We took the Pajero out for a test run in some bush land in Springfield on Sunday. On Saturday the VL turbo fuel pump had failed and been replaced by a heavily modified Magna unit running in-line (factory they are in-tank). A short test run late on Saturday went well, the Pajero having no trouble with fuel supply, at least that we could see.

So on Sunday morning, we threw some freebie tyres (and wheels) on, which had a heap more tread that the previous freebie tyres (and wheels) had, and headed out to the meeting point. The drive there was unnaturally quiet thanks to the free half-exhaust which was half-fitted on Thursday. The majority of the noise coming from one (to be honest, probably all) of the wheels being not quite round. Having grabbed a sausage roll at the servo, we headed off to the track entrance. (The area is apparently going to become a housing estate for bogans within the next few years, so destroying the bushland with cars there is cool, ok.) The heavy rain during the week had turned the road into a series of interconnected mud pits. The best thing to do is drive around them, or if not possible drive slowly through them keeping to one side. I drove straight through them, at speed. The alternator failed immediately.

Following the entrance track a bit further it dried out and became just a normal dirt road which then curved around following a creek bed. Having been off-road for a good 5 minutes, the dash lit up like a Christmas tree, flickered in a not-at-all-good way and the car stalled. I was a bit puzzled, and immediately my thoughts went to the ECU wiring failing. The ECU hanging from its loom on the passenger side floor was a likely candidate for what had stopped the car. The smoke that began pouring out from the bonnet, however, quickly jumped the queue of probables. I turned off the ignition, and grabbed valuables. Greg's idea of cleaning the car involves removing all valuable tools and spares, and he had done that at some point during the morning so we had no fire extinguisher. Smoke was still pouring out from every side of the bonnet, so I grabbed a coolant container from the back and popped the bonnet.

It was a bit of a relief to find that nothing came out except smoke. No fire. The smell was putrid though and a quick look around the engine bay revealed it had been the battery line running to the a connector for the fridge batteries. Presumably it had worn through its insulation somewhere and shorted to ground. There was nothing left of the insulation, just a thick bundle of copper wires and white ash was left. Thankfully, the only wires that melted were on the other side of the fridge battery solenoid, so nowhere near the fuel lines. A dodged bullet I guess.

I cut off what was left of the cable and started up the car again. The guys we were with had arrived and were probably a bit disappointed the car hadn't gone up in smoke. We continued on a bit further coming to a rocky, but dry, creek crossing. The other side was fairly steep, and it was a rough ride, but the Pajero managed to climb it without any real problems. Except that a rock pierced the sidewall of the rear drivers side tyre. So once again, we stopped. Naturally, Greg had removed the tyre brace from the car, but one of the other guys lent us one.

I spent the time talking up the work we had done and how great a job it was, while Greg struggled to lift the Pajero with the under-rated (but $20, what a bargain) jack. The spare we had was the wrong profile, wrong wheel size and completely the wrong tread pattern, but it had air in it. Never willing to let common sense get in the way we decided to try climb the hill in front of us. It was partly rocky and partly muddy, with step ups in a couple of places to make it challenging.

The hill was slippery enough even when holding your foot on the brake you'd slide slowly backwards. If you hit one of the step ups but didn't have the momentum and got on the brakes to make a second attempt you'd slide back a good 2 metres. It was unnerving to be driving, I can't imagine what it'd be like to be a passenger. The road tyre kept slipping in the mud so to counter that I had to take things at pace. I had attempted this hill previously when the Pajero was running a carby and the show stopper in that case had been running out of fuel. Any attempt had to be made with the fuel in the bowl of the carby, effectively impossible. So having been defeated by nature and physics before, I wasn't going to give up this time just because I had the wrong tyre on probably the most vital corner.

Eventually, after a couple of minutes of clenching and swearing I made it to the top of the hill. I got out, and went back to talking up how great the work we had done on the Pajero was. The Pajero running in the background, I talked up how even with shitty tyres its better than it was before the conversion. After a couple of minutes of verbal high-fiving, blowing smoke up my own arse and generally just being an arrogant dick, the Pajero stalled.

No smoke this time, and after a few minutes of diagnosis we discovered the low pressure (pick up) pump had siezed. Probably before we attempted the hill. This was a problem. Without a low pressure pump the surge tank doesn't get refilled, and high pressure fuel pumps don't like pulling fuel all the way from the tank. Besides, running dry was probably what killed the low pressure pump in the first place, which would indicate that the issue is the pick up in the main tank. Perhaps its clogged or bent or something. That was a problem for another day, the immediate one was how to get fuel into the surge tank. The solution we came up with, having narrowly avoided fire earlier in the day, was to use the washer bottle and the washer jet pump. We had 30L of petrol in jerry cans in the back of the car so we just had to top up the washer bottle and prime the washer jets to fill the surge tank. So whenever we thought the surge tank was getting dry we'd have to stop and top it up. Every 1.5L of driving.

We made it back to the road, and headed straight to the nearest Supercheap, in this case Goodna. Now I don't want to throw out any unjustified stereotypes here, but everyone in Goodna is a cunt. Everyone. I'm serious. The service at Supercheap was on par with that you'd get at Guantanamo bay. Asking where a part was in the store got a response that you'd expect had you told them you'd knocked up their daughter. The younger one. They were useless anyway, as they only seemed to stock sheep skin seat covers and paint. We walked over to the friendly sounding Aussie Autos store. I asked nicely what sort of in-line low pressure fuel pumps they had. Naturally, this came with the usual questions about what car it was and so forth. I told him it was a 4 cylinder Pajero. He told me they have a mechanical pump. I tried to dodge the inevitable next line of questioning by saying I was aware of this and I just wanted an in-line low pressure pump, if they had any. I'm guessing at this stage he had assumed I wanted it for some sort of electric bong, and so kept hitting me up for details, clearly frustrated that I was trying to buy something from him.

ME: "Its EFI."
HIM: "So its the V6? You'll want the in-tank one."
ME: "Uh no, its a 4-cylinder, its had an EFI conversion. I need a low pressure pump to feed the surge tank."
HIM: "Now, I don't know what a surge tank is, but if its EFI you want a high pressure pump."
ME: "Its got one. The surge tank is in the engine bay it gets fed by a low pressure pump near the fuel tank, the high pressure gets it fuel from the surge tank. The idea is that high pressure pump gets fuel no matter what angle the ca-"
HIM: "I don't know what a surge tank is-"
ME: "I'm trying to explain it, its a little tank of fuel-"
HIM: "Look, I can't sell you this pump unless I know what you are using it for."
ME: "If you'd listen to what I was saying-"
HIM: "I don't understand what you are trying to do, but its clearly not what the pump is intended for. You use high pressure pumps for EFI, I can't sell you a part if you are going to use it in the wrong application."
ME: "Jeeeesus..."

I walked away. Some how Greg managed to convince the guy to sell the pump, on the proviso that we never enter the store again, try to claim a warranty or ever again bring new concepts into Goodna. Strangely, he still got a receipt.

So I set about replacing the low pressure pump, in the Supercheap car park. The battery had taken a bit of a hit when the short occurred earlier and with no alternator to recharge it had collapsed. Greg braved Supercheap one more time to buy a fresh one.

As soon as that was sorted we got the fuck out of Goodna. I think we need to sort out the fuel tank pick up properly before attempting anything again. I can't imagine anything worse than getting stranded in a place like Goodna again.

Comment:

Captcha (calculate this) :
Name to post as (not unique) : (Set default name here.)