Bye bye Charlie Camel

Today we loaded Charlie Camel into the container at Felixstowe!

After spending an age cleaning and polishing the car before being shipped, it chucked it down with rain on the way to Felixstowe, so we thought we'd better get him washed again, just to be on the safe side. Then we pulled into the container yard to find that it was covered in muddy puddles!

Our container was delivered by the coolest fork-lift truck type thing that could lift and manouver the containers around with such ease. It was positioned in the yard and I drove Charlie camel into the container. Then we watched as Martin, Kingstowns main man for loading cars, secured Charlie using chocks, rope and some metal poles! Apparently he hasn't lost a car in 40 years of loading then into containers... thats a pretty impressive record I think :-)

We were advised that the container would be delivered to the quayside later today and loading of the ship would start on Thursday ready for the sailing on Sunday. Then if all goes according to plan with Dartrans in Baltimore, we should meet up with Charlie Camel again around about July 24th.... Can't wait!

Thats it, we're outta time!

After a few last minute panics with the new gearbox, and having to change it again last week the tension and stress levels were astronomical. But both Brooklyn 4x4 and Ashcrofts came through and sorted the problems out in plenty of time for the weekend.
Friday night the weather was fair enough and we were able to get out and give Charlie a good wash and polish, both inside and out. Even with all the dents he turns out quite well!
I spent Saturday morning doing a full service of the Landy while Jen sat in the living room sorting out paperwork. I had to let it over to Brookies to get the last few spares that I forgot to get during the week. So by the time I got home the oil was nice and warm and ready to drain. But the weather wasn't so nice over the weekend, and doing the service lying on the ground in the rain ain't much fun... I got a really wet bum! But never fear, a couple of hours later and looking like a drowned rat, Charlie had an oil and filter change, fuel filter and air filter change, and a newly sealed transfer box sump (which keeps leaking for some reason).

Sunday we hoped to put as many miles on the new gearbox as possible to make sure it's ok... we managed about 150... a very poor effort! In the morning we loaded eveything into the car. Then we headede out into the New Forest. Before we knew it, lunchtime had arrived and we were both starving, so a pub lunch later and it was time to head off to see a few people. We took the most indirect routes possible wherever we went.

Then we noticed that we had a slow puncture in one of the rear tyres! So off to Richards house with a bottle of wine to bribe him with (he has a tyre changing machine... it beats tyre leavers any day of the week!).

Some last minute panics this morning as we realised we hadn't packed a load of stuff into the vehicle made me a bit late for work (sorry boss!!). I also noticed that our newly repaired tyre is going flat again!!! ARRGGGHHHHHH!!! Oh well, we can't do anything about it now as we need to be in Colchester tonight to stay the night with my Dad, then up bright and breezy in the morning to get Charlie in his container at Felixstowe. So I'll be putting one of the spares on after work tonight.

American car insurance

... is far more complicated than UK car insurance!
Actually, thats probably not true, but it certainly feels that way.
Anyway, I have just settled the bill for 5 months US insurance that gives us maximum protection for the duration of our trip... all for the luvely chubbly sum of $809 (at todays rates, thats about £400) which I don't think is bad for a foreign vehicle with foreign drivers, a fully loaded policy to cover a fully loaded vehicle for 5 months.
Tina Jenkins at Sunrise insurance in Florida provided the insurance through their foreign insurance program. She has been incredibly helpful throughout my insurance investigations and from the outset provided all the information we needed. There aren't many companies in the USA that deal with this sort of policy... I found 3 in total. There may be more but they aren't well advertised. I contacted one other company who had exactly the same forms to fill out as Sunrise, but wanted far too much info out of me at the beginning when all I wanted was a quote. It turns out that the policy would have been underwritten by the same company as used by Sunrise, but the quotation process was just too long winded for my liking. So Sunrise got my credit card number ;-)

Power to the Landy... Part 2 :-)

After faffing about with oily bits, I thought it would be a good idea to sort out the battery situation. Up until the weekend just gone, Charlie had one big battery powering everything. As I previously mentioned, this battery has been discharged a few times now, something that lead acid batteries don't like. The more times you discharge a lead acid battery, the less capacity it will have.

So after loads of questions to a couple of seasoned battery experts, I decided to go for a couple of Deka Intimidators from Brooklyn4x4. One big puppy for starting and winching, and one normal sized battery to run things like the the fridge, heated seats (!!??!), and any other plug in-able accessories.
Most people would have rewired the winch to run from the accessories battery, but that would involve messing with some more wires and that ain't my strong point... So I left it as before and basically added a second battery to power the fag lighter sockets. Add to this a Voltage Sensitive Relay and in theory we should get both batteries charged when the engine is running.

Good Vibrations!.. and some other stuff

Anybody who knows their Landy's will recognise that vibration that comes from a propshaft when one of the UJ's is shot.

After about a year of owning Charlie Camel, we had the dreaded vibrations. On inspection I found that one of the bearing cups had completely disappeared and the "spider" had eaten into the propshaft yolk :-( Oh well, says I, I'll stick a new prop on... which I did. But then after about 3000 miles or so, the vibration started coming back. So I took the prop off and sent it back to the Brooklyn 4x4 who were happy to replace it with another one and send the dodgey one back to their supplier. Now, another few thousand miles later, I got the vibes again!!
I have checked the bearings in the diff nose and the output flange of the transfer box and there is nothing obviously wrong there, so I'm making an assumption that the UJ's in these prop shafts are a bit on the naff side. No worries tho, as they are replacable (P.No STC3407?) . So the weekend just gone, I ended up changing both the UJ's.

I also changed the rear diff flange and oil seal and the transfer box front output flange and oil seal. These are hopefully the last 2 leaks to be sorted on the drive train.

2 weekends to go! (& Travel Insurance)

Argh! ...Now I'm getting nervous. 2 weekends to go before Charlie Camel gets loaded in his container and Dans working tomorrow morning. Still a few jobs to be done: Steering box seals, some part of the transfew box is leaking again (forgive me, when Dan informs me of a new leak I just drift off into another fantasy world of clean driveways), 2 new UJ's needed on our quality new propshaft and the wiring in the vehicle needs sorting as well as the 2 new batteries and the heated seats... . The 'big yellow money sponge' is certainly living up to his name! :) We'll see how far we can progress this weekend as ideally I'd like next weekend for cleaning/polishing/packing and making a start sorting the house out!

My list of jobs yesterday included finally sorting our travel insurance. The nature of our trip was quite a strange one compared to most, so ringing up for 5 months worth of insurance travelling around in your own vehicle got some weird reactions. I did however discover backpacker policies which are designed to cover your for a long period of time in various locations. Luckily for us (well, Dan!) the trend of providing them only for the under 30's seems to have stopped and we were able to get a quote for such a Policy. After spending several weeks reading small print and almost falling off my chair with some of the quotes we recieved I stumbled across http://www.insureandgo.com/ . They have won a number of awards for their travel insurance and are FSA regulated. They provide more than adequate medical cover as well as the usual extras and more importantly have an 'adventure traveller' policy which includes the majority of activities we want to undertake. We had significant problems wanting to do a considerable amount of mountain biking and a few other things like white water rafting, climbing, horse riding etc. whilst out there. Luckily, insure and go covers us for this and pretty much anything else! (although some more 'serious' stuff does involve a small extra premium).

When ringing them they were very helpful, the only draw back seems to be the individual item limit of £150 and refusal to insure sports equipment. However, they added on the Laptop and Digital Camera for a small extra fee and suggested calling our house insurance about the bikes. ... Mm. Well, ok, Dan gave them a call and sure enough, they'll insure the bikes whilst we're away (as long as they are locked up when we're not riding them!) for up to £500 each. Excellent! The only other stumbling block was our plan to catch and internal flight and do some last minute snowboarding when we'd shipped the Camel off at the end of the trip. This is a dream of mine as I've never had a go at it before, but is only likley to happen if we've got enough cash left (so not very then!). Luckily this didn't phase 'Insure and Go' and they said 'just give us a call if you want to do it and we can cover you, a weeks notice is good but 48 hours if you can't do it will be ok!'. Excellent :)

We managed to cover both of us, the laptop and the Camera for 5 months for £317. Not bad I thought. Just one thing to look out for though if you're looking for some insurance for your own trip is the small print, our policy, like many others I looked at automatically stops if you 'come home' and you have to get a whole new policy if you fly out again, we could purchase 2 trips home for £12 each, but again, it's an extra.

A few more odd jobs done

After work on Friday night I decided to get on with the forms that Bridget at Dartrans needs to get Charlie Camel into the US. It turns out that I need to get one of the forms noterized. Up until that evening, I had never heard that word before so had no idea what it meant!! Basically it means that the all important Power or Attorney form needs to be witnessed by somebody with the power to do so. Now, most of us would just ask a friend or neighbour, but having spoken to Dartrans, they would prefer a "qualified" person and a stamp to show they are legally able to witness stuff. So today I phoned a couple of solicitors. Blake Lapthorn said they could do it for the extortionate sum of £100+VAT!!! So Jen found another company, Paris Smith and Randal in Southampton who said they'd do it for twenty quid... I cancelled the appointment at Blake Lapthorn!


Weekend just gone...

With the nice shiny new MOT in hand and a couple of advisory points, I spent sunday with a hangover doing bits to the car again.

Finally got the front shock fitted. I didn't fit them at Eastnor as I did the rear ones 'cos I has one of the locating washers missing from the pack. I went to see Devon 4x4 at the show (they originally supplied the shocks) and explained to them that I had one missing. Fortunately for me they had plenty of spare at the show so where able to give me another one.


In the afternoon we went round to abuse Richard's workshop. He has a hydraulic press and the A frame ball joint on the back axle needed changing. You need a press to do this so we stopped in and drank loads of tea before getting the job done. In exchange for Richards generosity, I drank some more of his tea... and then gave him a hand fitting the new exhaust system to his other halfs Freelander.


Oh, and I sorted out that dodgey rear fog light that was so nearly the cause of an MOT failure!!


All in all, a productive weekend.