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Our stop at the petrol station about 10 miles from the outskirts of Valparaíso was a bit noisy. Obviously all the truck drivers had to wait to deliver or pick up goods because everywhere had been closed for censor day. So the petrol station was loud in the early hours of the morning when they all started to leave.
It was a rainy day so we got all our usual stuff done - emptying and cleaning the toilet, getting rid of rubbish, picking up more water, filling up with diesel and putting our route into the GPS. We literally drove around the corner and stopped at two different supermarkets for shopping. One is called Santa Isabel which is a large chain in southern Chile and sells wonderful custard cream filled croissants. We'd had no breakfast so we ended up eating two of them for lunch!
We took a concrete back road to avoid having to pay a toll and then joined the main highway. It was a very good road except we weren't on it for long before we needed to turn off heading towards the coast. This road had numerous extremely steep ascents and descents - it was like a roller coaster. Thank God we have a 2.8 litre engine. Our other Winnie would never have made any of them!
The road had very little traffic on it - well we're not surprised. It was a hell of a way to get to the coast. We stopped for coffee at El Tabo - one of the many surfers beaches - and then continued along the coast and then stopped at Humedal Laguna de Cartagena which is a bird watching area. They were closing in 15 minutes so Kirsten jumped out to take a few photos and was allowed through the gates without having to pay.
We drove further to the port of San Antonio where we pulled onto a petrol station so Kirsten could take photos of a large container ship we had seen on the way. Whilst she was gone I went into the station shop to ask about oil prices and if we could get an oil change done there. We couldn't get one at the petrol station but the very helpful man told me about a Servicentro on the main road which was the best place to get an oil change done.
We drove that way and Kirsten jumped out to ask about prices and then we saw a Goodyear tyre garage. We also need to get new tyres within the next few thousand kilometres and were looking around to get a feel for the prices. We went around the block but it looked like they had just closed - it was 6-30pm. So we got back onto the main road heading to Playa Marbella for the night which was just a few kilometres out of town but we never got there!!
We'd just got back onto the main road and I was changing up from second gear when there was a massive BANG. My immediate reaction was to brake and check the warning lights on the dash board. But there was nothing. Then I went to depress the clutch - no clutch!!!
The clutch pedal was hanging loose - I had no clutch! I pulled into a bus stop but I couldn't get out of gear as I had no clutch and had to stall the engine to stop! We got out to check the clutch cable under the bonnet - we are already clutch cable experts and know how to adjust our clutch as we have already had to do that.
However the cable was fine and not the problem. I checked the clutch pedal again and found a piece of black plastic that had broken off the clutch pedal!! I told Kirsten to run back to the Goodyear place to ask if someone can help us out.
Kirsten came back with Marcello from Goodyear. He took a look at the clutch pedal and then went to a garage across the road with Kirsten. There were only two mechanics in town but the one they went to was fully booked and the mechanic said a broken clutch was bad because we probably wouldn't be able to get a replacement part here. And it was too late anyway because they were closing!
Hmmm! Not good. Marcello helped to push us around the corner and off the main road. I'd managed to get into neutral using brute force but I learned that you need to switch on the engine because, otherwise, the power steering doesn't engage! I had a hell of a time steering around the corner! That's one thing I'll never forget!
Marcello got under the steering wheel to take a look and we got out tools to help but there wasn't anything he could do. So he called the other mechanic in town who was at the top of the hill in town. He offered to tow us there if we have a rope. Well, thanks to Steffen the previous owner, we have everything we need except a spare clutch!! But we do have a tow rope. So we got that out and had to push Winnietwo away from the curb to attach it.
That's when the next part of our adventure started and sent our hearts racing and right through our mouths! We weigh three tonnes and we have this battered old car trying to tow us. Marcello had attached the rope to our front left and to his back right, so it was diagonal. Somehow that didn't seem wise because only a few metres after we had set off we had to turn right. I have to swing out slightly so that the back tyres don't go over the curb but a normal car doesn't need to do that. It meant that I very nearly drove into the stretched rope.
If that wasn't bad enough, Marcello drove too fast! Even at only 40kmh (25mph), I was sitting practically on his bumper and didn't have a clue where we needed to go! I couldn't brake because that would strain the rope and Marcello's engine so my foot hovered over the brake as we seemingly raced along a bad and bumpy road.
Marcello had to stop at a give way so I gently braked trying to leave the rope as taut as possible for when we started off. Marcello waved through his window to let us know he was going across the junction and I just had to follow. I saw how the strain pulled his car so he kangarooed a bit but I also saw another car coming from our right - the other car had right of way but I was coming across! The other car actually tried to drive between us until he saw the tow rope!! Honest to God, people can't drive here! I couldn't even raise my hand as an apology because I had to watch Marcello like a hawk, looking for hand signals and indicators!
There was another right turn and I knew what was coming next - crossing the main road which is divided and has two lanes in either direction. Oh Hell!! We sat and waited behind him and then came the hand signal ... we were going. I hoped there was a big enough gap in the traffic to get us both through and knew that the dividing strip wasn't big enough for both of us to stop without me sticking out half way across a traffic lane and blocking it.
Somehow we managed to make a left turn onto the main road without causing an accident and Marcello's car was still struggling to pull us. Then the worst part came ... a steep hill. No Way!!! He was never going to be able to pull us up! We had a green traffic light so he accelerated and tried to get us up. We made it only a few metres! Marcello's car strained, his engine revved, and then his tyres squealed and left a lot of rubber on the road and lots of smoke, before he finally realised we weren't going to make it!!!
What now?!! We're stuck on a steep incline and my handbrake won't hold us on its own unless I switch off the engine and put it in gear. But I have no clutch!! So I had to keep my foot firmly on the brakes with the hand brake on whilst Marcello got on his phone and called the mechanic. The mechanic would come out and tow us. Great!
We were expecting a tow truck to turn up. It was already getting dark and within a few minutes a battered Jeep pulled in front of us that looked even older than Marcello's car!! No Way!! Is this ever going to work???? The mechanic, who's name is Sergio, got us attached even though I told him that we weigh 3 tonnes. He said it wouldn't be a problem. Well, we'd heard that from Marcello!
So the Jeep started off slowly and as the rope became taut I released the handbrake and took my foot off the brake and then ... we started rolling backwards!! He couldn't even get us going! He thought I'd got the brake on and got out to tell me to take the brake off!! Typical man, they think us women are stupid when it comes to driving!
So, the next thing was to slowly roll back down the hill so that Sergio could get us moving and get us up the hill. I was still sceptical but we were going to give it a try because there was nothing else to do! Sergio got ready, raised his hand, revved his engine and ... we got going! Keep going, keep going ... yes we made the hill! Sergio's car was puffing out a loud of smoke and his engine was straining but we had made it!
But that wasn't the worst! At the top of the hill we took a right. Sergio had to keep the speed up because we had another hill to climb but he took the bend way too fast. Kirsten almost peed her pants and didn't even take a video! I swung out slightly and just made it without the back tyres or the front tyres hitting the curbs! Holy God, that was close!
Fortunately the next hill wasn't as steep but we had to turn left, across the traffic into a side street. His workshop was on our left so we pulled over in front of his doors. The next problem was that we were parked the wrong way. If we left Winnietwo here we would get a ticket from the police. Even if we parked on the sandy area in front of his doors we would still get a ticket because we're facing the wrong direction. So he said he would tow us around the block so we could park the right way.
Whilst talking I noticed fluid running underneath Sergio's car - coolant! His engine had overheated!! Sergio didn't even seem worried when I told him and simply filled up with water. Obviously, he's taken the rubber seal off the radiator cap otherwise he wouldn't have been able to take it off when the engine was so hot!
It was now fully dark so we set off and I just thought it would be a trip around the block but there are too many one way streets here. So we seemed to go a very complicated route and this time when we took one of the bends too fast we actually scraped the front bumper because the road was so uneven!! Kirsten even had to get out once to remove a wine bottle that lay shattered in our path. No that we have slashed tyres too!!!
Somehow we managed to get back to the workshop in one piece and without Kirsten having a heart attack! We pulled onto the sandy area but Sergio needed us to reverse slightly uphill so we didn't block his doors. Hmmm! Sergio insisted on driving, got in, put it in reverse, and switched on the engine! Winnietwo jumped backwards and stalled. Oh God, he's going to do that again isn't he because we weren't far enough back. Yes, he did the same thing again, Winnietwo jumped backwards and we were finally where he wanted us! Hope that action doesn't hurt our engine and end up biting us later on!
Do we really have the right mechanic for the job? Well, seeing as there are only two and the other one couldn't help us, we don't have much choice! At least we weren't stuck on the main road and we could finally laugh about the heart stopping journey to get here! We thanked both Marcello and Sergio and asked about the plan for tomorrow and he said "Don't worry!" (easier said than done!) he'd look at everything at 10am tomorrow. So first thing - a cup of tea to calm us down! We certainly needed that!
It was already 8-30pm and by the time we started eating our meatballs and rice it was 10pm. We were both really tired but didn't sleep much. We were really lucky that our clutch hadn't broken on one of the many extremely steep roads we'd driven along on the way to San Antonio, out in the middle of nowhere but even here we were going to have problems. Can we find a new clutch in Chile? It will take weeks to get one from Europe. Maybe one of us could get on a bus to Santiago or over to Mendoza in Argentina but only if we know the part is there. If the worst comes to the worst then I could stay here until it's fixed and Kirsten could get on our flight to Canada. I'd just have to drive down to El Bolson, put Winnietwo in storage and then fly out.
We set the alarm for 8am not knowing if Sergio would want to start earlier but there was no one around when it went off the next morning. So I reset it for 8-30am. Just before 10am Sergio came out. We asked if he had WiFi but we would have to wait until his secretary came. First we had to get Winnietwo into his garage but we wouldn't be able to drive in. So Sergio put together a piece of wood and a chain to pull the clutch cable so he could get it in gear and drove us in.
When the secretary arrived we checked on the Ducato forum and found that several others have had the same problem. How can something as important as a clutch pedal be made out of plastic! Even though we found out we could order just the pedal online for $35 US it would be difficult to put in. Most never managed to get the spring, that lifts up the pedal, re-attached! We might have to buy the whole part which is a complete set of pedals - clutch, brake and accelerator - and that could be expensive, especially if we have to get it shipped over.
Sergio had a number of other customers including two police officers on motorbikes and he also had an apprentice to help him. At some point he managed to get the whole part out and took it in his Jeep to a parts shop. But they didn't have it. Then Kimberley, the secretary, started phoning around. All the parts shops around here don't have what we need. She also phoned up places in Santiago but they only had parts for Ducatos that were built in 2006 and after. Ours is from 1999 and we found out that it won't fit.
We found a card from a workshop in Mendoza that had done our bearings but her phone wouldn't make international calls. We had tried several times before we found that out! In the meantime Sergio is making a hook that might work. He's really an electrician who deals with electrical problems on cars but seems to be quite creative. Maybe we'd found the right mechanic after all!
We sat in Winnietwo for lunch and finally at 4pm the construction was ready. A hook has been soldered to an iron strip that has been screwed onto the long side of the clutch pedal. Sergio was just finishing putting all the pedals back and pulling the clutch cable onto the hook. The clutch pedal wasn't high enough so Kirsten showed him how to adjust the cable! (Okay, he really is an electrician but he learned something from us!!)
I tested the pedal and it seemed to work perfectly!! Then I took Winnietwo out on a test drive with Sergio and there weren't any problems. It cost us 125,000 pesos (about $200 US) for all the work and the towing but we'd got it done in a day! Sergio insisted on taking group photos with us - he was really proud of his work and really happy. So were we!! Kirsten said the new hook would probably outlive our motor home!
It was 5pm and we got into Winnietwo to drive off. But I couldn't get it in gear. A quick look down and I saw that the pedal was hanging too low again. So Kirsten jumped out with our spanners to adjust the cable. Sergio saw us and came over. He told me to depress the clutch pedal a few times. On the second time ... BANG! It had happened again! Our newly constructed hook had broken! The rest of it was still in place. There must be a hell of a lot of pressure on the hook. It's a wonder the plastic one had lasted so long!
All that work for nothing. Now what? But Sergio said it wasn't a problem. He'd make another one but this time a lot better! This time he didn't have to take the whole pedal set out. He just unscrewed the new construction and took it into his workshop. He used a karabiner made from steel this time to make a new hook. He said this one couldn't break. It took just over an hour and then Kirsten and I went on another test drive, including going down a one way street the wrong way! Oh well, at least the pedal seemed to be working. For how long? Who knows.
Clutch problem
With trepidation we said goodbye to Sergio and his crew again and drove off. I didn't know whether I could trust the new hook and expected another bang every time I used the clutch. Not the best feeling! We drove in the dark. It was already 7pm and we had to negotiate through heavy traffic. We went to Playa Marbella just out of town for the night. We knew that Sergio would be in his workshop tomorrow so we could contact him if anything happened. (Well we'd have to ask someone if we could use their phone to contact him, but at least we had that option!)
What a day! We're really tired and just don't want to think about it anymore! We ate the rest of our meatballs and fell into bed. We woke up to sea fog the next morning and it was quite chilly. We drove back into San Antonio to get an oil change done at Servicentro. It was what we had planned to do until our clutch problem came along!
They were very quick and efficient and it cost us $63 US for labour work and oil - we provided the filter as we still had two left from Steffen. (Thanks Steffen!!) They had a few problems getting our metal cover underneath the engine back on as we'd obviously lost a screw but we found a replacement. We tried to get to a Walmart but the one way feeder road lead to an underground parking area that was too low for us to get into! There had been no signs so we ended up having to reverse back along the road to get out! We gave up on the shopping and just drove back to the beach for another night.
We needed some time off. Kirsten went off to take photos whilst I sorted out and cleaned up inside the motor home. In the evening we felt something shaking the motor home. I went out with a torch to investigate but couldn't see anything. We found out two days later that it had been a 6.9 earthquake off the coast of San Antonio! The next day we drove to a different supermarket for shopping and I bought some bacon so we could have bacon and eggs for brunch.
We set off south and stopped at a dam at Lago Rapel. We had bought fresh strawberries along the way which we had with blueberries and bananas along with coffee. At the viewpoint across the other side of the dam we saw a family of foxes who were feeding off rubbish thrown on the ground. Why can't people throw their rubbish in the bin??
Afterwards we drove down to Pichilemu where we parked in a side street for the night. The next morning we drove a short distance to Punta de Lobos which is a famous surfer beach. The water is very cold here because of the Humboldt current but there were plenty of people out there having fun so we could watch their skills on the water.
Surfer at Punta de Lobos
We continued south to go and see a salt factory. We needed to drive 4km on quite a bad gravel and washboard road only to find out that the sea inlet had been flooded for the next season! The next salt harvest will be in October! We were too late. Oh well, back along the gravel road and onto tarmac again.
We were aiming for Constitución but we didn't make it. Instead we stopped at the coastal town of Bucalemu for coffee and then followed the road inland to a place called Hualane in search of drinking water. The supermarket didn't sell any but we found a Copec petrol station that had an outside tap. They said it was potable water and it certainly tasted okay so we filled up all our large containers.
By now it was getting dark and just as we made it back to the coast we found a large parking area on the corner as we turned onto the coastal road where we parked for the night. We felt yet another tremor from a second earthquake and wondered if we were safe from a Tsunami seeing as we were at sea level this time! Our clutch pedal is still intact and we've driven quite a way so we can only hope it will keep working but, after a second earthquake, maybe it was time to head inland!
