So let is have a look, shall we?
- February / Vietnam / Halong
First experience - dead lights in the evening on the way to Halong bay. Fixed no problemo - cables to the electric box under the seat got loose. - February / Vietnam / Halong
After a late party night on a beach I wake up to a flat rear tire. With not much time to waste I got it sorted out by a mechanic only to manage to break off the whole back brake system an hour later. After I got that fixed I managed to tip the bike over (trying to drive onto a curb) and break off my front right side light (that is still missing). - February / Vietnam / Sapa
Doing some offroading I loose the other front side light due to tiring of materials. (That one is still missing too.) Besides that a horrible rattling sound is introduced to the otherwise lovely puffing of the engine. It takes me about a week to find out the culprit - the loose nuts attaching the gearbox to the main frame. As it turns out the loose nut is actually a broken thread on the bolt but a little botching does the job well and the engine starts puffing effortlessly yet again. - February / Vietnam / Sapa
On the way out of Sapa all packed and ready to roll I experience strange power cuts to the engine. It keeps happening randomly for about four kilometers. Thinking it is a petrol/air system issue I am reluctant to stop and sort it out (and hope for the best) until I stall once more and cannot even start the bike. It turns out to be an electrical problem (loose cables again) instead which I discover fairly early in the process of elimination due to the wonderful minsk 'manual' I downloaded off of the web. - March / Laos
Laos is good to me the first two weeks and no new problems occur besides a need to change the sparkplug at some point and keep inflating the front tire which seems to be deflating slightly after long runs. - March / Laos / Towards Pak Beng
I manage to loose the kick-starter and the gear-shifter levers while riding on a mountainous road. Both of them are found after a kilometer long hike back up the hill but a bolt and a nut is missing. Another botch (with a piece of torn shirt) sees me all the way to Luang Prabang (150 kilometers) where I get a replacement bolt-nut pair. - March / Laos / Towards Luang Prabang
After a little road incident involving only myself and a bend I manageably crash into a ditch. This results in a nice burn on my right calf and a bent front fork that attaches the wheel to the steering column via a suspension. Since the bike is not very ridable I am forced to apply brute force (a few good kicks into the lower suspension) to straighten it out a little and thus manage to ride it all the way to Luang Prabang (100 kilometers) where I get it properly sorted out by a mechanic. - March / Laos / Vientiane
Upon meeting a duo of American travellers (who managed to crash on their bike after a mere 3 kilometers!) and helping them resolving all sorts of issues (unfortunately only two successfully) I end up doing a great maintenance on my bike as well: among other things tightening the chain by moving the back wheel further back, adjusting the clutch that has become too loose to engage properly and changing the gearbox oil. - April / Thailand
Within the first five kilometers after crossing the border my accelerator cable snaps and I find my self limping along the highway in a 45 degree heat to find a spot of shade. Once there I open up the carburettor and accelerator throttle, lubricate the spare accelerator cable I got in Vietnam and change the old rotten one for the new. It takes me a good half an hour to assemble everything back and get it working but in the end all is well! (Two hours later that is.) - April / Thailand
Driving down on a nice highway I suddenly realise I have yet again lost the gear-shifting lever. A quick stroll back a few hundred meters yield no discoveries so I take out my wrench and manage to change the fourth gear into third with quite some brute force applied onto the gear shaft. Reving the engine hogh up while slowly releasing (i.e. burning) the clutch I am able to set the bike in motion and soon enough I am riding in the highway side lane in the opposite direction looking for the lost bloody part. I end up going all the way to the previous town (10 km) with no luck and thus have to settle for curses and the only available explanation that some merry soul has taking the part home with him. Bless the bastard!
So I end up pulling in by a mechanic who, of course, has no part that would fit but after another botch taking advantage of a pneumatic drill, a hammer and a bit of welding I am back on the road again.
Well, as it turned out it was a gear box problem after all and riding down from the National Park towards the ex-Siamese capital today the newly introduced clunking sound made me decide to look for a mechanic to at least see what is going on. (With the now permanently welded-on gear-shifter I cannot even open the box myself.)
Finding a Minsk mechanic might be an easy job in Vietnam but not out here and I am forced to go through five until I manage to persuade one to sand away the welded-on gear-shifter and look into the gear box.
As we lift up the box cover I am surprised not to see any gear cogs - these are in fact much deeper in the engine - only an alternator, a kick starting mechanism, a chain that brings torque from the engine onto the back wheel and a few other bits and bobs. The mechanic goes on and dismantles the whole alternator without a second thought wasted on how it is put together in the first place. And that is after he mentioned he never worked on this bike ever before! I am starting to imagine the worst (i.e. getting the bike back per partes) but the man seems to be rather comfortable about what he's doing so I let the worries ago.
Soon enough we discover the culprit - it is the chain bringing power from the engine to the back wheel via the clutch, and it is stretched. So stretched in fact that it rubs against the metal casing which shows visible signs of wear (a good half a centimeter has been dug in already!) and here in lies the problem: the chain needs to be replaced by a new one with a snugger fit but where to find one?
After much deliberation and an attempt to take the chain down to try to remove one of the clips to make it shorter (a hammer was used quite extensively) but to no avail we end up putting the bike back together but not before I sand down the hole created by the chain to make it's movement easier. I change the oil again in a hope that a lot of lubrication will make the chain last a few more hundred kilometers. My only concern is that when it finally breaks, which it will, it is going to hurt. Both me and the bike since the bits will block the movement of the engine and back wheel cogs which will make the bike stop rather abruptly.
So my only hope is to find a shop with spareparts somewhere in Thailand since I do not think the bike has another two thousand kilometers in it.. But where? A forty minute research of all Minsk related articles doesn't reveal any Minsk mechanics in Thailand yet it doesn't by any means prove there aren't any either. (Most bike riders around SE Asia write about there touring and the troubles they encounter but none I've found mentions troubles in Thailand.)
So I think tomorrow a call to the mechanic in Hanoi will be made and with a little luck he will point me in the right direction. Although somehow I doubt it.. When it comes to worst I guess I can order the spare parts from Hanoi and once having them (in two weeks?!) stop by a mechanic somewhere on the way and do the work myself. Hopefully the chain will last till then!
These are fun times indeed...
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