It's currently under "More" on the headers, we'll try and move it to
Just to let you know that we've started a new "2013 blog page" - so if you've bookmarked this one......
It's currently under "More" on the headers, we'll try and move it to
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We're planning to be back on the road again in the next 10 days or so, flights are booked, bags are being packed and last-minute stuff being sorted. Watch this space!
There's a lot to do - loads of small projects for the truck (some of which won't make it due to weight allowances) - but we'll be able to do most of these "on the road". We've decided that we really need a good outside table to prepare food on - not just a "picnic" table, something taller and more robust. We were inspired on this by the kiwis in Divundu/Drotsky's who had a good metal folding table - I've found a South African company who makes something similar and has an agent in Windhoek - he's got some in stock, so guess where we're off to soon?! So, Monday morning came and I was at the workshop ready to open the front left portal to replace those bearings that were obviously breaking up. Out came the seal - no build-up of metal flakes there - it must be still inside the bearing - out comes the bearing - no damage - just a couple of small marks.... Looking at the gear teeth there were some teeth of the lower (big) gear with marking on them - the only place the metal could have come from. I took the decision to replace both upper and lower gears as I had a pair in stock, along with the lower bearings to be sure. All went very quickly until the portal was offered back onto the axle, as it was slowly tightened down it slowly seized up. Off it came , heads were scratched, back on it went, again it jammed, off again, nothing obvious, back on....3 times until Danny the head mechanic n the workshop pointed out a minor difference between old and new gears. Looked like I needed a different sized bolt, off I went into Windhoek with one of the guys who was going to get some tyres repaired, change some gas bottles (I now know where we need to go), get some shopping and some petrol - in between we popped into the MB Trucks spares specialist - no idea there. I tried calling Ibbetts in UK - a bank holiday. Back to the workshop & I decided to put the old upper gear back on as it wasn't at all bad (just trying to be a perfectionist?). By this time it was too late to restart as it was going to get dark soon, so I had the pleasure of sleeping in the workshop yard (in the truck) - not at bad. The next morning it was cold, 4C - you don't expect that in Africa(?!). The portal went back on quickly, all was well until the infamous "bleeding of the front brakes" had to happen - it took hours and 3 litres of fluid before I was satisfied! A quick road test seemed ok, so I set off for something more sertious - a drive out to Gobabis on the edge of the Kalahari on the way to Botswana. There and back was about 250 miles, I stayed out there overnight at XainQuaz campsite - nothing spectacular except the signs warning of snakes and scorpions and the service the next morning - a young lady arrived calling "Morre, morre, good morning" - with a tray of coffee, milk, sugar and buttered toast - all for 70N$ (£5). The other day I'd met some Germans in Windhoek with a Unimog camper (you've just got to stop to chat!) - he had suggested that fitting some acoustic material to the underside of the bonnet has a large effect on cab noise - and he'd spotted some in Cymot (Sue's FAVOURITE shop!), so I popped down there and bought them out of all their stock, then headed off to look at another campsite in the town itself - a bit of a dump, so I headed back to the green grass of Elisenheim. Here I found that there was oil spattered over the outer side of the front left tyre - the inner oil seal was now leaking, probably due to it having been pushed about a bit too much during the on-off-on-off... of the portal. Oh poo. Using the campsite wifi I skyped Ibbetts and had a long chat with Phil in their spares dept, he looked up the parts for our truck and compared them with what I'd bought in the past. He then pointed out that he thought that I had in fact bought one of the correct type for both front and rear portals last year - that's when the penny clicked - the gears had got mixed up between boxes - the front gear was in the back gear's box, so we'd inadvertently tried to fit a back gear on the front. Simple. Looking at the gears they are almost identical, just a couple of millimetres onta counterbore. Aaarrgghhh! Anyway, I now have a plan to fix it properly......... Oh, and the temperature monitor is working well - both pairs of portals run at the same temp plus or minus 3 degrees - I can even detect the difference where the front left gear has been replaced resulting in that [portal running marginally cooler than the right instead of hotter. One of the first jobs I did when I got to Elisenheim was to check the oil in the front portal axles. I didn't do this last time as I was thinking about the quality/age of the oil - the rear portals hadn't had much of a top-up since we left UK, whereas the fronts had had loads of fresh oil almost daily due to the "pumping" phenomenon. Over the last few months I've been wondering if this wasn't a mistake, so out came all of the oil from both sides so I could look at the magnetic drain plugs. Right side - no metal flakes, left side - loads. Eek!
I've therefore made the decision not to go far as having seen what the rear bearing looked like with only a few flakes, I'm a bit concerned that this one is going to be a lot worse. Better catch it now though. Hopefully we'll be able to start and finish the job early next week. In the meantime I've fitted the axle temperature monitor - just 2 connections to make tomorrow morning and it should be up and running ready for testing. Now that both the bearings and the paperwork have been fixed, I'm mobile again!
A short hop today to a campsite on the Elisenheim Guestfarm north of Windhoek where I'm going to spend a day or so sorting the truck out for living (filling the water tanks, organising storage, making sure everything is working etc) before deciding where I'm off to for the next few days. Watch this space! Oh - and the weather is lovely!! Oh the joys of having an vehicle on a carnet!
The carnet de passage en douanes to give it it's full title is effectively a customs passport for the vehicle - you used to need one even when you went from UK to Europe, but those days have long gone now for most people. However - if you take your vehicle outside of the area where there's a free-movement agreement or similar, you're going to have to convince the tax authorities of the country(ies) visited that you're not going to sell or leave the vehicle there, thus avoiding the import duties. So, you need a carnet which basically provides a guarantee that someone will pay in the event that you don't follow the rules - this being the carnet. It's an impressive-looking document, each page having 5 sections that are systematically filled in and some of which are sent off each time you enter/exit a country as proof of entry/exit. If you don't get an exit stamp from one country and you can't prove that the vehicle is outside of that country - you've got a problem. Carnets are valid for one year - and here's the issue - our original carnet started in May 12 when the truck landed in Durban - almost one year later and it's approaching the end of its validity. Simple - we'll get an extension from the RAC in UK. How to swap the carnets from one to the other? Lore had it that you got a carnet dated a few days earlier than the old one ran out, drove across a border stamping-out on the old one and then stamping-in on the new one - simple - and what almost all the Germans out here seem to do. BUT - the RAC have decided that they don't like the concept of having 2 carnets running at the same time - so they now only issue a new carnet to start the day after the old one runs out.....so unless you manage to cross a border at exactly midnight on the actual day you're effectively either getting an expired carnet stamped out or a not-yet-valid carnet stamped in! When I asked the RAC about this, they couldn't give a clear answer - the best they could come up with (verbally, never written) was - oh, just go to a border with the expired old carnet and convince them to stamp it out.....". This didn't fill me with confidence, particularly as the next set of emails addressed to the RAC about this were totoally ignored. We got the carnet only after much gnashing of teeth, hours spent on the phone trying to get through to the RAC (don't I just love answerphone messaging systems where people don't call you back....) and finally working out that they don't actually look at emails sent in reply to their emails (they have "personal addresses) - they only look at emails sent to the "collective pot"! Anyway, the carnet arrived with about 24 hours spare, so in the end it worked - however still no clear instructions as to how to go about swapping them over, so it was clear that we were "on our own". Discussing this on various forums and with various travellers here, I got many different proposed solutions (mainly germans asking why I don't register the Mog in Germany to be able to get away from the RAC - they are all amazed at how inflexible the UK system is), but while we were doing the rear portal bearings in Kai's workshop yard a couple of Germans came in and told me where the customs office is in Windhoek, this was later confirmed by Alex and Keira who have kept a MAN truck out here for several years. I decided that I wasn't going to risk anything by going down there and having a chat.... It turned out that the guy in the queue in front of me had done exactly what the RAC had suggested - let his old carnet run out before presenting the old and new for swapping - they refused to stamp either carnet and told him to go away. This means big trouble for them if the can't find a way round the issue. The customs officer took one look at our carnets, checked the engine number and stamped both - all in 5 minutes! Now why the RAC couldn't have suggested doing this is totally beyond me. Hmmmpphh! So, we now have new rear bearings and a legal carnet - time to do a bit of planning! Tomorrow I'm going to move to a campsite either near the airport or to one north of Windhoek (where we stayed in October - it's green and shady) while I decide what to do over the next few days. We are almost back in our house. The tenant moved out last week, leaving us with a long list of repairs and renovations, but once the place has been properly cleaned we will move in and deal with the rest of things one by one. We are not feeling too cheerful about some of the damage, to say the least. However, it's very nice to be back on familiar territory for a while, and to catch up with friends and family. We are very lucky to have such great people in our lives. Special thanks to those who have put us up (or put up with us), those who have helped us to get stuff upstairs, downstairs, in and out of vehicles or in and out of storage, those who have lent us things or looked after our things, and those who have given moral support. You know who you are! S xxx
I have a contract - I'll be in Ampthill for a while - this will replenish what we've spent so far and will allow me to invest in a few essentials like new bearings etc for the portal axles! We'll be in Weston from mid-Feb.
In the intervening period I've been working on a design of a tool to let me monitor what's going on in the axles while driving using a microcomputer and some sensors. The results are under "The Vehicle" - I've published the design and the code for the computer so that others can learn from what I've done.... There are a couple of improvements in the pipeline before I make the "final version", but it's practically there now. For the moment we are staying with Ian's parents in Devon. Ian is job-hunting for a short contract and has had one interview. I have been to visit my Mum in Norfolk and have managed to squeeze in visits to a very small number of others en route to Norfolk or en route to Ian's interview. I can report that the weather in England is extremely wet - no surprise there, then!
We are busy cleaning, sorting and getting the truck ready for a long rest. Meanwhile we have had a couple more wildlife moments. We've seen a beautiful chamaeleon by the swimming pool, and watched it moving in slow motion so as not to attract too much attention from the cats. B later had to rescue it from the pool, as it had fallen in and obviously wasn't up to a long swim. I'll put a photo on here when I get round to it. There's a troop of baboons living nearby and they raid the bins if no-one is around. The other day we returned to the campsite to find litter everywhere, our firelighters chewed and a colossal baboon poo on the concrete table. B chases them off with marbles fired from his catapault - that was a good tip from Angus MacN. And that's it really. Other campers here are all either clearing out or getting sorted at the start of a trip. Next to us is a space where Zambian overland trucks and their crews do the same. B has had some interesting tips from these guys on where to source spares and how to manage the carnet. They all speak perfect English of course. So we are now just hoping that everything runs smoothly for storing the truck, our trip home and then a happy return next year. Fingers crossed for us everyone, please. S. |
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July 2013
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