Testing, Testing

As happy as I was that the engine was running, we weren’t in the clear yet. In fact, this rather epic moment also announced the arrival of fellow travellers, The Hourless Life. As is often the way in travelling forums, we know of people long before actually meeting them. For the first time, our paths actually crossed with this American couple and they had decided to pop in and give us a visit. Any testing on the engine was cut short as we sat and made the acquaintance of Brittany, Eric and Caspian in person. They spent an hour or so with us while their truck was at the car wash before heading towards the border we would soon be crossing ourselves. It was a brief visit, but likely we would see them again in Argentina. Before that though, we needed a proper road test.

Although we hadn’t been ready to join Mario on his last campout, we intended to be ready for the next. We had a few days to go before the weekend was upon us again, at which point we planned to drive around 40km to a camping weekend which Mario had invited us to. While we went about getting the engine up to temperature, another set of travellers arrived. Now the workshop was home to yet another T3 and the German/Italian couple, Bjorn and Alessandra. They had a few minor jobs to complete on their car and they hoped to join us too for the weekend.

We had now run Ruby to temperature a few times and everything seemed to be working well. We still had an air lock in the system which was no surprise and so we spent some time running the engine, trying to bleed it from the radiator and topping up the coolant. I sat in our chair absent-mindedly watching Lexi under the car. She bent down and licked something off the floor. It took a second for me to realise that this was antifreeze before I leapt across the workshop and scooped her away from the puddle she was drinking. It was only a very small amount, but after checking just how much is needed to kill a cat, we decided to go straight to the vet.

We already knew where the closest one was, having taken her there only a few weeks ago for a booster. We bundled her into the bag and within half an hour of the incident were being seen by the vet. The first thing they did was shove a spoon of salt down her to make her sick. When this didn’t work, they gave her an injection to do the same thing. I wished they had just done that in the first place as she was now pretty upset. She threw up her breakfast and was then given another shot to protect her kidneys. We were then given a very strict feeding schedule and several other medications to give her before we returned back to the workshop.

According to the list we had, she was to be fed a teaspoon of food every 4 hours for two days. She was also to be given a liquid multivitamin every 12 hours and another medication every 8. So I was up at 4am, feeding the stupid cat a teaspoon of food. The next day, we tried the medications. To say it was unsuccessful was an understatement. She was obviously not big on us shoving anything in her mouth after the salt incident from yesterday. Clearly she hated the taste of both medications and so she howled and squirmed and spat them out. As they were both liquids, it wasn’t a case of them being much much harder to get down her. I wished there had been a pill alternative. After managing two doses that day, we gave up. She wouldn’t come near us anymore anyway. After speaking to another vet, we concluded she probably hadn’t drunk enough to be much at risk anyway. She seemed totally fine. We decided to forget the medications and just keep a close eye on her.

Amongst this fun, we successfully got rid of Ruby’s air lock, checked the oil levels and got ready to make our first drive. As we still had a couple of days left, we decided that we would try and make ourselves new door cards. We had now been driving for over a year without any which was a bit on the soggy side when it rained and also made the camper look somewhat unfinished. Mario had a jigsaw here which meant we could easily cut out some new ones and so we tentatively headed off to Sodimac to pick up some board.

Our first test drive was successful, and we saw no oil leaks. A pesky coolant pipe kept dripping at the front, but this should be an easy repair. We would test drive her again properly that weekend. In the meantime, we made a start on our new door cards. We had kept one old one strapped to the roof rack for months, with the hope of using it as a template to make new ones. The front panels have lots of small cut-outs for the window winders, handles and so on. We had managed to keep hold of it until fairly recently when it had apparently fallen off the roof. Now we needed to try and make a template and do everything from scratch. It took us quite a long time to get a good cardboard design made up, trying to get everything in line and by the end of two days we had only just about finished one. The weekend was now upon us though and so we left the door card project and got ready to go out camping.

It had been a long time since we had camped anywhere other than the garage and so it took us a while to pack. We retrieved Aimee from the garden next door with the help of Irma and the garden hose, and then we set off in convoy for the small village of Catemu. On the whole, Ruby ran well. We cruised along, with the only incident being the engine cutting out at the toll. This seemed to be more driver error though and the only things that we could say needed attention were the oil level and possibly the fans. The engine was running a tad on the hot side, but still going smoothly as we waited outside the campsite. Mario negotiated with the owners who wanted to charge us a ridiculous amount of money to enter and finally we got in for the discounted price. It was still expensive at about £10, but we were happy to pay for a nice day out with friends. We parked up along the rather picturesque shore of the Río Aconcagua and spent a relaxing afternoon in the sun.

We shared some food, some stories and some drinks. It was a lovely break from the workshop and a reminder that soon, we would be back out in the wild again, camping on rivers and enjoying the peace and quiet. We made some food using a petrol stove we had borrowed from Mario. Once again, our Wallas had developed some kind of fault that had ended in the whole van being enveloped in a cloud of smelly diesel smoke that threatened to poison us as we made dinner one night. Since then, we had been using Mario’s cooker. An old-school, two-burner Coleman cooker from the 80s. I liked how little there was to go wrong here and despite making the pans a bit dirty, it was nice to be able to cook easily off petrol. No more expensive butane cans. I rather hoped he would sell it to me, as he told me he never used it.

We spent a cooler night out here by the river. Without the heat of the town and the concrete walls surrounding us, it was a reminder that summer here was ending. The night-time temperatures dropped faster and the daytime temperatures were slowly dropping. We spent nearly the whole of the next day by the river too, leaving only once the sun had dropped in the evening. By the time we got back I was convinced that something wasn’t quite right with the fans or radiator and that we definitely needed another litre of oil in the engine. This wouldn’t have been so bad, what really upset me happened once we were back in our spot in the workshop.

We had only just parked up when I saw the oil dripping from underneath. A quick check revealed it was from the clutch cover still. All of that work, all of that money and still, we had this leak.