There, I Fixed It!

Last Tuesday I went under the hood of my car to check the oil and water levels and generally check that everything was in order. This is something that one should do very regularly when so much of one’s productivity depends on an operable vehicle. When I filled the overflow bottle for the radiator, it leaked profusely onto the ground until it was a quarter full, right where it had started. This wasn’t ideal, but since it was just the overflow and it was holding at least some water, I didn’t feel it needed to be addressed urgently. I had not yet been cleared to get fuel and repairs done at Ol Pejeta’s workshop, Kamok, so I decided I would keep and eye on it and get it done as soon as I was cleared.

On Thursday after an overnight trip to Mpala, I checked on it again in preparation for driving the 30 minutes to town. No bottle. None. It must have jiggled loose and fallen out somewhere between Ol Pej and Mpala. Not being comfortable with the possibility of overheating on my way to town and just having been cleared to get repairs done at Kamok, I postponed the trip to town and got a work order to get the problem fixed. Kamok is about a 20 minute drive away, so I attempted a temporary fix by tying a water bottle in place with a piece of nylon rope. I wasn’t sure the knot was going to hold, but it looked like it would get me to the workshop anyway.

My bottle fell out on the way to Kamok, but I had made it and was eager for a more permanent, professional fix. I spent about two hours in the workshop (they also had to rewire the electrics for the windshield sprayer), at the end of which I had…a plastic bottle tied in place of the real bottle. They didn’t have the actual part on hand, so they had to order it and in the meantime, they jerry-rigged the same solution I had come up with. Granted, they did it a bit more securely than I did, fashioning a pouch out of canvas and tying the whole thing together with strips of old tire tubing. But still! I was pretty impressed with my bush mechanic creativity! Photo of the “solution” below.