Three Months to GO

Position: 51'19N 0'33W, somewhere South of London.

With just over three months until we jump in the Gobi Ambulance and head East we’re starting to tick things off on the to do list.

First the fun stuff... We've agreed a sky dive in Tehran (Iran) with some fellow Mongol Rally entrants. Mat and Russ will be jumping out of a plane at 15,000 feet with ten others. Stu going to stay on the ground, take some photos.

Secondly we're currently working on paragliding in Tajikistan. Being the most mountainous country in the world it’s the perfect places for the thermals required for paragliding.

We’re on the lookout of other interesting things to do along the way, so if you’ve got any suggestions drop us a line.

The paper work that is required to transit twenty two counties is significant. Looking at it in a positive way, we only have eight visas and a carnet-de-passage to obtain. The amount of forms stands at fifty four for visas and another three for the carnet, most of which is filled out by hand. To say it’s a little tedious would be an understatement but its all part of the fun (apparently!).

Last weekend we all got together and had use of a fully equipped garage, with a hydraulic ramp so Russ and Stu set about suspension work by raising the back suspension and checking brakes. It looks like we need to strip down and replace the front brakes, and then there’s the issue of brake fluid, we need to think about is the temperature to stop brake fade. In Tajikistan we’ll be traversing mountain passes up to 3500 meters high, and what goes up must come down. This will probably involve quite a bit of brake usage which can result in the brake fluid boiling and in essence loss of breaks.

We also had a bit of a debate on which engine to put in the Ambulance. Right now she’s got a two litre petrol engine but Stu is keen to replace it with a diesel lump, but that involves a fair but of work so we’re not all convinced.

There was quite a bit of tyre kicking throughout the day. One of the problems we need to solve is fuel and spares storage. The key thing here is to keep the centre of gravity low because of the terrain we’ll be driving over the last thing we need to do is make her more unstable! We’ve agreed to stash the heavy stuff (fuel, spare suspension leaf springs etc) underneath. Stu’s a bit of a master fabricator so he’s going to don his welding mask and put something together. We’ve got around 100kg of additional fuel to put underneath so whatever he makes is going to have to heavy duty.

We’re also plating over the fuel tank (and reserve tanks) to stop anything putting a hold in it. The last thing we need is to be stuck without fuel with 2.3 tonnes of ambulance up a mountain with altitude sickness!!

Before going home we managed to finish the stereo off, the amplifier is in with speakers for the front and rear. The fridge went in nicely as did 12 and 240 volt DC/AC supplies and various mobile holders.

To finish off we cleared up and then did some down hill stretcher racing – more on that next time!!

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Don’t forget we’re still taking donations online, just click donate on the left side of the screen. If you’ve not got a PayPal account then remember you can also donate a fiver by texting GOBI to 80210.


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