Day 3 - Espana

10:00

So, having slept in the beautiful, but chilly (overnight) Pyrenees we were ready for the sun.
        
The border was 10km from where we stayed last night, so not far before we hit Spain. The crossing guards must have been having a lie in cos we breezed through without stopping. The weather is scorchio and the drive is lovely, seen an abundance of t4s. We have 491km before we get to    Valencia,  5 hours driving Sheila satnav reckons...we will see if she can redeem herself today after routing us through mammoth traffic hotspots yesterday!
 

13:40
Just stopped for a wee and cool beverage, not far from Valencia, stinks of piss, but there is free Wi-Fi so a spot of lunch and blog update is on the cards...
 

22:40

Well at the last stop I decided to check the oil & coolant etc and both were a bit low. Oil fair play..I've got a leak..had it for years so no dramas there...coolant, well that's not good...so topped it up and off we went...for about 3kms..and then the coolant light started to flash!! Shit. Ok pulled over and had a gander. I found a split hose, a small one from the metal coolant pipes to the thermostat housing. Was only dribbling a little so I decided to limp to the next petrol station, which we could see in the distance. Got there and had a safer look. Sure as sure it was that pipe. So had a beer to chill and got to work.

 

I decided I would have a go at a repair somehow instead of calling ADAC, since it was Sunday and we needed to make the ferry the next day. Due to its location I had to take thermostat feed pipe off and so I could get better access. This meant draining all the coolant! Anyway I did it and wrestled these pesky vw clamps off and found the culprit. The search was now on for a repair idea or a replacement. I decided to rip the inner tube out of Rebecca's bike wheel (had a slow puncture anyway!) but due to the split not being in the middle of a long pipe my visions of a quick repair drifted away. So, I went on the hunt. I saw a parked car that was quite dusty/possibly dumped...shall I go under and rob a hose?! Nah its not that bad so kept looking. Spotted the car wash hoses were roughly the same diameter..hmmm...no I left that vandalism idea too. Went back to Vera and had a look under the bonnet. That silicone hose I fitted for the oil breather when I did the turbo conversion was a tad long I thought...so out came Mr Stanley and off it came! The diameter of the split pipe was one size one end and different another! So I snipped one end off the broken pipe and pushed it into my new silicone pipe. That will do! Since the inner tube was out and off I decided to sheath the silicone hose with a few bits of the inner tube just for good measure. Few jubilee clips later. Well quite a few and this is what we have:

 

Brilliant fix!

Problem now was when I put the thermostat housing back on, that leaked..so out it came. Got fettled with. Cut its guts out and left the outer ring complete. It still leaked so decided to call ADAC. That was pointless in a way, a tow truck came but we couldn't get the part till tomo, possibly, and we would still be 179kms away, so decided to try and fix. Several attempts later. Lots of glue (rubber vulcanising and general purpose) and some random river water and its holding. It took a while all this messing about, so much so we didn't think we were gonna make the ferry...but I'm writing this now from Valencia ferry terminal...yes, Vera made it, she had too, otherwise I would have had one upset girl....

I drove Vera nice and carefully and kept the coolant heat down by leaving the heating on (toasty) and low boosting with the accelerator pedal...reason was this Heath Robinson style repair wasn't the best as I could see the housing dribbling a few bubbles out. This wasn't the best but it got us here and its down to a perished o ring/thermostat gasket.. I should have picked up that Aldi special of assorted o rings up for my toolbox, the jubilee clips certainly paid off.

I figured the stress of the beautiful Pyrenees and the steep inclines + over boosting (boost controller doesn't work) had took its toll on this little pipe. Whilst I was fixing this a lovely air cooled late bay stopped nearby..he checked his exhaust..got back in off he went. Git.

So Tomorrows pre-ferry shopping list includes: 

Sim card

Liquid gasket & silicone sealant

O ring

Thermostat (not essential but its kinda ruined now I snipped most of his guts out!)

Another hose just in case

More beer 

More wine...

23:40

Rebecca typing! So, today started of awesomely, lunch was also pretty good, minus the previously mentioned piss smell! 

Anyways, we left the pissy (smelly) services, only for us to find out there was a problem. Pulled in to a fly infested services for Christian to try and sort the problem, not sure what is worse...flies or wee?! 

Christian got to work and after loads of messing we called ADAC. Roughly an hour later, Martin from a local recovered company arrived...his name sounded English, but bless him he couldn't have been further from it. All I could hear was a series of grunts and shouting in Spanish...poor Christian! Anyway, long story short (the world through my eyes!) Vera was loaded on to the back of Martin's wagon and off we went...to somewhere that Martin assured us was safe for the night, outside a Citroen garage, we figured by the time they actually get around to fixing this tomorrow, including part sourcing, we will have missed the midday ferry so Christian had another go at fixing the leak and this time got it working! Thankfully we had been taken 50km's closer to our destination so the drive to the Ferry terminal in Valencia wasn't as long but was quite stressful in case the repair didn't hold and we broke down again, but this time in the dark, on a fast motorway! Eh hum. However, we did make it thanks to the repair Christian Grylls did. Awesome job :) And, we slept at the ferry terminal.

EDIT: REPAIR HELD ALL THE WAY AROUND IBIZA AND HOME