Wednesday 27 June 2012

Moroccan Rally 2012 latest news

We are now back in England, having had to surrender to engine failure in France, 500 miles in to the rally.

We had a long journey back to London which included walking, driving, taking the metro, the tube, the train and the eurostar. It took 6 trains, 1 car and our legs to get from Aunac in France back to London. All in all, that took about 9 hours.

Red, all packed and ready to go the night before the rally

We set off on Saturday 24th June at 5.25am, 25 minutes later than planned. We arrived at Dover with 15 minutes to spare, but customs decided to have a quick look at our vehicle which delayed us further. This resulted in us being put on the next ferry 50 minutes later.
Not ones for giving up, we decided to drive up to the original ferry that we were supposed to be on and managed to talk the ferry loader into squeezing us on. He put us in with all the lorries.

Parked up with all the lorries

Because we were so late and in the rush of the ferry staff closing all the parking areas on the ferry, we were left behind and locked in. Here we can be seen using the emergency phone on the ferry to call the ferry crew to come and get us.

Adam using the ferry emergency phone

We arrived to a sunny Calais and were on our way, hoping this was just the beginning of our epic drive down to Morocco. It was still early morning, we'd had some chocolate doughnuts, but clearly that wasn't enough so we had to tuck into something else.

Alex helping himself to some dry cereals

After about 12 hours of driving, as we approached the small town of Ruffec, our oil pressure light came on and we lost power. We pulled in to investigate the matter but realised we might have a serious problem as the engine made a loud ticking noise each time we revved it.

At this point it was about 1am in the morning. We were still able to drive the car, but at speeds not exceeding 15mph and if faced with a hill, our speed would drop much further. So we drove around the outskirts of Ruffec to try and get some ideas, but then crashed out in the car at 2am and got a couple of hours of rather uncomfortable sleep.

At 4.30am we were up and decided to limp the car at 15mph to the nearest major town, Angouleme. We got there just around 6am and were still exhausted, so we checked into a hotel and fell asleep.
Once we were up at 2pm, now Sunday 25th June, we emailed a few of our contacts, posted up requests for help on Land Rover forums and then walked into town in search of possible garages.

The outskirts of Angouleme

As we wandered around the sleepy outskirts of Angouleme, we found numerous car garages that may have been able to confirm the terminal condition of our engine. Being Sunday, we would have to wait till the next day before they'd be open. However, we hit a spot of good luck when we got back to the hotel to check the Land Rover forums. A member of the forum put us in contact with Drew. Drew was about 20 miles away from us and offered to help look at our car.

We limped the car to Aunac, 20 miles north of Angouleme and Drew looked the car with us for the next 6 hours. The conclusion was that the engine needed to be replaced. This was the confirmation that our rally had come to a premature end. Drew was incredibly hospitable and put us up for the night.

Drew (Left) and Alex (Right) working on Red

Red being taken apart

Working late into the night on Red

We camped the night out in Drew's garden, got up and had some breakfast and finalised our return plans. At 2pm on Monday 26th June, Drew drove us to Angouleme train station so we could catch the first of our many trains to Paris. We arrived in London around 10pm.

What next?

Red is still in Aunac. Drew is very kindly bringing Red back to the UK in August. We are sourcing a replacement engine for Red and if we can time everything just right, we'll be back on our way to the Western Sahara a bit later this year. We'll keep you all posted.

The fund raising will continue for the Mercy Corps. We've raised over £1100 and this will be carried forward into the re-launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012. We are hoping that this false start and our determination to head for the Western Sahara will help us raise even more for the Mercy Corps as our re-launch date approaches.

For now, all that is left to say is 'Long Live the Moroccan Rally 2012' :o)

Monday 25 June 2012

False start for Moroccan Rally 2012

We got about 500 miles away from our Moroccan Rally 2012 launch point in London to then experience a fatal problem with the engine.

We spent most of yesterday considering our options to repair the engine which included exploring local garages in Angouleme, posting up requests for help on Landyzone.co.uk (A Land Rover forum) and emailing our various contacts.

One of the Landyzone members put us in touch with Drew in Aunac, who has been incredibly hospitable and helpful. We spent 6 hours yesterday attempting to diagnose the fault. We took the head off and the the head was slightly warped, we couldn't see anything else obviously wrong with only the head off, so put it back together in the hope that it might solve the problem. Unfortunately it didn't resolve the problem and has confirmed our suspicions that the engine is terminal.

We will be heading back to the UK at some point today and will return to Aunac in the near future to collect the Land Rover. The Rusty Rhinos don't do AA!

The rally is not cancelled, but will be relaunched once the car engine has been repaired/replaced in the UK. Full details of our events and the relaunch will follow.

We hope it is sunny in England!

Friday 22 June 2012

Rusty Rhinos ready for Moroccan Rally 2012

With just over 3 hours till the Moroccan Rally 2012 launch, we can finally say we are ready!

It looks like no more than 3 hours sleep for us which is going to make our 48 hour drive to the south of Spain and into Morocco somewhat challenging!

We had a few issues that slowed down our preparation including having to repair a headlight, tail light and brake light. Then just as we thought we were done, our car stereo stopped working so we had to take it apart to try and repair it. It seems to be working now.

We're expecting to depart at 5am as planned to catch the 7.35am ferry from Dover to Calais. This is our last blog update as we'll be on the road but you can continue to follow our Twitter feed which will be updated regularly.

We are very excited to be heading to the Western Sahara and leave you with a late night photo of Red, our Land Rover, with the camo net fitted.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Music for the road

One of the most essential rally items is music. Music is the only in-car entertainment system that we have. Entertainment system sounds quite elaborate, the actual set-up we have is 2 large speakers mounted somewhere relatively close to our ears, a basic stereo and an mp3 player that is wired to the car stereo.


Alex fixing the wiring to our speakers on the Moroccan Road Trip 2010


We have to mount the speakers near our ears so that we stand a chance of actually hearing what is pumping out of our mp3 player over the engine noise.

If you followed our blog on the Moroccan Road Trip 2010, then you'll remember we have an mp3 player that we consider quite special. It is the Samsung YP-K5.


Samsung YP-K5 - 4GB MP3 player with built-in stereo speakers


The Samsung YP-K5 has rather small built-in stereo speakers that are actually quite effective by the tent and in enclosed spaces, so we can take our music with us in and out of the car. The battery life is excellent.

We carry quite a variety of music with us to help us with our drive. We have same classic rock anthem favourites, a lot of indie music and some dance music for those long night drives. We even have some very cheesy and rather embarassing tracks to play whenever we want.
Some of the artists on our mp3 player include rally essentials such as the Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler, David Bowie, Coldplay, Razorlight and Pulp. You are also likely to find a variety of classics from Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Tom Petty, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Cars, Foo Fighters, Chicago, Keane, Sheryl Crow and many others. Awesome!

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Satellite phone arrives

As our final days of preparation slowly approach an end, one of our essential items arrived today, our satellite phone.

We've opted for the Motorola Iridium 9505A, this is one of the most cost effective satellite phones that uses the Iridium network. Although cost effective, this is a rugged phone that should survive with no problems in the environment we are taking it to.

This is an item that we're hoping we won't need to use whilst on the rally, but it provides us with a last resort optin for communication should it be required. We tested the phone today and it is ready for the rally.


Monday 18 June 2012

Alex on BBC Radio Lincolnshire

We've recently been raising awareness of our Moroccan Rally 2012 and are very pleased that Alex has had success getting through to the BBC.

He was interviewed live on the air on BBC Radio Lincolnshire this morning. Click to download and listen to the interview.

Saturday 16 June 2012

Changes to Red, our Land Rover, since our previous adventure

With less than a week till the launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012, we thought we'd post up some information on some changes to Red, our Land Rover, since the previous rally in 2010.

A luxury item upgrade was added, cup holders.



We also added some light guards.



Then we had a slight issue with the gearbox...namely a hole in the gearbox!



So the gearbox housing was damaged and needed replacement. We got hold of a second hand box - which we were told only had a small problem with one of the gears - but our gear was fine so we made a good box out of the two.


Left: Moss from the Desert Bunnies, Right: Alex



We put the gearbox back together and thought that would be the end of it. We were very wrong - it would randomly jump out of gear, which we could not put up with on a rally. What occurs next can only be described as a gearbox fitting marathon - we had the gearbox in and out the car several times and replaced various bits that looked faulty. Eventually we got there - by basically replacing virtually every single component for a new one. Needless to say, the gearbox on Red now seems perfect.

Some of the brake components were already worn out, so we decided this time we would go for genuine Land Rover parts. All of the shock absorbers were very worn from the previous trip so we treated Red to some heavy duty shock absorbers - hopefully these ones will last. Or perhaps we should stop "driving as fast as the old thing will go, all of the time". But then again, probably not!

Thursday 7 June 2012

Crossing the border into Morocco with a vehicle

Driving into Morocco is a fairly straightforward affair compared to some of the countries we've had to drive into before. There are some essentials that you can prepare before entering Morocco. First off, you must have your original car registration document (V5C), sometimes referred to locally as the vehicle passport. Next you'll need a completed D16 Ter form. This is normally a 3 part carbon copy form, however the Moroccan customs have provided an electronic version of this form that can be completed online and printed before you go to Morocco.

You can get to the D16 Ter form at the Moroccan customs site.

Below is some guidance on completing the form should you have to do this as well as a partly completed form for Red, our Land Rover.


Bureau d'entrée: Office of entry, in our case this is BAB-SEBTA as we enter from Ceuta, Spain in North Africa.

Prénom and Nom: Given name and family name (surname).

Identifiant: You have 4 options here:

1. CIN(Nationaux): Moroccan National

2. Etrangers résidant au Maroc: Non-Moroccan resident in Morocco

3. Etrangers non résidant ayant déjà visité le Maroc: Non-Moroccan visiting Morocco having been to Morocco before.
If you choose this, you'll need to locate the Moroccan ID number that was stamped into your passport when you first entered Morocco. This is typically 6 numeric digits followed by 2 letters. Enter this Moroccan ID in the field that appears next to Etrangers non résidant ayant déjà visité le Maroc

4. Etrangers en première visite au Maro: Non-Moroccan visiting Morocco for the first time

Immatriculation: Vehicle registration (license plate) number

Marque: Vehicle manufacturer (make), this will be Rover for us.

Type: Vehicle model, Land Rover 88 in our case.

Genre: Vehicle type.

Pays: Your country of residence, in our case Grande Bretagne.

Date de 1ère mise en circulation: Date that your vehicle was first registered.

Numéro de châssis: Your vehicle identity number (VIN), which you can find on your car, on your car registration document (or V5C in the UK).


Once you've completed the form, click on Imprimer, this will generate a single PDF document with 3 sections in it. The 1st section is yours to keep, the 2nd section (Exemplaire service 2 (Apurement)) you'll use on exit from Morocco and the 3rd section (Exemplaire service 1 (Entrée)) is required on entry to Morocco at the office of entry that you have specified in the Bureau d'entrée field.