Remember last time, the fire in the engine bay? Well I didn’t even remember to write up another post in the meantime, so you may be pardoned, too. Hard to recall the details after such a long time… Well, we went to Fraser Island with our dodgy van, had a leaky oil filter and a fire, and were stranded in a village roughly 80kms from civilization with exactly one local mechanic – and we didn’t wanna get a quote from him…
So, I spent a sleepless night under the car trying to figure out what had been burning on our way back from the ferry, thankfully I got company by the bakers dog. My newfound friend however didn’t seem to be mechanically gifted, so both of us spent another fruitless hour scratching heads and lacking any clue what had happened. Looking at the burn marks on the bash plate, I devised the theory that maybe the oil-rubber fire hadn’t been that serious. After all, the whole front section of the engine was full of rubber splinters originating from the old v-belts (See Pt. I). And if that had burned ‘safely’ in conjunction with spilled oil on the bash plate far away from any rubber parts ‘actively used’ by the engine… this could mean that the engine was safe to run. I was obviously half-asleep when I made this assumption, but luckily I turned out to be right. Engine started, engine didn’t burn in any places it wasn’t supposed to, spilling oil was now… errrm safely discharging to the ground? That was enough to make me happy for the moment. And so I slept a record amount of maybe 3 hours after being awake for 24 hours, only to drive our van into the next city 80kms away. Nope, no photos. Who would’ve thought. We had other worries than photos on that drive. For instance, checking the oil every 20 kilometres. And in the meantime, sniffing until our noses fell off to sense a developing fire as soon as possible.
Notverycheap Auto, our saviour. Naturally, we were too early and already had the chance to mark our parking spot with some easily recognizeable black dots.
Thats how it looked after the drive. Completely soaked. Oil filter is partially cleaned so the vice grip wouldn’t slide.
So, we got a ‘supercheap’ new filter, laid out some plastic bag to catch the oil that would come out and why of course I tipped the old filter over, sspilling the oil all over our parking spot. By this point, we couldn’t leave it like that, so I scrounged the city for sand with an old plastic bag all while having my arms blacked out up to the elbows. And all that with the face of a sleepless zombie. Hell, I’d love to have a picture of that. And people definitely took photos. I must’ve looked much worse than a local methhead.
After degreasing the parking spot, the engine and ourselves we went to a highway overnight camping spot, and while Silas was out getting some booze (definitely deserved after this marathon), I was busy gutting one of our water canisters for a makeshift oil catch can. I’m not keen on ever cleaning up a parking lot oil spill again.
Well, I’ll try and keep short on what follows. On that very evening we met a german girl who had planned to go to fraser island in a rental vehicle, we figured we’d love to get an extra round at paradise on earth without having to worry about our van, and off we went.
three stooges
Our rental Land Cruiser. While this one had a lot more ground clearance, I’d rather stick to my own car. Just for the sense of accomplishment. Or failure.
And even the Land Cruiser is leaking. Maybe our little inadverted field modification just makes our car blend in more with the rest of aussie cars.
I love maps. I love driving. Those two things don’t go together quite well, do they?
Don’t try and step on hot dunes barefoot. Just a friendly advice from someone who definitely thought of that before doing it.
Somewhere hidden in this pic is a lizard. Probably not dangerous, doesn’t even look that big on the photo. Call me a pussy all you want, but I like my toes on my feet.
See all those footsteps? Currently, it’s off season. I don’t even want to know how crowded this wonderful island becomes during the holidays.
I’ve got a strange aversion to hire vehicles. If you fuck it up, theres someone else telling you to feel bad (or to empty your wallet). I can do that by my own just fine, thank you.
Well, now we’ve got a small bumper charm to sport our motto. You don’t want to know the price tag… Soon after reaching the mainland we were invited to a job interview a bit down south from fraser island.
Now we’re in a small family business, assembling and mounting flyscreens and the occasional security door. That’s something different to the typical backpacker fruitpicking jobs, and it’s paid fairly well.
Don’t know if and what picture to put here, but here we go. Well, Silas seems to be set with a girlfriend for now, and as you may guess, this is quite an uneasy situation. I quickly get the feeling that I’m in the way of something, they feel bad for excluding me, that’s just the way it is right now. With that badly paid fruitpicking job there would be more people around to distract me… although I would’t be happy there either. I feel a bit lonely from time to time, but in the end its quite nice to have some days on my own to go on short trips into the bush or spend the whole Saturday working away at the car without my buddy demanding that we go to the beach for a change.
Going to the beach is a bad idea for me right now, anyway. After a small hairdressing accident I cut my hair down to three millimetres because someone didn’t keep a steady hand, so now I should wait a bit before sticking my head into the sun again…
But hey, excuses to keep gutting the car? Love it! The automatic window would seize up because of grime, so I took the panel off, cleaned the guiderails and gave them a good dose of WD40. Works like a charm now.
Also the windscreen washer jets had been clogged since fraser, today I finally got some calcium solvent and will probably get them working by sunday.
Oh, and I bought oil. 10 litres of very cheap oil. Enough to accidentally drain the whole engine and refill it again. Look at the face of that guy. This is the face of a man who knows that he’s got piles of nightmares adventures ahead of him and he’ll enjoy every minute of it.