Plastic corks are better than cork corks

Bush mechanic tip of the day - use plastic wine corks to plug diesel fuel lines instead of cork corks.  This should solve the plastic vs traditional wine cork debate once and for all.

 

Cork corks react badly with diesel and start to crumble as soon as they come into contact with it (Roland the Land Rover doctor concurred, having had the same problem once before).  While waiting for the doctor to come out and weld the gear lever back on I removed the long-range fuel tank, which had sprung a leak on the trip to Mozambique.

 

The long range fuel tank is the newest thing on Tonka.  It lasted about 5000km before the seam started to come apart (see earlier tip about sunlight soap).

 

It was joined to the main tank with a rubber hose (people want to call them pipes in South Africa) which had to be blocked.  I felt quite proud of myself (having zero mechanical knowledge or ability), being able to remove the tank and plug the pipe.  Despite being drenched from head to toe (I am not joking here) in diesel while attempting all this under the Land Rover.

 

I had to clean the air filter with some petrol the other day, which was not a nice job.  I'm definitely a diesel person, rather than a petrol person.

 

Let's have a blog poll.

 

I would be preferred to be doused, head to toe in:

 

a: diesel, or

b: petrol

 

(If you're a smoker I'd recommend a.)

 

I definitely need to go back to work now.  Curse you, Rebecca and The Barman for starting this.  If it wasn't for the tens of thousands of fans, I'd give it up...