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Leaks, Leaks, Leaks

Leaks, Leaks, Leaks

Thursday, 9 November 2023

It seems that Donkey and I have been hit by a leak curse. At least that's what went through my head last night as I lay awake at 2am in the morning sitting in a sea of leaked drinking water, because I'd fallen asleep on the tube of my camel-pack. The realization that between Donkey and me, we have leaked everything save motor oil and blood (touch wood). The water leak, as just mentioned came from poor sleeping decisions. My olive oil decided the bottle it was in was too constricting, so instead decided to spread itself out over everything in my camping bag, mmmm.
Donkey has suffered from abuse of her owner. A fissure in the coolant hose in Namibia, followed by a less than perfect fix, meant I was leaking coolant for the best part of 3 weeks. It's now fixed properly, so don't worry. Mind you, it was fixed properly by yours truly, so maybe worry a little. Then her front left shock decided to blow a seal and start leaking fork oil. I tried cleaning the seal, but to no avail. I will just have to live with it until I get to Lusaka in Zambia where I have ordered the spare parts. In Angola there is nothing to fix it with and importing the parts from Portugal would take 4 - 5 weeks, leaving me in the middle of rainy season. Donkey seems to be managing the injury quite alright though, I have tied a sleeve of my T-shirt around the bottom of the shock to prevent the oil running into my front breaks as I'd prefer to keep those working optimally.
We also had some fuel and break fluid leaks, but those are really my own fault because I overfilled them out of lack of concentration, oops ;P

Seeing as aside from this, Donkey and I have been in top shape, I have concluded that it must just be a leaky cursed... Or on a more philosophical note, maybe I am learning that it's OK to not always keep everything in, and that letting it all out once in a while isn't the end of the world.

T-shirt absorbs the oil coming out of the shock and prevents it running into the brake pads... for now.
My less than perfect fix of the coolant leak. Not exactly neat and tidy, it worked for about a week before starting to leak again.

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