Asahikawa, vehicle problems, west coast Central Hokkaido

16/6/14 we have arrived back at Asahikawa to get an oil leak fixed. The transfer case has been leaking. We have luckily found a mechanical workshop which seems to specialise in trucks, and has an English speaker! The workshop is called Ootani. They have got the parts we need from Mitsubishi. We also asked Nakamura San if they could do the vehicle inspection as required for our registration renewal. So we left the vehicle with them and Nakamura San, and went in the rental car for the day with Stuart and Nira. 

One of the first things we did was to call in on our new friend Rikka, who gave us our vegetarian cooking lesson last time we were here. We were vary glad to see her again, and told her we would be back for dinner in her Resturaunt in the evening, along with Stephanie and John Dyer (the American couple who have kindly agreed to have our vehicle at their place when we go home in a few weeks.)

So in the evening we arrived at Rikka's shop to find that she had spent all afternoon cooking up an absolute banquet for us! 

 We had a wonderful evening with all of these friends and Rikka's great food. 

Back at the mechanical workshop though things were not going so smoothly. We have found that in a vehicle with as many modifications as this one, it is essential to have the engineers inspection certificate which was used for the initial registration. The design of our wheels and their attachment to the brake drum was questioned by the mechanics, and they wanted to change the bolts etc. after discussion with Mark at Earthcruiser and establishing that the wheels are as designed and inspected/passed by the consulting engineer in Australia the mechanics signed off on the form. At least we think they have. We have gone on while all of this was sorted out, and will be back in Asahikawa in a few days to finalise the forms. Hopefully Nakamura-San has managed to get them completed. 

Another problem we have run into is getting the correct forms for the inspection from Qld transport. The forms are not available on-line being only given out to authorised workshops in Australia. Apparently we should have gotten the correct forms before we left home! According to Nakamura the form is almost identical to the Japanese one which of course is in Japanese! I have emailed Qld transport more than a week ago but have had no response so far. Hopefully I will have the form before we get back to Asahwikawa.

Stuart and Nira are leaving soon, so we were very happy to find a great camping spot on the west coast. 

20/6/14 Stuart and Nira have gone. We had a great month with them, with no tensions between us. We reckon we deserve a good pat on the back for that! The arrangement of having separate cars and meeting up in the evenings or any stops along the way worked very well for us! On a few occasions we went separate ways for a day, and that also worked well. So well done all of us.