Global Progress
17 JunA good day on the visa front today!
In the UK - My girlfriend Gillian picked up my passport from the Russian consulate yesterday, complete with a completely correct Russian visa. That meant this morning I could try again at the Ukrainian consulate. This time no issues, and I’ll be picking up my last visa on Friday! It’s too early to open the champagne, but not by much!
Meanwhile, 1,237 km away from London - A weary Tim hopped off the plane in Vienna and popped straight over to the Tajikistan Consulate. After some initial trouble locating the correct office, it was plain sailing, and Tim will pick up his visa on Friday. That leaves a good couple of days for Viennese coffee and Hofburg Palace.
...and 16,983 km away from London - Stephen strolls into the Mongolian consulate in Sydney, submits his passport, bats his eyelids (and pays a small processing fee) and gets his passport back 10 minutes later, complete with a Mongolian visa.
If Tim and I pick up our passports on Friday with no problems, the visa scorecard will look something like this:
Derek - No visas left.
Stephen - Only Russia and the Ukraine still to go.
Tim - Just in need of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Progress on the Suzuki has involved changing the oils in the front and rear differentials, and the transfer box. According to Andrew from Sportif Suzuki in Witney, water ingress in the drivetrain oils is a common problem with the SJ. I had to drain the gearbox before I changed the clutch thrust bearing, so that oil is already new.
An easy job was made harder by the differential drain plugs being a rusted mess. On the front differential I eventually managed to remove the filler/level plug, and used an oil syringe (lent to me by a local garage) to suck the contents out. I couldn’t get all of the oil out this way, but it’s better than nothing. On the rear differential I eventually gave up. The square fitting on the plug was beyond service, and I needed to weld something to the plug to remove it. As previously mentioned, the car doesn’t fit into the room with the welder, so my only option was to remove the entire differential and take it to the welder. I drew the line at that! The rusted state of the rear differential is shown below:
Tomorrow the car is off to Topserv Automotive in Brackley, where some basic checks will be made on the engine to determine its health, and hopefully they will have more success at changing the rear differential oil.
Both the transfer box and front diff oils showed signs of moisture, but nothing major. The gearbox was fitted with a magnetic drain plug, and this had collected some finely ground metal, but c’mon, it’s hardly straight off the showroom floor!
