It seems to be going pear shaped
22AugThis was a bit of a lack lustre day. We continued to push across deserts and sandy plains on the south road. Choking on dust, and rattled to pieces, we did find the road marginally better than yesterday, but it still had it’s moments.
The day might have been lacking, but the sunrise was still quality:
For you mechanical types I recorded the sound of our engine at idle on my phone today. Any bets on what’s making it so noisy? By the way, it gets noisier when it’s put under load!
We’re heading for the town of Bayanhongor. It’s 400km away. From there it’s only 660km to UB, and we’ve been told the last 400km is bitumen.
We stop for bread and jam, and my camera captures the definition of nothing one way...
...and nothing the other way:
There was one sizeable river today, but it was pretty shallow. We decide not to wash in it, as the dusty conditions would leave us filthy in another 10km.
A few gers were clustered near the river, as with many this one is equipped with satellite dish and solar panels. Note the counterweight for holding the skylight cover in the required position.
We actually do the 400km in pretty good time, arriving around 4pm. I managed to get some more local money from an atm, and we even buy some cold drinks. By my math there should be 260km of dirt to go. The 2nd chance party is on in UB on the night of the 23rd. We never planned to make it, but maybe it’ll be some consolation for taking the southern road. 660km isn’t out of the question for tomorrow if 400 km is bitumen.
The exit gate for Bayanhongor. Note the road is bitumen. This was about 10km of the shocking road. The potholes were so big it was harder to drive on this than the dirt. To top it off it was a toll road! We had to pay US 0.50c to drive on it.
On the way out of Bayanhongor we pass a Mongol Panda moving very slowly. We stop for a chat. These two guys have spent 4 days in Bayanhongor trying to fix their car. I think they said 3 springs were broken, and the engine had snapped it’s mounts and was dragging on the ground. Now they were 20 miles out of Bayanhongor, and they’d lost power. The battery in the car is broken, and it has no hand brake. Thus they can’t even get out of the car! Their plan is to drive non-stop to UB, as long as it takes, without turning the engine off.
This bridge has had an unfortunate accident, and there is a complete lack of warning signs.
It’s almost dark and we are 55 miles out of Bayanhongor. I should be only another 100 miles of dirt. Around the Pamir highway we both never expected the car to last this far, but now there seems to be some hope we’ll make it to UB. Most of the cars we see are limping worse than us.
Since Tajikistan, we’ve only been punished in one way for this type of optimism, and it’s no different today. We’re looking for a campsite when I notice we seem to be down on power. A few miles later the left rear wheel seizes. Oh, the agony! At first I think the spring has snapped and the diff has pulled crooked, but it’s not that at all. The left wheel is too hot to touch. Something has gone wrong inside. After a few minutes it has unseized, and we roll off the road, pitch the tents, and start our investigation.
There are 2 problems I find. I think the main one was that the friction material had separated from the metal backing on one of the drum brake linings. It had got dragged on to the brake drum and caused the brake to drag. This is easily fixed by removing the linings and plugging the rear brakes. We’ll just use the front brakes from here to UB. However this is not the only problem. There is loads of play in the rear wheel bearing, and it’s rough to turn. The heat from the brake has caused all of the grease to run out of it. It’s not going to last much longer. I know from Team Yorkshire’s SJ back in Kazakhstan, that once the bearing fails it chews out the diff seal, and the diff oil starts to leak out. I don’t really want to regrease the bearing, so I decide we’ll try and limp to the start of the bitumen tomorrow, and I’ll monitor how hot the bearing is getting. I’m not very confident of making it though, and we don’t have a spare seal or bearing. The bearing and the brake lining are both a result of the block of wood between the chassis and the diff. The bump rubber has gradually broken, and without the give of the suspension, the rear left has been rattled to pieces by the corrugations. I’m more and more convinced we should have headed north. I have a feeling our ground clearance and 4wd capability would have seen us through, and the wetter, less sandy mountain conditions and lower traffic would surely have meant less corrugations. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, and perhaps we would have experienced a different failure mode up North.
Just as I enter my tent to sleep, the ‘unable to stop’ Mongol Panda rattles past, horn beeping and arms waving. It has taken around 3hrs for them to do the last 30 miles.
I go to sleep with fingers crossed, but it’s not to be mine (or Stephen’s) day tomorrow.
