This was not a regular test drive. I wanted to find out whether my Jeep engine still overheats while climbing uphill. For this test, I replaced the coolant with regular tap water. Since Agumbe is just within 50km from home, I figured on doing a quick drive up and down.
So far my almost 8 year old son is quite skittish about riding a Jeep in the back. He holds on to the roll bars as if his life depends on it. Today my wife offered to take him too. Although at first he was unsure, he didn't want to keep missing drives because of his Jeep phobia. So he agreed to come.
We left home at 11:30AM thinking we should be back by 2PM. Therefore, my wife didn't tell her mom about our plans. Three of us took-off in the GV to the office to pick up the Jeep. After doing some checks, we finally started off in the Jeep at 11:45AM.
Within minutes after taking off, I started noticing this new sound which I had never heard before. This noise was additional to the usual diesel cacophony. I starting thinking there is some new problem after the recent session in the garage. After about 10Kms of driving, I looked down and noticed something odd, the 4WD lever was in the wrong place. The 4WD was engaged! I quickly stopped and jumped out to check the hubs, they were still unlocked. So I was driving the Jeep in 4WD mode on tarmac with the hubs unlocked. That explained the freakish unfamiliar noise. Since hubs were not locked, I guess the transmission windup can’t happen, so I think it should be fine. Guys, please correct if I am wrong.
So I started again in 2WD mode and the noise was gone, the Jeep became smooth with just the engine hum and nothing else. That’s one more checklist for next time, always check the 4WD lever before starting.
The road near Sita River nature resort.
Soon we hit the familiar Agumbe Ghats towering over us. It was covered in clouds and looked inviting. So far the engine temp never crossed 80C.
This is a beautiful drive, checkout the video if you have the bandwidth: (I'll add the link later)
And I had to take a break at my favorite photo point, the hair pin curve 3. In fact I was forced to take the break, the engine was already overheating, shooting past 90C after only 3-4Kms of light uphill climbing.
And then we continued, the visibility got low due to fog and cloud, I had to switch on fogs to warn oncoming vehicles. After few more hair pin curves, we hit 100C and it was time to stop again. But we couldn’t get out to look under the hood, it was raining cats and dogs. We are inside the clouds, it is raining hard, but we are stopping because engine is overheating 20C above normal.
Samurai : photos : Agumbe Trip- powered by SmugMug Samurai : photos : Agumbe Trip- powered by SmugMug
The engine is off, so the loud noise you hear in the video is just rain sound, enjoy.
Finally we hit the famous sunset point, and we are the only vehicle there apart from two food vendors who start muttering their sales pitch just for our benefit. One guy was selling ice-cream, height of optimism or stupidity? Anyway, the rain had stopped, so we could get out. Thanks to the hard rain, some clouds had cleared showing us these wonderful views.
Meanwhile I hear my son screaming. I turn and see that the Jeep is under siege by the local monkeys. They were probing the soft-top to find a way inside. The dumb monkeys didn’t realise that driver side flap was not closed, they were trying to get in from top or passenger side.
While my wife and son tried to chase them, they were put on back foot by a snarling counter-attack by the lead monkey in the second picture. It was time for the man of the house to take charge. Well, …um… I charged in waving the E3 and screaming a war-cry, all that NCC training came in handy. The fearless charge cowed the monkey gang and they ran away. I closed the driver side flap and returned to my photography putting my family in charge of holding the fort. As I left, the fort was again breached and the defenders were chased away. I turned and saw the lead monkey trying to tear away the top. My second charge must have put Mel Gibson in Braveheart to shame, and again the Vanara Sena took to the trees. I didn’t want to leave the Jeep to their attack again, so we decided to move on.
As we continued towards the Agumbe town beyond the police gate, the road looked like a dream scene. After a brief photo session I had to practically dive into the Jeep to escape a sudden onslaught of rain.
