The Beast moves….

Woooooooooooo Hoooooooooo!!!!!!!!  We have a stiff but functional clutch. Ossito’s wheels are in motion less than 2 kms up the Finca road, got to iron out this gear changing! Back at the bus depot it’s  brake revisal time . Surrounded by 5 curious mechanics, rear wheels in the air, with much pounding and prying, the brake drum squeaks off.  The shoes are good, time for rubber seal department…Ahhh, horrible horrible!!  Not what you want to see!

There is clay/mud like, rusty, brown slimy brake fluid oozing out of the seals.  The result of 7 years without motion??  Shaking their heads the mechanics remove the parts, Bartolo calls Xela with the seal sizes and they actually have them or so they say.  Having been through this before I won’t hold my breath until tomorrow! The mechanics are about to call it a day – “no parts till the bus gets back manyana” is their dismissive response to which I plaintively reply -“dont yopu think we had better check the front?  The seals may be a different size!!!??”

Reluctantly,  Oso’s front end is levered up, the rear now resting precariously on a tree stump.  It’s a bit more work to get these drums off and again good shoes but no surprises in the seal department.  These are  only slightly larger with the same brake fluid – sludgy, brown and ganky. Sooo, we have 8 replacement seals headed our way tomorrow, brake lines to clean (I’m going to blow them out with air), piston housing  to polish with 600 grit sandpaper and we’re another step closer to Peten.

Meanwhile the list of things to be done before departure is ever increasing…For a start the wipers and electric the nightmare being that the only person who knows his way around them is the fellow who installed them and he’s thousands of miles away in Oz!!  They are a mix of 12 volt solar and 24 volt!! Top of the list of purchases then is an electric meter!!! There are also at least 3 electric water pumps and an odd looking cut off switch –  I shall go into these another time.  For now the quest for mobility continues.