Lake Malawi
We loaded up the trailer, the kids, and a couple friends visiting from America and hit the road for Lake Malawi, in the neighboring country of Malawi. It took two days to drive there, with the cruiser loaded down with 7 people and towing a 3,500lb fully loaded camping trailer.
I wanted to test out the air lift airbags with the heavy load, but I ended up breaking the nipple off of one of them before lunch on the first day of driving (I didn't enlarge the hole in the spring perch enough during installation).
The truck complained, but soldiered on. The dash would indicate "low" intermittently throughout the rest of the trip, but the truck would still actually be at neutral height. The dash would also indicate neutral at each startup. I didn't bother checking the actual pressures...there was nothing I could do anyways.
On day 2, we had to cross the border. I left the truck idling with A/C on while my friend and I negotiated visa and customs formalities while our wives and kids stayed in the truck. Unfortunately, it was taking much longer than expected to get our visas issued (2+ hours) and when my friend went back to check how things were going at the cruiser, he noticed the temp gauge was high. He turned up the heat and it brought the temp down.
We checked it out really quickly at the border...but land borders are no place to be doing lots of diagnostic or other work, so after seeing plenty of coolant in the overflow tank and not seeing any obvious leaks, we drove on. The temp came down and stayed down as we drove, even with the A/C back on.
The border delay meant that we didn't roll into our campsite until well after dark. As my friend and I went to set up the tent, the owner came over and said "Don't worry about that, it's tomorrow's problem! I'll give you two chalets for the price of the camping spot - welcome!"
We then ate what was probably the best fish and chips I've ever had and got some well deserved sleep in a real bed to kick off our time at the lake.
The next morning we fully set up the trailer, complete with awning walls, which provided way more than enough "inside" living pace for four adults and three kids. It also provided a great barrier for the various animals coming through our camp (monkeys, goats, and monitor lizards, to name a few).
Our camp was right on the beach.
Made some amazing pizza at sunset
Another view of our campsite, from the boat
Fish eagles and snorkeling, a good way to spend a day (or several)!
Sunsets on Lake Malawi are on another level
After four nights camping, it was time to pack up the trailer and head home again. On our return trip we detoured through some steep mountain grades in order to visit a pottery shop and cafe that I had been to years ago. As we were climbing the steep grades, I noticed the temp gauge quickly climbed near the red.
Again, we blasted the heat and the temp came right down. Side note: all of my gauges are actually very responsive. Volts, oil pressure, and temp all respond very quickly and accurately to changes. There's something special about that JDM ECU.
With all the windows open and the heat blasting, with no end in sight of steep mountain grades, we needed to take a break. Just then, we saw a roadside handircraft hut, with wooden models of cars and planes. I liked (but didn't buy) a 79 series quad cab, but my friend bought a 90 series Land Rover with a boat (as close as he could get to his real-life FJ40 and boat). The details are amazing...the doors and hood open, even the radiator fan spins!
After two more solid days of driving (10 hours each day), we arrived home, just as the truck started heating up again. I popped the hood and I could finally see the problem clearly - the top tank had seperated from the core and there was a leak.
There was still plenty of fluid in the overflow reservoir because there was no vacuum to pull it into the radiator. The truck was a full gallon low on coolant. It was time...time to get off my butt and install that Mishimoto that had been sitting in my garage for months!
