Toyota Revo, AKA I miss auto parts stores

Living in the Philippines makes me appreciate all the conveniences we have in America. For instance, an auto parts store, O'Reilly, Auto Zone, Napa, etc. Only in Manila or Cebu can an auto part store be found and it would not be like an American store. Here in Southern Leyte there is no such stores even though there are “auto parts stores”. I have been looking for a turn signal light bulb for the Revo for about 3 months. I take the bulb every where we go and to any store that looks like it might have auto parts. No luck on the bulb.

About 4:00 pm on March 9, the hydraulic actuator on the clutch system of the Revo blew a seal. Luckily, it happened right in front of the house and we were able to get the Revo in the driveway. We did have to contact the school to put JJ on a trike to get him home. When he did get home, we made arrangements with the trike driver to take JJ to school and bring him home for the next week (just in case we could not find the part).   JJ will enjoy this.

On March 10 Flor went with our friend Abet on her motorcycle to look for the part. Flor had the part and a diagram I drew so they knew what we were looking for. They first went to a mechanic in the mountains who we thought may have a parted out Revo. He did not have the part.

They then went to a mechanic in Calag-itan who took the actuator apart and said it just needed new seals. He did not have the seals, but gave them the information for the seals and they went to a motorcycle part store in town.

After about 3 hours of running around, they got home with the part and new seals. We cleaned up the part and installed the new seals. With JJ's help (tool caddy), we re-installed the part. After some line bleeding and pumping of the clutch pedal the part started working. Took it for a short test drive and the clutch appeared to be working again.

On March 11 we took the Revo to town to run some errands and then to the mountains to get some spring water for drinking. The clutch was working as normal and did not give us any problem.  If the new seals would not have work, we would have contacted a friend in Tacloban who works in the automobile industry.  We would have to have him order the part and bus it to us.

About the biggest part of breaking down in the Philippines, is getting the vehicle somewhere to work on it. In America you have the convenience of going to an auto parts store (and most of the time), getting the part at that time.

If our Revo breakdown happened in America, we would have had it fixed by 6:00 – 7:00 that same evening. Missing my favorite auto part store, O'Reilly.

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