{"id":2357,"date":"2010-07-21T23:47:15","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T22:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/?p=2357"},"modified":"2017-07-22T14:33:35","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T13:33:35","slug":"how-important-exactly-is-a-fuel-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/expedition-updates\/how-important-exactly-is-a-fuel-tank\/","title":{"rendered":"Stage 1 : How important is a fuel tank exactly ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Good evening. Today was a funky combination of agony and relief. \u00a0We are only 4 days into this mammoth expedition and it feels like we have been on the road for years. \u00a0Doggy years. \u00a0For every 1 hour spent in Martha (especially the back), it feels like 7.<\/p>\n

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It is hot hot hot in the cab. Hot and noisy. \u00a0Only Ben Battye has mastered the art of having a semi-nap, in all sorts of weird and wonderful positions.<\/p>\n

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So we are in a little bit of a pickle.\u00a0\u00a0Every morning we do a comprehensive check of the truck; thank goodness because this morning\u00a0\u00a0we spotted a beauty of a diesel leak. \u00a0Even though we have an awesome steel tank shield, somehow we have still managed to sustain a rupture of the fuel tank. \u00a0We tried our best to fix it, but even with the all the tools in the world, we needed some welding.\u00a0\u00a0Despite this mishap, it seems that the gods were smiling upon us\u00a0as, incredibly, this leak was spotted just 2 miles from an official\u00a0 MERCEDES\u00a0 SERVICE CENTRE!!!! \u00a0Amazing. \u00a0We are still freaked out about how lucky we were.\u00a0 It was a rollercoaster 8 hours. \u00a0With a fire engine, nothing is straightforward: a simple replacement\u00a0 wasn’t possible because Martha was a fitted with a custom-built tank\u00a0 by the coachbuilder company\u00a0Angus 16 years ago. \u00a0Therefore we needed to do an \u00fcber-job of patching it up.<\/p>\n

And this is where \u00a0Stefan and Jeff stepped up. \u00a0Two Swiss legends and hotshot mechanics. \u00a0Stefan doesn’t speak any English and spent most of the day laughing to himself (literally chortling!) about our fire engine. \u00a0We communicated through the international language of hand gestures… all very amusing.<\/p>\n

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Spending all day in a hot sweaty garage was pretty funny. \u00a0All the boys feel beaten up to the max. \u00a0The chat is getting loose. \u00a0The tiredness is really setting in now. \u00a0We have two massive days in front of us now to make up the mileage of 500 km each day. \u00a0Now remember, in doggy miles, that its 3,500km each day!!! \u00a0Ouch. Best get some sleep. \u00a0Oh dear, we’re sharing a room with Ross. \u00a0Night.<\/p>\n


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[flickr album=72157624553373310 num=30 size=Square]<\/p>\n

[flickr album=72157624553445314 num=30 size=Square]<\/a><\/p>\n


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Good evening. Today was a funky combination of agony and relief. \u00a0We are only 4 days into this mammoth expedition and it feels like we have been on the road for years. \u00a0Doggy years. \u00a0For every 1 hour spent in Martha (especially the back), it feels like 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates","category-stage-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6025,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions\/6025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}