Photos and a launch video

I've posted up some pictures of the rally here, and Peta & Rowan have kindly posted a video of the rally launch here, for those of you who failed to get out of bed on the morning of the 21st.
This will probably be the last post on this page, so I might as well add that it's not too late to donate via justgiving to the two rally charities Send a Cow & Mercy Corps Mongolia - links are on the right hand side.
Thank you all for listening...

Made it!

The 23rd to roll into Suxhbaatar Square, Ulaan Bataar, Team Feersum Endjinn have finished the Mongol Rally 2007!
Many thanks to all our sponsors, everyone who donated, friends & family who had to put up with us and our perpetually distracted state for months leading up to the launch, people at work, pets, and any members of the public we harassed along the way.
A special thanks to:

Sam Overend for updating our progress map during the rally, and for other vital services to the team.
Ken & Bibi for sheltering both of our potential rally cars, feeding us and witnessing months of repairs and preparation.
All the members of the Daihard forum for their mechanical knowledge and 'friday funnies'.
Oli Bazely for immoral support.
Simon Laughlin for allowing me to leave my desk for so long.

Taking a short break in Tomsk

I think we've covered something like 4000km in 5 days, so we're resting today.

Driving insane

In Omsk, trying desperately to get out of the city as it seems to be 'Russia Day' or something. People everywhere, roads blocked off, we're going to camp somewhere further east. Will post properly when we've reached a more calm surround. Making a beeline for Lake Baikal.

Today really was quite dull. While alex was off fetching a piece of paper from the UK (I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous, please sort yourself out DVLA) I had to hold the fort in Warsaw. In between changing the fuel filter and playing with our headlights, I managed to make my way into town and got someone to hold my camera for me:

Major disaster averted - but I have a cold

We arrived at the Ukrainian border on wednesday afternoon, and after the stress and tiredness of the beginning of the rally, not to mention the indescribable feeling of 'being in Belgium', were starting to feel normal again. Inevitably, this crumb of comfort was quickly crushed under the boot of a (quite nice actually) Ukrainian border official, who explained to us that we had to 'go back to London otherwise car be with police'. Unsurprisingly, our V5 stub which we obtained when purchasing the Sportrak some 2 months ago, and which still hadn't been replaced with the full V5 by the time the rally had begun (not our fault) wasn't enough to pass the border into Ukraine, or, for that matter, anywhere beyond Poland.
So, for the last two days we've been manically seeking a solution and coming to terms with our rally effectively being over. Incredibly, despite the postal strike, and the 2nd class stamp with which all such documents are fitted, this morning our full V5 came through! We thought that this would take at least another week, but somehow we've been lucky.
So Alex has flown back to the UK, in order to pick up our car passport, and we should be driving again by tomorrow evening.
I have a cold though, so I might have to come home for some lemsip and a couple of days in bed.

Out of time

Things are coming together, but at this rate, we might be ready to leave by about monday. Unfortunately, our ferry departs at 7pm on saturday. So, with this in mind, we'd just like to say thank you to all of you who have donated recently, and who we haven't managed to thank individually, and a great thank you to Peta & Rowan for lending us their DV Cam - perhaps we'll even have time to learn how to use it.
Also, if anyone would like to be sent sporadic updates while we're on the rally, send us an email at this address.
All our best to you all, this may be our last post before we leave on Saturday - remember, it's North Carriage drive, Hyde Park, from 11 - 2pm.

Penultimultimate weekend

At the breakers on friday - note our newly acquired bullbars, and spare headlight:



Alex hastily procuring us something from a deceased daihatsu. Later on we had the pleasure of engaging in some playful bartering with the manager of the scrapyard - "I've got a number in my 'ed, why don't you two go and get cleaned up, and 'ave a chat abaht what you fink it's wurf".



Back at base, replacing the cambelt, just in case.



Slowly stripping out unnecessary nonsense like carpets, rear seats and seatbelts, we happened upon an unwelcome extra, which surprisingly wasn't pointed out to us at the time of purchase - look closely and you can see that the 'grown-up's party balloon' has been neatly stuffed back into its foil packet, how nice:



Me trying to visualise, and therefore develop sympathetic feelings for, the plight of people either too small, or too stupid to see over the steering wheel properly:



After a quick service, we put everything back together, and started filling the car with oil. Oil is thick, so this took ages. Despite this, during the 10 minutes or so it took to stand there with a funnel and chat about how well this was all going, we were unable to notice the large puddle of oil developing at our feet. Only after a few minutes of running the engine, and a couple of 'hmmm, that sounds a little rough' 's, did we see the sump plug lying on the ground:

We had to just laugh this one off.

Speakers:



Our lockable battery isolation switch. In addition to our lockable wheel nuts, the endjinn should be fairly difficult to steal. All we need now is a trunk monkey.



So that we may see Mongolia better:

The Endjinn is dead, long live the Endjinn!

With much sadness we must announce that our beloved Daihatsu Charade GTti will not be accompanying us on our maiden voyage to Mongolia this summer. Unfortunately my attempt at an engine rebuild fell foul of the classic, 'that couple of thousands of an inch clearance between the crankshaft and the big end bearings won't matter' oversight.
Luckily, thanks to an understanding ebayer, we recently got our hands on a 1993 Daihatsu Sportrak, which has only done 60000 miles, has a long MOT, and is more than capable of making the long journey from hyde park to ulaan bataar, and all for £150.
How did we pick up such a fantastic bargain? Well, the front section of the chassis, where the steering column attaches - a fairly vital area - was snapped clean in half. However, thanks to the mastery of Patrick the welding wizard, the frame of the car is now stronger than when it was manufactured. All we need to do now is give our new Feersum Endjinn a full service and we should be ready to go. Here's a couple of photos of our little AWD caravan:

Scotland's finest rag salutes the endjinn

It took a while to track down the one person I knew with a copy of this edition (seeing as the Edinburgh Evening News hasn't yet obtained collector's item status) and even longer to clean off the cat litter, but here it is - our only publicity so far:



Now if only the Guardian could stop pretending to be a serious newspaper and cover our rally attempt...

Donations

Thanks to my fleet-footed girlfriend's entry into this year's Great Edinburgh Run, we've now raised another £160 for the Mercy Corps - thanks are in order for:

Alison Graham
Sarah Ritchie
Alison Crichton
Rachel Coats
Carolyn Traill
Marie Flood
Stephen Blane
Julie Scott
Sheilagh Tennant
Lorna McDowall
Roderick Urquhart
Alison Rankine
Kristina Hare
Lindsay Gilchrist
Kristin Rosie
J.A Graham

And of course, Maddy Graham, for running the (extremely hilly) 10k in about 55 minutes.

More engine

Daihatsu + 108000 miles =

Service

Our engine on a hoist:

Please give us more money!

On the first day god said 'let there be a turbocharged shopping trolley with tasteless rear wheel arches', and on the second day Daihatsu did ship a light blue Charade GTti. By the sixth day the Earth was much as it had been on the first day, except with skidmarks.

Our Route

So far this is what we've come up with - leaving aside for now the problem of actually finding a viable network of roads to take us through such northern terrain, we're quite excited by the thought of perpetual sunlight and a beach barbecue on the coast of the arctic ocean...

Repairs

After another day of torment, we decided to make a list of all the work (i.e. part replacements) we've done on the Charade, in roughly chronological order, since last October:

Alternator
Replacement turbo no. 1
Gearbox (complete with 2nd gear, unlike the old one)
Turbo inlet pipe & gaskets
Replacement turbo no. 2
Drivers side seatbelt
Rear brake caliper
Rocker cover gaskets
Coolant temperature sender
Windscreen wiper blades
Spark plugs
Air filter
Fuel filter
Oil filter
Rear wheel bearings
Fuel pressure regulator
Full set of tyres
Exhaust backbox (the other one fell off 'in transit')
V-belt (previous one snapped and I ran the car for 20 minutes without water pump)
Front crank oil seal
Timing belt & tensioner

Oil drunk to date: 15 litres
Coolant changed: twice
Neighbours annoyed: many
Loud stereo installed: one

Send a cow donations complete

We've raised over £500 for 'Send a Cow', so we're now concentrating on collecting for 'Mongolian Mercy Corps', the primary charity for the 2007 rally - thanks to everyone for their donations!