Gas leaks, Traffic, and Austria
In the past few days, we've blazed through France, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. Now we're in Austria. It hasn't been an easy cruise, however.
After all the engine troubles that I talked about in the last entry (radiator, cracked head, etc) had been taken care of, we thought we were set and on our way. Not without some trouble with the security system first, however. This caused us to end up staying an extra night near London with a friend of Randall's, who helped us out tremendously. Once the security system issue was sorted out, we rolled down to Dover. With school just getting out for the summer in England, the roads to the ferries were congested. We all thought that we'd end up camping near the white cliffs and losing another day, but thankfully we were able to book a ferry for the same evening.
We got off the ferry in Calais, France around 9pm on the 24th. We started booking it for Germany, and arrived at the border yesterday (25th) in the wee hours of the morning. Too tired to continue, we camped at a random wooded spot in a rural area. We awoke later that morning, packed up, and hit the trail (quite literally). We'd gone no further than 50 feet when a strong gasoline smell filled the cab. We stopped and opened the hood to find unleaded draining from the fuel line into the engine compartment at the head.
Randall and I took the line off and took stock. We found a couple of plastic spacers, one good O-ring, and one disintegrating O-ring. We fiddled with it all for a while, trying to get a good seal - until I dropped a spacer and the good O-ring into the compartment. We searched for the missing parts for a while, then resorted to combinations of duct tape and zip-ties to seal the coupling betweeen the fuel line and the nipple it seated onto. After nearly two hours, we finally found that we could use some spare rings from an MSR stove kit to seal it.
Our improvisation must've been sufficient, because Julia, Randall, and I spent the remainder of the day making our way through Germany in stop-and-go weekend vacation traffic. We arrived in Austria around 10PM. We settled into a vacant flat that a friend set us up with in a small town called Kirchbichl, near Innsbruck. A few glasses of wine and a beer or two down the old gullets, and plans to hike up to a mountain hut this morning (26th) materialized from seemingly nowhere. I'm pretty pumped for that, of course, and hope to enjoy some fresh alps air before we hop back in the Jeepo for the drive to Croatia.
When I get a chance, I'll tell you about our Jeep a bit. It runs on petrol and propane. Until then, auf wiedersehen!
We found some woods down a backroad in Germany and caught some Z's before continuing to Austria.
This is where we had the gas leak. Good to go now, thanks to an MSR Whisperlite camp stove repair kit.
After all the engine troubles that I talked about in the last entry (radiator, cracked head, etc) had been taken care of, we thought we were set and on our way. Not without some trouble with the security system first, however. This caused us to end up staying an extra night near London with a friend of Randall's, who helped us out tremendously. Once the security system issue was sorted out, we rolled down to Dover. With school just getting out for the summer in England, the roads to the ferries were congested. We all thought that we'd end up camping near the white cliffs and losing another day, but thankfully we were able to book a ferry for the same evening.
We got off the ferry in Calais, France around 9pm on the 24th. We started booking it for Germany, and arrived at the border yesterday (25th) in the wee hours of the morning. Too tired to continue, we camped at a random wooded spot in a rural area. We awoke later that morning, packed up, and hit the trail (quite literally). We'd gone no further than 50 feet when a strong gasoline smell filled the cab. We stopped and opened the hood to find unleaded draining from the fuel line into the engine compartment at the head.
Randall and I took the line off and took stock. We found a couple of plastic spacers, one good O-ring, and one disintegrating O-ring. We fiddled with it all for a while, trying to get a good seal - until I dropped a spacer and the good O-ring into the compartment. We searched for the missing parts for a while, then resorted to combinations of duct tape and zip-ties to seal the coupling betweeen the fuel line and the nipple it seated onto. After nearly two hours, we finally found that we could use some spare rings from an MSR stove kit to seal it.
Our improvisation must've been sufficient, because Julia, Randall, and I spent the remainder of the day making our way through Germany in stop-and-go weekend vacation traffic. We arrived in Austria around 10PM. We settled into a vacant flat that a friend set us up with in a small town called Kirchbichl, near Innsbruck. A few glasses of wine and a beer or two down the old gullets, and plans to hike up to a mountain hut this morning (26th) materialized from seemingly nowhere. I'm pretty pumped for that, of course, and hope to enjoy some fresh alps air before we hop back in the Jeepo for the drive to Croatia.
When I get a chance, I'll tell you about our Jeep a bit. It runs on petrol and propane. Until then, auf wiedersehen!
We found some woods down a backroad in Germany and caught some Z's before continuing to Austria.
This is where we had the gas leak. Good to go now, thanks to an MSR Whisperlite camp stove repair kit.
posted by Chris | 5:27 PM
2 Comments:
So glad you have been able to leap the hurdles that have come your way! We went out on the Mississippi Bell last night with the B-town crew. Everyone says 'hi'! Enjoy your adventure and continue to keep us posted.
Much love! Heather and Kyle
p.s. the 3 month check up went great!
Hello! I'm glad you've been able to fix all the problems you've encountered so far! Wish I could be there with you. Sounds amazing! Continue to be safe!
Love you guys!
Heather
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