Re: BREAKDOWNS

Posted by Colin Davidson on Nov 05, 2011; 5:04am
URL: http://sundownersadventures.385.s1.nabble.com/BREAKDOWNS-tp4544086p4965903.html

In 1978, whilst working for Overlander Coaches, we were traveling from Kandihar to Kabul and we were expecting to meet a Transit tour coming from Kabul. I planned to stop for a lunch break when we met each other so that the passengers from each coach could have a chat.
We eventually came across them about 50kms outside of Kabul, but the coach was facing back towards Kabul. It had been snowing and was freezing cold, which usually happens when your in the snow. The driver, I have no idea of his name now, told me that the engine had seized so I got all his passengers onto my coach, 3 to a seat and took them into Kabul. I assured him that I would come back and help him out, which I did. My passengers were booked into the Park Hotel so we organized the Transit passengers into the Meterople Hotel.
Michael Powell happened to be in Kabul under house arrest for a road mishap with a local woman in a Burka. I told him that I had to go back out the road and try and help the Transit driver, He offered to come with me. We managed to scrounge a stiff towing bar off a Contiki driver who was also staying at the Park Hotel.
We drove back out to where they were parked, which was a few thousand feet up on the pass. I had nowhere on my coach from where to tow him, so we took the front panel off my coach where the driving lights were and connected the stiff bar to the rear end of his coach and to the front of mine. I pushed him the 50kms back to Kabul, his courier was giving me hand signs through their back window and Mick was hanging out the door of my coach trying to tell me what was ahead. We got him into the car park opposite the hotels and called it quits for the day.
Mick said that we needed a stiff drink after all that, so off we went to a small shop that Mick had been to before. Mick went straight to a shelve that had a box of chocolate, he put his hand behind the box and dragged out a 40oz bottle of Vodka. On the label was, US Embassey.
The next day I helped the Transit driver to find his problem. We took off the sump and there was one loose bigend bolt. The result of this, the capping bearing or what ever it is called, being of 2 pieces, one had slipped under the other and jammed the crank. The crank was scoured to the shit house, so we put a piece of radiator hose around the crank with a couple of worm clips and off he went, and got back to London on 5 pistons. It was a Ford 360 turbo, but I can’t remember if it was a Duple, a Van Hool or a Plaxton. I do know that it was Blue and White with Transit Travel written