Problem Solved After 4 Days!!!!

I’m not talking about a Sudoku puzzle or some Brainteaser, I talking a lot more challenging and kept James and I mulling over it a lot while driving. This puzzle was Penny not performing, as she should.

The problem started 4 days ago with her running very rough and lacking power at times and not accelerating in her normal sedate manner. We did the first thing I always tell everyone else to do and fitted a new set of plugs. This made a slight improvement but was not the fix.

The problem was worse on rough roads and always got better on the smooth tarmac. We debated if the roughness as making the Carburettor play up.

On our last days driving we had no problems after we left the dirt so thought all our problems were solved? This morning proved us both wrong with us having huge problems on a great road to start with then a couple of adjustments to the Carburettor and we had a trouble free 60 k’s only for it all to stop with no more go power.

I spent an hour upside down under the dash checking power and running a new ignition wire to get the car running and driving in a moderately unhappy fashion. As we debated the problem we realised the same time the problem started we also started getting trouble with our trip computer going off. Watching the trip computer it was going off and on to the same beat as the coughing and spluttering.

We decided it had to be an earth problem so we wheeled in to under the awning of a fuel station for some shade. A quick check in the battery box were all the earths run back too and the problem was discovered. Back it Paramaribo Suriname at the start I had installed a new battery and low and behold I failed to tighten the earth bolt fully and it had rattled out to leave all the earth wires just bounce around in the vicinity of the clamp. So finding the bolt and refitting it was all that was needed to sort the problem and things when well for the most part for he rest of the day.

We have driven about 2500k’s in Brazil and today we saw only the second Road construction project in progress. The first day we saw an army construction team building a piece of new road on day one and today it was a new bridge over the Rio Maderia to replace the three ferries kept busy transporting the traffic back and forth. We have seen numerous road and bridge projects that were started about 10 years ago and have ground to a halt at all different stages.

We were the last of the group to arrive in town so Reg in the 2CV was very happy today as he beat us to the hotel for the first time.

The drive to day was 500 k’s of grazing and farming lands to Rio Branco for our last night in Brazil.

With another time zone change on our arrival it was a long wait for dinner, I spent 2 hours walking the streets. Rio Branco has the feeling of insecurity with every residents and business surrounded with Razor wire and electric fences.