Breakdowns, Repairs and Maintenance, Part 2
Always a little painful to see the truck on a lift
Well here we are, two and a half years on the road, 85,000 miles and 55 countries from Baja to West Africa. With more road time under our belts, we have had some relatively minor repairs and replacements.
At the time of writing we are 7500 miles into West Africa, a lot of the repairs and maintenance were done to prepare for this leg of the journey.
Camper Fixes
Overall our Four Wheel Camper Fleet Flatbed has been awesome and given us plenty of space and amenities. The problems along the way have been minor and easy to fix. We have been living in it long enough that everything has a place and we can always find things.
Plugged Faucet
About a year into our journey, the kitchen sink faucet started plugging up and spraying oddly. Unscrewing the diffusor yielded a small nest of shredded plastic (presumably left over from the initial manufacturing). Once that was removed we were good to go.
Mold along the plastic ceiling strips
Mold
In cooler weather we struggled with mold. Andy would assiduously wipe down the celing and walls every morning (the two of us breathing all night was a problem). We have learned that the best solution is to leave the windows and vents open all night but when it is freezing out that is not pleasant. We’ve learned that leaving at least one window cracked open over night helps. Most of the mold build up was on the plastic wood strips on the ceiling. It got bad enough that the mold imbedded into the plastic and could not be removed with a bleach solution. Wiping down with bleach proactively would have prevented the problem but we started that too late. We also had some mold build up on the arctic fabric liner of the popup top. Luckily a bleach solution eliminated the mold there without any ill effects to the fabric.
Dawn painting the strips with anti-mold paint. Arctic fabric hanging along the sides.
In the end we cleaned and then re-painted the strips with an anti-mold paint. This has worked well, along with being more aware of opening vents at night and traveling to a warmer climate.
Dometic Fridge
The fridge has overall been a great performer. However, as we got into warmer climates we noticed a few issues. Occasionally the internal temperature would start to rise into the mid 40s (we keep a thermometer in it to keep track). We have figured out that we really need to complete a full defrost every month to maintain optimal temperature control. The other thing we started doing was running the Four Wheel Camper-installed refrigerator fan during the day when we were driving and it was sunny and approaching 90, which allows for the fridge compressor to stay cooler and run less.
USB Ports
We may be living a simple life but we still have a lot of electronics to charge. We have phones, headlamps, kindles, a camera, a laptop, electric toothbrushes, a mini USB fan, an iPad and a bluetooth speaker. It is a surprising amount of charging needs. Luckily not everything needs charging every day and we can also charge things in the cab while we drive. But the four USB ports in the actual camper get some heavy use. About two years into the trip, two of the four ports stopped working.
Ports on the right became loose and stopped working
The plan is to buy new ones from Four Wheel Camper when we are back in the United States for a family visit.
Flatbed and Aftermarket Installed Parts
The flatbed was a great choice for us to maximize storage, giving us external tool boxes. However there have been a few challenges with the way everything is connected together.
Nuts and Bolts
We have had four instances when random bolts have come loose and once where one had actually fallen off. That time we were lucky not to lose an a leaf spring, see below.
Photo of the missing nut with the rear leaf spring ready to fall off
The original installer painted some of the nuts to easily determine if they have come undone (nut and bolt marking) but not all of them. Andy has now made sure all of the accessible nuts and bolts are painted with a white line and does regular underbody inspections. Two of the inaccessible aluminium bolts on the flatbed became stripped and had to be replaced, one we had to have sawn off in a shop.
Interestingly, none of the Toyota original equipment nuts and bolts have come loose.
Creaks and Groans
About a year into our journey we started to notice that as we drove down the cobbled streets in European villages people would stop, turnaround and stare as we went by. We realized that we were announcing our presence with a cacophony of squeaks and groans as we drove down the streets. This has been an ongoing issue and we are still working on it, three cans of WD40 later.
Red arrow shows first squeak point, nylon discs between layers had deteriorated. Blue arrow points to second squeak point, created plastic sleeves for brackets.
The first attempted fix was more of a maintenance issue. The aftermarket rear leaf spring manufacturer, Deaver, had originally installed plastic discs between the individual layers of leaf springs as silencers. These had deteriorated and fallen out over time. They were super nice and sent us new plastic discs for free! Thanks Deaver! This partially and temporarily helped the issue.
The second fix was to work on the squeak along the arm which holds the layers of the leaf spring together. We reached out to our fix-it son who has equipment, Trevor, gave him measurements and had him manufacture 20 plastic sleeves. We picked them up when we returned to the US for a family wedding. We brought them back and had the Toyota dealer in Ljubljana, Slovenia install them for us. That lessened the din for a while.
At this point, we have a plan for a third attempted fix. Due to the very heavy weight of the truck, we installed aftermarket rear leaf springs and ARB BP-51 front shocks and springs. This made installing aftermarket upper control arms necessary. After 80,000 miles, the upper control arm bushings and ball joints are currently howling for replacement. Unfortunately the parts have to come from California. We are hoping to do this in an overland shop in South Africa. (6,000 noisy miles away. And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.)
Our third and ongoing squeak, the upper control arms howling away, bushings and ball joint need to be rebuilt.
Toyota Tacoma
We are still very happy with our choice of a midsize Toyota Tacoma pickup. The size is perfect for us and the roads and sites we need to navigate. The fact that it is the brother to the internationally acclaimed Hilux model means that many parts are readily available. But, as is inevitable, there have been a few minor issues.
Smaller size means we can actually drive through European mountain villages
And navigate West African roads (this was the dry season)
Most of the more challenging problems are related to the fact that it is a highly computerized newer vehicle. These issues are especially frustrating because neither Andy nor the average small auto shop can really fix them.
Behind this grill is one of the sensors for the auto braking system
Computer Communication Failure
There are three systems (Anti-Skid Braking, Stability Control, Automatic Braking) that have had problems communicating with each other. When they have a problem a “check engine” light appears on the dash. This occurs about every three months.
Example of a diagnosis of a check engine light
Parking Brake Freeze
In two different climates on two different continents we have woken up in the morning ready to go and found our parking brake frozen on.
In Austria, overnight temperatures dropped well below freezing and we were parked on a shady riverbank. We solved the issue that morning by putting the truck in four wheel low and dragging the rear axle into the sun to melt it.
Flash forward twelve months later, we are by the beach in Ghana and after two days of camping in the 90’s the brake was “frozen” again. The brake had frozen, or, more accurately, corroded somewhere in the components of the rear drum, not the brake cable itself. Andy managed to pour water on it and free it.
We are now more aware of the issue and hesitant to use the brake more than overnight. Another fix for South Africa.
Our fix has been to carry an onboard diagnostic reader which interprets the check engine codes and also allows us to clear them.
Rear Differential Leak
We have installed aftermarket ARB front and rear locking differentials. During the installation we had an extension added to the breather tube to bring the end out into the engine compartment (this allows us to cross deep water without damaging the rear differential). For more than a year, a small amount of rear differential fluid was being forced up the differential breather tube. Andy noticed the oil spraying in the engine compartment. We were able to go to Overland Services in Bygrave, England and have the rear differential gears realigned and new seals installed. Solved!
Accumulated oil from the rear differential
The crew at Overland Services in Bygrave, England
Torn CV Boots
When Overland Services was fixing the differential, they noticed a torn CV Boot on the front suspension. We were on our way to Iceland so we ordered a new one to be sent to a German friend we were going to visit. It was replaced by the Toyota dealer in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Three thousand miles later Andy noticed that the ring securing the boot had dislodged and was leaking grease. We went to Tuff Tracks in Lisbon, Portugal and they re-tightened the ring, along with a whole host of other small tweaks we wanted to do before Africa.
Crew at overlanding shop Tuff Tracks outside of Lisbon, Portugal
Not only were the Tuff Tracks guys great, they gave us swag that we are happily using here in Africa.
Then, driving very rough roads in the interior of Guinea, we tore the same boot when one of the end links on the front anti-sway bar broke and crashed onto the boot. Unfortunately we were way out in the mountains so Andy had to remove the anti-sway bar and duct tape the rest together to get us to town.
On the road emergency repairs in Guinea
We had the boot replaced again at CFAO Toyota in Conakry, Guinea. Hopefully the third times the charm.
The result of the broken end link of the anti sway bar smashing into the CV boot.
Crew at CFAO Conakry
We have been enormously grateful for the overland shops and Toyota dealers that have helped us along the way. When Overland Services heard we were shipping to Iceland that week and needed some work done, they moved things around to sqeeze us in. The Toyota dealer in Slovenia received shipment of a new solar panel for us. Tuff Tracks in Portugal also fit us in and provided extra diagnostic work for us to get us ready for Africa. CFAO Conakry worked with us to source replacement parts from the local market so that the work could be done the next day.
Our next blog will be “what we would have done differently” - and surprisingly there is not much. We are grateful that we were able to sell our home and buy a new vehicle/home on wheels which has allowed our journey to be mostly trouble free.
As always thank you for reading and please reach out with any questions.
