Vladislav

The castle looks the most attractive in the evening on my mind and the weather was perfect for a good picture of it. I bought a magnet for my fridge from a guy and he brang me a tee from that boiler the locals call a "samovar" - absolutely Russian term they catched up from somewhere and use in their language. That same guy made a foto of me too.

Reached a city of Dogubayazid that same day where I was going to have a "day off" since that day wasn't a working day in Iran and I couldn't arrange the paperwork for the bike. Was happy to look that ancient castle of Ishak-Pasha (or Iskhak-Pasha?) once more regardless I well observed it a year ago. There was a hotel just in a couple hundred meters from the castle so I inhabitated a room there and had some relaxing time. The city was in nearly 40 km from Iranian border cross and there was a road off the castle into the mountains which I tracked on a map roaming left to right over the mountains and ending up to the main highway at half a way to the border. I asked the hotel crew and was told that was a dirt road but possible to cruise with my ride. So I tried a fortune and made nearly 25 km of that wild environment which turned out as a real mountain road with really steep hills and beautiful scenaries. It was also about a no men land with exception of two willages were I met 3 or 4 dogs, one man and these turkies. The mountain with a snow on the top is the small Ararat. The big Ararat can be seen to the left but its head was covered by clouds.

Have a bit of time now to share one more portion of the adventure. Came into Turkey from Georgia. So some pics of Turkey are posted. And some pics of turkeys in Turkey too. Since it happened so I saw a turkey in Turkey 😀 Crossed the border and the road already started climbing uphill representing beautiful scenaries and finally a sign of 2200-something meters above the sea level. Didn't even looked like a mountain pass, just an avarage road along slightly hilly but generally flat area. You can see the lake on the picture which looks quite common on that sunny day. But if you look at the background there are mountains with snow heads. And those mountains doesn't look high. The reason is the lake was nearly 1500 meters off the sea already. Absolutely new experience to me. And as I was told sun radiation is much more active at those higths. So I should be care if sunbathing. There was quite cool for such an activity then though. Catched some local mosque along the way. Something ordinar for Muslim part of the world but not typical for me.

Many thanks for all the comments, guys! It's always nice to learn some one has interest in what you do.

Ok, currenty on my way. In a hotel right now, cutting time for making this post. You probably know how you can suprprizingly be short on time while on a holiday😀 Much more to continue.

That same day brang me even more luck. While reaching a city close to the Turkish border I saw a whole lot of trucks parked and sure they took my attention. Made a U-turn, came in, made pics and had some conversation. Yes, I studied Persian to some grade during a couple of last years. Not a perfect talker at the moment but can ask a few basic things. Sure the truck-related ones were in preference.

That day the first evidence of Mack trucks appeared. That F-model was going up my way in the opposit direction. Lucky chain of events was it was going up hill so slow, I recognized it early enough, the were no vehicles behind me, the bike's brakes were fast. So I was able to stop, take a phone from my pocket, switch it on and make a pic. The driver flagged me and continued approaching the hill with smoke and sound. The plates on the truck were Iranian. I also mentioned in my old post that Gulf company has its fuel stations in Georgia. So here's a pic of one I passed by this time.

Ok, hit the road agian and passed the most of Georgia in one day since the distance wasn't large. Saw many scenaric environment and enjoyed riding beautiful mountain roads with very light traffic, smooth pavement and uncount sharp corners. Seeing no police or road cams interested in the speeds I rode 😀😀

Turned out not really bad since it was snowing for a few hundred meters and stopped when I actually passed the highest point. Probably that cloud was stuck at that side of the mountain and didn't go to the other. I wasn't a cloud riding my wheels so went down from the mountain suffering much harder rain though. My clothes were waterproof but some water was sleaking under them anyway and it was coldddd!!! Also I had to have my helmet's screen open being not able to see the road otherwise. Drove nearly 100 km of serpantine that way after which rain stopped its deal and I could achive a city of Mtsheta (a neighbourhood of Gergian capital Tbilisi). There I stayed for a couple of days to slack up and wait for more rains to pass by before continue the ride. The city was quite ancient as many othet places in Georgia so I just enjoyed walking the streets, eating fresh barbequed beef and making pics.

So after long winter months I finally went on a trip to a country I wanted to visit for a long while - Iran. Some prep work was required for. Visa was easy to achieve for a Russian citizen, but I needed to arrange paperwork for temporary import of my motorbike into the country since I planned to use it for my journey. Speaking short I found Iranian guy on the net who helped me with that for some money and the deal turned out smooth. The first stretch of the trip was nearly 1800km of a highway in Russia I could cover in two days ending up in a motel right near the border to Georgia (the country, not the state of the US). Actually I drove exactly that path one year back and posted the most interesting subjects on here. So now I just duplicate a few remarkable points. You need to go over a mountain pass from Russia to Georgia crossing the Main Caucasus ridge, nearly 2500m high above the sea. The weather was cool in that morning and right about the time I started entering the mountains it started raining. Not really hard in the beginning though. But than closer to the highest poing rain started being quite moderate and the temp dropping down. I sure was afraid of ice and looked up a forecast which was "promising". That turned out it was almost +2 Celsias near the top and wet snow started falling from a cloud I was actually in 😀

Thanks for posting that Youtube video. And sure for the original post. Great looking truck! And the sound is well recogizable.

Best B-day wishes!

As said above and welcome to the forum! Pics are always appreciated. Vlad

I would guess if you had cleaned that breather earlier the truck would eat all the organic from the tank even together with algea and alu brightener. But that's of no matter now and doubtly you would like to provide experiments putting the old tank on and putting old dirty gas in it. P.S. The girl worth a half of the thread.

After reading that I wouldn't mind any sealing of the new tank. Just put it on and be happy. On the other hand (my usual thrifty approach) I see no principal troubles cleaning the old tank and use it. Algae is not corrosion so can be separated off the walls. I'm not almost sure on the principal of its build up but as long as we concluded the origin is penetration of humidity into the alcahol that means we deal with water of some kind. If so the derbits could be products of aluminium corrosion (what is doubtful) or organic reactions in the water. If so you should clean it with stuff which dissolve fat or other organical dirt. Something of what is used to clean clogged kitchen sunk. Sure after test application on another aluminium part.

That idea of putting epoxy sealer (not a DD screamer) into the new tank was floating over my mind. And I didn't point that out since in a case you have a clean brand new tank the straight simple way just installing it seemed very attractive. But on the other hand considering options and adding some reasonable amount of efforts into a deal could pay off in the future. I don't see any issues applying sealer to a new alu tank. Sure you should check out the particular compound on its applyability to alu. Also you better degrease the inside of the tank with suitable degriaser before sealing and be sure that light evaporating stuff to not poison your breath of make big boom. On the other hand from those arguments above the worry of use alu tank for gas is water which could get collected in the fuel because of alcohol. But I guess water wouldn't affect aluminium really fast even being poured clean right into the tank. So adding fuel stabilizer and not allowing old gas to take place for a long while should secure you quite enough from notable tank inside corrosion.

BTW you seldom see such fashiony looking trucks on a road in Europe. The most countries in the central part such as Germany, France, Belgium usually operate single axle units with middle rise cabs of single white or red color or so. I bet those on the pictures were imported from Scandinavia. Icey roads and heavier allowed weights predict the 2nd drive (or tag) axle and attractive look prevails over cost savings. Bullbars (or elk bars?) are a common thing too.

A candy! A pleasure to look at!

I have opened heated Bulldog mirror apart once or twice. Don't remember seeing any separatable heating elements. As I remember the heater was glued up to the back side of the glass or integrated another way.

I think that's colors of a certain spedition in PA or OH. Very clean looking MH indeed.

Tom, many thanks! I have already had this one in my 'puter but as we say there can never be too many trucks! The one on the picture is the most probably R688 with thar R700 big grille installed. For some reason SGT R-models didn't have classic later R-model grill installed at all or had the appearance as on this picture. Speaking the tanks there were two of them at each side. The main one was that long so had to be hanged by 4 brackets. That's a factory configuration tank but probably the longest avalible option. The 2nd set was for fuel. I tell that by a point which was mentioned in a build sheet for my truck. Two additional aluminium fuel tanks of certain amount of gallons were specified. What's interesting my truck, along the 4 others imported to Russia as a bunch, had those tanks specified in the build sheets but never had them installed for some reason. I could see the mounting holes pre-drilled in the rails but no appearance of any brackets ever attached to there.