Making KOMBI LIFE Better // S02E05

What's up and welcome back to Combi Life. We are Ben and Tamara and this season's Overland Adventure sees us road tripping across Europe to Asia. Or at least that's the plan. But here in central Italy we've recently noticed a problem with our alternator not charging our battery. So we currently can't drive out of town. Never mind out of the country. In this episode we've got quite a few challenges to overcome at our little riverside camp and we're hoping to find some help in the local town. Occasionally we go places and you guys are invited too. So subscribe and buckle up. It's one heck of a ride. Problems are really mounting up with boomerang. Check this out. Tell me what's missing here in this picture. Where's that one gone? We're certain that we tightened them all up to torque so I wouldn't have to jack this wheel up to make sure it's not coming loose or doing something or I don't even know what. But not here because this is ground and we need tarmac to do that. So we can solve that after we solve the other problem. We have something about a window as well. What's wrong with the window? Oh yeah. Nobody mentioned the window. This entire window needs on the other side needs riveting because it's completely open at the moment. Can't be closed and uh yeah would not hold rain and that window's broken too but we can you know just little things we can just deal with the big things ultimately so then the wheel coming off and then we'll get to windows. I found the part that I need at a reasonable price. To be honest I already have one of these a brand new one at home but after the ordeal in Spain of 30 plus days and three attempts to get it sent from the UK to the EU. You still can't leave the desert. I think it's just better to buy another one. Today is actually day 30. Day 30? No. We've been here a month. As much as I don't want to buy something I already have. The problem is this is where this is where we are and this is where the part is 135 hour walk 589 kilometers or a day each way on a train for about six hours in a normal car and I don't think we're going to make it that far without having some serious mechanical problems so we need to come up with plan B. Ready for plan B? Always ready. We are on the way to the town of Otricoli and what are we trying to find there? I think fishing. No sorry got one. Let's find a location for us to receive a package if we can order a new alternator. We need somewhere to send it so we need to find a post office. What else? Definitely a taco shop. Oh my god someone lives there. Look at that. The fishing taco shop obviously priority list for me and then I think oh washing that's the other thing. Oh yeah this that's why I'm carrying this. And cafecito. We need to find a cafe so we about all of this in real time. If you want to get real-time updates from our adventures then don't forget to support what we're doing and join the Kombi Crew. Thank you. High five to the Kombi Crew. If you like what we do please join the Kombi Crew on Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's the best way to keep the Kombi Life videos rolling. Hands up who wants unlimited data? Yeah that would be me and it might just be you because if you love traveling you're a digital nomad like us or you're studying and working abroad there is an awesome new data solution that we've started using called Holify Plans. Holify offers international eSIMs and it's been on the market for years. They've already sold more than 10 million eSIMs and now they've just launched Holify Plans which is their new monthly subscription and it is so simple. You just choose between light which gives you 25 gigabytes of data a month or our personal favorite the unlimited plan. 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So if you want fast reliable internet wherever the road takes you check out Holify. It's one of those travel companion apps it's worth having installed on your phone. I will leave a link below the like button and you can check it out. There is a 10% discount off 12 month Holify Plans with the code COMBILIFE. Thanks so much to Holify and thanks to you guys. One hour later that's a big hill. This is cute. Hello. It's so quiet I think I've missed lunch. That does sound like a good idea. You know exactly what we're trying to find. I think I can hear my stomach from my own thoughts. Wow that is so hot. Would you stand in that balcony? Totally lost though. Trying to find somewhere to eat. Not a bad place to get lost. Look at these doors. Look at this. There's a lot of alleyways. You think there's food down here? Not what I expected Look at that view. On the outside it totally looks like a bit of a cafe bar sort of thing. But they've got food and they've got a spectacular view so we'll be dining here. Guess what? They must be the nicest host people ever. Honestly they were so friendly. Very friendly and it's now turned out twice it's helped speaking Serbian. Yeah I can't believe that you went into an Italian post office and came out like solving the problem speaking Serbian. Where are we staying? How do I? The river. Because we went in trying to use the google translate app and didn't need it in the end. Yeah I know that was really handy. They've given us an address to send the package to so we will order that today and they even said that they would call us when the package arrived. I know this is why we travel to find connect with the locals. I know talk about gold star service. Right next. A bit of a general store. We've got rice on this side and pasta and screws on this side. Chances of finding a river gun in this tiny town very slim. However I found a river gun. There you go. Eight euros. Can fix our window with this. It might be our lucky day. I don't think you're supposed to be stripping in public Ben. Is that okay? Can you? Are you allowed to the clothes that you're standing in? Much much later. I've got a piece of meat. You see I dropped the bag just so I could Oh that's soaking wet. What do you expect? I didn't think this through. It's hot outside. On your website is an alternator 75. Please can you tell me if it has an internal regulator? With our new alternator ordered from a vintage V-dub supplier within Italy, we're hoping to be out of here in just a few days. In the meantime there is plenty of van lifing to be done at camp and that should keep us busy. We've been here long enough now that we're getting pretty low on battery power so this morning we are going to back up down the river try to find a bit of sun. There's not much sun forecast in the next few days but we need to most of it so in the daytimes we'll be living over there and the night times we'll be living here probably where it's flat unless it's flat over there. In which case we'll stay. Backing up camp. Moving on down the river. Leave my windows open so that I can hear the sound of people talking and the wind blowing in the trees. Oh I will open up my eyes so I can see the light. Oh and I'll try to spread my wings so I can fly. Oh when the darkness starts to fade, feels like things are gonna go my way. I'm gonna let the sun shine in the day. I'm gonna let the past be filled with smoke and I will try to fix what has been broken and take this weight off my shoulders cause I know yesterday ain't coming back. I'm gonna let the past stay in the cold. Listen to the ocean let its unsaid words be spoken and I'll let my mind be carried by the waves. When joining up we're currently at 63% state of charge and there is an intermittent cloud coverage so we're getting pretty spotty solar but we need to make the best of it that we can. Currently around about 90 odd watts. See if we can tilt these panels to get a bit more out of it. Fingers crossed. Ah well it's made some difference. Doubled the input. Honestly whoever said living in a van down by the river was a bad thing clearly never tried it. I mean come on. At least during all these problems we have the morale boosting option of a nice warm hot shower at the end of the day and we are very close to water supply so that's good however we're having issues with that too. Currently we can't have a nice hot shower because it's either scalding hot or freezing cold and the reason for that I have ascertained after taking our shower apart is because our water pump is not pumping water. Let us have a little look and see what is happening here with the water pump. Okay you're fine no problem. Hear that noise? Pump went on, pump went off. Seemed like there's a decent amount of water coming out of there. Taking a long time to suck up water from the tank. You can see that there's water pressure initially and then it just dies off. The bladder in the system is holding pressure but the pump is unable to maintain it. This is telling me that potentially it's having an issue sucking up from the tank. Last thing to check will be this pre-filter gauze. Pretty clear, a few bits in there, not much. So the pre-filter seems fine, nothing really in there. A bit of sediment, that's all right. I don't know about you but that sounds pretty bad. It sounds like the pump's knackered. Next step, see if we can maybe pull from a different tank. We've got to make one. Let's try this out. There's our tank, there's our input, straight into the pump. Build up pretty quick. That sounded a lot better. Build up really quick. All right start pumping, keep it there, keep it going. Is it slowing down? No. Well we've isolated the pump not being the issue, that's really good news. So next guess is one-way valve, non-return valve, probably that. Should have started with that, shouldn't I? You imagine the worst of good old boomerang. Think of the content, all this stuff that I spent all day filming. I mean guys at home are like there with their popcorn, loving life right now. Hitting that thumbs up, subscribing, sharing, joining the Combi crew, making all of this possible. All of the misery, I can't use the word misery whilst I'm lying on your chest, it just doesn't make sense. I think it's heaven. The prospect of actually having a warm shower tonight which is good. I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself but I think the problem's this. This little fellow, somewhere around here, so we'll check that out next. I hope you don't intend on kissing me with that mouth later. What the heck is that? Can you see all that? Maybe that wasn't supposed to do that. Old one, new one. Much better. Always carry a spare. There is an outside chance that there may be an issue with the piping down to the tank. Something maybe has grown in the tank and it's been sucked up into the pipe and it's blocked. So I'm not sure if this is a good idea but just in case, let's do this too. Disaster. Right, it's happening. Three, two, one. Surely now. Oh it finished straight away. That sounds so much better. That filled up really quickly. I think we might have fixed it. Fingers crossed that means a hot shower tonight. It's so good. I love how you say we and it was just you. Next up is the window. The window's completely come apart. It's not possible to close the window. It's leaking and bad weather is coming. Let's fix Still no fish. Would you like a smins? How about a rivet? Damn slippery little sucker. All right I'm gonna put this up here. Okay I'm holding. Those are some ugly ass rivets. Awful awful rivets. That's as close as we can get it without taking out this entire cupboard. So as long as the window works and stays watertight and that's all I care about. Ready? Yeah. Closed. Is that good? Closed. Closed. That's good. Looks good. We just need to put this back in. That's perfect. Nice one. Now we've just got an alternator and a wheel coming off. Yeah. No. I give up. After several days of trying, not even having a bite. Now my float's under the reeds. I'm putting the fishing rod away. Like away away. Oh I feel like I'm reading a massive fishing right now. Is this what it's supposed to feel like? I can't remember. It's been so long since we caught a fish. If you're a fisherman that lives in Europe and you watch this channel and you'd like to take us fishing to show us how to catch fish, we would be very very grateful. I don't think anyone can fault you for not trying here. You've been really above and beyond. Trooper. This is like day four up at seven o'clock in the morning. You've tried every different time of day. Every different piece of bait you could find. Even tapping up the locals for advice. Yeah. Yeah. Every trick in the book and clearly I've just admitted defeat now. It's a bit disheartening. I've admitted defeat. Hold on. At this spot. Not with fishing. Okay good. Good. Last We lost a nut. A wheel lug. Of course there's every chance. This thing's so heavy that we just forgot to tighten it properly but I'm really sure that we didn't. Can I jack this up on river mud? Probably not my smartest move. I think we've got a bad wheel bearing but I think we're going to be okay for a while because it's not too bad and we're not hearing any noises. Just a little bit of play in this wheel here but we'll just roll for a bit and then deal with that when it becomes an issue because it's a pig of a job and it isn't going to get any better anyway. Can we talk about that wheel bearing? What wheel bearing? This is why it's important to always travel with a spare. I swear we did this last time. Three loose bolts. One missing bolt. That's not good. What's going on with this wheel? It'd be an awful shame to lose that while we're driving. Whilst you're doing all this important health and safety fixing these big things stuff I fix the peg. We're a fixing family. High five. I don't want to throw it away. I'm having a shower. It's been a long day. You've got to have fun. Makes a big difference. Fingers crossed. Shower works. The heating's good. Pressure's good. That is that's massively better. Oh my god that is way better. That's a proper shower. Yeah that's that's we've literally been showering dribbles in that case. Look at that. I can wash my hair. It didn't do that before. It didn't do that before. It wouldn't even work on that setting. So happy. You don't understand when you're having a hard time with all the things going wrong a hot shower at the end of the day does sort you out. Yeah it makes a huge difference. Well done. You've been such a trooper today. You fixed this is wow problem three out of four that you fixed and problem four out of four is out of your hands. You can't fix today. Yeah waiting for the postie. You'll be getting your hands dirty with that too though. The old flange is going to be a big job. Yeah no I look forward to it. Wait hold on. Cool transition. No. Today is a day for super strong. It says 12 on the front and that's because it's 12 percent volume. That's wine in beer form. That's what it looks like. I'm not drinking this out of a normal glass. It's got to be a wine glass. This is basically wine. Wine with a head. I mean it's not bad actually. It's the strongest beer I've ever tried. Why is it such a big tin? Goodbye. Cheap date. Yeah I'm a one beer wonder when it comes to this.