Evening Trendsetters:
Approx 3 weeks ago I headed off on a Melb,
Berri, B/
Hill,
Innamincka, Wakers Crossing, K1, QAA,
Birdsville,
Marree,
Flinders Ranges,
Berri (Relos there) Melb.
Day 2
Charlton Vic – Next morning eating an
orange before leaving, engine warming up, notice coolant p i s sing out.
Diagnosis – wire clip on bottom radiator hose at its maximum tension and leaking.
Solution: walked over the road and bought a Triton band clamp, fitted it – no more leaking.
Could have been a near death experience No 1 but by sheer a r s e wasn’t
Same day heading to
Berri and suicidal bird of some description flies directly into the left hand corner of the bonnet area. BANG! feathers and C H I T everywhere and it all blows over the top. (Hope it hurt b a s t a r d)
Next pee stop notice that the little feathered mother had smashed the head light protector. First time ever in 25years of using such things.
Could have been near death experience No 2 (for the headlight) however wasn’t.
Should have been thinking of/looking for No 3 by this time.
Day 4
Broken Hill and environs. Taking SWMBO everywhere and anywhere whilst showing off my local area knowledge gained whilst working on the Outback Challenge (OBC)
About 4.30pm I exited a OBC competition site, aired up, and was contemplating
camping in the area for the night when SWMBO indicated that
Tibooburra would be better because she wanted to do some washing in the caravan
park laundry.
Quick calculations – 330 odd K’s, yeah I can get there by 8.30 if I don’t d i c k around.
31.2 Km’s to the B/
hill –
Tibooburra road bring the Troopy up to cruise speed 110KPH mind in neutral, thumb up proverbial, dreaming how I was going to ‘attack’
Walkers Crossing when around a right bend I steer the Troopy into a 1.5 – 2.0m wash out. (had an inch of rain since May 06)
BANG does not get anywhere near describing it. All 3.5tonnes of it.
SWMBO screamed and used profane words ending up with ‘you have just given me a ‘hysterectomy’.
I kill the radio/CD , eyes glued to all gauges and ears listening for submarine type cracking noises - nothing.
Continue to
Tibooburra thinking thank god it was a Troopy – anything else would be in a million pieces. Arrive 8.30pm, Laundry and late BBQ tea.
Day 5 Engine warming up , walking around having a quick look, and think – bugger – whats that oil leaking out of the front diff.
Open bonnet, look down and see nothing other than oil around the Yoke, and pinion area. Hmmmmmm must have stuffed a pinion seal in that little crash/bang yesterday. Quite a bit of oil on the ground drip, drip from the pinion/yoke exit. Hubs still locked must be spinning the oil up around diff pinion exit
Do I do anything else diagnostic wise at this point. NO! (Lesson No 4) Just unlock the hubs.
It was very apparent that this wasn’t going to be repaired in
Tibooburra, so back to B/
Hill. Arr 3.45pm Friday afternoon and nothing was going to happen repair wise until Monday Tuesday. So back to Melb for repairs and cont holiday somewhere else.
By the way the oil is still leaking – damn there is some oil in those diffs.
Get it to the work
shop and tell them to do the 100,000km service including new swivel bearing kits in the front
wheels etc etc etc timing belt, all oils, valve clearances – THE LOT.
Guess what? I crashed that vehicle so hard that the front end had flattened the rubber bump stops to ‘pancakes’ allowing the front diff to come up so far, that it snicked the return oil hose from the turbo into the sump – splitting it.
Yep it was engine oil, not diff oil.
Drove it for 1400kms peeing engine oil and still the low oil light didn’t come on.
Also the dude who did the swivel hub service alluded to bearing marks in
the cups (funny about that).
$1,600 and it runs very nicely now (again)
Now that was a near death experience in more ways than one.
Lessons Learnt:
(1) Don’t listen to SWMBO
camp at 4.00pm and no later
(2) Don’t do 110kph even if you do think you know the road. I’m afraid that I was bought up on gravel/dirt roads and always travelled them at speed, so no doubt I’ll get caught again. However I promise I’ll do my best to keep it down\n.
(3) Check the oil daily instead of every 3-4 days when travelling.
(4) See above
(5) Don’t be a lazy b a s t a r d – get down and underneath and have a proper look.
(6) Dip finger/s into leaking oil and have a smell (That would have told me in an instant what was going on)
Parting works from workshop owner/manager – Mate! You are just lucky it was a Troopy.
Yep! Have to agree with him. Just glad it wasn’t one of those ‘pussy nissans’ some people drive.