awana, mid hill point on the Genting Highlands road. This was where the small bored engine of our car is felt. The car labored up the slopes on 2nd gear, as 3rd gear rendered useless. So it was better to keep to 60 kmh, so as to prevent over revving the engine.

1100: Arrived at Gohtong City, a small cluster of shops near Awana Resort. Stopped for tea and roti canai (our prata),  A VW bug and 4 minis joined in the group. Amongst the new arrivals was a 1960 Penang registered 848cc complete with 'hockey stick' gear lever.

1145: Slower group departed first for Tanjung Malim, via Batang Kali. Col. led the 2nd group. The downhill route to Batang Kali was wide and fast. The road was wide, with few traffic coming up the opposite way. Col. could make full use of the entire width of the rd, whilst attacking the apex. We ( Col. and us ) were catching up and overtaking the slower cars. Unusual, I thought, as this is not the typical convoy practice. It was a good warm up for me, blasting down the hill chasing the Cooper S, in an unfamiliar territory. Yes, it was a real pleasure to have cool air beating the sides of my face. Very soon, we reached the junction of Batang Kali vs Old Trunk Road. Here we turned north for the run to Tanjung Malim.

1230: Arrived at a old coffee shop at the cross roads of the small town. This kopi tiam is very well known for its HALAL Yik Mun Pau. 3 varieties were served: Tau Sar (black bean paste), Dagang (beef mince meat) and Kaya pau. Other specialties were their Hainan western cuisine and Malay nasi campor (mixed rice). Even the drinks were unusual. Here you can be served soyamilk+ kopi, or soya+chin cao,

After the lunch, a big birthday cheese cake presented to the MSVCR's central district group leader - Mr. Michael , for cutting, of course with the singing of the Birthday song. Pictures were taken with the B' cake in front of Col.'s mini, with members out in the hot noon sun. 2pm:    With the ceremony and the speeches ended, we headed for Fraser's Hill, for the hill climb.

Hill Climb 5 minis elected to take part in the hill climb, while the rest returned to KL via a more conventional route. As this is my first time, I let 2 of the big bore cars lead the way while the other 2 being a 998 and 848 engined followed. The road was a narrow, barely 2 lane road with left hairpin and right sweeping turns. The typical distance between turns is approximately 200 meters. 2nd gear is required for pulling out of the hairpins, followed by a very short straight into 3rd, before braking and changing down for the next hairpin. This would go on and on and on. At the beginning, Col. leading, would drive quite vigorously, with another 1275 mini driven by young lady, Linda and her partner Sam, following behind. The road at the foothill was fairly gentle, resulting the bigger engined cars could pull away, performing a disappearing act. After 10 minutes of hard driving, we managed to catch up as the turns gets tighter. As we caught up with the 2nd car, we could see the lady driver was doing all the correct things ie setting up before the corner, down shifting, cutting the apex and accelerating firmly.  After about 30 minutes into the drive, the strain of the climb began to show, Col. began to ease up, we eventually drove up in a more civilised manner.

245pm:  We stopped at the Gap rest house, this was where Col., EP and I was surprised to note that Linda, the 19 year old lady driver of the 2nd car was driving up the gap for the very 1st time. I inquired whether she took part in any other form of driving like karting, she replied in the negative. Wow, what a find. It was like when I chanced upon Malaysian Kan Chee Hong when he first joined motor rally in the mid 80's. What a talent.

The Gap Rest House. This beautiful piece of Tudor design building is sited just before the Hill Resort. It has 7 rather spartan guest rooms with 2 queen size beds. Room rates is RM52 per night. There is a tea room and a rather nice veranda with garden furniture for the quiet moment of reading.

330pm:  After we had a tea break, we continued our drive towards Bentong vis Tranum. As it was downhill all the way, I chose to be the lead car, and work my way downhill as fast as the 998 could go, keeping to third gear all the way. It was my turn to do the disappearing act. The turns are now different from the way up earlier. We are now tackling right hairpins and left sweepers that surround the edge of the hill. Good thing I started warning toots, as we met cars coming round the bends, cutting into our part of the road. The journey down was quicker, maybe because I was driving faster, and the corners was slippery, littered with sand and tree branches. We were able to feel the car sliding gently round the apexes. The decent was 21km in all and all too soon (20 mins) it was over. We pulled over at the junction to Bentong.  We had managed to outrun the lady by 2 minutes.

The run to Bentong turned out to be a race between the lady and us. This was where the big bore showed its mettle. After being overtaken in the long straights, where we could only reach 120+kmh, we could catch up to her bumper, when we negotiate a series of bends. We could not help but noticed that she was trying very hard, but starting to wrong foot into the bends. This was when I remarked to EP that we should ease off now as she is reaching a frenzy mood which could be dangerous for her and other road users.

We stopped at Bentong for the well known Bentong Ice cream. It was smooth, creamy and not too sweet.

5pm: It was time to depart for Singapore. Col. led us to KL before we went our separate ways.

We would like to thank Col. Elias and his team for planning this Mother of All Birthday Drives.