To make my life easier and to prevent you from having to switch from one place to another, I have created a rather grandly titled Kenya Workshop Category.
As this particular visit has Andy and I flitting between 3 cars, it just made a bit of sense. [something I am repeatedly told, that I: have not a lot of].
So if you are all sitting comfortably I shall begin.
As you should know from elsewhere, the ORIGINAL sole purpose of this visit was to organise the repatriation of my 504 to the UK. Time and motivation permitted, we would also take a look at the 'pimp mobile,' as we have nicknamed my latest 504 acquisition and
possibly take a look at the Escort crank,which is still harboring a broken bolt within it's steely heart.
The repatriation hasn't changed, but is proving to be just a little bit stressful, what has changed, is the Escort side of things. After a meeting with Gogi just before we left, he outlined plans to contest the Safari Rally in July. This is of course the WRC tester event. So far, so good. What wasn't so good was his decision to convert the car from using a Type 9 gearbox, to the bigger T5 box. This was a box that we had looked at when we installed the 2 litre lump, but as the car was an original Mexico, the tunnel is too small to take the T5. Andy & my new mission, fit it. This trip, we would take out the engine [this would make removing the broken bolt easier], strip out everything necessary for the car to go off to MRT's Porsche body shop, to have the larger tunnel fitted and then come back in March to do the install.
This of course was cutting into the time available for pimping my ride as it were.
So, off to Nairobi courtesy of Rwandair.
Arriving on Sunday, at lunch time, we took the rest of the day off and reacquainted ourselves with our Nairobi 'home'. Our old favorite room has been converted in a gym of all things, so we have moved two doors down. The big change for us, was the complete removal of the buildings across the road from our hotel. Our seedy bar had already disappeared in the aftermath of the Westgate terror attack, the Nakumat supermarket was a shadow of it's former self following a falling out between the partners but everything else had seemed to be running fine, so to find a totally flatten open space was a bit of a shock.
The Westgate centre however, had seen big changes. The arrival of 'Shoprite', a South African supermarket chain, had replaced the old Nakumat and the arrival of a 'popup' village had added a host of small stalls and restaurants to the mix.
Monday would see us at Bhadur's and time for some work and the first of the moved goalposts that always seem to pop up over here.
