More engine troubles and delays

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The RV ran fine to the oil change place, so we decided it was time to pack up and go. We said our goodbyes, loaded up and we were off. She ran alright for awhile but when we reached los santos, started complaining as before. The difference now was that we weren’t even on a hill, and it was much more frequent stuttering. We stalled on a flat road outside the Mcdonalds in Chiquiri.

Well, we needed a mechanic. There was supposedly a brand new shop on the bypass route, not far from where we were, so we went to find it, and proceeded to explain the problem to one of the guys that worked there. This place had all sorts of fancy machines, and so we thought great maybe they can help us. As it turns out, this place specialized in tires, wheel alignments and everything of that sort, which had nothing to do with our problem. The guy was talking to us but we couldn’t quite get what he was saying, until finally he said, in Spanish of course, ‘my boss speaks a bit of english, hold on a second.’ Next thing we new we were talking to the boss, in perfect English, who told us to go see a guy named Pipin at his shop, for an electric problem.

We had to back track a little to find the shop, as well as stop and ask directions a few times, and circle the block another few. Pipin took her for a test drive and was sure it was this electric component inside the distributor that was the problem. He took it out, looked at it and said, “ahhh, made in china,” which was apparently what was wrong. Pipin replaced it with a used one and told us to go get a new one, then we would be good. We were going to get a new one further down the road, so continued on our way. After about 10 minutes on the road, the RV had its problem again. We resolved to return to Chitre, grab the part and install it right away. We did this, it worked great for about 15 minutes until we hit a big, bump in the road, and then almost instantly choking and sputtering, and with not even enough time to turn around we stalled. We were blocking one lane of traffic and people had to drive into the on-coming lane to pass us. To make matters worse, The RV would not start.

It was then we decided that if indeed we got her running we would do our best to return to Las Tablas, and get absolutely everything checked out and hopefully all fixed up before we even thought about getting on the road again. The RV eventually did start up after Simon tightened up some stuff, and it had a chance to rest. We drove back to Las Tablas, and straight to Benjamin the mechanic’s shop. It took us about 4 hours (which is way longer than it should) to get back there. The RV just kept stalling, and to get it started again, we needed to sit and wait. When we reached Benjamin, we explained to him the problem, and how long it had taken us to get back, he gave us a beer, and said he would fix it on Monday.

He has been trying to fix it, but so far the problem has not been sorted out. The boys took it for a test drive on some hills up to the finca, it stalled and they were stuck. Luckily they eventually got it going, and it looks like we may be here for a day or two more.

We all have our fingers crossed that the next adjustment will fix our engine, and that we will all be back on the road again. Our time is running out though, because we only got month long visas for Panama, and a months worth of vehicle insurance, we only have until this weekend. I’m sure we can figure out extensions and things if it all comes down to it though... still, we are all hopeful that we will be able to leave tomorrow.

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Comments

[meg]

at least you have a tan!
miss you allyne. as sucky as that sounds, it's an adventure you'll never forget! sounds like a good movie :) relax, enjoy, try to find me a shell while your rv's getting fixed. shanxmum, megan