Plymouth to Dakar Challenge : Team Spitting Llamas

Day 13 - Nowhere(MA) to Mauritania Campsite(MR)

Posted by Aaron on January 15, 2008 11:17 AM

It was an early 5am start this morning as needed to get to the Mauritania boarder before lunch time when they close for a couple of hours. We were all on the road before 6am for the 275km drive to the boarder. The country side was getting pretty baron now. Only the odd camel to be seen and random gas stations along the way. The gas stations were there because of the cheap fuel that you could get in southern western Sahara region because of the low tax duties on fuel.

We had been driving for about 45 minutes and little old Rusty started to lose engine power. I looked at Aaron and we both knew what the problem most likely was, fuel filters were blocked due to our dodgy fuel tank and all the grim stuck inside it. The engine then completely died and we pulled over. We changed both the fuel filters as they were a little bit blocked up. We had been pretty good changing them every few days knowing the about fuel tank problem. However we still couldn't get Rusty to started and knew the gauze filter in the tank must be blocked up. It this stage we had been holding everyone up for about 45 minutes and knew we were missing our window of opportunity to get through the boarder before lunch time. I finally made the decision to by-pass the main fuel tank completely and use one of the plastic jerry cans on the roof and pipe the fuel directly to the engine. After a bit of jiggery pockery we had our new fuel tank ready to go. After a jump start for our flat battery later we got the engine to start and we were off with our new plastic 25 liter tank mounted to the roof with bits of sting.

We hit to road knowing we had held our group up for over an hour. We were stoked to be back on the road going strong. We were checking the roof mounted fuel tank while we were driving along and noticed it was going down quite fast. After about 20 minutes we noticed the fuel gauge on the main tank hard gone right to fill position but didn't think to much of it as were going strong and needed to get to the boarder crossing. Fortunately for us we came across a random gas station 10 minutes later and pulled in to top up our other jerry cans. When we pulled into the gas station we have all but run our of gas on our roof tank. We got out of the car a saw a trail of fuel from our car all the way up the road and there was a big pool of diesel forming under the car at the back.

After a quick inspection what I had failed to realise was the return for the fuel line from the injector pump was still connected to the main tank. When the engine was running the fuel pump was designed to circulate the fuel in the tank constantly. Because we had only put one fuel line coming from the temporary tank to the engine and circuited fuel was being sent back to the main tank. Given we had almost filled up the main tank the night before the circuited fuel had filled the remainder of the tank and then was spilling out the overflow onto the road.

It was an easy fix to put in another fuel line for the injector pump the roof top tank and we were off again.We ended up getting to the boarder about lunch time but lucky for us they didn't close for an extend time and we were out of Western Sahara in 3 hours. It was quite slow going but no major drama's just lots of waiting at each check point for visa stamps etc.

On the other side of the gates we hit no mans land for about 1 km to get to the Mauritanian boarder crossing. This was an actual minefield and there are littered car bodies everywhere. It was quite amazing, cars had obviously been blown up by mines in this area as you could see the underside damage to them where they have been blown up. This was the point where we picked up our local guide to take up though the desert section of the trip. He navigated us though the mine field to the Mauritanian boarder. The boarder crossing was no more than a shack in the middle of no where. It was one of those surreal experiences. Again no major issues getting though the boarder and Mauritanian here we were. It cost 30 euros to get though so quite happy with that. Then it was a short drive to the camping area that the guide's family operated. We stayed in big tents pre-erected for us. It was good to be able to finally get to our next nights stop and sort out the problem with the fuel tank.

Next was put the car on blocks and remove the strainer gauze in the fuel tank. It was completely blocked up so we removed the gauze all together which would allow the fuel to get to the other filters which were more accessible to replace as needed. We also re-installed the suspension raising sticks to the rear springs as the next day was when the desert and sand adventure began. The night was pretty quite and we were happy to hit the sack early.

See more photos of Day 13