Position: 11-09-25 14:48:55 +1000 +0000
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So it’s been a while since I’ve written a post, put simply because all I’ve been doing is gradual boring stuff. Nothing of merit to report. It’s so boring writing and reading about work on the car so I’m trying to avoid it.
Today I actually did a heap of stuff which was surprising. I mounted the door to the kitchen unit. Not a hopelessly difficult job, but taxing. The templates and positioning is hard enough, but drilling a 26mm wide hole with nothing but a 10mm drill bit and a chisel was a challenge. Some people might suggest using one of those blade bits, but they would drill a hole through the door face, so I’m not sure how it’s done.
Rather than bore you with a story, at the bottom of the post there is a quick video and some pictures of the progress.
I’ve ordered the ‘Letter of Invitation’ which is required for the type of Russian visa we are sourcing. It’s going to cost $275 each for this letter and looks something like this:
You can see in red the English translations, but the document is most certainly in Russian! Russian visa’s are seriously restrictive – you need to register at each hotel you stay on your itinerary every night. According to all reports every Hotelier’s resents doing this registration and they are never polite or accommodating towards abroad tourists for this reason.
To jump back to the itinerary point, with most Russian Visa’s, you need to give them a day by day itinerary of your trip, prior to the visa been granted. Yes, that is hopeless.
To continue on how restrictive these visa’s are, a ‘tourist’ visa is valid for up to 30 days and are valid for a single entry/exit. We need like 60-90 days.
Private visa’s are for foreigners who have friends or relatives in Russia, is valid for up to three months, but is valid for a single entry/exit.
Consider that we need three entries:
1) Vladivostok
2) Altay region (coming back in from Mongolia)
3) Between Kazakhstan and Ukraine
We would need to apply each time, whilst on the move – a difficult feat indeed.
We however have one ace up our sleave – We’re registering for a Russian Business visa. We are entering as business people which entitles us to 12 months of travel, with unlimited entries with NO need to provide itinerary or do the lame registration each day. It also means we won’t get ripped for $100/Day for hotels.
Apparently as we have not had a Russian visa before, we are not entitled to the multi-entry. This will result in one of three outcomes:
1) They may issue it anyway because we are nice people ;-)
2) We may only be issued a double entry (which means we miss out on Kazakhstan)
3) We may have to be issued with a single entry visa, only to not use it, which would then entitle us for the multi-entry.
One other epic bugbear is that visas can only be applied for 45 days prior to arrival date. Crazy I know. For this reason, we have specified that our ‘arrival date’ is 1/1/2012 which at a minimum will enable us to not book flights or ship the car without having secured the visa. If we did this any other way, the car would already be en route to Russia with no certainty that we could meet it!
| Country | Visa Status | Rough % Complete | Cost $AUD EACH |
| Russia | One Letter Of Invitation Sent | 10% | $476 |
| Mongolia | Visa Application Completed | 50% | $100 |
| Kazakhstan | Have not lifted a finger | 0% | $109 |
| Ukraine | Have not lifted a finger | 0% | $110 |
| EU | Not Required | 100% | $0 |
| UK | Not Required | 100% | $0 |
The Mongolian visa was beautifully simple. A single page, who are you, when you coming, are you bringing children… no worries, $100 please. THATS IT.
Ukraine seem to require a ‘valid and prepaid hotel reservation’ to allow processing of the Visa – no biggie, but weird as we will need to provide a date which will be like hitting a target from a million miles away.
I must say, it’s been fantastic to get the ball rolling on some paperwork. As each item gets ticked off, the stress drops substantially.
Cut out made with chisel
Repaired bumperett. It’s not perfect, but it is mostly unnoticeable.
Today I adjusted the handbrake on the camper. It’s not that it’s a difficult job, it’s just time consuming when you have to do it twice. I adjusted each side, but forgot to release the slack in the cable first. I also installed the third roof rack and mounted the hi-lift jack. You can see it all in the video below. I may end up moving the first rail forward a bit, but it will depend on the position of the spare wheel. Because today was the first time I’ve had the wheels off the car, it’s dawned on me quite how heavy they are. Getting one onto, or off the roof rack is going to be an epic feat. I’m not sure if a thinner ‘Telecom tyre’ on a split rim will weigh less than the 275 sunraiser. Driving with the roof rack and hi-lift today was a new experience. I’m not sure if it was just really windy today, but I seemed to be buffeted more than usual. This will probably be much worse with the addition of one of these weatherproof boxes for all the tools, spares, oils and recovery gear on the roof. But the way I see it, our dry and clean internal space is too precious to fill it with this gear, it just means we need to be careful with cornering and side slopes. I plan on buying a case that is narrow enough to fit on the floor of the car for shipping. I think grey will be the colour choice, with the orange maxtrax, I don’t want to look like a lego car.
This video was made after adjusting the handbrake – thank goodness I did. The panel seems to have unclipped. I just need to unbolt the back, and slide it forward into the clip – no harm done.
So you can see from the photos above that the rack is installed. It’s starting to look like it’s setup for the trip. It was certainly a one person job which gives me great confidence in us installing it dock side one day. To keen observers you will notice it is missing one roof bar. It would probably be fine without it strength wise, but to mount the high-lift jack on the side, I’ll need another one because the jack is too short to span the gap between the bars.
So, the little isolator is buggered… helped in small part by the delicate repair attempt of smashing it on the concrete. Oh well, a new one is en route now. I’ve hooked both the batteries together so that the auxiliary battery returns to charge (it was at 50% after the weekend running the fridge)
Spent the morning in my workshop (the cul-de-sac off Lorn road) changing transfer and gearbox oil. The transfer case oil was putrid but gearbox and front diff were brand new. I chose this location as it’s level, smooth and clean but with gutters so I can park it up against them to act as wheel chocks. It’s also conveniently opposite the oil recycling centre, so if my drain pan ran out of capacity, I could empty it without moving the car. It was a staggeringly filthy job, pumping 5-6 litres of oil above your head. Everything is staggeringly slippery. Three gloves and two rags was nowhere near enough. I do like practicing working in the middle of no-where. I reckon it reduces the anxiety that you could feel when something needs fixing in the bush. I guess it was like changing the wheel bearing on the last trip, I had done it before down the road from home previously. More updates soon.
So last night when picking up the roof bars, we discovered the auxiliary battery wasn’t charging. But thinking about it, throughout the weekend I don’t actually recall it charging. I just figured the reading was skewed because I had a load on it at the time.
At some stage since owning it, I did notice that once the isolator didn’t switch over. When I turned the ignition off, then back on, I got the reassuring thud sound and it was connected.
Here it is – so, last night I gave it a few good thumps thinking it might be jammed but it didn’t seem to make any improvement. The cheap and lazy part of me doesn’t want to have to replace something that is sealed and should work fine. I actually had one of these from my last car, but I stupidly took it apart to see how it worked, then threw it out. I think on the weekend, I’ll disconnect it, give it a good few ‘taps’ on the gutter from every which direction and hope it fixes it. Worst case, I’ll buy a new one.
There is one upside to this failure… it meant the fridge ran for two days, the air compressor for ten minutes, the light for an hour and the water pump for a minute or two, and even now it’s still above 50% charge.
It sounds like I’m having a bad run with the car, but for some sick reason, I am enjoying finding these little naggy things now, as they are opportunities to learn, and also fixing them here is easier!
I had previously expressed that I would have preferred to take something potentially more unreliable, but something I knew like the back of my hand. Kind of like ‘the devil you know’ rather than something perfect I don’t yet understand.
I had noticed over the last few weeks, the handbrake light would occasionally flicker on and off as you pulled on, or when releasing the hand brake. Bit weird, but didn’t consider it any further. It wasn’t until the other night that it came on while driving. The dialogue in my head was something like this “ok, panic stations… we’ve lost all hydraulic fluid… gear down, gear down”. It was in fact, the handbrake switch was causing this false alarm. Turns out there is a screw that holds the switch in place along side the handbrake, well it was loose and the switch was flapping around – giving the false reading.
So my weekend list is getting longer and longer, but hey, what are weekends for.
