Bennie, Bros & Ruby Scoo go to WA - Trip Report ***Dial-up Warning***

[El_Freddo]

Hey all,

Here's the write up. Please bear with me, its taken a long time to get the images on the web to have them posted here. Hope I don't ramble on.

Please don't post til I've given the all clear, there'll be a few

I'll start with how it all happened - It was one boring uni day... The AUSubaru site is a favourite of mine and I dropped in on the WA section to read the bbq thread, then posted that i'd see you all there or something. SuBaRiNo Dave posted back with "Do it! Do it!" and the ball rolled from there. Another thread was started to collect funds, a bit of a piss take that went wrong (thanks to all those who pledged - that kept the idea alive - and thanks Mike ).

Then my brother, nicknamed by me as "Bros" (very original i know), was asked if he'd like to come. Answer = yes and off we went.

I'm the one driving

Ruby had her head gaskets replaced to get rid of an annoying O ring oil leak and I threw in some solid lifters for some fun - that cost me a weekend to do and another to re-adjust the lifters.

Tuesday saw us off from M&D's joint via benders up to Mildura then across to renmark, pt augusta headed to ceduna - about 13 hrs on the road total.



That was about the time that i was no longer on edge about the lifters - they'd done about 1300km without a hiccup. That was also about 5 minutes before we heard a loud tapping noise - the lifters.

We made it to a parking bay, I started stripping down the motor to get to the problem lifter (found by idling the engine and using a long screw driver to find out which side it was coming from). It was about 1230am at this point in time.



Bros in his style slept on that park bench behind me... Here's one below of the engine when I called it a night:



The sleep on the ground was a good one, I woke to find bros cleaning up bits that i'd left out for him the night before - that silicone stuff is good but a pain in the arse to get off when you don't have grazing access to a fridge...



The other part of the problem was the feeling of isolation - no mobile reception... yes we were next to a major interstate highway, but do you think anyone will stop to help after Wolf Creek? Answer is no. And we needed a spark plug remover as one of the exhaust valves (the one with the dodgy lifter) had dropped one of its retainer clips - lucky the last one held otherwise we would have really been up sh!t creek without a paddle...

I used my old sleeping mat to make a sign asking anyone for a spark plug remover as without this we weren't going anywhere. Bros got impatient and went through my car looking for tools. He found a wheel nut remover for a set of mags i've got at home that use a larger nut, a nut that happens to be the same size as a spark plug! *YAY!*

To fix the valve retainer clip we had to hold the valve in place as we pushed on the valve springs and washer. This is where the spark plug remover comes into play - you remove the spark plug, shove a clean thin cloth down into the cylinder (in this case my Hungry Jacks apron that we took a thin slice off) making sure you don't loose the end of it. Once you've got a good amount of cloth in there you rotate the engine til the piston holds it in place. This allowed us to push on the spring without the valve moving. Even pushing on the spring wasn't an easy task - we used two tuna cans and a block of wood to space out from the chassis rail so we could then use a 19mm spanner as our lever arm that allowed me access to the top of the valve and washer...

We eventually got it back on, the tuna cans are now a testiment to the brut force that those little springs can give, having been dented by the spanner (we've still got them as a "trophy").

[El_Freddo]

Above is the valve I have just been talking about (before we got it all back together - check out the grooves from the Cam follower arm).

After shoving the hydrolic lifters back in and learning my lesson of modifications before a big trip, we were set. Until the damn thing made the same noise. I've never felt so physically sick in my life. I hadn't had breakfast either and it was now 12pm...

Before I had even hit the seat to eat I remembered that I hadn't tightened the Cam gears after putting the cam belts back on. And that was the problem, they had loosened off. 10 minutes later we guessed the timing and off we went again! We had to stop a few times to re-adjust the timing but eventually we checked it at a mechanic who couldn't understand what we'd done and it was only 2 degrees out so I left it - he didn't seem to want me to adjust it. anyway, we were now on the striaght to ceduna - the last bit of mobile reception we would see til norseman, we lapped it up!

Filled up in ceduna, followed a truck for a few hours and we made it to the SA/WA border - the trip over was "take notes of what you want to see and we'll do it on the way back" bee line to WA...



This is Rooey on the border at border village. Every pic of bros and I with the car has been photoshop'd to have one of us added in...

We decided that night driving would be roughly the same as out our way with the wildlife with the adition of camels (something new to us). We were sorta right, but we dodged more dead animals than live ones. We also went across a table land were there was hot air for 5 minutes driving then instant cold air for 5 minutes then hot then cold etc. This went on for about 40 minutes before we decided to call it a night. There were also some awesome thunderstorm activity happening earlier in the night (didn't get a lightening shot). We selected our Parking area to camp in - there are some average places to pull over at, we enjoy finding a nice spot.

The next day - Thursday saw us hit "Norseman - Wear the fox hat" - work that out (say it quickly - they had t-shirts with this printed on them - go figure).



Fuel prices had been above normal after ceduna. Border Village was 175.9c/L and another place that I can't remember the name of (where Sky Lab crashed down) was 181.9c/L which was the most we spent. 20L cost $38!!!

Oh yeah, and my fuel pump was playing up too - you have to thump it to get it going then start the car and its all good. It was a good anti theft device but we got some strange looks.

Our next real stop after norseman, wear the fox hat, was Southern Cross. This place further adds to the argument that Spencer St Station in melbourne cannot be called "Southern Cross Station" cos the name is already taken by this town...



Looks like a good pub, might have to stop in there next time for a night on the town - anyone wanna join me?

So, from here we rang one of dad's mates to catch up in perth (yes we were going to arrive Thursday night) and crash over at his joint before meeting up with dave later.

We did make it to perth without any hiccups after that. When we were coming down the Hills Perth was showered with this golden light from the near setting sun that was hidden behind a cloud. It looked awesome and also meant that we were nearly there.

Fast Forwarding to Friday morning Bros and I cruised around playing "lets get lost then find our way out" which we reckon is a pretty hard game to play in perth. We went to get lost and inadvertantly ended up on the road we started on...



So we went to fremantle and got lost there in all their one way streets... Yes, I almost went the wrong way - I even turned into the street very shortly before hooking a quick U turn to cover it up.

I must say too that people must not like interstaters, or they don't see us - I got cut off 5 times in one day. I hadn't been cut off in years!

We had lunch at the Orient bar, huge meals for a good price. Nice bar tenders too - good for a chat and a laugh.

After that we had arranged to meet JAFFA in person as I missed the chance when he was in melbourne. We organised a bbq where I eyed off all his prized spare parts. We met dave here and talked the usual subi talk (bros didn't really understand what we were on about at this point).

Friday night was a good night and a good way to meet some new people. Saturday Dave and I went and helped out with Chris's EA81 install (by the way chris, you need some more goo there mate ). It was a good day, hatchie got a wash without us doing a thing, chris got his brumby going, I met a few more people, had some good feed's kept up by Rosie and Shannon (cheers for that). It was a really good day for me. Bros went down the beach to catch up with a mate and crash at their joint. He slept in the car after the night out.

Sunday was the big day I was waiting for. We fixed the exhaust leak on Ruby Scoo the night before and gave her a wash that morning. I met matatak, andrew T, Ben at Dave's joint and Vidler at the servo that morning (there may have been more, I have a shocking memory).



It was awesome to be in a convoy of subi's again - even the first one was bigger than my 4wd trip of 3 cars, and it was only going to get bigger!



Here I sorta felt like the new kid on the block, kind of a weird feeling cos I recognised most of the cars around me...

Then we were off in mass convoy!

[El_Freddo]

And mass convoy it was! Here's my two best shots of all the cars (split up of course).





And my "postcard" picture to prove I was in perth (no photoshopping either)



After a few logistical problems that were expected to be encountered with a group this large we finally all made it down to the zig zag. This is were Ruby Scoo rolled over to the golden age of 350,000 km! I couldn't have organised a better spot myself.



After another logistical nightmare that's been well discussed else where we were off again. Here's a driver/photographer shot,



I've got a few of these but this would have to be the best one!

After a good drive in some nice hills with some good vegetation changes (I watch this sorta thing when ever I'm driving, its something i've studied at uni) we ended up in this little town where I got a good shot of ruby with subafury's L and Lapsed's L infront - Mike also got in there, cheeky bugger!



It was then a short drive to the bbq area, very nice and I would have been in the water for a swim if it was any warmer (and had the ability to stop looking at other subi's). After checking some levels under the bonnet it never went down til we left.





This is the point of the day where the camera batteries died, wasn't happy at all.

After another good feed in WA (thanks Mike and Deb) the 4wders headed out to the powerlines - a place I've read, seen and heard a lot about but never been there. It was great to be out there having some fun, even if it was tamed for none lifted cars. Still spewing my camera died...

I think I'll be getting Ruby S lifted when i can. I also hope to be back in this area again doing the same sorta thing.

After the 4wd'n I got stuck behind some really slow ford drivers and lost the convoy - I thought they'd dropped onto the freeway headed back into the city but apparently I coudn't catch them, mainly cos they weren't there.
After that logistical problem dave and I eventually caught up with eachother. My fuel pump really was dieing a slow death - it stalled the car on the freeway south on ramp. Then later at a set of traffic lights (got it going again) before dieing at another set of traffic lights. I've never heard a pump make a noise like this one did.

Once again, SuBaRiNo dave to the rescue - on the side of the freeway we did a pump swap - what doesn't hatchie have??? Devil dave caught up with us just as we were finishing up.

[El_Freddo]

Monday saw bros and I running around looking for a new EFI fuel pump. Cov's quoted 400 but could do it for 300 -> I asked if there was an alternative that would do the job for less and got a speal about flow rates etc etc. Everywhere we went it was the same, $300-400. I called my local parts joint (who are great) and spoke to one of the guys about a price and any alternatives. He recommended a VN 5 litre external pump -$147. We found one at a Repco for $195, just before making the purchase I rang SuB Dave and he told me that Tim had found one for $120. Off we went, got that pump and bolted it in at dave's work. After that I met Tim and thanked him before we headed off to Bunbury to catch up with some other family friends.



We ended up staying two nights down here as we hadn't seen these mates in nearly 10 years - that puts me back in my teens :s

While we were down here we climbed the Diamond Tree out near Manjimup - we missed the opportunity on the Great Western Australian Bike Ride 18 months ago... Its not a great shot but was the only one I could get of Ruby Scoo from up the tree.



It was a good climb and finally something that didn't have all those un-fun safety measures - I wouldn't be taking children up there...

Back in Manjimup:



The next day we were off. Navigator Bros changed the route (back through Perth then over to Coolgardie) to almost a striaght line through Bruce Rock then to Coolgardie. We found an unrestricted speed limit zone along the way - we haven't been on one of these since we were kids in the back seat up in the Territory (and ruby doesn't go that fast, see below).



After a solid days driving and covering about 1200km again we camped in a neat little parking area that had a new table...



This place was pretty much at the western end of the 90 mile straight. I was really surprised about the fog. We drove in it for about an hour before it had "burnt off". Crazy.

This is pretty much were we started the touristie thing without trying to be or look like tourists (more like free-lance tourists).



I must say that its odd to see both of us in the same pic knowing that one of us was in the pic while the other held the camera to take it... weird.



Mandas Gap (correct?). Can anyone tell me if this has been photoshopped? I can pic a mistake that i'm not happy with. Below here is the table lands, can't remember the name of who owned it on the map but this is where we felt the different currents of hot and cold air on the trip over. Beautiful area and it was good to see it during the day light...

Boredom was sorta setting in again:



It was a bit of fun, bros pretended to push me out the window, at least I think he was pretending...

[El_Freddo]

^ Eucla, our last fuel stop from a servo til ceduna. We played our cards right with the 3 jerry cans we had with us, still got one left, I'll probabily use it to mow the lawns tomorrow.

We really wanted to check out this limestone cave inland where a mate told us we could go for a swim. I was keen to check it out and then camp on the limestone cliffs.



^ The "desert rube"

We didn't expect to find an old homestead there. I can't remember the name of it but know that it starts with a "K" and was SA's most western station.



There were heaps of cars around here that had been abandoned. We had a good poke around to see what was still around and why they had been left behind.



The bill board indicated that the hole we were looking for was 7 km north. they must have had a dodgy distance reader or bros didn't read the next bit cos it was all go when we found that out - no time to read the rest of the writing... 3km later we found this:



It was amazing to be out here, finally some place without the black top - the places that Australia was "built on" back in the hay-day of the outback. It was around here that I crushed my finger ending our tour of the nullabour. We still stopped for photos even though we were 3 hours from ceduna.



I won't post a pic of my finger. I'm going to loose the nail at some point and the hospital cleaned it up telling me that there's really nothing they could do for it. Its no longer painful, I've been using it to type this up - Its the "e" key finger if that makes sense to those touch typers out there.

On the way out of that joint bros went through a massive mud hole, the mud was soft and the front of the car collected the hard dirt on the other side, ripping out my newly recoiled exhaust stud bolt. This is what we found when we got to ceduna:



^ You're looking at my cam belt, there should be a cover there but the heat from the exhaust gas melted it away. That's going to be fun to fix...

We kept driving deciding it would be best to get back home ASAP. We drove til 3am ending up at Redhill. I don't know if this is allowed or not, but it was a bloody good sleep til the flies came en mass...

[El_Freddo]

We then headed to adelaide to see our nanna on the way home. She's 93 or 94 now, I can't keep up with her age...

It was a pretty warm day in adelaide, the car was running hot but nothing un-usual. Climbing out of adelaide we were crawling at 40 with the '82 pinging all the way. Not good.

Once we got out onto the flat we were fine, well, this was until we hit these really hot gusty winds, each one was hotter than the last. I've never experienced anything like it. We had to drop down to 80km/h. This was so slow and it was so hot that I started nodding off and wanted to stop off for some sleep under a tree (we got about 4 hours sleep max. the night before). Bros took the reins and off we went. He tried the behind a truck trick but that didn't work, then went to 80km/h, I told him to pull over and just before we did there was a "thump and hissing" from under the bonnet.

We rolled to a stop. I knew it was the engine's cooling system but didn't expect it to be the radiator's side tank... AGAIN! RACV spoke to RAA and sorted us a ride to the nearest depot - Tintinara.



They wouldn't have been able to get us a radiator til last night (monday the 17th Dec). I've got total care cover on my car and we were sorted accommodation for the night, after some negociation we were sorted with a transport home for saturday - with Ruby Scoo!



So about 5 hours travel, $40 fuel money saved and we were home.



I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to drive the last leg home. 1.2 km more and Ruby Scoo would have rolled over to 354,000km. We did nearly 8000km on this trip. Ruby S is looking a little worse for wear and is in need of a new radiator. Its kinda sad but will mean that I have to fix her up propely.

I'm getting onto a custom radiator joint tomorrow hopefully. The trip was so much fun and I'm really glad we did it, even if it meant a crushed finger, road side repairs and a blown radiator - not to mention a new fuel pump too.

A special thanks goes out to SuBaRiNo Dave for his hospitality and mateship, Jaffa and Di for the (friday night) bbq, Dave's family for feeding me, Chris for the laughs and spare parts (sorry mate, radiator is cactus), Mike and Deb for the fantastic bbq organisation and cooking, Tim for sorting us a very well priced fuel pump, Bros for coming with me and putting up with my crap (even though he now doesn't like subaru's by the name of Ruby Scoo) and the WA crew for making it for such a big event all round.

Cheers to all!

And to lift the sad ending, here's a pic of us on the nullabour near Eucla - I never got to look for the spot that vidler took his pic from.



Have a safe xmas and new year too if i'm unable to get back on the net before then (I'll be trying)

Bennie

PS post away now!

[Subafury]

far out thats a mammoth write up bennie. but i enjoyed reading it all. theyre'l never be a trip without problems but im glad that you had the knowledge, experiences and new mates of course to fix em all. what a bugger about the radiator tho. sounds like it spoilt the return journey. cheers for goin to the effort to make it over here, let s know next time you're coming!

[SuBaRiNo]

Mate u were not lieing when you said i should make a packed lunch before reading that. You could not have made it shorter though without leaving stuff out.

WHAT AN ADVENTURE!!! Dude i am so doing that trip as soon as i can.

Im glad u had a good time... your welcome back anytime.

Dave

[El_Freddo]

Thanks Subafury, i was worried that I went a little funny in the middle/end bit there.

Yeah, it was an epic trip and the write up was pretty much the same. From trying to get photos off a burnt DVD onto the mac to hosting the pics to writing the thing was an epic, i'd total it near 4 hours all up from start to finish.

Just wish the trip wasn't so epic, its one to remember thats for sure. I'll be doing a few things different next time (AC, tinted windows maybe some comfortable front seats too)...

I'll leave you all to it.

Bennie

[Alex]

very good Bennie, big thumbs up! Good to see Ruby Scoo did ya proud

alex

[D3V1L]

hey benny!!!! good to see u made it home in 1 piece at least bro!! hope top see u here again!!!!

dave

[dwayneb]

Great trip, epic journey. Took two sittings to read the whole thing. At least it hasn't discouraged you from your love of all things Subaru.

[El_Freddo]

Yeah thanks guys.

I don't know what was more epic, the trip or the write up!

Dave, when you're ready to do the trip i'd love to be there to cruise with you I know a good place where you can crush your finger!

I havn't been home since the write up and hopefully I'll be getting onto the radiator joint today. I've also gotta source a cam cover and work out these bloody exhaust studs - two, make that four design flaws of the EA82 - Cam belts (not that they've given me any trouble... yet), pissy little radiator, hydrolic lifters (think i may have worked out my problem with the lifters) and poor exhaust bolting design...

End that rant.

Yeah, i'd love to do the trip again but really slow it down next time. I'd also like to go swimming at the beach in the last pic, I know it would be antartic water tempretures but its something i'd love to do...

Come to think of it, our subi was the oldest car we passed til we got to norseman

Glad eveyones enjoyed the read so far, sorry it was so long but it deserved a full cover.

Cheers

Bennie

[BlackMale]

It’s a massive effort (both the trip and the write up) - good work Benni.

Sure we'll meet again in the future.

[El_Freddo]

Sure we'll meet again in the future.

I hope so mate.

Take care and have a fantastic xmas/new year!

Bennie

[Thalass]

Wow, man. You were flat out there! You'll need another holiday to recover from this one! haha

[vincentvega]

thanks for the write up, very enjoyable

[fredsub]

Great writeup!

Reminds me when I went tripping off round the country in the 'ole L series, in a time when I wasn't all that cashed up either........

Bit envious now how theres digital cameras, and the internet forums to writeup your adventures and meet up like minded folks.......


Not envious of the fuel prices you have to pay these days though:mrgreen:
I recall paying $1/lt for a 20l jerry at a property, 20Km out of Kununarra WA - was running on empty, though still made it to town and tank ran out of fuel looking for the servo:p

[Captain Obvious]

good effort what a great trip, there is so much to see in this country!!

[El_Freddo]

Thanks everyone!

I made a movie yesterday from still images. Only problem is that I did it at uni, burnt it to dvd to bring home and non of our computers at home like the file

Hopefully I'll beable to put up in the new year - its still too long for me though...

Cheers

Bennie

PS wish i didn't have the slowest dial up in oz... If i got my real xmas wish list I'd be geting a new Mac, broadband and the latest Nokia D70 or D80 (if there is such a thing yet). But that's not what xmas is all about is it? Have a good one!