Report Continued…
Then I went on to explain that he has only seen the good part of Jeeps, the part that makes us all bite the bullet. But buying or maintaining the Jeep is a leap of faith to start with and a penance (Tapasya) afterwards. Considering his current car is ANHC, the Jeep ownership is something else altogether. Still I gave him couple of pointers on how to look for a Jeep if he is really serious.
After reaching Biligaru, we continued to Kargal, and then to Sagara. Yes, we again decided to ignore Jog Falls since there is no water. That means I still haven’t seen Jog Falls. Anyway, at Sagara we are asked to continue towards a homestay which was 12kms away.
The advance party consisting of Srini’s jeep and the TT went ahead, and they knew the way. Usually, according to convoy rules, the vehicles should stop just before the turn to ensure that the vehicles that are following don’t miss the turn. But in this case, the advance party decided to turn before stopping. Therefore, they could not be seen from the road as we drove. And pretty much every following vehicle kept going and going until we found ourselves in the middle of deep jungle. But, the mobile signal was still available, so we could call and scream about being left without directions. Anyway, we were asked to drive back and reach a rendezvous, from where we could be collected.
After we reached the rendezvous point, Grace (andy) hears a hissing sound while standing next to my Jeep. Hissing sound? That can mean only one thing; water hose is going south, again.
So I quickly opened the hood and found the culprit, the lower hose. Why is it always the lower hose, I mean that is the tougher one to replace. But then I knew the reason. The mechanic who replaced the hose two days back had ignored my advice and had added a rubber pad between the engine block and the water hose. The engine block had once again melted the rubber padding and poked a hole into the lower water hose.
See the cause of the problem.
Fortunately, we were parked right next to a house which had a tap in front porch. We quickly filled the radiator with 6 liters of water and then decided to drive to the homestay with the radiator cap open. Then I told my passenger Vikram that this is the other side of Jeep ownership, the constant battle to keep the Jeep running.
We reached the Homestay and decided to work the problem after lunch.
The other rides, Jammy’s Jeep and Sachin’s Gypsy.
After a delicious lunch, Sachin and I started working on replacing the lower hose. I did have a spare since my water hose keeps breaking. But removing the lower clip was turning out to be pretty difficult. The hose should be fixed from the top so that it can be removed from the top. But the mechanic had fixed it while lying under the Jeep. That means we too had to get under the Jeep to remove, and we both took turns doing it and finally removed it. Srini supplied the plastic sheet to enable us to get under the Jeep. And he decided to wait around until we replace the hose.
Then I cut the new hose by nearly 3 inches so that it can be fitted without touching the engine block, still it was coming pretty close. By this time Jammy had also joined us. After looking over the radiator, he declared that it is better to solve the root cause problem than risk another hose burst.
Long long back, a mechanic in Manipal had tried to fix the heating problem by moving the radiator closer to the engine. Anyway, that turned out be a meaningless exercise, yet it was not undone all this time.
See the check nut used to move back the radiator.
Therefore, Jammy suggested we remove those checknuts and create safer space for the lower water hose. I saw the wisdom of that suggestion and agreed right away. Then I asked Srini to move on since we obvious had everything under control.
However, soon we realized that removing the radiator is not that straight forward. We had to remove the battery to access the lower nuts. There are 4 check nuts that need to be removed. And my tools were not up to the task.
Then Jammy brought out his toolbox, specifically the ratchet kit.
We needed a rachet that can work as a bent shaft.
With the above tool we were able to remove the lower check nuts too. After that we connected the radiator back without the check nuts.
Then we connected the lower hose and it stayed at least half inch away from both engine block and the radiator. After that we filled the radiator full of water and started the engine. Everything looked fine for couple minutes, and then BOOM!
The upper water hose had broken too. But no worries, I had that too among my spare parts collection. Next we replaced the upper water hose while retaining the thermostat. It took some trial and error, there was leakage at the ends, but we finally managed to fix it tight enough.
The water hoses… with their holes.
Again, we started the engine and checked the water circulation, it seems to be OK. Then we removed the radiator cap and further observed. Suddenly, both Jammy and Sachin shake their head and say head gasket is blown. Now I remembered the sign of blown head gasket, there should be bubbles in the radiator. And there was… Oh Great! I have a 170kms drive back to home.
What now? Jammy says you can drive back, just keep the radiator cap open and drive. Keep adding water every hour since it will keep losing water.
I nod and then I ask what about the thermostat. Both Jammy & Sachin say that is ok. But I am not convinced; I feel they are overlooking something. Then I ask whether the thermostat will operate without the pressure due to lack of radiator cap. Duh! Both of them had overlooked that. So again we open the upper hose and remove the thermostat.
By this time it is 6PM and we are tired. Jammy and Dwarak have to drive back to Bangalore and I and Sachin back to Udupi. Sachin decides he will take a bath as he realizes that the homestay has firewood heated water. Why bath.. Duh! What did I say about bath in this Malenadu region?
Meanwhile the homestay kitchen has prepared hot tea and pakodas for us. We eat Pakodas and wait for Sachin to reappear.
Finally at 7PM we all leave for our destinations. Sachin and I take the route of Hosanagara-Nagara-Hulikal ghat-Halady-Mandarti-Barkur-Bramavara-Udupi. We encounter incredible amount of rain and fog. The visibility was often down to 10ft.
Usually, in our 2 vehicle convoy, I always take the lead. That is because I am the navigator of the team and I can read Kannada road signs unlike Sachin. But this day I asked him to take the lead since I could not deal with the glare of oncoming high beams in the hard rain, besides my good looking fog lights were crappy when it comes to functionality. He with his younger 20/20 vision was the better man to lead this night.
All the way, we stopped every hour to fill water into the radiator. My brakes were all wet driving through so many puddles. At one point while we were stopped, my Jeep slowly rolled forward and banged into the Gypsy, in spite of me keeping the brakes pressed. This was one of the hellish drives I have done in the Jeep. We even lost our way since we passed by Halady without realizing it. Then I was able to find another path via Mandarti to get us back on track.
I finally reached home at 12:45AM, nearly 6 hours to cover 170kms.
Concluded.