Sometimes it is hard to define. But due to the assistance of the Toyota-Team in Gander, Newfoundland, I am now sure: my Land-Cruiser is a “she”.

Out of the planned 6 hours to connect the auxiliary tank with the main tank grew 2 full days. Days of playing puzzle with the parts we had, searching the internet for instructions, of calling my Toyota garage in Safenwil, Switzerland, the importer in Canada, the off-road distributor in Germany, Toyota in Japan (we could not bypass the not English speaking phone-lady) and of posting “cry for help” in various off-road and Toyota internet forums. It did not help.

There were too many parts, too many magnetic switches. The guys at Toyota-Gander had not done anything similar yet. And now this Swiss guy to whom they had promised to do the job in 6 hours (because they understood I wanted to replace my original tank with another tank) comes around with a Toyota modell which was never ever sold in Canada. Quite a challenge.

However, the whole crew of mechanics got involved. Everybody was tenderly referring to my car as “she” or said something encouraging like “her heart will be beating again”. I got involved in the puzzle-solution, too, and proudly I can say that by now I really could help a bit.

On day two, we got a hint from Switzerland and some sketches from a fellow buschtaxi-member from Germany. Why not simply install a Diesel pump between the two tanks and forget about all the shiny high-tech switches? Since I wanted to get HER going again on the very same day, this is what we did. A bit of welding was needed, but at 5:30pm (one hour after the garage was officially closing its (her?) doors, I could offer the remaining Toyota associates a cold beer from her fridge. It worked. She now can take 265 litres Diesel inside her body.

During the afternoon I might have got famous not only at Toyota Gander as a customer with difficult wishes but also throughout whole Canada since a lady from CBS Radio (Canada Broadcasting) showed up in the garage and interviewed me for her morning show about my world-trip. We will soon upload the corresponding audio file (have a look at the “press” section of the panmundo-homepage).