We missed our planned fueling stop at Shell just before Abbotabad, there was another shell fuel station at main road Abbotabad which was closed at that time of night, we actually took a u-turn and drove back a good 15 minutes to get to the mighty 'PSO Abbotabad' for fueling. And this is where our problems started; both vehicles had a drastic impact on their start-up and acceleration. However, we reached Balakot and refueled again from PSO Balakot with one vehicle topping up in 8.5L and the other in 9L.
SEE YOU IN NARAN DD.
It had been a long drive; we had our 'breakfast' in Naran.
We couldnāt top-up our vehicles in Naran, petrol was not available from the only PSO pump there and a small shop just after the metal bridge was selling āpetrolā but we called it off and decided to move on relying on 20L spare fuel we had.
We reached Jhalkhad at around 10.00 AM of 3rd sept, found campsite at 12 noon and finished setting up camps by 1:30PM.
After a nice teatime, I clicked a few photographs and fell asleep.
While I was asleep:
At around 4.00 PM, Noms started FJ and it stopped running after being moved 4ft in reverse. After which it never started up.
Imran woke me up when dinner was ready and the first thing I got to hear was āFJ band ho gayi haiā.
Dinner meeting was on our special heated dining table imported from USA, during which we decided to fix the FJ during the night and not wait for the morning.
We drained out 27L of bad fuel in no time using the in-tank fuel pump. 20L was drained in Janjās shower tank and the remaining 7L in 1.5L bottles
Fuel filter was removed and was clogged like hell; we cleaned and drained the filter as much as we could and poured in 10L of āniceā petrol we had in spare.
After all of the above, the FJ didnāt feel like starting up.
After such nice results we called it a day off and fell asleep.
Jhalkhadās morning was very relaxing and after completing our self-DIYs, we resumed work on FJ.
After a few minutes of tinkering here and there, we fitted another fuel pumpā¦ filled up a 1.5L bottle with petrol and the FJ fired up into life. We connected the fuel lines and fuel filter back as soon as we could as our weather radar system: āJanjā said that the shower of rain will start within the next 10 mins. 20L of good fuel was mixed with a few liters of the PSO Abbotabad fuel both in the FJ and XJ.
With the FJ back to normal, we were packing our bags and tents; a heavy rain was encountered, we packed the items in a rush and literally smashed them into the vehicles.
All was good and we moved out for Babusar Top after a mutual decision of completing the WIS trip (and not going to back to Lahore).
And after 1km, FJ stopped working againā¦ more coming soon.