Well, I shouldn't be at home to be typing this, but I am! After a period of fairly smooth running the truck has thwarted my plans on two successive weekends. Last Sunday (31/1) I was hoping to visit Ongali but when I went out to the truck in the morning it refused to start. Since the battery was cranking the engine well enough I guessed it was a fuel delivery problem but since there was no possibility I could fettle it and still have tome to get to Ongali for the service I left it and visited a different church here in Léconi instead. However, that didn't solve the problem! So part of Sunday afternoon was spent with my head under the bonnet purging the fuel lines of air. The problem was difficult to diagnose since it's happened a couple of times in the past, what is difficult to work out is WHY it happens. The first twice I assumed the fuel gauge was faulty and I'd simply run out of fuel but this time I know the tank was 1/2 - 3/4 full. No sign of a leak along the lines or at the joints, so...?
Anyway, having got the engine starting again I was all set on Thurs. to go out to Odzuma for two days and then to Ossouelle for two, taking the Alliance pastor and papa Abel, a church elder, along with me. Early in the afternoon we headed out of Léconi and onto the sand track leading north, and now that the large tractors from the new cassava factory ply the first part of the route out to their fields 'sandy' is a vast understatement! After just 12 km. the engine was overheating, the water boiling noisily. We stopped and waited for it to cool off then set forth again hoping to make it up the next incline, which was grassy rather than sandy, with less effort and no overheating. We only made it a further two km. before the needle was again threatening the red. The prospect of having to make ten minute stops every two kilometres for the next 40 (and a whole 80 on the way home on Sunday) forced us to reluctantly give up the trip and return to Léconi (with another stop halfway up the hill we had come down!). This time the source of the problem is not difficult to diagnose - the drive belts are ridiculously slack. I suppose they must have stretched since being put on last year. The problem now is that you can't get the ratchet directly onto a socket to loosen the alternator lock nut, I don't have a small extender bar, and to get the long one I do have into the space you have to take out the fan! Now that sounds like a lot of unnecessary work! So, I'm hoping to limp to Franceville with the loose drive belts (on the basis driving on tarmac will put less strain on the engine and therefore reduce the risk of overheating) and have my mechanic tighten them there - he hopefully has a small extender bar; if not the extra work is for him not me!
The remaining question is whether risk accompanying the women of the Alliance church to their regional seminar in Akieni next weekend, i.e. before the trip to Franceville? It will again be all tarmac driving, but ....? I've not attended for several years so it would be good to be there and I would like to help any women that come in from the villages by giving them a free ride - they get the hardest deal - few opportunities to earn money to pay their travel fare and participation and yet the highest travel costs, having to come in from the villages first. BUT, do they want to risk being stranded part way? Maybe I'll explain the risk and let them decide.
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