Coming Trips for the Desertrunner

[Dessertrunner]

Will its decided my wife and I are going to enter the Kidney Kar Rally in August this year. heres the link http://www.kidney.org.au/NewsEvents/...8/Default.aspx

I think we will be the only guys with a sports car. The rally will cover 4,000 k in 8 days.
Just for good measure we are also planning to go to Darwin and back in the next 2 weeks. We are a bit short on time so it will be about 10,000 k in about 14 days. Not as bad as it sounds as some days you can pull 1,700 k for the day. Was thinking of trying to post some progress trip photo as we go.
Tony

[AGREENTREEFROG]

can you fit me in the boot??????
stuart at griff auto smash is doing that again this year they had sooo much fun last year....
you will thoroughly enjoy it

[RSVX]

I for one will look forward to it!

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by Dessertrunner

Will its decided my wife and I are going to enter the Kidney Kar Rally in August this year. heres the link http://www.kidney.org.au/NewsEvents/...8/Default.aspx

I think we will be the only guys with a sports car. The rally will cover 4,000 k in 8 days.
Just for good measure we are also planning to go to Darwin and back in the next 2 weeks. We are a bit short on time so it will be about 10,000 k in about 14 days. Not as bad as it sounds as some days you can pull 1,700 k for the day. Was thinking of trying to post some progress trip photo as we go.
Tony

Make sure you take and post pictures Tony!

Joe

[dynomatt]

In which car?

[AUSVX]

That's a really generous thing to do, hope you enjoy that, it sounds like loads of fun.

[AUSVX]

ps.... Mudgee doesn't seem far for me to travel to and I wouldn't mind coming up to have a look and check it out, sounds like so much fun!!

Let me know the date that you're heading over if you wanna meet up for a bit before hand.

Thanks, Jordan

[Dessertrunner]

We are taking the 95 on the trip when we go it will have about 470,000k. Its no longer compulsory to have a roll cage. Its going to be a blast I think our car will have the highest number of K's on it.

[subbieatnz]

cool good luck with. sounds like heapz of fun

[dynomatt]

Tony, you've got competition for Subaru's that'll get anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTDNLUzjkpg

[Dessertrunner]

High all,

Its that time of year we are heading to Broome and the Kimberley for a holiday. From were I live the trip will be about 14,000 k return and we have 3 weeks to cover the distance. We will cover the first 100k on black top then be on dirt roads for the next 4,000 k.
Had to service the old girl for its 600k, replaced water pump, timing belt and ilders. Swapped alternator with one that had new bearing (always carry a spare & a spare starter). Greased the struts and fixed the problem on one axles. Still have a few more jobs to go but am getting there.
Will keep you posted.
Tony

[flamestone]

600k service?

Tony you and your car are amazing!

Looking forward to more pics.

[Dessertrunner]

Well I have returned from the trip, I can't say it wasn't event full as it was.

We traveled about 13,000k's in 24 days. I will try to post a image of the map at a later time to give you a idea of were we went. As for the car we had two major problems. See picture.



If you are not sure what it is its the trust bearing from the clutch. I was about 300k from Darwin heading to Katherine to vist the gorge when the I lost the clutch. Pedel went to the floor while I was doing 130 k per hour. I drove into vist the gorge with out the clutch. Tried to find the problem but figured the gearbox had to come out. After going on a helicopter ride around the gorge the following day we set out to drive the 300k back to Darwin with no clutch.

So how do you drive a car without a clutch. You turn the engine off and put it in 1st gear and start the engine (make sure the engine is pre warmed up). To state the obvious you can't go in reverse. When you get moving you reduce the engine load then pull it out of gear to netrual, make sure the revs match what they should be for the gear you are trying for and then slip it in. To a degree we cheated by having my wife write on a pice of paper some rev/speed numbers to make it easier to change gear. This was all good except when I got confused in the traffic and missed the change revs.
Anyway ended up driving about 350k's with out a clutch and a number of traffic lights. Got it back to Darwin and found a guy to pull the box out to fix the problem. As you can see this is what the problem was. Had a couple of guys with us that drive trucks and they were reminding me that when we drove trucks with road ranger gear boxs you didn't use the clutch anyway.

Will post about the second problem later.

[Dessertrunner]

Here is a photo of the car and our camp site on the Coonge Creek at Innaminka. This was day 2 and we had travel about 2,000k on dirt by then.


hope you enjoy