Ab die Post

On December 7th I arrive in Dar and spend a full week at Eckhard's place to work on my car. What is on the menu? My most important and challenging mission is to install a supplementary auxiliary battery with charging infrastructure for my fridge, inverter and USB ports. My remote preparations for this task back home in Germany consumed most of my free time during the past weeks. From Germany I brought a DC-DC charger for charging of the battery from the car's alternator during driving. I also brought a solar charger and a foldable 140 Watt solar panel. All necessary cables, connectors and fuses I also had to import because it is quite difficult to find specific parts here in Dar es Salaam. But the biggest challenge of all is to find an adequate battery! I was opting for a small modern Lithium battery (LiFePO4) but after investigating for weeks in advance, not a single shop or supplier in Dar nor in Arusha could offer what I was searching for. In the end, the only battery I can find around here is a conventional 100 Ah VRLA gel solar battery. Now I have to carry around 32 kg instead of my desired 6 kg in the car and it eats a lot of my valuable storage space. They do not have smaller ones on stock anywhere.

Apart from that I invest in two new high-quality starter batteries, change my engine oil and bleed the brakes. My awning suffered a lot from Namibia's washboard roads back in 2020 and the rivets loosened, some even lost their heads. I replace all rivets, add some more for increased stability and also shorten the mounting brackets. Eckhard's mechanic welds new mounting brackets for my sand recovery tracks and finally I can remount them vertically on my roof rack again! Also my fridge gets a much quieter radiator fan because the original one drove me crazy.Read more