The Berliners had taken the most direct route home and we spontaneously decided to skip the rather windy and chilly west coast of France and instead make a little surprise visit to Juliane's family in Switzerland for Mother's Day. Unfortunately, we got a slight setback immediately after the decision, because the coolant expansion tank burst for us not too far away (luckily) from the asphalted roads. The reservoir was brand new and installed as part of the engine conversion, the blue lid with the pressure valve also worked perfectly. Once again the quality of the parts seemed to have dropped, even with the supposedly best repro part on the market. For the few kilometers back to the next town, it was also possible to use duct tape and a ratchet strap. Luckily we are in the ADAC and after the weekend they took care of our bus directly, dragged it to a workshop 80 km away and followed us in a taxi.
As a precaution, I had already found the appropriate part number and luckily the mechanic was able to order and install the container by the afternoon. So we could continue straight away and nothing stood in the way of our surprise plan. The trip went without any further incidents and we arrived in Switzerland on time on Saturday and visited our former neighbors at home - Luisa had been looking forward to her friend so much the whole time. We spent the next night at the beautiful Lützelsee in a forest parking lot and successfully surprised Juliane's parents on Sunday.
We then stayed with them for three more nights before heading north again for another surprise visit. On the way we visited Klaus again, with whom we were able to stay at the very beginning of our trip without him being at home. This time he was there and we had two wonderful days bathing in a hot wooden barrel, grilling, pizza and good beer. Then we drove on towards Dresden, where my mum had her birthday on Saturday. On Friday evening we then baked a birthday cake in the Omnia oven at the edge of the forest and so the surprise the next day worked out perfectly.
In Dresden, we meet some friends and did two three things on the bus. That was actually only planned for autumn, but it made sense now that I noticed a rattling noise on the engine just before Dresden. Unfortunately, the downpipe broke right after the manifold (very poor quality from a well-known manufacturer of stainless steel exhaust systems) and since we wanted to install a larger manifold anyway (less back pressure -> more power and less consumption), I did it together with Valentin.
After a week we left again and visited our Berlin friends at home in Berlin Kreuzberg for one night and then drove on to Schwerin to my grandparents. There we helped as much as possible in the garden and I completely repaired the exhaust and built a new additional LiFePo4 battery for Zacharias. To top it all off, we stayed until Sunday to celebrate my birthday with my grandparents and then continued towards Scandinavia. We made a short stopover on the Darß and met up again with Valentin, who happened to be there at the time, and we were allowed to camp with the bus and golf in the parish garden of the Wustrow church 😉
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