Re: BREAKDOWNS

Posted by Colin Davidson on Sep 16, 2011; 5:06am
URL: http://sundownersadventures.385.s1.nabble.com/BREAKDOWNS-tp4544086p4809518.html

In early 1976, I bought my first coach with Overlander Coaches. It was a 45 seater Mosely Coach with a Bedford 446 rear engine.

In March that year, Bob Martin had headed off to Kathmandu but unfortunately put a piston through the engine block in Erzurum. Phil Campbell and I took a new block out to Bob, conditions in Eastern Turkey were freezing at that time of the year. “Tiny Olliff” was a co-driver with Bob on that trip. When Bob and Tiny were working on the engine, they could only use their bare hands for a few minutes at a time before all feeling in their hands was gone. I am sure Bob will tell you more after he reads the above.

In late March I had to do a 35 day express trip to Kathmandu where I was scheduled to do a Treasure Tours trip back to London. Phil Campbell was my co-driver for the express trip. All was going well with the coach until about 50kms from the Iran – Afghan border when the engine seized solid. About 90% of the passengers bordered a local bus that came by, and that was the last I saw of them except one. This bloke had a surf board on board the bus; he eventually got it back in Agra when we met up again. He was originally going from London to Bali to surf, and then onto Australia. Getting back to Mashaad was an experience that I will never forget. I had agreed on a price with an Iranian fuel truck driver, so he hitched me up to a very short rigid towing bar and off we went at 100miles per hour. Very very scary to say the least when you are only about 6 foot off the rear of his truck and you can’t see Jack Schitt. I think Jack was running down my legs after that  hairy ride.

The following day I had organized the mechanics to pull the engine out in readiness for a new engine that was to be flown in from London. A day or so later, Chalker and Dave Rodgers arrived in Mashaad and two of their passengers were later employed with Sundowners. They were Kit Carr and Tommy Broomfield .Next day, Chalker and Dave leave for Gorgan where they also have mechanical problems. One of them can tell you that story.

Well, after 3 weeks in Mashaad the coach is ready to go. Haggis and Robo turn up the day before I am ready to leave for Kathmnadu and Haggis suggest that I take Robo with me back to Kabul. His thinking was, two heads are better than one if a situation arose. We get to the Iranian border and that’s when the fun started. Why are you carrying a spare engine in the underneath luggage locker??  “ it’s broken “ Why are you carrying a broken engine??? “ because the engine number on the broken one is written in the Carnet  De Passage.” Where is the Carnet for the new engine??? And this went on and on and on. I had to go through that crap at every border throughout the Middle East, I couldn’t dump the engine and get a new Carnet sent out to me, because each time I went into a country it was written in my passport ( 1 spare engine- 123447711 ) so I had to grin and bare it. We leave and head for the Afghan border, too late, those lazy buggers have shut up shop for the day. Inside a small mud hut at the border we find the border officials sipping tea and smoking Afghani black. What to do???? We joined them. When in Rome!!!!!!!
Next morning at the Afghan border, “ what’s with the spare engine “  here we go again, its broken, its kaput its f…………ked etc etc its f…..king dead.
Away from that circus and we headed for Kabul. The coach engine was running hot, so we had a few stops to top up the radiator with water. The engine was also making unwanted noises, it got us to Kabul only to find out that it needed an engine rebuild. I was devastated as this coach was only 18months old. The only luck I had was I was in Bedford territory. Robo left on local transport to catch up with Haggis and a week later I left Kabul towards Kathmandu.
Meanwhile Gary Maher had flown into Kathmandu and was bringing my passengers west by local transport.
After leaving Kabul, I headed for Lahore. It was late at night when I arrived in Lahore and I had another problem, only parking lights, no high or low beam, so a day was spent getting them fixed in Lahore with Trevor Lee, ( I’m sure some of you drivers will remember him!)
I eventually ended up meeting my passengers in Agra, they’d traveled on public transport for 2 weeks. A couple of weeks later just outside Peshawar the diff shit its self.
 What a trip!! 2 engines, a diff and electrics.

I bet none of those passengers ever forget their time traveling in India and Nepal using public transport.

The reason for all the engine troubles was, the radiator fan was on the wrong way around and therefore it wasn't cooling as it was trying to force the air towards the front of the coach instead of out the back.