Turning Wrenches

I've tried to avoid posting about the roads here since the topic seems too easy to talk about, but it plays into the story here. Keeping vehicles together and operational is a challenge here. Most of the dirt roads around the hospital are in a condition that force you to either drive at 5mph and rock and roll to the many potholes, or go fast enough that you bounce over them but at the cost of shaking the entire vehicle to bits. Paved roads are better but require constant focus because if you encounter one of the many potholes present, its usually big enough to damage things.

Last Tuesday myself and another missionary planned a fast trip to Siguatepeque so I could pick up tools I had purchased from another missionary there. Sigua is about 200 miles away and its a seven hour drive if you are lucky. In our case we would be taking a trailer so we expected that to slow us down significantly, having to also be stopped at every police checkpoint. The drive had been going well, except for a late start which forced us into driving at night. This is an adventure because most of the roads here lack any kind of streetlights and nor do they have any lines painted, and if they do its not the reflective paint we've become accustomed to in the US. Due to the limited visibility we accidentally plowed through one of those potholes and immediately noticed afterwards the truck pulled hard to the right and the steering wheel had to be turned about 10 degrees in order to drive in a straight line. Thankfully we made it there and were able to load up our tools.

Loaded up and ready to head back. Not shown is the half dozen straps attempting to hold the tool box in place despite the roads we were traveling.

The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful and upon returning to Loma de Luz an inspection was done to figure out what happened. The lower control arm (part of the suspension that holds the vehicle up off the ground) on the passenger side was bent and the strut mount (the part that the gray tube is bolted to) had actually broken through part of the arm as well (outlined in red). This same problem had been recently repaired on this truck on the driver side just a few months earlier.

So a trip to get tools to get our vehicle back on the road was completed at the cost of taking another vehicle back off the road for repairs. Thankfully we have tools now so these repairs are easier, but I still have to sit back sometimes and ponder on just how rough this environment is on vehicles.

Keep after it

Using a hospital bed to remove a transmission. Seemed appropriate for where we were at.