Just thought I would relay my experience of doing maintenance checks while traveling.
During the GFC I was working in a casual job and got put off, I found it hard to find another as other firms were also reducing staff. The answer is since no one was offering work, go one a six month holiday. Did some prep on the car, bought some spares that I thought I might need especially as the 4x4 was 12 years old. The plan was
Newcastle,
Birdsville, Gulf country, Kimberly,
Exmouth,
Esperance and
home to
Newcastle seeing as much as we could on the way between these points.
1; First noticed a rattle coming from the rear wheel and found
the rock guards around the disc brakes were cracked, one side about to fall off. I removed them with the intension of having them repaired at the nearest sizable town. (
Birdsville)
2; While at
Birdsville getting the guards welded and refitted I removed the Kitchen in the camper to repair a water leak between the pump and the tap (cracked hose).
3; I noticed that I was losing water from the radiator after leaving Mt. Isa for
Lawn Hill and
Burketown. Finally found the leak from a pin hole in the top radiator hose and used that spare hose that I had been carrying for all those years. Also changed the fan belt that I noticed was getting a bit dodgy. (which I also was carrying as a spare)
4; At Kununarra I decided to
check and repack my wheel bearings in preparation for the GBR, one was a bit dodgy which I replaced with a spare I had.
5; While doing the wheel bearings I noticed that the rear brake line had been hammered flat. On investigation I found that the new exhaust that I had fitted before leaving hadn’t been given quite enough clearance around the rear axle. After some hunting around I found a source for a replacement brake line and re adjusted the exhaust pipe.
6; No brakes on road to
Kalumburu. The brake pipe on the other side of the rear axle broken from fatigue (clean brake). Luckily the replacement brake pipe included all three pieces for the rear axle and I had kept the unused pieces when replacing the damaged pipe in
Kununurra. Used the spare Brake fluid to bleed the brakes.
7; Car overheated on a
hill on the GBR couldn’t find a fault carried on with no further problem until coming out of
Mitchell falls overheated again on a flat road again no apparent cause and again it fixed itself.
8; Noticed an exhaust noise coming from under the bonnet at
Derby and found that the exhaust manifold had cracked and was leaking and if left would have probably fallen apart (probably caused by the hammering it received from the exhaust pipe hitting the rear axle). I removed it for repair, while we went on a side trip to Koolan Isl.
9; While refitting the exhaust manifold I noticed that the engine mounts were shot, ordered some from
Perth to be posted to
Broome. Fitted in
Broome and ready for a trip to
Cape Leveque. (No further overheating problems)
10; After leaving
Millstream NP overheated again and then the obvious occurred to me, I had a intermittently sticking Thermostat. Ordered one from
Perth while having lunch at Pannawonica to be posted to
Exmouth.
11; On the way to
Exmouth I noticed I was getting lower and lower in my driver’s
seat, the mat under the
seat squab had given way. So while in
Exmouth fitting the thermostat, I pulled out the
seat and replaced the mat with linen reinforced gaffa tape. (It was still there when I sold the car a few years later).
After that no more problems.
It certainly proved the value of being prepared and having some mechanical knowledge for these longer trips with an older car.
Mal