Sunday 13 July 2008

Mechanical Disaster

Disaster struck this morning as I was handing over the Suzuki to Paul for our last 5 days of preparations. I had noticed during the past few weeks that good old Ew'n developed vibrations in the 10 MPH zone. But today these were too strong and noisy to be ignored. Paul opened the bonnet and all I heard was "oh my god". Oil everywhere. Further analysis led us to the conclusion that our front differential is not oil tight anymore... This didn't explained the vibrations tough so we removed the front drive shaft to see if we could isolate the problem, only to find that it is coming from the linkage between the gear box and the transmission box. We think the CV joint is dead but will confirm that tomorrow with a proper mechanic. Another surprise found this morning is that our front right wheel bearings seem to be on their way out too. Oh joy... The realisation that we did indeed buy a true piece of crap is sinking in... 10,000 miles to go... If only there was no desert to cross.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jesus - where's your 'proper' mechanic going to be half way between here and there eh!? I hope you've bought a manual!

Cedric Ladde said...

Yeah, we've got a book and a couple of spanners so we should be ok :)

Rika said...

Take a swissknife a drawing pin and a hair pin, too - oh, and some ladies tights. Heard they make good fan belts and if you don't need them and are really bored you can still wear them... ;o)

Anonymous said...

LOL..Duct tape... it's your best friend. If you don't end up using on E'wn it you can use it to wax your legs before wearing those tights Rika suggested.