Giddy up

Gidday.

Thought I better give you all one more update seeing as I'll be offline for a week while away at the mine. Nice easy day today, or so I thought. All I had to do was to ring a guy from work, and organise to swap our car for the mine 4WD. Simple. Well, it should have been...

Rang him and organised to meet at work, that was fine. Met him at work, swapped over the vehicles, and went for a drive out to harvey norman to have a look. On the way, noticed that the clutch felt like it had air in it, when you depressed it rapidly it made the sound of air bubbles and sometimes wouldn't disengage the clutch plate.
I made a mental note to check it when we got there, so I opened up the bonnet and had a look at the fluid level, all seemed OK. No leaks that I could see. Thinking it might be a once off I left it and decided to keep an eye on it.

After wrestling with the stuck bonnet catch for 10 mins (as I didn't have the required screwdriver to "readjust" the catch to allow the bonnet to close), I finally made safe for driving. Noticed that the tail lights were out... great, another thing to fix before I can take it to the mine. Went to get out of the park and found I was rolling backwards at an alarming rate, with the handbrake full on.
Not useful. Again a mental note to leave it in gear... handbrake may as well be non existent.

Went to drive home again, almost at a set of lights the clutch pedal again played up, and made a lot of bubbling noises similar to ABS operating. Just through the intersection the clutch went flat to the floor, and the gearbox made a bit of a clunk, and that was that. Coasted to the end of the road, stuck in gear, and turned the engine off. Gearstick was no longer attached to the box in any useful way, can't select anything nor get it out of 2nd. Great. Luckily had some chocks for the wheels, as we were on a hill and the handbrake didn't work.

Rang the boss... he rang the RACQ (AA) and they (after an hour and a half) came and towed it away on a flatdeck truck. The boss took me back to work to get another mine truck, and couldn't find the keys. Rang someone who knew where they were, got the keys, and he drove off. I went to start the second mine truck. "Click". Great. Flat battery. On the phone to the boss again...

Jump started it, and went to take off down the road. Squealing like a stuck pig, as the fanbelt is loose.

Nothing in life is simple. Nothing in Australia will ever be simple.

Finally got the truck home, tightened the fan belt adjuster, and went to get some fuel. Big dual tanks... 126 litres to fill. Ah well... all packed up and ready for the 5:00 start tomorrow morning.

Could have been worse...

We have decided to move to the new flat we were offered, so that's going to happen in about three weeks, we managed to get it down to a price we can afford and still be able to save reasonable amounts. It is a far nicer place, will post photos once we have them.

Right, better go and keep an eye on dinner cooking.

TTFN