It is so good to not be spending a day in the car today. Instead it was a day spent on the car. The sleep in was short but good after a tasty Thai dinner last night. Very refreshing after a couple of weeks of either frozen dinners if we were camping or pub food if we were in a town.
Pete found a shady spot in the rear car park of the resort, nice and flat to make servicing the car easy. First task was unsuccessful, lots of fiddly soldering failed to fix the microphone for the
HF radio. It is unfortunate, having VKS-737 with us over the air waves provides a comforting voice at the end of a day in the outback and is our first line of defence if things ever go wrong.
Next task - oil change. Here's a tutorial.
Save up eight 1.5 litre water bottles and drain to ensure no water is left inside. Get a 10 litre drum of oil with a tap (Pete uses Penrite from Supercheap), transfer the oil to the water bottles, remove the tap from the oil container and insert a funnel, then drain the oil from engine into the now empty oil container. Now refill the engine from the water bottles and discard the bottles. Put the bung back in the oil container and return to Supercheap for recycling.
Too easy!
![Step 1. Drain the new oil into used water bottles]()
Step 1. Drain the new oil into used water bottles
![Step 2. Put the lids on and keep to one side]()
Step 2. Put the lids on and keep to one side
![Step 3. Put a funnel in the tap hole and drain the sump]()
Step 3. Put a funnel in the tap hole and drain the sump
![Step 4. Replace the sump plug]()
Step 4. Replace the sump plug
![Step 5. Fill the engine with the clean oil]()
Step 5. Fill the engine with the clean oil
![Step 6. Have a beer]()
Step 6. Have a beer
Pete cleaned the air filter with a blast from the air compressor then got out the grease gun. Here he hit a snag. The grease nipple fitting on the end of the grease gun hose has dropped off and is not to be found anywhere inside the car. Bet it's out there on the track somewhere, being buried by car wheels or sniffed at with disgust by passing animals. So greasing the uni joints and slip yokes had to wait until we found another fitting. This involved a drive to a bearing
shop in Bungalow in the southern suburbs of
Cairns – a 30+km round trip for a $5 part. Inconvenient but necessary.
Now the trusty 80 is ready to take us on the next stage -
Cape York, the
Savannah Way and the long trek
home.