The Final Stages

The mood in the garage the next day was a little gloomy. The engine itself seemed to be running fine, but I was pretty pissed off to still have quite a sizable oil leak. We decided, as much as we didn’t want to, that we'd pull the engine out again and change the rear crank seal. The one I had replaced it with was aftermarket and had also spent longer than it should have kicking around in the van than it really should have. It was possible that it had been slightly damaged. This time we knew that the oil was definitely coming from the engine, by its smell. We decided we’d change out the seal and if it still leaked after that there wasn’t much we could do and we’d just deal with it as it was. The amount it was leaking though, meant it was worth a go to change it.

We went out into San Felipe, hoping we might be able to get our hands on a new seal as the shop that we had bought the oil filter from said it sold Subaru parts. We tried him and the guy next door. Both directed us to a different shop on the other side of town. We had come on our bikes, expecting some of this toing and froing so it was at least a quick bike ride to cross the town and find the shop. It was a specific seal and bearing shop and we couldn’t quite believe our luck when he had the right seal. That was almost too easy and so it was an easier decision that we’d rip it out, swap it and have it back together that day. We’ve done that several times in the past and a whole day is more than enough for the job. It’s far less involved to swap the seal than to remove the entire engine.

Although we were ready for crank seal number two, we had other plans. Fellow travellers who also had a cat, were close by and despite knowing them from WhatsApp, we had never actually met. We decided to take a day out of the garage and head off for another night of camping. Despite the oil leak, Ruby was driving fine and a nice day by the river was not to be passed up.

We arrived back at the same spot where we had stayed before we left for Mario’s, nearly 6 weeks ago. An hour or so later, our friends joined us, straight from the border. We finally met Marcia and Killian, a couple from the Netherlands travelling with their recently adopted cat, Finley. They had found him in Argentina on the street, nearly blind in one eye and starving. Having tragically lost their previous cat to a surprise illness several months ago, it almost seemed like it was meant to be that they stumbled across poor little Finley. After surgery and a lot of love, we were happy to see his eye had healed and he was a mischievous little kitten like he should be. He was hell-bent on eating anything and everything he could get near.

We spent a lovely evening with these two and decided that we would head off the following day to crack on without an engine seal. We planned to meet up with them again and re-enter Argentina together. This way we hoped to avoid the need for the expensive border paperwork which had now expired. They were heading to Santiago for a week or so, meaning we had a bit of time to try and sort out the engine and be ready to leave. With this in mind, we enjoyed a few hours of sun the following morning, before deciding we should get going. Lexi, on the other hand, had different plans.

After a lot of searching, we found her in a tree. She seemed fine, but she did not want to come down. It was a tree that was too small to climb, but too big to bend over and grab her. And so we waited. We ate lunch with our friends. We got given an enormous bag of grapes by a friendly local and we packed the van ready. Still Lexi remained in the tree. It had now been the best part of 6 hours and we decided that we had little choice but to cut down the tree. We grabbed a ratchet strap and a saw.

Lee sawed a wedge through one side about halfway through and then we threw the ratchet strap over the highest branch we could. We then used this to pull down the tree, not wanting to fully cut it and have it fall and hurt Lexi. Our plan worked well, and the tree gently sank into a nearby bush, allowing us to reach in and grab her. It seemed that a dog had chased her and nipped at her tail as she was very angry about it being touched. We put her safely back in the van, apologised to the tree, said goodbye to our friends and headed back to the familiar workshop space.

We weren’t the only ones on the verge of leaving. We arrived back just in time to say goodbye to Bjorn and Alessandra. They had repaired their car a lot quicker than we had, and after sorting out a problem with the gas bottle adapter, were also ready to go. We wished each other luck on our respective journeys and watched a little enviously as they drove away. Soon it would be our turn.

The next morning, we were ready to go. As it’s not necessary to totally remove the engine, but simply move it forward, there is little to disconnect. In a short time, I pulled off the clutch and got another look at the leaking seal. It was easy enough to remove and while not visibly damaged we hoped a fresh one might still be the answer. I also removed and resealed the oil plate here too, just in case. Lee passed me the new seal we had bought yesterday. My slight misgivings at the time about the quality of the part had been overruled by how happy we’d been to find it so easily. However, when I went to fit it I wasn’t happy anymore. The seal was almost loose. It pushed back too far into the crankcase far too easily. I decided that this would leak even worse than the one we’d just removed and that there was nothing for it except to go to Santiago and buy a genuine part. It was a pain, but we weren’t in a great rush. Unfortunately it meant we’d spend Lee’s birthday here.

When Mario popped by the garage that day we told him what was going on. It turned out that he was planning to head to Santiago the following day and so we’d be able to get a lift in one way and save the bus fare. It was the 13th of April and the day before Lee’s birthday. We decided that I’d stay in the workshop and work on refitting the new door cards, while Lee went to the city. We wanted to try and get everything done in time so that we could once again meet up with Marcia and Killian and cross the border together the following week.

Unbeknownst to Lee, I spent the day not only fitting door cards but hurrying around town buying birthday presents and making a cake. We had said at the start of the year that this year, we’d celebrate our birthdays. Despite the fact that it was going to be in a workshop, there was no reason we couldn’t have champagne and presents, I reasoned. By the time he arrived back that evening I’d nearly got it all done. The door cards were on, but somehow something had gone wrong and now the door handles didn’t work. Clearly some adjustment was needed. A carrot cake was hidden inside a spare wheel on the other side of the garage, ready to be iced the next day, while a bag of presents was tucked under a board in the corner. Lee came in late, but victorious with a genuine Subaru crank seal.

The next day we sat in the workshop, drinking our morning coffee while Lee opened his presents. Mario had invited us around to his house later that evening and so that gave us the afternoon to get the engine back in. It was a little more work getting out the current crank seal, as it had pushed back into the block far further than it should have done. I went for the old trick of drilling a hole in the seal, putting a self-tapping screw in it and then using this to pull it out. This saved any potential damage to the block but took a while as with the engine still hanging there and the gearbox in place, there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre. The genuine seal was a much better fit and I was much happier knowing we had the right part. At least if it leaked now, we could say we had done everything we could. We now reassembled the clutch, slid the engine back into place and spent the traditional hour beating the engine mount in line. With only an hour or so to spare, we had a shower and got ready for Mario to pick us up.

It was an odd experience being driven in a modern car, it’s so rare that we get in one. His Subaru was much quieter than ours, that’s for sure. I'm always surprised by the dashboard, it always feels so close to me, but the windscreen so far away. After driving only a car with absolutely no front end for so long, the amount of space needed to accommodate an engine in front is somehow a surprise. As was the heating. The weather had quickly started to cool over the last few days and today it was raining. The arrival of rain here had triggered the closure of the mountain border. They expected the first snowfall of the year and had therefore shut the border until Tuesday morning. Even if we had been ready, we couldn’t have left.

Mario’s house was over the other side of town and we were ushered inside. We sat with his wife and daughter in their living room, chatting and eating some nibbles. A little while later, we went through to the kitchen where they had brought Lee a cake. It had candles and everything! That was a lot of cake to get through, considering that I had made one too but we cracked open a bottle of wine and tucked in. It was nice to have a few hours away from Ruby in a proper house with some company and we were grateful to Mario for inviting us over and also kindly driving us back at the end of the evening.

Now with the engine back and the door cards adjusted so that the doors actually opened, we were really nearly ready to leave. We had planned to join up with Marcia and Killian back at the river spot where we first met them, but inevitably packing up everything took longer than we thought and we ended up postponing it to the next day and agreeing to meet them up nearer the border.

We spoke to Mario about how much we could realistically pay him and he repeated what he had first told us. That there was no charge, but whatever we could donate would go to his mum and making this place available to other travellers. We knew that Bjorn and Alessandra had been pretty generous with their donation and it was hard to gauge how much to give after spending exactly 6 weeks there. While we debated the costs, Mario hunted for his phone. He had been trying to get a friend to sell us their petrol cooker, but his friend wasn’t the quickest at replying. Now he couldn’t find his phone either, which certainly wasn’t helping matters. We helped him look for a while, before thinking that he must have left it in the new Beetle this morning, which he had just sold to another person.

We slowly kept on packing and cleaning. Mario disappeared to look for his phone. It was several hours before he returned, he had found it and it had fallen down the seat of the car he had just sold. Fortunately he now had it back, but he had already cancelled all of his bank cards, just in case.

It was a late night packing in the workshop, but when we fell into bed in the early hours of the morning, everything was ready to go. We had arranged to meet our friends at about 9, around an hour from the border. Then we would head off from there at about 10, after giving Ruby a chance to cool after the mountain road that had been such a challenge for her before. We’d be at the border for 12, timing permitting, in Mendoza that afternoon.

We were indeed ready to leave. Shortly after 8, Matthias came to say goodbye as well. Lee headed off to the cash point to get out some money for Mario, this was our mistake really because the bank didn’t open till 9. I guess we’d be a bit late, but still, as long as Ruby wasn’t overheating we could be on our way on time. Mario then decided he’d come to the bank too and reactivate all his cards, leaving Matthias and me hanging around for quite some time. In the end, it was more like 9.45am before we actually said our goodbyes. We handed Mario some cash, hugged a crying Irma goodbye and once and for all pulled out of the gates.

After grabbing some fuel, as while the engine was fine the fuel gauge had suddenly stopped working, we headed for the mountains. We seemed to be running a little hotter than we should be, considering the lower temperatures, but Ruby carried on. We passed many of the previous spots we had stopped at before to let her cool down and we wound onwards, and upwards. We arrived at the spot where they had told us they were, but there was no one here. Then I realised I’d taken us to a spot slightly further up, with an identical name. While we waited for them to drive up and meet us, I had a check in the back to see why we were running hot. It appeared we were only running off one fan. A check of the rear fuse board showed another melted fuse, but still functioning fuse. Killian and Marcia pulled up beside us, ready to drive in convoy. We told them it was better to go on ahead, they didn’t need to pull over for us constantly as we tried to climb the mountains on one fan.

Initially, we tried to drive on with just the high-temperature fan. This meant that the engine hit 100 degrees before it even started to cool. After a little while, it was apparent that this was going to be a bit slow and so we stopped and I decided to try and do a bodge. As I wiggled the wiring underneath, it suddenly turned on. Clearly a loose connection but for now we decided to just drive as far as we could, we didn’t have too much to go.

The border was definitely going better than last time, while we pulled over a couple of times, it was not nearly as bad as last time. The roadworks that had been here previously were still here. This was actually useful to us though as the times that we sat and waited meant the engine was cool as we hit each new section. We passed the caracoles, this crazy windy road, in one go and kept going up to the ski resort. Due to the roadworks, our friends weren’t much ahead of us. We met up at the top just before the last two tunnels and drove the last section into Argentina itself, together.