Different city different mechanic’s shop. I’m tired of living in the dust waiting for parts but we have some work that needs to be done so this is good, better than it looks. Our neighbor from Germany is not occupied as the owners are in Germany for the summer.
Iveco is part of the Fiat/Ram/Jeep group so our two vans share the same door handles, and we both have the same front winch. Apart from that I’d hate to drive anything so big but some travelers are fearless. This Mercedes below is planned to become a traveling home but that project for an Iquique resident has been three years in the making and seems a tad bit stalled.
There are vehicles of all sorts in the compound some waiting for parts while some owners are waiting for money to get them repaired.
GANNET2 looks a bit uphill but she’s a magic van as the interior feels a lot less on a slope than it looks. Mark the owner rescues local dogs and so far he’s got five with a new arrival separated as she was rescued off the beach trying to raise a clutch of puppies. They all live next door and the youngsters are flourishing.
We are hoping our parts will be in town within the three days promised. At least this time we are dealing with wear and not breakages.
The plan is to change the tie rods which control steering, plus the universal joints that hold the wheels in place and take the stress of the transmission.
Rusty doesn’t like all the fogs in the compound but he’s getting used to them. He needs time to adapt and he spent the afternoon next to me sitting in the sun but he spent the morning indoors out of the way.
These are the bits we are replacing. The one closest is the drive shaft that was the part that I heard clunking.
The outer tie rod was new in Panama and it works okay but the torn rubber will allow dirt in so we figured it’s best to change both and not deal with them for a while.
I had the aftermarket heavy duty CV joints installed in the US and they were supposed to last but here they are and will I trust be replaced by standard Fiat Ducato parts. I’ve been greasing these things every few thousand miles and I’ll be glad to see the last of my grease gun.
The front brakes take the stress on the Promaster and we have spare pads but we’re going to keep ours and buy replacements. At least we caught these in time and soared our rotors. They have some material left but again the idea is to take care of stuff that is starting to give way and not wait until there is a problem.
Exciting stuff. I can’t wait to be back on the road. Oh and we tested the rooftop air conditioner when we’re in the warmer areas inland and wouldn’t you know it, it’s blowing hard but not cold. And we need that fixed for the Brazilian drive which will be in tropical heat.
It was a day off for Rueben so we read and exercised and took Rusty for a walk in the desert. That’s how we wait in the sun either cold night and never at least whisper of rain this desert. Not a bad winter.
