Day 30

Mostly a straight forward driving day for us, apart from a late afternoon poor running from the van. At one point it stopped completly and wouldn't restart. Good spark, smell of fuel from the exhaust but wouldn't start. Cleaned out the air filter, air flow meter, and air temperature sensor but no difference. A few minutes later, turned it over and it started.

I have read about a fault with this engine after driving at a steady speed for some time, it misfires and often won't restart if it stalls. (called Vanagon Syndrome after the name given to the van in the US) The fix is a mod to the wiriing to the air flow meter which I tryed to obtain before leaving the UK, but was told it was no longer available.

Or maybe it was simply some poor fuel. We'll see if continues.

One plus of having the engine cover off was that Simon spotted a small stone jammed in the water pump pully that had chewed it's way through nearly half the thickness of the belt, so we were able to avoid another stop an hour or two later.

Our driving target is to get to Almaty by Sat evening so we can spend Sunday being tourists, then head for the Chinese border on Mon/Tue hopefully with some time on Tue to check/fix vehicles before crossing on Wed and meeting our guide for the next 18 days.

Update on the Baja - Rachael and Tom hope to leave Aqtobe tomorrow early afternoon heading direct for the Chinese border to meet us on 5th. Given the distance and the roads, they won't be doing much sight seeing.

Lat 42 48.67
Long 69 12.56
Nearest town Shymkent, Kazachstan
Distance - worked out that we are under reading by 5.5% so total distance so far is 9410km