I had an update text from Hayden yesterday.

“Bombing through Russia this afternoon. Long, long delays at both Mongolian exit and Russian entry means we will be lucky to make the hotel until after 11pm. Day 12 was OK but very rough. High too: up to 2,600 metres and freezing cold in the camp. We camped at 2,200 metres and it was minus 12 (Celsius) in the early hours.

The damage suffered on the way to Ulliasti was crudely repaired. The left trailing arm broke 160 kilometres into day 9. We limped in with a modest penalty, then tackled the next day with a clear strategy to get through the day, make all the target times, then use the rest day at Khovd to make further repairs and reinforcements. The fixes aren’t pretty, but we succeeded in doing that.

The repair stood up to the day 12 loads. Now we are back on Tarmac, I hope we are safe until Almaty and our spares arrive.”

Would have been nice, but it was not to be. Later that day I had a call from Hayden to say that Lola had stopped charging her battery; seems the fine desert dust had not been escaping the armature fast enough and was wearing the brushes down. Could I locate some brushes for the dynamo/generator and find a way to get them out there? Of course.

I got online and found the parts. Rang Alan at The Stables in San Francisco just to check we were looking at the right size (answer: yes) and then set about planning how to get them to Kazakhstan.

H was in tune, and had found an Aston driver who was flying wife plus shock absorbers out to Kazakhstan this weekend: job done. I had the parts biked to North London and have now got my fingers crossed. I’m thinking our guys might use a Schwimmwagen next time:

The current plan is to locate another 912 dynamo, have it reconditioned here and ship it to Istanbul, where we already have some spare tyres waiting. I’ve been over to talk to Francis Tuthill, the UK 356 and VW Beetle aficionado who says they are unobtanium used for rebuild. I then spoke to Roger Bray who has recon units in stock at £400 inc the core charge or I can just try my luck. I’m trying it at the minute…

For tonight, the guys are safe in Semey, a decent-sized industrial city just inside the Kazakhstan border. I’m optimistic that a garage can be found to handle the current dilemma, as the parts we need are common across lots of trucks and older cars, plus we have the power of the Internet helping us. Stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Blogjack, Events, Rallying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.