Day 30
Our mechanics started working from early in the morning to get the diff mounted again. This gave me plenty of time to think about what went wrong. Why did we break down?
The short answer is: we pushed it too much! But it is no surprise. It is more of a surprise on why this did not happen earlier. We had driven over 80.000km since we left Belgium. Trough Africa and Asia. Fully loaded (almost 4 tons) on some of the roughest roads in the world. We had quite a few things overhauled in Cairo and one thing I had noticed but did not change was a small chip out of the planetary gear. The same gear that was now completely stripped.
The whole ordeal with tipping over and sliding on our sides was not really benificiary for our driveline either. We would be spinning our wheels fast and they would all of a sudden gain full traction again. Repeatedly. This kills drivelines. If we would have been able to drive slowly trough here, this would have made a major difference. Yes a winch and lockers could (!) have saved us a lot of damage. But that is an aftertought. It would be the only 2000km's on our 100.000km trip were they would have come in handy. There is not a single landcruiser who drives around the interior of Congo without a winch by the way. I'd say this is exceptional damage on an exceptional road.
The front diff we just forced by trying to pull ourselves over the big hill. The brakes, batteries, bodywork... collateral damage.
Would another vehicle have done a better job? Maybe... probably not I would think but I honestly do not know. But the Landcruiser 75 is certainly the right choice of car for travelling here. It is the only car the NGO's and missions use. It is the best bet for finding spare parts.
We must have walked about 10 kilometers from where our car was stranded to the 'improved' road. So close!
The seal of diffhouse was badly damaged and could not be used again. The only thing that could be found was silicone sealant for bathroom tiles. That would have to do... we hope!
As soon as the diff is fitted again they wanted to pour the oil back in. This was the same new zambian oil we had already used, but now with hundres of little pieces of metal and a fair amount of dust. I did not want that in my axle! No problem according to our mechanics and they set out to buy oil in town. They came back with Monograde SAE-90 oil. In the fineprint it specifically said "not for use in motorized vehicles!". This was the best we could find and it was more expensive per liter then fully synthetic in Europe. We would use it and change it as soon as we found better oil.
We did a test ride and it worked ok now. We still had no drive on the front axle, but the road from here was supposed to be good enough not to need it.
Tomorrow we would try to get to Kikwit!
