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« Last post by Biggles on March 28, 2024, 01:05:57 PM »
I spend two days at Naboomspruit working on the engine. The crankcase is full of broken metal. The con rod is scarred, the sump filter in pieces, the scavenge pipe knocked off centre. The sleeve of the bad cylinder is corrugated. I have kept the old piston from Alexandria, and put it back thinking it might get me as far as Jo'burg. With everything washed out and reassembled, the engine runs, but no oil returns from the crankcase.
The second day I spend on the lubrication system, picking pieces out of the oil pump. On Sunday, in bright sunshine, I set off again, for twenty blissful miles before all hell breaks loose. The knocking and rattling is now really terrible. I decide that I must have another look, and by the roadside I take the barrel off again and do some more work on the piston and put it back again. By now I am really adept and it takes me four hours.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels pp 169-170