Keeping busy!

Yesterday, I went to try and get my air conditioning working in the Montero, but although I found the workshop in Bello, it was obviously busy, and there was nowhere nearby to park, to make enquiries, so gave it up as a bad job, whilst doing so, I realised that the recently repaired broken tooth, had broken agaion for the third time, so I headed for Copacabana.

I went to the Medical Center, queued to get an order for the appointment, and went up to the Dental Department, expecting to give them the order and wait for a phone call. I was told to sit, and they would see me immediately, which they did. It was the same Dentist who had done the previous two repairs, and she told me, that if it broke again, to ask to see another Dentist, this wasn\’t her speciality, and possibly someone else would do a better job… you couldn\’t fault her honesty, but it did make me wish I was back in the mountains of Spain, there my Dentist believed anything could be resolved by covering the offending area in a mountain of resin, it might not have looked that good, but it worked! unfortunately,or maybe fortunately for me, when I moved to Colombia, they were so disgusted at the standard of workmanship, that they removed all his resin, and I have been visiting them ever since!

Last night Marcela came home with an endoscope I had ordered from Gearbest, it works off my Android phone, as it has a 5m cable with camera, I should be able to look up the drain pipe and see whether there is damage or a joint has sprung, I will try to video it, and if there is a result, I will post it here…you have been patient enough, you deserve to know of any progress!

In the mean time, I made a new lid for the septic trap, I had concrete ones made when we unearthed the trap and main tanks, the previous owner had no idea where they were, we had to dig up much of the garden to find them. If as I first thought, I only had to move them occasionally it would have been fine, but when it has to be opened once or more per day, I was going to give myself a hernia, so I dug into my scrap woodpile, which is rapidly disappearing, and came up with enough to make a new top.

This was generously covered in old engine oil, but being mahogany, it would probably have lasted anyway.

Today I left the house early, I thought that by going to Bello before 8am, I would get a parking space, and hopefully the work done on my air conditioning, but I was wrong, there were no parking spaces, and the workshop was about the only one not open at that time.

However on my way to Bello on the Autopista Norte (north Motorway), I was giving a neighbour a lift, and we came up behind a small lorry, that was lucky not to end up on it\’s side.

He had either loaded it entirely wrong, or his suspension was in need of immediate work, I thought he was going to go over on his side, and he knew it, as his brake lights were almost permanently on, but didn\’t seem to make any difference as he didn\’t even slow down…dangerous.  There is no sound, as our language was choice!

From Bello, I decided to make my way to San Juan, which is part of the city of Medellin, I knew a workshop there that serviced air-conditioning. On my arrival, the car went straight in to the workshop, where they discovered that all the wiring for the aircon had been cut out, so they replaced it, and it fired up immediately, I was surprised, as there is no filter of refridgeration liquid in the system, and doesn\’t require an annual check, all bonus\’s, best of all the cost was a third of what I was expecting to pay.

I may have found why a previous owner attacked the system, on my way home, I was testing the air con, which certainly blew it cold enough, although not as cold as a modern system, however despite knowing that these systems take a lot of power from the engine, it seemed to take more than I expected, on the flat it was fine, but get to an incline, and I had to pull over to the slow lane. Coming back up the mountain to the house, I had to turn off the air con, but worryingly it still sucked power from the system, normally I can drive back up in second gear, but today it only managed first, and then only just! I will take it for another test tomorrow, but if the problem persists, I may have to disconnect the system, which is a shame, but at least the wiring will be there for when the day comes that I sell the Montero.