Ukraine Refugee Assistance

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Wooowww!!! beautiful things!!! 

I can get that little guy tons of matchbox cars

Good idea , i think a couple ones is enough for this guy and we have a couple of other guys who would also love cars 

Hi everyone!!!

Crossed your fingers, guys - the next party has officially started!!!

Hi everyone!!!

The third trip and the third delivery finished successfully!!!

Bill is still on his way home - let's wish him get home soon!!!

It was perfect!!! Bill hasn't left Dnipro yet and the first gifts have already been delivered to the kids and i've already got the photos - i think it's excellent!!!

Thank you all we together made all this possible!!!

I have to hurry up to tell you the end of the story of The December trip 

Happy Sunday morning and Nova Poshta office is waiting for Vikki – you do remember that we unloaded the truck in Sergey's garage, don't you? Right?

No any problems!!! – all packages loaded again and let’s go!!!

Nova Poshta – done!!! Very easy and very quickly!! Yeah!!! but and it's still not the end... aha... Ukrpost is waiting for me on Monday because on Sunday Ukrpost offices are closed. I need to send gifts, diapers and baby food for two families (these are 5 kiddos) and get to work in time – no worries – will be done!!!

I get out of the post office totally happy - all the gifts were sent to the kids!!!

It’s absolutely worth all OUR efforts!!! A lot of work has been done and I would say everyone who made it possible – THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! once again!!! 

Is this the end? Ha-ha-haaa… nooo!!! not yet!!!

Another message from me is waiting for us. So stay by touch 

P.S. this will be the most important part of the story 

I'd edit that plate out. Normally I wouldn't make a big deal out of it but Opsec and Persec are important.

The Ruzzians hacked Ukrainian insurance databases early in the invasion.  They're probably not looking and probably don't care, but let's not make anything easy for them.

In reply to AClockworkGarage :

Do you mean the number plate of the car? Did i get it right?

I was thinking about it but i was in a hurry a litte, so i did't make it. 

Corrected - thank you for this important point 

Home sweet home, and good and rested.    I'll get the updates going!

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

If the fluid level switch is the float type in the MC cap, some of them have a tendency to leak, and become heavy, and not float properly. Honda issued a recall on our 2003 Ody for this. So there may be no real brake system problem at all, but the red brake warning is a serious one so warrants investigation.

100% checked before I left but I couldn't find a leak anywhere.  That probably means I have a wheel cylinder gone bad...  The fluid was at the "low" mark, and I topped it up with a bottle of RBF-600 I had laying around.  It's been open for a while so I figured it wouldn't be much good for anything else, but still overkill for the Toyota.

DarkMonohue said:

Toyota flywheels are typically machined so that the friction surface the clutch disc contacts sits slightly proud of the perimeter surface that the pressure plate bolts to. If the friction surface is machined, the perimeter must also be machined to maintain that step in order to preserve clamping force. This requires removing the alignment dowels and looking up the specifications for the height of that step. Some machine shops can't be bothered, and will just mill the friction surface and send it out the door. 

I think the step is typically .020" (actually 0.5mm) in height, but apparently some people make them a little taller to add clamping force:

https://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=39856.0

Non-ninja edit: Unless they come from Toyota or a very reputable manufacturer (e.g. Aisin, Denso), I no longer have faith that new parts are good right out of the box. The focus shifted from "best quality" to "lowest price" decades ago.

Crap.  I 100% bet that's what happened.  Small town machine shop has probably never seen a Toyota R engine in their life...  Had it been a BMW or a VW, I might have gotten away with it.

More to follow on this one, hopefully the Aisin clutch is still ok after all this.  It didn't have any slipping issues on the run, but clamp force is definitely on the light side.

Ok.  So before I set off, I did have to crawl under the truck.  I broke both swaybar to a-arm bolts on the Bamako run and the whole bar was being held up and out of the way with zip ties.  Trying to get the bolts loose and removed from the bar was impossible so I put it in the "later later" bin and have been driving around without a front swaybar since last November.

I ordered a new set of "Energy Suspension" bolts that came complete with poly bushings from Rock Auto, so that's what we'll be doing today:

Don't worry, the bar is just rubbing on that brake line it's not zip tied to it (there's a mount above it that's holding the zip tie).  i get it's not ideal, but trail fixes and all that...

Anyhoo, out comes the bar and I get to work with the danger wheel:

We're going to have to re-use the bar to frame rubber bushings.  The mounts for them are beat to smithereens and if I try to mash the new poly units in there then the bar's spring rate is bound to jump to infinity.

I'll get to those when I drop the transmission to get at the flywheel.  Promise.

Swaybar dun, ready to run!

Easy money (and just in time to head to work!)

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Almost certainly. A nice 0.6mm step in the flywheel would probably put that clutch right in its happy place. And you should be able to reuse the clutch disc and pressure plate if they were recently replaced and have not really been slipping.

You might want to remove the dowels from the flywheel before you send it in of you can do that. Shops have a habit of losing critical items like that. I don't know why, but given an opportunity to sabotage your work through ignorance or apathy, they absolutely will.

Next order of business was that darn microscope!  I don't think I told you the whole story, but UPS sent it back and told the store that we refused delivery...  Well, lucky for us we have a Bavarian friend who got things rolling.  But the problem is, the shop absolutely refused to send it to our address again!

Luckily we have a house under construction in a nearby town.  For the quick win, we used that address but that came with its own problems.

See, deliveries out here wont just leave stuff on your porch.  Someone has to actually be there to accept the box (we checked the previous tracking, we were home at least one of the times they claim a delivery was attempted).  This is a problem because what the heck are we going to do at our house all day.  The place is seriously four walls and a dirt floor at this point.  No water, no toilet, no electricity, no internet...  The gate is something I made out of 6-by-6's and chain link fence!

But there we were.  We had been watching the tracking number for DAYS and as soon as we saw the box leave the local hub, Mrs. Hungary and I parked at the new place and waited.

and waited and waited and waited....

we got there at 8:30am, and by 10am there was still no delivery.  Worst of all, I was supposed to be working right now but excused myself for "just one minute while I go collect a package".  This excuse wouldnt hold out for long.

Eventually we got lucky and our neighbor came home.  She offered to take over the watch and relieve us of our package waiting duties.  Then, at 12:30 she phoned.  She got the box and we could stop by anytime.

Thank goodness for great neighbors.

We bought her a bottle of wine to say thanks, and she said she was absolutely happy to do it.

Ok, next up was organization.  It's pretty much the night of at this point and we have Easter chocolates, art supplies, and headphones to sort and organize.  With the children ranging in age from "just over a year" to 14 or 15 years old, not everyone is going to get the same things.  Luckily, VikkiDp and I have our list from last Christmas and it's still up to date.  Also luckily the power was back on at our house.  It was out for "scheduled maintenance" when I left to go to the store (I had to buy 30 paper bags!) and was working when we got back.

anyhoo, 50 kids.  here goes:

I had to stop mid-sort and put my kids to bed at 8:30, and even then I didn't finish until nearly 10am.  Tomorrow is the big day, an I want to be up and in the driver's seat with as little fuss as possible.  The alarm is set for 4am, so here goes!

DarkMonohue said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Almost certainly. A nice 0.6mm step in the flywheel would probably put that clutch right in its happy place. And you should be able to reuse the clutch disc and pressure plate if they were recently replaced and have not really been slipping.

You might want to remove the dowels from the flywheel before you send it in of you can do that. Shops have a habit of losing critical items like that. I don't know why, but given an opportunity to sabotage your work through ignorance or apathy, they absolutely will.

100% what I was thinking as well.  I'll pull them out before I send it off and press it back in before installation. 
We'll give everything a good looking over.  We have until August for our next run so if something doesn't look skookum, we'll order parts and not take chances.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

Got blessed by the reseller yesterday- I've now got 4 boxes of about ~1,200 crayons and ~100 colored pencils, and the reseller says they're routinely seeing boxes of these so next week I might see more. I haven't seen much for paints that aren't in singlet little kits, but I'll still nab them for you- and if you want, would you rather I directly mail them to that child psych so you have more space?

Finally VikkiDp, I can get that little guy tons of matchbox cars if you'd like, or just fill the next box with them. It's honestly, your guy's call.

 

That is awesome!!! 

Shipping to Ira might be a wallet drainer, but it's definitely a possibility.  I'm going to butter up to our current shipping option and see if we can't get approval for one big push in August.  If approved then I'd be happy to use that same system of shipping to get matchbox cars out here as well.

Once here, driving the items to Ira is no biggie.  It only takes me an afternoon, and it'd be nice to visit the school again.

That does remind me though that I have an idea of how we can divide and conquer this next run.  Our list of delivery places is growing, and I think if we focus all the respective efforts (GFM, the other forum, local donations, etc) we might be able to better play to our strengths and fill the truck with lots of good stuff for the next run.

Awww, man, I was waiting for this!!! Glad to see you, but of course I know it was needed for you to have some rest.

So tonight Vikki has something interesting to read!!! Where is my cup of coffee? 

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Okay, just let me know. I've since added a serious roll of paper (18 x 175 inches) and I'll see about kids toys.

So here we are the day before our departure.  I may have been running behind, but I still wanted to get a shot of what was going in the truck (this is about 19:30).  This may be the emptiest the truck has been (well, excluding the first run to Lviv that is) but this is EASILY the highest dollar amount per volume we've had yet. 

On normal runs, I can work the lists and funds to my favor and use cheaper/bulkier items as fillers to plug any gaps or holes in the cargo space.  With this one, some of our most expensive items (the blood pressure monitor and the microscope) take up no more than a shoebox each and that was about 70% of our donated funds right there.  The remaining donated items (stuffed animals, art supplies, headphones, starlink, etc) are also insanely expensive for the amount of room they occupy.  Again, this may be the emptiest I've had the truck but we've got some serious quality items back there.

To take advantage of the extra space, I went a bit heavy with tools, spares, and sleeping bags.  With the extra room, I can move stuff and sleep in the back of the truck and save myself TONS of time on the road stopping when I want to instead of when I have to.

Mrs. Hungary gets home early, and just after I put the kids to bed.  We hang out and have a couple beers while we watch TV.  We've got everything organized and ready to go.  Tomorrow should just be a "get up and go".

Well, it's 4am the next day.

Just like we planned, it's a quick shower followed by a cup of coffee and I'm on the road in less than a half hour.

Gonna try to catch that sun on the horizon.  If you know the words, sing along!
 

With VikkiDp's route plugged into the GPS, I should be at the border before noon! 

This is a man who doesn't bother with politics, bickering, blaming or hand wringing. He just sees a problem and does his best to solve the problem. Kudos to you.

There's not much to write about when you're pointed east.  The sun is up and it is BLAZING through my windshield.  I've never been one to wear sunglasses for some reason, so I'm squinting through it like a pro.  At some point in time the the guy in front of me hit his windshield sprayers and I caught some mist from it (not a big deal, I wasn't tailgating or anything) but to clear my windshield I hit my sprayers and holy smokes was I almost blinded!

The darn soap sprayed the windshield just fine but then the wipers just smeared everything around!  This is about the time I realize that I haven't really used the wipers since my last run to Ukraine in December.  They're still gunked up with sand and road dirt, and all sorts of stuff by now.

oops.

it works because it gives me an excuse to pull into a service station.  I've been wanting to because I still can not believe I'm going to be in Ukraine so early.  It just doesn't make sense!

At the service station there's no squeegie to use so I use my hoodie to wipe the crud off the windshield.  I check my GPS again.  Not only is this route way faster than I expected, but I find that if I punch north a little bit, I can save even more time!  So that's what I do.  Before leaving, I decide to fill up both of my jerry cans (more on these later, but for right now I just don't like to buy any fuel I don't have to in Ukraine.  I'm sure they need it more than I do).

after that, it's back on the road.  Wheels turning, fuel burnin...

This mountain border town is much bigger than I'm used to, and there's a pretty decent military presence in the area.  The first time I saw a grenade green, kitted out Land Rover Defender I thought it was just a rich overlander or something.  By the 4th and 5th one in full battle rattle I realized it was something military related (Bill slow).

At the edge of town I picked up a convoy of three trailer-less lorries with UA "Humanitarian Aid" flags flying on the front.  They hung with me until the border, when I peeled off to queue up in the "non commercial" line.

Good times.

At the border (and still INSANELY early) I'm immediately told I need to re-route and queue up in the commercial line (as I'm bringing Humanitarian Aid).  No prob, I u-turn it and drive the wrong way down the road I came up on, and pulled up behind those three trailerless Humanitarian Aid lorries and... wait... they have Hungarian plates!!!!

Now this gets my curiosity raging.  Hungary has taken a pretty solid stance when it comes to sending stuff into Ukraine.  Specifically "no military aid" and while these are just lorries, they're painted green and are fitted with some tires that look like they could hold their own off of the pavement...  Naturally I roll my window down and listen to what's being said while trying to act like I didn't just roll my window down to listen to what's being said.

To occupy my time I again review my route.  Right now it's set up to make maximum time through Ukraine, but there's a bunch of forest not too far off and I think I'm far enough ahead of schedule to take my time through it.  To do so, I manually enter the waypoints.

Listening to the drivers of the Hungarian plated vehicles, I can tell they're not speaking Hungarian.  Slovak was my next guess, but I'm not sure yet.  No time for that now though, our line is moving.  And when it does, I end up parked next to this:

I like this.  Let your imagination run with it for a little bit.  This all started with one guy and one cup (get your minds out of the gutter).  how many people and how many gas station espressos does it take to make something like this???  How long has it gone unnoticed or ignored by the border guards for this to happen?  How long has this been here???  this is the stuff that makes Hungary Bill's mind go 'round.

Oof.  The border is a mess, and being behind those trailerless lorries just made things worse.  I don't know what's wrong with what they're doing, but they all looked completely defeated when I saw them sitting inside the customs building.  Not like "they're not getting in" but more like "this is going to take forever".  Myself, well it was amateur hour for me.

It's been my experience that every border crossing is slightly different.  No idea why, but it is.  This one seems to combine all the worst aspects of all the other UA borders I've crossed and combined them into one.

- Many employees, but only one working

check

- tons and tons of stamps needed on a paper no larger than the size of your palm

check

- confusing instructions that sound clear when you get them but make no sense when you go to where you're directed

check

I discover that the lorry drivers are Ukrainian (not Slovakian).  They try talking to me but obviously I don't understand.  I tell them I'm American (Amerikanski) and one of them mentions my Hungarian license plates.  I gesture in a fashion that I hope says "yeah, I live there".  he then switches to broken Hungariand and just like that we're communicating!

This guy ends up being super helpful and takes me to everywhere I need to be.  When the border guards have questions, we can work through one word answers (choki = chocolate.  gyogyszer - medicine and so on).  Things are rollin.

All said and done this guy ran me from place to place and didn't stop until I was cleared to drive.  I couldn't thank him enough, and he seemed happy to do it.

out the gates and down the other side, we are now in Ukraine!

Love the new updates on the trip sir!

On a side note, I am available to mule materials to Europe on a coming trip starting 6/19.  I'll be a bit all over covering northern Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and France.  I can bring/ship in oversize luggage as needed.  Happy to be of service.  

Maybe give us midwestern guys a shopping list and we can donate that way?  Open to thoughts, just want to help.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Okay, just let me know. I've since added a serious roll of paper (18 x 175 inches) and I'll see about kids toys.

Will do, sir!  I've just compiled a list of items that would potentially ship to the address and will probably ask permission tonight.