Re: BREAKDOWNS

Posted by kit carr on Nov 05, 2011; 1:07am
URL: http://sundownersadventures.385.s1.nabble.com/BREAKDOWNS-tp4544086p4965652.html

Hi Simon,

As I recall, the front came off the pump, rendering it useless, and damaging the belts. The guts of the pump were ok. When we put it all back together we didn't have enough belts to run everything, so ran the water pump and not the fan. I can't remember now exactly how the belts were set up, but we did run without the fan, but with a close eye on the temperature guage. I've no doubt that it contributed to the head gasket failure in Russia. We did pour water on to the radiator as well, and ran all of the heaters. It was hotter inside the bus than outside by a good margin. We ran through the Nautanwa border just before it closed, and ran down to Varanasi where we could make proper repairs.  Looking back at the lack of preparation shows how different things were then relative to what we would do today. Bob bought the bus over the phone, as the price was right. The preparation involved picking it up and driving to Kathmandu with a pause in London while. we loaded up and departed.

I still remember the sign on the door of the workshop: "beware Simon Arms"

I also recall Ginger from London Transport who used to do a good job supplying the trops with LT's finest, but never with an invoice. Cheques to C.Ash seemed to do the trick quite well.