Poor Dora

We leave Morella heading north towards Barcelona, and out of Spain. We will both be sad. It has been such an important part of the journey for us. But before we go we have arranged to see a specialist mechanic who is just outside Girona.

There is nothing wrong, we just realise that we do not know enough about Dora’s system for not increasing pollutants to the atmosphere. If only we had been given a proper explanation! We have learnt a bit about the system, but would like to speak to someone knowledgeable. We have now been travelling for six months, but we still have six months to go, so it will be good for the old girl to have the once over. We have been in contact with Pirelli and they have put us in contact with a garage who can have a look at the system, They normally service buses!

The route from Morella is stunning, crossing a series of ranges of hills. Some are snow covered, all are beautiful, barren and pretty much untouched, except for the amazing feats of engineering that are pushing through every more impressive roads. We are severely bad at capturing some of this landscape. Perhaps this is a good thing and will inspire our followers.

Trust us, the road east from Morella is great. From here we headed south to Tortosa spending the night close to the coast. We should have stayed near the Delta de L’Ebre, to see some more birds, but we were running out of LPG. She had been low for a couple of days, and had been risking it. Our LPG map is not that up to date, the one we had earmarked no longer had gas, we moved on. It wasn’t until the outskirts of Tarragona that we find a petrol station with LPG. Note; we didn’t actually run out, but she must have been sucking in the residual fumes.

We are up early and off, circumnavigating the many autovia of Barcelona. We have been to Barcelona many times, so are not planning to stop. But while on the motorway, Dora suddenly slips out of fifth gear. It happens a couple of times. Then it happens with Susana as well. Is trouble ahead?

We continue north heading out of Costa Daurada to Costa Brava. This is the real home of the old school British holiday maker. These are names so familiar to me, but places we never got to see when I was younger.

Every year my mother would get the holiday brochures from the travel agent and I would endlessly peruse them. I would know every resort along the coasts of Spain. We never got to go. Holidays were a real problem in our house, but it is probably why I am such a keen traveller.

These places are etched into my memory; Benidorm, Lloret de Mar and  Blanes. We stayed at Blanes that night. Not sure what the attraction is? It looks a bit dishevelled, a bit sad. Not sure if it would be improved with 50,000 Brits, many pissed and 25 degrees of sun. While there we found a cafe with WIFI and abused it for a couple of hours. Only then did we find the inherent problem with the fiat Ducato and the 2.8l JCt diesel engine.

Rather than redesign the gearbox, the fifth gear had been tacked on the outside, no wasted retooling at the Fiat factory then. This could mean that not enough oil gets thrown in the general direction of the fifth gear, causing it to wear excessively. Online there are fine descriptions of DIY replacements. We didn’t have the tools or the courage, but maybe our garage could assist us.

Dora isn’t cool, but we love her

The next day we limped towards our garage.

Firstly, the ‘Feelpure Pirelli system’.

David was brilliant. After a few minutes we found where we could plug the computer in; a plastic box underneath Dora. We turned her on and a stream of diagnostic information was being downloaded like some formula one car. The system was running well, there were no significant deposits building up within the filters, which were running at the correct temperatures, and she had only done a third of the hours that these filters should last. This would get us to the end of the trip and a considerable distance thereafter. It was all very reassuring.

David was also able to supply us with some additional special oil (additive) and told us all the details about the system so we could keep an eye on her.

And the gear. Well that was buggered.

The good thing was it is an attachment, so it is easy to get to and is easy to replace. She had lost about a quarter of the teeth!

A stripped fifth gear on the fiat Ducato is easy to access. The appendage is removed by undoing 5 bolts.

The fifth gear comprising of about ten parts.

The need for a good dentist here!

The next job was to find some replacement parts, which turned into quite a mission! But eventually we found the Spanish equivalent of a breakers yard that could send us the parts, which would be with us in three working days. Actually not the parts, the whole gearbox, as these guys didn’t actually do the breaking bit. To get the gear box delivered to us, we had to do a bank transfer. This process will take time from our UK bank account. To speed it up, we pay Quim, our mechanic, the cost of the gear by credit card and he then makes the transfer for us to these guys. So easy.

We actually have a spanish account, but they make it so difficult to do anything online, it is most frustrating. Every time we try they put another hurdle in front of us; we now need a copy of your passport, the deeds to your house and a spare kidney for security, then you can transfer up to €20 per day from your account!

So trying to look on the bright side of these events;

We were on our way to a garage anyway, so it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

We were in Spain, so the language was not a problem.

We have allocated funds for such repairs, which currently we are still well within.

The internet; wow, we had an idea of the problem and the severity of the issue.

We found a brilliant mechanic who was able to deal with us straight away.

They patched us up and sent us on our (no fifth gear) way, in an area that is stunning, which we wouldn’t have seen had it been for these sorry events.

We had three to four days to explore the area and do some skiing- this was the real benefit, although we had planned on some skiing at some time, the Montseny region was new to us and it is beautiful.

GDR