I MacGyvered It - 2 April 2018

2 April 2018 – I got up about 8:30 a.m. and went and ate breakfast. Breakfast consisted of Coffee, Tea, Water with toast and crackers. The toast came with jelly and butter. That’s it. In the big scheme of thing for a 500 Pesos hotel to provide any kind of breakfast is really surprising.

I ate everything and set about trying to figure out something for this broken gas tank bracket. Initially I thought if I could stretch the bracket enough I could sandwich the bracket between two washers. Well that didn’t work worth a darn. I tried bending the bracket but that wasn’t happening. I saw this plastic water pipe sticking out of a rectangular hole at the bottom of the wall. I thought I could use it to keep the bracket from wearing a hole into the gas tank. I cut a chunk off maybe 3 Inches / 8 Centimeters. I whittled on it till it fit over the broken bracket. While I was doing the whittling, it occurred to me that if I put two radiator hose clamps around the plastic pipe I could collapse the pipe around the bracket holding it tight. I went over to the truck repair shop nearby and asked the mechanics if they knew where I could purchase radiator hose clamps and showed him a picture of the type of clamp I was looking for. He pointed to a store across the street that was a parts house. I walked over there and showed the desk guy a picture of the radiator hose clamps I was looking for. He finished something and then went and got me two clamps exactly what I was looking for. I was really happy to see that they had the clamps I wanted. I was in and out of there in 5 minutes.

I came back and did some more whittling on the plastic pipe till I got what I think I wanted. I bored a hole in it with my trusty Swiss Army Knife. I bolted it in position and used the two hose clamps to collapse the plastic pipe around the broken bracket till the two were tight together. I tightened up the bolt and my temporary fix was complete. It was probably one of the best less than desirable fixes I ever did and will be changed when I get home. I believe the plastic pipe should be able to absorb the vibrations of the gas tank without breaking. At least that’s the hope. It has to last 3000 Miles / 4828 Kilometers. I cut off a spare chunk of pipe as a backup incase my first one breaks for some reason. I put away all my tools which takes longer than to make the repair. I then pretty much worked on this blog and started preparing for my next days travel. I could be knocking Buenos Aires, Argentina door tomorrow or the next day. I’ll wait and see what shakes out here at the hotel. I have a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up.