Front suspension repair

For some time I heard weird noises when driving on potholes (very common on polish roads and streets) from below the seat. Knocking or pounding that is. So I was aware that the front suspension would need some investments, especially since on one of previous vehicle inspections the guy told me couple of parts will soon need to be replaced.

Last week I drove the camper to one of local workshops to have the wheels changed. But since I was already there, I thought that I'll ask for inspecion of the front suspension. I was told that couple of parts need to be replaced. I left the camper there. On monday I got a phone call and the guy from the workshop told me some other parts need to be changed because they can't set the front wheels in the proper position (angles and stuff -- sorry, I don't know the jargon behind it and I left the repair manual in the camper).

I paid total of 2,000 PLN ($552) for the work and for the parts. I am not able to list here all the parts that were replaced (for the same reason as stated above), but along those parts one kingpin and two wheel bearings were changed. The old kingpin had almost no thread in one place and visible wear on one of the working surfaces.

I also paid for the vehicle inspection. With that inspection comes a funny story. They called me today in the morning to tell me that the camper is ready, but there's a small trouble with the inspection. I was told that they can't find the chassis number in the camper. I went online and checked on a discussion forum that the number was supposed to be on one of the horizontal bars of the frame of the van. To see it you need to get under the camper and look forward on the bar that goes from right to left just after the right front wheel. When I got to the workshop the camper was still on the lift so I went below, took a light and easily found the number just where it was supposed to be.

Winter tires bought

I wrote some time ago that I wanted to buy winter tires. So I bought them, that's why we had to go to Łódź recently.

I bought on Allegro.pl (the polish alternative to eBay) a set of four steel wheel rims and four Barum SnoVanis 185x85xR14C tires for 400 PLN ($110). One of the tires was broken, so I called the local workshop and asked if they could sell me one such tire and install the wheels on the camper. For that tire, installing it on the rim (with balancing) and putting all the wheels on the camper I paid 254 PLN ($70).

I left the camper in the workshop for a bit longer than I planned, but I'll write about it in the near future. ;)

Winter trip to Łódź

We had to go to Łódź, a large city about 100 km from Żyrardów. So we went there. I posted a Google Map at the bottom of this post so you could better understand what I am writing about.

We left Żyrardów couple of minutes after 4 PM. It started snowing a little, we quickly found ourselves on the DK70 from Huta Zawadzka to Skierniewice. The asphalt was dry and the snow left small wet trails on the road. As we passed Skierniewice (DW705) the road was wet, with small portions of snow blown by the wind from the adjacent fields. On the DK72 from Jeżów the snow was all over the asphalt. When we arrived in Łódź, the road had only two narrow black stripes of asphalt free from snow. And in the Łódź itself, the roads were covered completely with snow.

We did what we had to do in Łódź, we left at 7:20 PM back to Żyrardów.

On the road that leads to Rawa Mazowiecka there's the M1 shopping centre. I found there Neste A24 gas station and bought there 19,78 litres (5,2 gal) of diesel fuel. And I wrote down the odometer. I just couldn't believe that I drove only 100 km (60 miles) and used almost 20 litres of fuel (that would give me fuel consumption of something close to 12 MPG). Couple kilometers further the mystery was revealed -- the odometer stopped working some time ago.

The road back was similar -- snow all over the road, two black stripes, no snow at all. It was snowing all the time, we drove the 95 km (59 miles) for almost 3 hours.

That part of the trip was not free of surprises. I had warm air blown on the windscreen, but the windscreen wipers collected snow that turned to ice. I didn't bother until as the windscreen was still clean as the snow somehow didn't melt on it. But when I finally needed the wipers and turned them on, only one moved. The other was frozen to the windscreen. I stopped and removed the ice, but less than 10 km later the wipers were frozen again.


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