What started as a quicky over to Peter Seegers in Amersfoort (thanks dad!) to get a torn CV joint cover replaced (see previous entry) and the oil renewed (wowza, finally, practically no oil has been required to top up in the meantime) became a bit more of a bank-breaker.
First of all, a completely worn brake pad explains the dodgy breaking on the left side of late. It's weird, really, because only one pad was completely down to the bare metal, while the others were, although by no means new, still ok. Maybe it wasn't fitted correctly. Anyway, that meant a set of four new ones. Luckily, the guys over in Amersfoort still had some Greenstuff in stock. Second, both steering rod ends turned out to be in need of a wel-earned retirement. Anyway, steering and braking are now what you would expect again, so that investment was well worth it.
Luckily, the torn cover didn't mean the CV joint had eaten itself up (despite the exuberant quantitiies of sand, dirt and mud available during the last Achterhoekrit, see a few entries back), so things didn't get any worse than that.
I did notice quite a bit of smoke when parking the car, but I couldn't quite make out where that was coming from in the darkness. Hopefully it was just a little oil spillage.
Anyway, whitey is back, so bring on the fun.