Put Globi back into operation after a year and a half

11/17/21 to 12/19/21

The human body and diesel show very similar reactions after a certain age! We were able to learn a lot from many small technical damages. This time we also understood that traveling can also be heart breaking.

Old age

In order to clean Globi’s roof, I have to climb onto the roof, which sounds logic. The ascent is via the skylight above the bed. I lift myself up and there it happens – a deafening noise from my right shoulder, then rest and pain. Although the right arm is immediately significantly less usable than normal, I properly clean the roof and the solar cells. However, the pain increases significantly, so I decide to consult a local doctor. He sends me to the X-ray and determines that nothing is broken, which I thought myself already as I am not that tough! As a next step, Hori drives me 200km to the MRI. The local specialist then explains to me that I tore off my shoulder muscle, which is supposed to be lifting my arm. At my age, this is permanent damage and irreparable, since an operation is no longer worthwhile. Unfortunately, the opinion of the specialist in Switzerland was the same, but he consoled me that I could still have the operation carried out in six months, but my enormous shoulder muscles would be able to replace the missing muscle. I hope now that I can at least use disabled parking spaces in Switzerland with this partial disability.

Happy moment

After over a year and a half, we are finally seeing our home on wheels, our Globi, again. It was a warm feeling to finally be back in our mobile home. Thanks to Hori who was moving the truck over and over again, the MAN works perfectly straight away, and the batteries are fully charged as well. The spiders have completely wrapped Globi and created a protection against insects. We didn’t have a single ant or other critter in the cabin. We’ll probably have to take the thousands of spiders with us on our travels!

Encounters

The reunion with our friends Marianne and Horacio, and Lola and Santiago with their families was very emotional. We had spent over a month in lockdown with them on their campo.

In the meantime, some of the children have grown into young adults and will go to university in Buenos Aires next year. Emilia and Fran celebrated their confirmation with a huge party, in which we were also allowed to participate. We got to know many of their sympathetic friends and enjoyed a wonderful meal, a «gigot» – but made of beef!

After our many WhatsApp calls from Switzerland, we finally met Leandro, the customs officer who drew up the contract for Globi, in person. It was like meeting friends, although we had never met before.

Saying goodbye to our friends was a bit sad. ☹ We will probably not see anyone anymore, although some of them promised to visit us in Switzerland.

Juan, our friend in Chivilcoy, we were able to visit again on our way to the north as well. He built a lot on his house and his son is now living with him too. We had a very good time with him and Martin, here too we probably had to say goodbye forever. Traveling can sometimes feel like a permanent goodbye.

Technology pitfalls

In contrast to the truck, the cabin shows some stand damages after the year and a half.

On the Campo and elsewhere, we couldn’t always fill up with perfect water. The water was partly calcareous and salty. The taps in the toilet didn’t survive, they got stuck. WD40 did not lead to success and so Hori organized a new set for us. The installation was cumbersome, as it seems to be normal in a motorhome.

The heating didn’t work anymore either, the first thing I did was change the main water pump, which I always have on board. After that, the heater ran perfectly until it went into error again. This time Hans in Switzerland analysed the source of the error as the diesel pump. Getting this one wasn’t quite easy and only possible thanks to the intensive search of Santiago. He also installed the purchased pump himself, after which the heating ran perfectly again. Unfortunately, not while driving. So, I also replaced the pump that uses the cooling water for heating purposes and everything has been running as it should since then.

As we had no diesel heating at times, we tried to start the electric boilers, but they didn’t want to work either. But we left the troubleshooting and live without an electric boiler in the future.

The Ernstli battery did not survive the long-standing time without electricity, even though it was not connected. Since this is a standard motorcycle battery, a replacement was easy to obtain.

When cleaning the storage flaps with air pressure, the air pistol also said goodbye, it could no longer be closed. Thanks to Hori, we found one in town.

The air conditioning did not work anymore. When measuring whether the fault is with the compressor or the circuit board, I caused a short circuit, so that the fault is now definitely with the circuit board!

After the first trip in the morning, I found out that we had a diesel leak. It was a brittle rubber hose that we could simply have replaced.

Otherwise, we had no stand damages at all, everything was fine, and we are happy and satisfied.

For a smile

We drive with two diesel tanks, one large and one small. We use the small one as a reserve tank and almost always only use the large one. So, the diesel in the small tank is getting older. When we opened the tank cap at the Campo, it smelled more like an emulsion paint than of diesel! The diesel was deteriorated! We disposed 400l of old diesel in the MAN workshop! We learned that diesel also wants to be needed and we will use both tanks more fairly in the future.