First off we need to say what happened yesterday evening. We set off for a casual 3 hour drive to the coast to camp at a campsite we found on the internet to wash our smelly clothes and have a good rest for a big day of driving the following day. We reached the coast and found out that the nice campsite no longer existed and in its place was an expensive hotel/club that wanted roughly £200 for 1 day camping. We instantly declined. After a search further along the coast we chanced upon a little beach side “campsite” with a spectacular view of the beach and sea.
Turns out that it was sort of “owned” or “maintained” by a group of locals, with some of them appearing to live permanently in large tents on the beach. for a measly price of 60 TL (~£20), we got to camp at the most gorgeous campsite yet with use of their toilets, fresh water and shower. It was quite windy which kept the temperature down, blew all the flies away and helped dry all our clothes. The locals were really interested in meeting englsh people and we had lots of fun chatting to them about the UK, Turkey, our trip and football. We cooked a lovely curry and had a great nights sleep.
Day 12’s plan was to have a long days drive down to the Turkish autobahn and blast along to the next campsite along the coast however, as the real time tracking shows, this did not happen. After a long winding early morning drive, we reached a town called Gezbe at around midday when, literally just on the slip road of the autobahn, Adventure decided it would break down. With very little warning, the engine cut-out and wouldn’t start again. The hope of a simple fix like a blown injector fuse swiftly faded as the team failed to diagnose the problem.
Fortunately, as we had broken down next to the toll booth, human goodness prevailed and the toll booth man hooked us up with a tow to the local garage. The garage, with very little knowledge of English, very quickly diagnosed the problem and had started taking Adventure’s front end and engine apart before you could say “German efficiency”. The family run garage had several hilarious characters, made better by the outrageous sign language between us all.
The diagnosis, not good. With the intention of replacing the cam belt, the garage disassembled the engine to find a whole host of problems. Firstly, it was evident that two of the injectors may have been leaking, not only this, but the head itself had damage and required much re-machining as well as replacement valves and cam-shafts. The only good news from this was that the cam belt was intact.
All in all, a long day for different reasons than intended, the team finally got some shut eye at around 2am in an ambulance that continued to be worked on. Despite the worst night that the team had experienced, the garage soldiered on (powered by vodka, red bull and cigarettes) until 5am with the last bit of bad news of the day: the crankshaft oil seal also required replacing.
