Renzo called last night and said the transmission is fixed. Apparently it took some electronic magic but he’s happy with it and we are delighted. I have a dental appointment in the morning but we will be picking up GANNET2 today in the afternoon and we will finally see the bill which I will of course record here. A complete fully reconditioned 62TE transmission in the States costs up to $5,000 for reference.
I spent six hours at the very clean modern dentist office Thursday getting four teeth prepared for new crowns. I had old ones that had worn out so they cleaned the stumps and set me up with a temporary arrangement. The entire business to be completed next week is costing $1800 which is about half the cost of one crown in the US as I recall. Weird isn’t it? I explained how much dentistry costs at home and they fell out of their chairs.
Well now, what next? We are thinking Brazil is back on the agenda. Chile is undergoing a horrendous cold snap with the passes through the Andes to Argentina closed by unusually heavy snowfalls. The GMC van in the photo below is for sale in Chile if you feel like imitating us. They got it unstuck after four days and backed out of Paso De Jama (15,900 feet) where we were this summer.
It’s still raining in Brazil so we are in no hurry to go east this month and we have some mechanical work on the front suspension to get done next. We’ll be using Peugeot Jumper parts, as you do when you have a Promaster in Peru. But the transmission is working and I can’t wait for my test drive. Cheers.
