STRANDED in STOCKHOLM......
Wednesday, Oct 24th. 2012. Vallentuna Sweden.
Kind of ironic that after visiting the VASA Museum and 16th century warship, I find myself temporarily grounded in the city that the Vasa went down in.
I mean, I had intended to be up in Nordkapp by now.
There are worse places to run aground I guess, I've made some good friends here who are doing their best to help me get myself and my outfit back on the road. My window to get to Nordkapp has pretty much closed, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. I've come this far, so what the hell. Whats the worst that can happen other than I freeze to death. Painless I hear.
There's a possibility that when I get there I won't be able to make it out to the Nordkapp Obelisk due to snow. As of today, Oct 25th, the forecast for the next few days is for temps in the -4 range and 4 or 5 " of snow. By the time I get there in 8 or 10 days, that'll probably be a couple of feet of snow and temps in the -10 range.
Swedish Driveway Repair 101
It's been one thing after another since I left Holland and LBS. First, I thought that the Wilbers rear shock was kind of soft, a little spongy, but didn't give it very much thought. The seal had already blown for the second time at LBS, so we fixed it there before I left and I thought no more of it, until I got to Stockholm.
I came out one morning and thought it looked a little low in the rear, and sure enough it was leaking again at the seal.
Not a big problem really since Wunderlich are on board, so I made a call to Frank Hoffmann at Wunderlich, who thinks Wilbers are $hite anyway (his words), and he ordered me a new Ohlins, made right here in Sweden. Where I'm staying right now in
Vallentuna Sweden is only 17km from Ohlins.
Very nice shock looking actually, but after reading a FB post recently by Helge Pederson on his GlobeRiders page about how he hasn't met a shock yet that hasn't blown on him, including the Ohlins, which in his opinion is susceptible around the big seal area, I'm not announcing this new Ohlins shock the answer to my shock problems just yet. I'll wait and see if it gets me to Russia and back to Wunderlich in Germany next April for their season opener event.
Then I had this nagging feeling about the transmission, I couldn't identify exactly what is was, but when I took off in first gear, it just wasn't as smooth as it should be, a little shuddery but again I didn't pay it too much attention. And then it started to get progressively worse the further north I got. By the time I got up here to Stockholm, it was pretty bad.
But I still thought it was a clutch problem, I still thought it was the new sintered clutch plate not mating with the stock flywheel and pressure plate surfaces.
So in the driveway in -5° I changed out the Wilbers shock to the new Ohlins, put the rear together and got the rear wheel on. I had the engine running to warm up the oil to make it easier to drain as I was going to do an oil change and replace the 20W50 I had in it to a 5W30 for Russia to make starting a little easier in -10 and below, when for some reason I decided to stick it in gear and just take a listen. Good thing I did. From the sound of it it appears I have a driveshaft problem, which is better than a clutch problem but it's still not something I had envisioned doing this late into my Nordkapp and Russia leg.
As it is I'm already 5 or 6 weeks behind my intended schedule. My visa for Russia starts in less than 3 weeks and I really wanted to be in Nordkapp and heading for St. Petersburg by now.
The rest of the post along with some images I shot in Stockholm last week can be seen
here.
Murph.