Vehicle - Initial Condition

We arrived in Cape Town on June 3, 2005. The vehicle was not found in the condition that we had been told. It had been sitting for quite some time and thus had accumulated some rust and mold, really the least of our worries though. Contrary to what we had been told, the vehicle will need a fair amount of work to even get it road worthy, let alone fit for a trip across Africa. Our "friend" had indicated to us that the vehicle will be stored in a safe place and we even paid him for storage insurance. We found the vehicle sitting outside on the street without insurance.

We had been told that engine, gearbox, brakes, tires, shocks etc were all in good condition. Everything works, we were told. Well, the engine seemed to run, but that is about all.

Even to my untrained eye, I quickly realized that this vehicle had some problems. However, I did not realize at the time the extent of the problems and the extensive repairs it would eventually need. I therefore solicited the expertise of various mechanics in Cape Town to try an ascertain whether this vehicle was suitable for a drive through Africa and to get professional opinions on what repairs needed to be done. It turned out that nobody gave me the big picture but rather continued to fix one thing after another. There seemed to be no end.

On our initial drive I thought the front end was going to wobble off. The front U-bolts were so lose, the axle was dancing around like French Cancan girls. Only the front left brake seemed to work which was quite unpleasant as I had to brake hard while coming down a steep hill and was almost pulled off into a deep ravine. Even over the leaking exhaust noise, which made the truck sound like a tractor, the road noise of the badly worn tires was substantial.

Just to get the vehicle road worthy, which would allow us to transfer ownership, license and register the vehicle, we had to repair a list of items. The brakes needed to be repaired, the broken left engine mount needed to be replaced, U-bolts tightened, repair non-functioning high beams and the illegal license plates needed to be replaced with SABS approved plates.

We had several people attempt to repair the brakes with varying rates of success. I was finally able to "pass" the road worthy test only because the tester felt bad for our continued brake troubles.

Over the course of six weeks in Cape Town we discovered all of the following, most of which we attempted to repair ourselves or had repaired:

• Broken left engine mount
• Leaking hub seals
• Inoperative brakes - oil soaked pads because of leaking hubs and seized brake adjusters
• Worn clutch - completely worn clutch plate, leaking master and slave cylinders
• Leaking exhaust manifold gasket and holes in remainder of exhaust system
• Badly and unevenly worn tires front and rear
• Damaged shocks front and rear
• Completely worn and sagging rear leaf springs and worn bushes in all leaf springs
• Leaking carburetor
• Damaged distributor cap and plug wires
• Cracked rad hoses
• Cracked thermostat housing
• Broken temperature gauge
• Broken high beam switch
• Leaking gasket on transfer case
• Leaking seal on output of prop shaft
• Leaking main rear bearing oil seal
• Leaking rocker gasket
• Rusted floor boards
• Rusted and broken door frames
• Cracked right side window
• Damaged front left fender
• Heavily worn and damaged upholstery
• Broken door locks
• Bent rear door
• Broken roof top access latch