Stuck here until tomorrow when the bearings should arrive, both sides are us. Have managed to salvage the strut.
Now there will be 2 very long days driving to catch up before the cars arrive in Cape Town.
Where has all the thread gone?
Stuck here until tomorrow when the bearings should arrive, both sides are us. Have managed to salvage the strut.
Now there will be 2 very long days driving to catch up before the cars arrive in Cape Town.
Where has all the thread gone?
On the long 1000k crossing into Namibia a wheel bearing siezed and they were to go no further under their own steam!
They called for a recovery truck and sat watching the lightening waiting for it to arrive. Got recovered to a B&B in Rundu, the plan is to get up early to see if it can be fixed.
A non-competitive “main road” run today, allowing crews to quickly knock off the 480km’s to Livingstone. Unless their cars demand attention there should be plenty of time to experience one of the world’s natural wonders - the mighty Mosi-oa-Tunya, “The Smoke that Thunders”, just a short stroll from the Zambezi Sun hotel.
Falls stunneroonies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slept with all sorts of creepy crawly things last night! The hotel was a compound of corrugated tin huts and the sound of the storm on the roof was almost deafening!
Just one short 16k competitive section today and the boys were 26th - not bad.
Worked on the car on arrival in Lusaka and had an early night to make up for the last one.
Bucketing down - be awash before long.
No competitive sections today because the border crossing into Zambia can take a long time!
We have a leaky brake compensator so may have to blank off rear brakes!
The plan today is to go the long way round on better (hopefully) roads, trying to preserve the old girl and hopefully have a stress free day.
Great day went through a National Park and saw giraffe, zebra, assorted antelopes and elephants.
Bled the rear brakes at the end of the day.
Really enjoyed the first stage. Picked up a puncture on the second and wrecked a rim & tyre. Had the sump guard modified last night but the bolts weren't long enough & came out about 10k after the final World Cup section so the last 80k had the guard held up by a ratchet strap. At least we had a functioning alternator (Thanks Mr T). Now we have to go into town to look for bolts and another rim & tyre.
Saw some elephants and a tortoise today.
No charging at all from the alternator today so they have had to jump charge every 30 or so K. They had help from another 504, car no 4 crewed by Jean-Pierre and Mireille Demierre - many thanks to them, with jumping an on one occasion a tow, as our car had died in a sand hollow!
They did see Thompson gazelle and 2 huge birds of prey on the road today, which helps cheer things up.
Mr T, who has been their service car driver on the Safari rally, has come to their aid and taken the alternator to be fixed and the sump guard to be reprofiled!
Our crew got to their repair site at 9am and returned to their hotel at 10:30pm - so not much rest was had!
They were joined in their repairs by the other 504's and a Porsche.
Hopefully everyone is now patched up to enable them to complete the final 6,000km - that is nearly half of the rally still to go!
The first part of this section was still quite bad road before the crews get onto proper tarmac. Several crews were having to nurse their cars, needing to get to Nairobi to get their repairs done on the "rest" day tomorrow. In fact only 21 crews made it to the hotel within the time allowed.
Needless to say our sick 504 had to be nursed and was one of those late crews, but still 34th overall on the day.