Yesterday we returned from Khvosgol Nuur to Moron with the plan of topping up with fuel and then proceeding west towards Ulaangom. But at the gas station I noticed that the right hand front wheel hub was leaking oil so we checked back into Bata's Guesthouse and I spent some time under the truck investigating the oil leak. Conlusion, an oil seal had started leaking; the seal where the axle shaft enters the outboard hub assembly. Later in the evening I called Rob Pickering (our ever helpful U500 expert) in Colorado and discussed the issue with him. His advice was "… you can probably drive it provided to check the oil level and top it up frequently". So that became the next days (todays) task, assemble the pieces needed to remove the fill plug and add oil to the hub. It also happened that today was Nina's birthday. She got a wonderful present - all day walking around this dusty town trying to find tools, oil and a means of putting the oil into the hub - very romantic.

The removal of the hub fill plug required a 14mm hex key which I did not have, so I spent some time trying to use a 14mm bolt and two locked nuts as a substitute for the hex key but without success. But then we got lucky. While checking with various auto repair places around town for a welder to improve on my improvised hex key one of the mechanics actually produced a hex key of the required size and moreover he was prepared to let me borrow it. After returning to the truck and verifying that the borrowed tool would do the job we returned to the workshop and after some discussion bought the tool. At the same place we bought a gallon of 80/90 gear oil. In the local market I bought a small funnel and together with a coke bottle and a piece of plastic tube scavenged from our water system I made a device through which I could get oil into the hub.

So with all the parts assembed I added about 1/3 of a (small) coke bottle of oil - maybe 100ml. The process of checking the level and adding oil seems simple enough and so our plan will be to continue our journey and periodically give our now limping truck the occassional transfusion. Unless that is things seem to get worse - in which case (if that happens in the next couple of days) we will return to Moron and think of something else.

I cannot close this episode without some comment about the help we got from Bata's Guesthouse; the folks there wrote us a number of notes in Mongolian to help us find the things we needed . Also I want to say a little more about the auto shop where we got the hex key. We were amazed that the mechanics allowed us to borrow this tool in the first place, they had never seen us before, did not know where we were from and asked for no money or other form of security - simply trusted us to return it. When we finally got back there and offered to buy it I handed over a bundle of local currency as payment; the mechanic handed half of it back (I assume) saying that it was "too much". Honest and helpful.

By the way; the carrots and potatoes were bought from the local market and required a bit of washing (in a mix of water and bleach) before being used.


We camped the two nights parked in Bata's Guesthouse. This time around we had the company of other tourists. A Canadia, a couple of Taiwanese girls, and Tom a guy from the Olympic Penninsula working on his PhD studying Mongolian forests.