Don't put off maintenance on parts that you know are going south...
While driving up to Liberia today to fetch our close friend Doug, the tie rod end broke on the right front wheel.
The bad news was that when it broke, we were on a hot, dusty stretch of road about six miles from the nearest mechanic and were running barely on time to get to the airport.
The rest was pretty much good news. The stretch of road where we found ourselves was plenty wide enough for two cars, when the car did break, we veered off to the right, instead of into the center of the road -quick background for non-mechanics: the tie rod is an important part of the steering. Without the tie rod end, you basically control only one front wheel instead of two, making your steering a vaguely suggestive process- and there were no huge buses barreling down on us at the time the part broke. So our "crash" wasn't actually a crash and no additional damage happened at the time of the breakage. We were fortunate as well that we were going very slowly on a dirt road when the tie rod end broke, had we been zooming along on the highway at 80 kph (around 50mph) and had the TRE go, it could have been a much more dangerous experience.
Our good fortune continued beyond the breakage. A week or so ago, Bb convinced me not to tote around quite so many tools in the back of the truck. Her logic being that the tools were suffering for it (all that rattling about) and that in reality it wasn't that often I use them on the road. Additionally, storing them in the house means that I can use a larger, less crowded toolbox, which is much nicer. So the only tools I had with me were the basic toyota toolkit along with an extra pair of diagonal cut pliers and an extra screwdriver or two. Turns out that the dikes were the only tool we actually needed as Bb trotted off to the side of the road and found an extra length of barbed wire hanging off of a fence. If I had been carrying all my tools, I certainly would have chosen to try to replace the TRE right there on the hot, dusty roadside with buses zooming by. Instead, using duct tape and barbed wire in an ugly but effective patch job, we managed to get the front end re-connected well enough to limp onward to the mechanic (driving about 10 Kph).
As we arrived at the mechanic we figured out that I would get the car repairs going and Bb would hail a cab to go to the airport and return with Doug. Fate smiled on us again. The mechanic was closing the hood on a car as we pulled in, we barely had time to turn off Louie by the time the other car was backing out, putting us in the front of the queue. So Bb jumped out to work on getting a taxi and lo and behold.... the car that was freshly repaired IS a taxi! Talk about not waiting!
The mechanic was a nice guy but shook his head and said "Without the parts, there's really nothing I can do. It's Saturday and the parts store will be closed by the time we get there, but I'm sure I can get the new parts by Monday." Had the day been going less auspiciously, that might have been worrisome news, but as things continued to work out... Steve, of course, had the new TREs in the car. Yes! (note: it would have been much better, of course, had the new TREs been INSTALLED, then we would have skipped the whole breakage)
Bb's airport run took about an hour, the car repair took just less than two hours, including patching a slow leaking tire, each job cost about $30 and was money well spent. Doug took the whole experience in stride and we all headed back to the house to enjoy a sunset cocktail on the patio before settling into a pleasant evening of catching up with each other.

Labels: landcruiser