5th Lap - Pausing and return to Sydeny

                        

THE FIFTH LAP

Pausing and Return to Sydney
(The Excruciating Journey )

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Photo Album:  Pausing and returning to HOME

As we mapped out our journey ahead, life threw us a curveball: one of our beloved family members fell seriously ill. The decision was clear—we had to return HOME.

After dropping Julia at the airport, Sandi and I hit the high roads, putting our grand adventure on hold, hopefully just for a short while.

Cruising up the highway to Port Wakefield, Sandi made the unexpected detour eastward, heading towards Mildura, Victoria. Normally, this would be a two-day drive, but in a pinch, I’ve done it in 18 hours. Safety first, though! We wanted to get home swiftly, but in one piece.

All was smooth sailing until we hit Gawler. That’s when Sandi decided to play the “limp mode” game, slowing down with alarming frequency and duration. What a thrill!

After a night’s rest in Balranald, the limp mode saga began anew, with Sandi refusing to go beyond 50 kph. So, I turned back, perhaps seeking professional help.

I called in NRMA for some help and advise.  The duty technician, who, armed with little more than sympathy and no tools, advised me to wait until Monday for the local mechanic—Jack of all trades in these parts.

With time on my hands, I delved into the workshop manual, decoding error codes like a cryptographer. Injector #2 was causing a ruckus, alongside an ensemble of errors like “ECU error” and “Exhaust NO2 too high.” Was it the injector, the DPF, or the ECU itself?

Bright and early Monday, I took Sandi to the mechanic. After some high-tech diagnostics, they confirmed Injector #2 was the culprit, triggering a cascade of errors. But being in the middle of nowhere meant spare parts were days away, with no guarantee they’d fix everything.

My options are:

A. leaving Sandi with them, and took a bus to Mildura and flew home first, then return later after they fixed the problem.  However, the bus, which runs only once a day.  And the question remains, whether the problem was more complex than they could handle here?

B. putting Sandi on a transport to go back home, and I by air via Mildura.

OR

C. limping home, could be a very tortuous journey running at max. 50Kph, a snail pace when climbing steep hill. Hope nothing else went wrong!

They advised that limping home should not cause any further complications, and they did not believe the injector was about to dis-integrate, very slim chance.

After weighing up, I opted for "C".

I then embarked on a three-day odyssey. Whenever Sandi limped, I’d take a break, let the injector cool down, and then push on. downhill stretches were a chance to gain momentum, essential for the next uphill struggle.

Whenever downhill run was done, speeded up as much as possible to provide momentum to the eventual climb up.  I noticed that the limping happens more during an uphill run, possibly that's because the engine was working the hardest.

So over the next two days, the journey reached Lithgow, and Sandi rested up, ready for the steep climb to Mt Victoria...hopefully, the last difficult climb,, before heading onto M4 and then HOME.  That was the theory.  This worked fine on remote highways that had sparse traffics.

The 5km climb to Mt Victoria was initially good, until at the last km or so, it became winding, and Sandi had to slow down and was losing momentum.  Limping at 50Kph was fine when going up a steep hill, but once momentum was lost, limping means it could not deliver enough power, so the speed dropped to an excruciating 15 Kph, 12...then 10, before the last 100 meter of climb, it became so intolerable, that I worried that it could stall, which may mean a long wait for it to cool down and have enough power to start on such a steep incline. Luckily we made it to the flat, though at a grueling pace and then gradually picked up speed again.

I thought it would be plain sailing once down on M4 and onwards. But did not count on when hitting those undulating hills on Pennant Hill, in heavy traffic.  With red lights at the most inconvenient spots, like at the bottom of a hill, and with other vehicles cutting in and out of the lane, I thought they should be more sympathetic to Sandi !!  They probably were cursing this big snail.

So the story of the Mt Victoria climb repeated at a couple of locations, and finally, getting home.  To reach home, there are two directions, one bans heavy vehicle, but a flat run, the other requires turning right into a steep climb before reaching the gate.  I had to pick the legally questionable route....and got HOME!

The end of a 5-day, near 1500 Km of tortuous journey, and the beginning of another nightmare, for Sandi!

Post script:

After reaching home, rested for a couple of days with family members, it was time to find a fix to Sandi's health.

After ringing around, including my usual mechanic, no one was able to take on the problem, as most of them are fully booked for the next few weeks anyway.  Truck mechanics are hard to find!

The only option was to take it to the  Mitsubishi dealer ( Daimler-Mercedes Motors ), out of their two shops in Sydney, only one agreed to have a look within the week. Another slow drive to the other end of town.

After a week or so, they quoted a job to replace all the fuel injectors, with a caveat about potential jammed injector.   Jammed, why, I had dealt with fuel injectors in my Landcruiser before, why would they jam!  I thought it was only a customary  cautionary statement on their part.

A couple of days later, an email arrived, yes, one of the injectors was jammed, not able to be taken out, so a bigger job was to either replace the engine head, or replace the engine.

I quickly rang around a couple of diesel engine specialists and asked a few questions in online forums for Fuso Canters...all came back with the same unwelcomed answer!

The particular engine that Sandi has, an Iveco 4P10, has a bad reputation, its injectors had often stuck. Aluminum engines are notorious once corrosion set in.

As the odometer on Sandi was very "young", only 22,000 Km when I took possession, for an 8 year old truck!!  And Daimler-Mercedes told me, according to the ECU record, Sandi's engine had been running for 200,000 Km!  WHY, how does that tally with the Odometer reading?!  Was I defrauded by the previous owner, or his previous owner, the mining company?!!

But it still couldn't add up, an eight old vehicle, that had been sitting around for over half of its life.

Sitting down, and thinking it through, and after talking to Daimler more, the 200,000 Km was an estimated mileage, from the engine running hours recorded in the ECUs, which was 4000 hours, assuming a 50 Kph on average, giving an engine mileage of 200,000.

Now, that seems to be a bit more logical.  The vehicle had only been in active use for the first 3 years of its life, working as a bus ferrying passengers within a mine or mines.  I knew the rooftop air conditioner was a near wreck, presumably running all the time, whilst the vehicle is idling waiting for passengers between trips.

Being in a mine, and also the latter days, when it was sitting around doing nothing until I came along and start converting it to be a RV, did everything to promote corrosions.  Leading to today's tragedy, stuck injectors.

So it was a no brainer, while assured that the rest of the truck is still very young, the decision was to go whole way, an extra $10,000 was budgeted to replace it with a brand new engine, plus taking the opportunity to replace the clutch with a heavy duty ones as well.

Six weeks later, Sandi was back in action, ready for new adventures.

The silver lining of all this was, it did not happen whilst crossing the Nullarbor, which otherwise it would, then that would be wickedly hilarious.

.....read more

Gremlins:  No more...

Grief:  Brand new engine for Sandi other than family health issues.

Next:  Resuming the expedition

Previous:  Adelaide, grafitti, and beaches