Daphne’s Diary – Wednesday 6th April 2016

Dear Diary,

All alone in the dark...

Yesterday was quite a day. I’ve had a look at the pictures – it’s not often a girl like me gets to see her rear end – and it wasn’t pretty. The butchery on my delicate parts was painful. It says in the Workshop Manual that “work on the braking system must be carried out under conditions of absolute cleanliness”. Well, I think I saw the Chief Spannerman drop the brake pipe union in the sand at least twice, and then blow it to clean it…. At one point they made a cup out of a water bottle to catch the escaping brake fluid and were going to pour it back into the reservoir, but luckily a fresh can appeared. I wouldn’t fancy poisoned blood in my hydraulic system, thank you.

Half an hour later, and all this was pink and gritty.

 Anyway, after a particularly breezy night, my undersides are getting The Treatment again. The attempts to bleed the brakes yesterday were only good enough to restore some limited stopping power, and He is now underneath, getting rid of the rest of the air. She is passing Him tools and stuff. Back home are all the proper tools for this, but out here he’s using a plastic bottle that once held cooking oil and a bit of clear tubing cut from the shower hose. I also saw some locking wire and tie-wraps go underneath, too, but I don’t know what that’s about. Feels like a bodge, if you ask me. Ouch! That pinches.

The wire and tie-wraps are to make up some way of stopping the brake pipe from flexing. There was, apparently, a bracket that held the pipe steady but this has broken away allowing the pipe to flex backwards and forwards. Eventually it snapped and you know the rest. He had to repair the same problem on the other side too, but hopefully that snag is fixed for a while, anyway.

1000. All fixed now. Well, not “all” but much better than before. The rear brake system is free of air but He hasn’t touched the front end. We’re good enough to get to Zagora and a proper garage, where They think it’ll be a Good Idea to have my parts inspected and the necessary extra work done. I’ll also get a good greasing, too, which is always a luxury.

We depart from MS6 at Tafraoute and cut across to MS4 at Oum-Jrane. He drives me slowly because the washboard roads are really shaking everything up. This track leads us to the village but, as we approach, there’s a straight black line across the horizon. Tarmac road. This is disappointing as it’ll be “cheating” apparently. Personally, I like the idea of a few hours of not having my dampers and springs tested to their limits, but the crew are grumbling. Unfortunately for me, they needn’t have worried; the tarmac only went as far as the next village – Tissemoumine – about 4 kms away, then we’re back on dust n’rocks.

All the way to Zagora, and tea.We've been camping wild for four nights now, so a little pampering's in order, I think.

So, that’s everyone up-to-date with Daphne’s Doings. Perhaps Plancky could reserve some of those rubber mats to replace yet another mudflap? Ta.