Leaks And Fixes

I have regained my zen after a difficult weekend casting around for a sensible way forward. Rusty is doing fine so let’s get that out of the way but I was twisting and turning wondering what to do. The dilemma is not easy to explain but I’ll try.

Above you see GANNET2 parked for the night on West Summerland Key just twenty minutes from home in 2021 as we practiced camping in our retirement vehicle. Last time I was in the Keys the people in power had blocked off access for vehicles on the waterfront so I am quite fond of that wild camp memory.

I have to go a long way back in my archive to find photos of GANNET2 at home in the Keys  and I will confess I’ve been feeling a bit homesick. It’s an odd feeling for me as I rarely suffer from the malady on the road not least because home has often been a nebulous concept for me, raised by a family that didn’t want me and struggling to figure out where I’d like to live. Key West solved that one for me and this weekend Layne spoke with four friends from Florida and it hit me how much I wanted to be home and see people. Thanksgiving 2020 practicing wild camping in Osceola National Forest Florida:  

For a while here in Uruguay we had the company of a solo American overlander Robert who left to go to Buenos Aires. He came round for dinner, we talked as his electrical system got an upgrade from Adrián and we noticed his absence after he left.

As Layne put we had a good time just being around someone who yes, shared our values, but who also had the same background and cultural markers. After he left we shared the workshop/campground with some very unpleasant European travelers who were bossy and inconsiderate. They drove Adrián mad but he had to bottle it as they were clients. We bonded a bit more as he vented to me about them. Adrián and Maria- Jose and their rescue cats:

We also met a nice guy Juan, an English speaking retired businessman from Panama struggling with family obligations and a desire to drive the continent. Like me he wanted to replicate the motorcycle adventures of his youth but unlike me he has a wife who is not enthusiastic about RV life. He was off to meet his wife at the airport. 

Exchanging phone numbers on the universal WhatsApp communication method in Latin America. It’s web based and you use your phone number to make free calls so everyone uses it. 

Juan’s van below, which he bought in Europe and took home to Panama, a Fiat Ducato the diesel powered van on which the Promaster is based.   

Then there has been Adrián’s rather odd behavior. For some time we had a couple of jobs we wanted to get done, after he had installed the massive electrical overhaul but he would never get round to doing them. So we waited. And waited. And then Rusty got sick and I was in despair. And then Rusty miraculously recovered and I wanted the jobs done. It was always tomorrow, “mañana” the Mexican joke when tomorrow never comes.

Rusty loves living in a house but we do have to travel. However one of the jobs was fixing a small, tiny, fluid leak from the engine cooling system. I’d noticed a tendency for the fluid level to drop below minimum which it never normally does. We could drive GANNET2 but every so often I had to add coolant, which I carry because it’s particular (OAT - organic acid technology- if that matters to you, available from Jeep dealers everywhere). I knew there was a problem and I wanted Adrián to take a look because I trust his mechanical instincts.

For some reason he kept putting it off. In these situations I have a terrible tendency to personalize things. So I went into a funk with the “why me?” routine.  Finally Layne and I decided we’d pack up drive to Montevideo and look for a mechanic. I felt like Adrián was holding us hostage and I was losing my mind. I was bottling up some anger inside. Finally yesterday I said to Layne I was going to have it out with Adrián. However before I lost my head I realized what was going on.  Adrián is lonely. It’s not me as usual in these situations, it’s him. These two met on a dating app and have been together eleven years after he retired from the Argentine Air Force.  

Maria-Jose’s mother has her birthday next weekend and she has left for a couple of weeks with her family 400 miles away in Argentina. I got the crazy idea he wanted to keep us here by not finishing up GANNET2 and before you accuse me of being a paranoid nincompoop wait and see what happened next. I called over to Adrián yesterday and told him I needed his help. He was directing the builders constructing his new rental unit and new campground bathroom block for campers:

I explained to him that I needed my van to be running right and I’m stressed by the mysterious coolant leak. I also came out and said out loud the thing that had been bothering me and I added that we wanted to stay two more weeks until Maria- Jose got back because we didn’t want to see him alone all that time. We’d be there if he needed help or anything. Suddenly GANNET2 got fixed.

Adrián couldn’t find the leak but he called in his buddy Emiliano a full time auto mechanic and sure enough a tiny purge valve, used to bleed air out of the pressurized coolant system when needed was leaking tiny amounts of fluid and breaking the pressure.

He drove back to his shop where miraculously he found a replacement. All seems to be well but he wants us to drive around a bit to make sure that is the problem. Then we’ll go to his shop and pay his bill. I was elated. Plus the electrical installation seems to be working well but we haven’t really put it to the test yet. The removal of the second alternator has been excellent with a quiet stress free, noise free engine as one result. 

Up next Adrián is going to build some improved drains to clear rainwater that accumulates under the windshield and can drip on the engine. And we aren’t going anywhere to two weeks.

Layne is frustrated by the delay but in speaking to a friend on the phone and lamenting my strategy to keep Adrián happy Kathy told her to ponder the value of two weeks delay against the lack of deadlines in our life. And I actually like Adrián and I am glad to help him out in some small way. He’s a good man, a first rate mechanic especially on electrical stuff and a terrible communicator. 

I have regained my equilibrium and mental tranquility, GANNET2 is apparently fixed and Rusty is enjoying life. We are inseparable. 

And that is the story of how  you get tangled up in situations that don’t usually occur in the US when you go to Jiffy Lube for a quick oil change and continue on your merry way. I miss that simplicity of life but I’m in South America for good or ill and things work a little differently here.