97. Day 66 – At last we turn east towards Mongolia – but more mechanical problems plague us

Monday 22 October 2007

We were up at 7.30 am when it was just getting light and we were away at 8.30 am.  We are now an hour ahead of Kazakh time.

We checked the oil level first thing in the morning and found that we had used 3 litres yesterday in the 523 km.  This is going to be expensive.

We headed out on the road.

Smooth bitumen road

This time it was a beautiful smooth road as good as anything in the world.  The weather was overcast with a temperature of 8° Celsius.  We noted that the diesel fuel at the modern service stations was 16 Rubles per litre – that is, 60 cents per litre AUD.  Wow, wouldn’t that be great if we could have fuel at that price in Australia!

Today was a day of being stopped by the Police.  By the end of the day we had been stopped six times.  It was all very friendly.  Sometimes it was just to look at the vehicle.  A couple of Police actually asked for copies of the “car passport”, which is our Alaskan registration (quite unimpressive) and one of them even looked at the Russian insurance policy.  This policy was the one that we purchased at the Finnish-Russian border so long ago.

We were stopped 6 times today in Russia by the Police. Here is the policeman going to have his lunch after stopping us with his baton.

We drove into Barnaul looking for a place to buy nuts and bolts to repair our battery cover.

Driving into Barnaul

You may remember that yesterday we noticed the battery cover had dropped down because two of the fixing screws had come out.  We had taken the cover off and put it inside the Earthroamer.  Yes, the famous batteries plague us again. 

Unfortunately the screws had been lost and nothing in Russia matched that thread.  We noticed that we had two of the original screws holding the batteries in a sideways position.  We realised that if we purchased nuts and bolts for that role we could use those two screws to mount the battery cover again, and this is what we did.

The staff from the auto parts shop came out to see the Earthroamer
Dick and Alexey screwing the cover back on

We stopped at a most amazing auto supply place where we managed to purchase extra screws.  We then lay down in the street outside repairing the battery case.  This took about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Trolley bus in Barnaul
Wedding chapel in Barnaul
Public building in Barnaul

We also purchased 32 litres of oil for 3,660 Rubles (AUD $120).  We are hoping that this will last for the next 8 days, at a maximum usage of 4 litres per day.  However when we are driving slowly in Mongolia and the engine is revving, it could lose more oil.

We headed out of Barnaul at 11.40 am towards Biysk on a beautiful road – the M52.  It is amazing that Russia has some of the worst roads in the world, and some of the best.

Coming into Biysk
Homes in Biysk
Ladies talking on the street corner in Biysk
A side street in Biysk
Another street in Biysk
Apartments in Biysk
Trolley bus in Biysk
Lady selling fruit

The Russians are really friendly.  They kept flashing their lights at us and one vehicle kept stopping so we thought something must be wrong.  The driver jumped out and walked back to us.  He said he just wanted to say hello and wish us a good journey.  Other vehicles tried to make us stop but we knew we would never get to Mongolia if we stopped all the time, so we kept going and gave them a friendly wave. Some of them were quite frustrated.

Motorbike with a side car
Children selling bunches of sticks for brooms and bushes to use in the sauna

We were driving at about 90 kph on quite a smooth road when suddenly there was a great crash behind us.  We found that the instrument panel in the campervan section had fallen down.  It was only held in place using a simple locking mechanism, and the back of the die-cast lock had completely broken due to the incredible vibration and G-forces.

Outside Biisk, Dick heard a strange noise coming from the right hand rear of the vehicle.  He thought it may have been where the Earthroamer campervan is mounted onto the chassis with a large bolt.  We knew that we had to do something about it.

We drove into the town of Gorno-Altaisk, just at the start of the mountains.  We knew we would be climbing soon towards Mongolia.  We stopped at a typical Russian automotive repair place.  It was covered in grease and everything was dirty, but the people were wonderfully friendly.

The garage in Gorno-Altaisk

First of all we had to find out the location of the mounting bolts.  We pulled off the battery cover (which we could do easily) to see the left hand mounting bolt, but the noise we could hear was from the right.  We decided we would have to pull off the fibreglass cover for the water tank.  Unfortunately all four screws were completely rusted in and wouldn’t budge.  Actually, one screw did budge but it stripped the nut on the other side and just turned. 

In the end, the mechanic used a power grinder to grind off the heads of the screws.  That allowed us to drop the fibreglass cover down and we could then see the main right hand mounting bolt for the Earthroamer.  The rubber had moved about 30 degrees.

We undid the bolt, which was incredibly difficult to access – we even had to dismantle the seat inside campervan on the right hand side to get to the bolt head.  Fortunately the Russian mechanics had just about every tool you could imagine, including great big sockets which fitted the huge bolts that attached the Earthroamer campervan to the chassis.

Mechanics worked on tightening the bolts that hold the Earthroamer to the Ford chasis for us in Gorno-Altaisk. Our Earthroamer

After undoing the bolts we used our hydraulic jack to lift the Earthroamer fibreglass section and relocate the rubber mountings.  We then re-tightened the bolts using an incredibly powerful air operated power ratchet driver.

The mechanic used a hydraulic jack to support the Earthroamer

The next problem was working out how to put the cover back on, as everything was either rusted or stripped.  In the end we paid the mechanic extra money to stay back after hours.  We paid him US $100, which is not bad money for a Russian mechanic.

We pulled off the complete aluminium frame which held the water tank in place and drilled out all of the mounting bolts.  We then re-mounted new bolts in the opposite direction so they could easily be repaired at a later date.

Mechanic drilling out the mounting bolts

As well as fixing the tank, Dick managed to borrow a drill to drill three holes in the top of the instrument panel in the campervan, and put two great big self-tapping screws in place.  This should stop the panel from falling down again.

Dick securing the instrument panel back into place

After the repairs were finished we drove a very short distance into the town and found a hotel for Alexey.  It was AUD $80 Australian per night – pretty expensive!  We then wandered up through the town, found a restaurant/night club and had an excellent dinner.

A group of young boys climbed into the Earthroamer to say hello

It looks as if we have only used two litres of oil today, but we drove a shorter distance.  The total distance for the day was 385 km.

Today  385kms    24,448kms since Anchorage, Alaska 

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