Bit of a belated update on completion of the Guatemala leg and therefore (regrettably) Central America.
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We’ve hardly scratched the surface really, however with RHD vehicles an issue in Honduras and Costa Rica at a minimum shipping from Puerto Barrios is the sensible choice.
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While it takes a lean driver to get a Grenadier into a container, it’s an excellent fit. Due to some pretty sub-standard measuring on our part we proactively removed the roof box and deflated our rear tyres when simply removing the jerries would have sufficed.
With a 3+3 day shipping schedule expected batteries were left connected - the race was on to get loaded and onboard.
Han and I then had a pretty elaborate itinerary to get ahead of the ship: bus back across Guatemala to the capital, flight to Bogota, flight to Cartagena de Indias.
‘Best laid plans of mice and men’ kicked in immediately however and the ship’s departure was delayed from Guatemala, pushing the inbound process into Easter and suddenly 3-4 days without access to the vehicle was more than two weeks.
Great shipping agents on the Colombia side however so no problems there albeit with no shortage of Google Translate and Spanglish for all parties.
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Colombia agents we used were the same you’d use shipping from Panama so any US owners contemplating a Pan American adventure feel free to ping for details.
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No problem with the shipping, however a small SNAFU on pickup with the rear door solenoid malfunctioning. After unloading the container Iggy then had to sit around the dock over the Easter break while we mulled about how to open the door and waited for Customs to reopen and issue our TIP.
On pickup, the stuck door made for a bit of an effort to get tyres pumped back up which itself went along with relocating a couple of wheels so that locations match the TPMS. With jacks etc stuck in the back I ended up enlisting the nearby gas station attendants and it’s fair to say things got sketchy pretty quick in terms of jacking the vehicle and making the wheel swap.
A bit of fiddling back at the hotel and the door decided to play ball, so tyre pressures could be sorted, lug nuts correctly tensioned etc, and roof case/jerries reinstalled. Also installed a Plan B so that if/when the solenoid fails again, we can at least operate the manual door release.
Only other minor headache at the moment is a fault code associated with the low pressure EGR circuit. Present hypothesis is that it’s related to the actuator arms and covered by a TSB in diesel markets. I’ve exhausted ‘roadside’ troubleshooting options so plan is to take another run at it in Medellin in a couple of weeks time. Could just be a bit of corrosion in the DDE loom.
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Other than that, onwards and back into the jungle. A new continent awaits!
