2015 Namibia trip
Posted: 29 Jul 2015 07:45
Ok so for the past 9 months or so I have been planning to tour Namibia a bit and try and see as many places as possible. We chose to go there in July as it is not to hot and it gives enough time for the kids not to miss any school.
So what started as a couple of waypoint in Mapsourse and viewing the country in Google earth ended in a 5,700km journey with unforgettable landscapes.
As everyone knows who does overlanding trips, its allot of preparation and usually something goes wrong just before you have to leave. In my case my Patrol’s turbo started making strange noises 5 days before we wanted to leave. So I handed in the turbo at Turbo Works Centurion the Monday after noon and got it back from them the Tuesday after noon, I fitted it with haste and everything was back to normal except one thing……I could now only get 0.5 bar boost instead of the original 0.8 bar
I am taking my Patrol back to Turbo Works today as they need to fix this before the river trip…. Will keep everyone posted on this.
Being so close to the departure date I could not take it back to Turbo Works and bought a manual Boost Controller to try and rectify the lack of boost……. What a waste of R220. The best I cold get was 0.6 bar with the boost controller installed. So all I could do was accept my fate and continue with the trip as planned.
We were going to be 5 adults and two kids in the vehicle and I was towing Tinus’s trailer so I was 4 tons+ and I could feel on the first hill we hit that my Patrol was under powered and obviously the engine was running a bit rich due to the lack of boost which in return gave me higher than normal EGT’s. I knew that I would have to drive carefully because of this, but luckily I have a Madman system so I was able to monitor everything and I wasn’t going to let this ruin my holiday.
The only other real issue I had was my front callipers that didn’t release the discs after you hit the brakes…… This happened after I had to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. This was very strange and frustrating as it literally held me back. The discs became so hot that they started smoking and I had to stop every now and then to release the pressure in the calliper via the bleeding nipple. This I had to do every now and then until I reached Walvis Bay. It was my brake master cylinder that was not allowing the brake fluid to return back the reservoir from the callipers for some reason.
Thanks to Josh I met Tiny (Graham) who lives in Walvis bay. He was very helpful!! I bought a new master cylinder kit and fixed my problem at his house, he helped to get my Patrol back to how it should be.
Those were the only downers of the whole trip, the rest was just fantastic and we are already planning our next trip to NAM in 2017.
The end result was 5,700 km of road, 88 hours of driving and my Patrol ended up giving me a fuel consumption of 6km/L which was less than I thought it was going to be, but understandable with the turbo issue.
Here are some photos of some of the best moments
So what started as a couple of waypoint in Mapsourse and viewing the country in Google earth ended in a 5,700km journey with unforgettable landscapes.
As everyone knows who does overlanding trips, its allot of preparation and usually something goes wrong just before you have to leave. In my case my Patrol’s turbo started making strange noises 5 days before we wanted to leave. So I handed in the turbo at Turbo Works Centurion the Monday after noon and got it back from them the Tuesday after noon, I fitted it with haste and everything was back to normal except one thing……I could now only get 0.5 bar boost instead of the original 0.8 bar
I am taking my Patrol back to Turbo Works today as they need to fix this before the river trip…. Will keep everyone posted on this.
Being so close to the departure date I could not take it back to Turbo Works and bought a manual Boost Controller to try and rectify the lack of boost……. What a waste of R220. The best I cold get was 0.6 bar with the boost controller installed. So all I could do was accept my fate and continue with the trip as planned.
We were going to be 5 adults and two kids in the vehicle and I was towing Tinus’s trailer so I was 4 tons+ and I could feel on the first hill we hit that my Patrol was under powered and obviously the engine was running a bit rich due to the lack of boost which in return gave me higher than normal EGT’s. I knew that I would have to drive carefully because of this, but luckily I have a Madman system so I was able to monitor everything and I wasn’t going to let this ruin my holiday.
The only other real issue I had was my front callipers that didn’t release the discs after you hit the brakes…… This happened after I had to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. This was very strange and frustrating as it literally held me back. The discs became so hot that they started smoking and I had to stop every now and then to release the pressure in the calliper via the bleeding nipple. This I had to do every now and then until I reached Walvis Bay. It was my brake master cylinder that was not allowing the brake fluid to return back the reservoir from the callipers for some reason.
Thanks to Josh I met Tiny (Graham) who lives in Walvis bay. He was very helpful!! I bought a new master cylinder kit and fixed my problem at his house, he helped to get my Patrol back to how it should be.
Those were the only downers of the whole trip, the rest was just fantastic and we are already planning our next trip to NAM in 2017.
The end result was 5,700 km of road, 88 hours of driving and my Patrol ended up giving me a fuel consumption of 6km/L which was less than I thought it was going to be, but understandable with the turbo issue.
Here are some photos of some of the best moments
- Our arrival neer the border
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- Beautifull Sunset
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. that is one the most beautiful places on earth!!