That weekend I forgot about the Merkabah, leaving the fluid gasket to cure properly and the expectations to lower a little. If it did not work I would surely have a stroke.
I went on with the building of the lifter for the bikes and decided to make a test to see what the good things and the flaws of the design were. Eduardo gave me a hand, as always, and we put on Heidi to begin with the heaviest load the lifter would have to cope with.
There were obviously many errors and weaknesses, but they were all easy to improve. It was a good design all in all, and the GS was quite a challenge to handle.
I worked a few more hours on the improvements and then I went to other stuff and finished to install the drip irrigation system for the trees, the creeps and the flowers. More than a hundred drippers later my hands were on fire, nothing that a good hot bath with a gin & gin could not cure, though.
Next Monday, I was still worried for the result of the driving test of the Merkabah. Don Pato, Nico and Eduardo helped me to install the big and heavy diesel tank back on and then jumped in the cabin, just to make a fruitless attempt of cranking the engine. I made a selfie just to remind me to smile instead of having a worried grimace. Did not work.
I primed the diesel injection pump and then the mighty V8 came again to life with its classic roar, gladly appeased by the muffler, also in place. There was a lot of smoke at the beginning, and the air pressure began to rise.
All the vehicles that stood up in front of the truck were moved and I began with the maneuvering to take the Merkabah out of her almost eternal resting place, with a nasty aching of my left knee. I should put a servo clutch as soon as possible. I added pressure to the second axle suspension to alleviate drag on the rear axle.
Anyways, with a little patience and a lot of turns of the steering wheel the truck left the workshop again after many, many months. The gears already engaged pretty well going back and forth, and after a few meters on the street I noted clearly that it was much easier to drive the beast as the gearbox was completely different and I had not to fight with the shift lever each time I wanted to shift gears.
I did not check if the turning lights worked or the brake lights were okay, I just got in the middle of the traffic and pointed to my workplace. I had a bet to win.
When I arrived at the gate the guard looked at me from down bellow and waved me to get in without even lifting an eyebrow. Strange, but later on I was told that everyone at the place knew that Pairoa came in on a big and strange truck two minutes after my arrival.
It was late so the parking was half empty and had no problem to find a place to park. I called my colleague, who was in his watch, and he enjoyed the privilege of being the first stranger sitting in the passenger seat after restoring the truck. Now he believed.
Going back to the shop was uneventful, luckily. Ah, and I was happy, finally.
I parked the Merkabah again at her place and talked to Eduardo about little issues. He and everybody were happy too. The truck was finally on his own.
Later on, with the body immersed in hot water and the head enjoying the wind and the freshness of the night of the country, I decided to take the Merkabah out of the shop for good and get her home. I still had to check a thousand things out and drive hundreds of kilometers before being ready, and having to move cars and trucks each time I wanted to take her out for I ride was very inconvenient.
So, the next day I went to the shop, checked if the lights were okay, started the V8 with pretty much less smoke than the previous day, let the air pressure build up and asked for some help with the traffic to get out to the street.
Ahh… that was nice. The engine sounded pretty well, shifting the 4th gear still had some issues but completely manageable, and everybody pointed at the truck with awe.
Everything was okay. There was obviously a mismatch between the real speed and the speedometer lecture, slower than what was felt in reality. I added and withdrawn pressure to the front suspension to check for changing in the attitude of the cabin… and then I reached 55 km/hr.
At that mark, there was a sudden resonance that made the whole cabin tremble. Crap.
What could it be? Unbalanced cardan shafts? Worn out differential crowns? I slowered down and the resonance subsided, but it appeared again at much lower speeds. Christ, what else!
I was midways from home so I went on and reached the country’s winding roads at the incredible speed of 35 km/hr. And, suddenly, the engine stopped.
Profited of the inertia and parked aside the road. Applied the parking brakes with a hiss and jumped down from the cabin. It surely had to be a fuel problem, as the mighty V8 would never let me down.
Shot a picture of the scene, jumped on the back, made sure that the lines were in the right position and primed again the fuel pump. There was a rubber portion that connected the tecalan line that feeded the pump and the fuel sender, and those were not their younger days, so there probably was aspiration of air instead of diesel and that was the problem. Eduardo had told me to replace them but obviously I forgot.
The engine coughed a little but finally started. Yes, it was the fuel lines.
I arrived to the gate and the Merkabah faced her new home for the, what, third time? The dogs barked and jumped around as they were not aware it was me and they did not recognized the vehicle. When I went down to open the gate, they all shut up and looked surprised for an instant, before leaving their dirty front legs traces on the overall.
It was a good entrance.
My neighbor showed me his thumbs up, too, and Ramón and his team helped me to keep the dogs inside while entering the piece of ground. Por fin! They shouted.
I parked the Merkabah under the container and, as previously measured, there was a three centimeter clearance between the roof hatch and the bottom of the container. No problem.
I checked out and found that the suspension bellies of the middle axle were still under pressure, ops, and that was probably the cause of the resonance. I thought that they put unbalanced tension on the axle so it, for some reason, resonated at higher speeds. Not to use when driving, at least not when the truck is unloaded.
During the next couple of days I shared my time between the Merkabah and the motorcycle lifter, moving the Merkabah back and forth and cheking for small items.
I changed the rubber hoses of the fuel sender and made a little tour as the little kid with his new toy I was supposed to behave like and, obviously, the engine stalled again when I was a few kilometers away. The cavalry went to the rescue and found that I had inverted the fuel hoses and had the sender in the place of the return. I thought I had paid a lot of attention when doing it, but no.
Laughs apart, I had also to move the truck because of the high traffic of tractors and trucks related to the agricultural work and the building of Eduardo’s house next door.