The Garage Begins

It probably wasn’t the ideal timing to roll into the garage on a Friday afternoon, but we had postponed for so long that we went with it anyway. We parked up outside on the main road as there wasn’t space to actually get inside. The place was packed. We wondered if this was a good idea after all, they were so busy we weren’t sure we’d get inside. We had messaged to say we were arriving, but nevertheless…

It took a while to even speak to the owner Mauricio, as he dealt with his staff, clients and the appearance of the garage dogs in-between. We had arrived at the end of the afternoon anyway, and as it started to get dark, they began to rearrange some of the cars to get us into the workshop. At least it was a safe spot for the night, if very loud, just a few metres from the dual carriageway that was the Pan-American Highway. We knew that there was some kind of bed inside but it wasn’t mentioned that night, Mauricio stopped to say goodbye, give us the wifi password and tell us they’d be back at 8am. Once everyone had left, we wandered around and checked out our new surroundings. As free as we were to wander, Aimee was kept in. The dogs and the traffic were not something we wanted to contend with. 

The inside had a room stacked floor to ceiling with car parts, a small kitchen and two other rooms as well as a bathroom. One room did indeed have a bed, buried beneath another sea of parts. We contemplated our options. We could stay here, it wasn’t very clean, it was full of bits of car and it was very damp. Or we could get an Airbnb. There was a cheap one nearby, only $15 a night but that still was going to add up fast. We decided that with some tidying, we’d stay in the apartment on site. It was good enough for us, free and very convenient. Aimee would be safe too. We decided that if it was offered, we’d go for it. That night however, we had a sleepless night in Ruby. Trucks roared past us throughout the night, but at least none of them nearly crashed into us, like the last time we’d had to sleep on the side of this road. We now started to wonder if it may be best to book a room somewhere else.

In the morning, Mauricio did indeed offer us the room. He told us we could use the fridge and cooker, and showed us the hot shower. Then he got some of his staff to begin clearing the room for us. In turn, we started to clear out the van. As the rust repairs would need us to remove the kitchen, and the gearbox repairs meant we would need to remove that too, this basically meant moving everything out. For the first time since we had built it, the interior would be coming out. I was actually quite excited to start. Once and for all, this would be the end of the cockroaches. Not only that, but we could finally replace our butchered floor from our first garage visit in Colombia. Ruby would be a new van by the end of this. In the midst of the unpacking frenzy, we stopped for a quick crisp sandwich, before continuing emptying the contents of our rock and roll bed. 

I began to pack up our things into labelled bags and pile them in the doorway, while Lee took them and stacked them in the room. It’s amazing what you can fit in a small van, we had quite a sizable pile by the end of it. After nearly a day of unpacking, Ruby was completely empty. 

The next step would be to remove the furniture.

The weekend passed by, with us having Sunday to ourselves, before everyone was back for Monday. We had been sleeping much better in the room; despite being only single glazed and a little bit further from the road, it made an enormous difference. The traffic was audible, but more background noise. Aimee was a bit on the crazy side, bored and stuck in the room by herself, but at least she was safe here. At night we gave her the full run of the apartment, where she tore up and down the corridor before burying herself in the nearest empty box and systematically shredding it. 

Mauricio now gave us a key so that we could come and go as we pleased if the gates were locked. This wasn’t often though. People arrived for work at 8am and left around 7pm. Most of whatever we needed to do was easy to fit in those hours. We jiggled around in the garage for the next few days as we set about removing the furniture. 

To start off it was easy, the fridge, the toilet, the rock and roll. These items came out with no problems, revealing out utterly disgusting and butchered floor.

Then, it became a difficult task as I had feared it would.  Despite the fact that we had built our kitchen unit as a whole piece, meaning that it would come out as one unit and was held down by less than ten screws, those screws had since long rusted into nothing. It was impossible to remove them as the heads stripped as soon as you tried. This meant we had to resort to removing the flooring first, in the hope of pulling out the units with the few floorboards they were screwed into, still attached. As the flooring is tongue and groove, this too was a bit of a battle. Our kitchen is built to fit the camper, and it does it so very precisely. There is not much in the way of wiggle room here and consequently, it took us nearly a whole day to get out the kitchen. As always… a quick job took way longer than it needed to, just because of some rusted metal

Finally, we removed the remnants of our rotten floor along with some of the offending cockroaches, and dragged the unit outside. Now it was over the garage to get the van into the space properly, so we could start work. 

I had told Mauricio that the first thing we wanted to do was remove the gearbox. I told him that I believed the bearings had failed. He wasn’t so sure, thinking perhaps it was the oil. One of the other guys told me it was the release bearing and not the box. I was pretty sure I was right, as much as now would have been a good time to be wrong. A release bearing is far cheaper than a gearbox rebuild. I said that this was the first thing I wanted to do, because if the box needed parts ordered in, it would be a long wait. The were a little dubious about the need to do this first, but I was adamant. Better to get it off to the rebuild shop as soon as possible. Knowing our luck, we’d be importing bits from somewhere. 

After being in the garage three days, we were moved onto the ramp. This is probably the first time in Latin America that Ruby has ever been on a ramp, and it was pretty exciting to have such easy access as supposed to rolling around in the dust on a cardboard box.

After listening to the box a bit more, we were now agreed, the bearings had gone. And so, nearly a year to the day that we did this job in Panama, we set about taking out the engine and box. It wasn’t strictly necessary to remove the engine, but I hoped they would have better access to the welding if we did and that they would also be able to treat rust under the van better. All in all, it isn’t that much more work to drop the whole system and before the end of the day, we had it all out on the floor. It was a luxury to work in a garage that had all the correct equipment; ramps, cranes and air tools as well as several pairs of hands to help if needed. 

With the engine and gearbox out, we made arrangements to get it to the workshop in Quito who would be repairing it. This was a few hours away and we ended up paying $50 for a taxi to take us and the box to the other side of the city. While this was rather expensive, it also meant that we could collect the new front panel on the way back, another bulky item. 

While we spent the day getting to the capital and back, the body work guys started chopping bits out of Ruby. Starting with our disaster of a side panel, finally things felt like they were underway.