So, Monday morning came and I was at the workshop ready to open the front left portal to replace those bearings that were obviously breaking up.
Out came the seal - no build-up of metal flakes there - it must be still inside the bearing - out comes the bearing - no damage - just a couple of small marks....
Looking at the gear teeth there were some teeth of the lower (big) gear with marking on them - the only place the metal could have come from. I took the decision to replace both upper and lower gears as I had a pair in stock, along with the lower bearings to be sure. All went very quickly until the portal was offered back onto the axle, as it was slowly tightened down it slowly seized up. Off it came , heads were scratched, back on it went, again it jammed, off again, nothing obvious, back on....3 times until Danny the head mechanic n the workshop pointed out a minor difference between old and new gears. Looked like I needed a different sized bolt, off I went into Windhoek with one of the guys who was going to get some tyres repaired, change some gas bottles (I now know where we need to go), get some shopping and some petrol - in between we popped into the MB Trucks spares specialist - no idea there. I tried calling Ibbetts in UK - a bank holiday. Back to the workshop & I decided to put the old upper gear back on as it wasn't at all bad (just trying to be a perfectionist?). By this time it was too late to restart as it was going to get dark soon, so I had the pleasure of sleeping in the workshop yard (in the truck) - not at bad. The next morning it was cold, 4C - you don't expect that in Africa(?!). The portal went back on quickly, all was well until the infamous "bleeding of the front brakes" had to happen - it took hours and 3 litres of fluid before I was satisfied!
A quick road test seemed ok, so I set off for something more sertious - a drive out to Gobabis on the edge of the Kalahari on the way to Botswana. There and back was about 250 miles, I stayed out there overnight at XainQuaz campsite - nothing spectacular except the signs warning of snakes and scorpions and the service the next morning - a young lady arrived calling "Morre, morre, good morning" - with a tray of coffee, milk, sugar and buttered toast - all for 70N$ (£5).
The other day I'd met some Germans in Windhoek with a Unimog camper (you've just got to stop to chat!) - he had suggested that fitting some acoustic material to the underside of the bonnet has a large effect on cab noise - and he'd spotted some in Cymot (Sue's FAVOURITE shop!), so I popped down there and bought them out of all their stock, then headed off to look at another campsite in the town itself - a bit of a dump, so I headed back to the green grass of Elisenheim. Here I found that there was oil spattered over the outer side of the front left tyre - the inner oil seal was now leaking, probably due to it having been pushed about a bit too much during the on-off-on-off... of the portal. Oh poo.
Using the campsite wifi I skyped Ibbetts and had a long chat with Phil in their spares dept, he looked up the parts for our truck and compared them with what I'd bought in the past. He then pointed out that he thought that I had in fact bought one of the correct type for both front and rear portals last year - that's when the penny clicked - the gears had got mixed up between boxes - the front gear was in the back gear's box, so we'd inadvertently tried to fit a back gear on the front. Simple. Looking at the gears they are almost identical, just a couple of millimetres onta counterbore. Aaarrgghhh!
Anyway, I now have a plan to fix it properly.........
Oh, and the temperature monitor is working well - both pairs of portals run at the same temp plus or minus 3 degrees - I can even detect the difference where the front left gear has been replaced resulting in that [portal running marginally cooler than the right instead of hotter.
Out came the seal - no build-up of metal flakes there - it must be still inside the bearing - out comes the bearing - no damage - just a couple of small marks....
Looking at the gear teeth there were some teeth of the lower (big) gear with marking on them - the only place the metal could have come from. I took the decision to replace both upper and lower gears as I had a pair in stock, along with the lower bearings to be sure. All went very quickly until the portal was offered back onto the axle, as it was slowly tightened down it slowly seized up. Off it came , heads were scratched, back on it went, again it jammed, off again, nothing obvious, back on....3 times until Danny the head mechanic n the workshop pointed out a minor difference between old and new gears. Looked like I needed a different sized bolt, off I went into Windhoek with one of the guys who was going to get some tyres repaired, change some gas bottles (I now know where we need to go), get some shopping and some petrol - in between we popped into the MB Trucks spares specialist - no idea there. I tried calling Ibbetts in UK - a bank holiday. Back to the workshop & I decided to put the old upper gear back on as it wasn't at all bad (just trying to be a perfectionist?). By this time it was too late to restart as it was going to get dark soon, so I had the pleasure of sleeping in the workshop yard (in the truck) - not at bad. The next morning it was cold, 4C - you don't expect that in Africa(?!). The portal went back on quickly, all was well until the infamous "bleeding of the front brakes" had to happen - it took hours and 3 litres of fluid before I was satisfied!
A quick road test seemed ok, so I set off for something more sertious - a drive out to Gobabis on the edge of the Kalahari on the way to Botswana. There and back was about 250 miles, I stayed out there overnight at XainQuaz campsite - nothing spectacular except the signs warning of snakes and scorpions and the service the next morning - a young lady arrived calling "Morre, morre, good morning" - with a tray of coffee, milk, sugar and buttered toast - all for 70N$ (£5).
The other day I'd met some Germans in Windhoek with a Unimog camper (you've just got to stop to chat!) - he had suggested that fitting some acoustic material to the underside of the bonnet has a large effect on cab noise - and he'd spotted some in Cymot (Sue's FAVOURITE shop!), so I popped down there and bought them out of all their stock, then headed off to look at another campsite in the town itself - a bit of a dump, so I headed back to the green grass of Elisenheim. Here I found that there was oil spattered over the outer side of the front left tyre - the inner oil seal was now leaking, probably due to it having been pushed about a bit too much during the on-off-on-off... of the portal. Oh poo.
Using the campsite wifi I skyped Ibbetts and had a long chat with Phil in their spares dept, he looked up the parts for our truck and compared them with what I'd bought in the past. He then pointed out that he thought that I had in fact bought one of the correct type for both front and rear portals last year - that's when the penny clicked - the gears had got mixed up between boxes - the front gear was in the back gear's box, so we'd inadvertently tried to fit a back gear on the front. Simple. Looking at the gears they are almost identical, just a couple of millimetres onta counterbore. Aaarrgghhh!
Anyway, I now have a plan to fix it properly.........
Oh, and the temperature monitor is working well - both pairs of portals run at the same temp plus or minus 3 degrees - I can even detect the difference where the front left gear has been replaced resulting in that [portal running marginally cooler than the right instead of hotter.