What did you do to your kombi today ?

[Barry]

Ouch….hope you have a good panelbeater. 
Definitely a bit of work there

Have you thought of doing the rstuckle solution?
Get rid of the base.
Rolling a bit of tube and welding it in

[Mr Beckstar]

I should add, I bought a complete new roof panel. Yes, there will be more rust in the pillars I'm sure. And also around the windscreen. The sopru pop top is getting reconditioned; fibreglass and painting.

   

[T1 Terry]

Kombi has been off the road with starter motor issues again, but with the Prius off the rad at the moment, Kombi got the attention it needed .... well some of it anyway 
Starter out and dig trough the bits of the other dead starters to get enough bits to build another one. Another very used 50Ah 4 cell lithium battery assembled and presto, Kombi came back to life via the key rather than a tow down the road to clutch start it.

Driving back to the house I realised how,spoilt I was driving the ex taxi Prius, air conditioning, smooth ride and nice and quiet on the dirt roads and the bush track to the back of the house ..... Kombi has none of those things 

Yesterday, in the 45*C plus heat, had to drive to Mt Barker to get the stuff to repair the Prius fuel tank. A few kms on petrol and it started missing and running rather poorly, switch to LPG and away we went ..... until the gas converter froze, so a constant switch between the two fuels or drive under 80km/h to avoid the gas converter freeze up ... should have stopped and taken a photo of the gas converter, air cleaner pipe pipes and the carbies with snow on them, the ultimate cold air intake :lol:

Sunday afternoon, on the return trip, I stopped in at the workshop and loaded up some solar panels ready to fit them on the house preparing to go off grid. Wasn't too keen on the idea of carry them down the track I've made to get from the house to the top parking spot, so I decided to try driving through the water back up Purnong Rd from Flood Rd .... Kombi did it easy.
Unloaded the solar this morning and drove back up the same piece of road .... water didn't look to be any higher ..... when the water and duck weed started to come up around the handbrake and gear lever, it suggested it had got deeper over night. Poor Kombi lost a bit of its startling performance, lots of spluttering and running on a few cyls, but at least made it the 20km back to the workshop. First thought was running out of gas, so filled that up, only 40 trs so it wasn't that, but kombi started again a chugged up to the workshop.
opened the engine hatch and the water had pushed the foam dist sleeve out and a liberal coating of mud and duck weed around various bits of the engine   But, Kombi never left us stranded, so some cleaning up and dewatering required ready for tonight trip down the track ..... I might skip the water crossing this time

T1 Terry

Magaret made a short video of the trip up the road and is in the process of posting her first You Tube video .... when it happens I'll put a link up.

[KIWI]

Have you thought of doing the rstuckle solution?
Get rid of the base.
Rolling a bit of tube and welding it in

That's what I want to do but need rstuckle to post some pics.
PR

[T1 Terry]

You Tube video of the Kombi paddling its way along Purnong Rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=greQwHMMa60

T1 Terry

EDIT: Check out the fish taking off at around the 1:36 mark

[Grantus]

You Tube video of the Kombi paddling its way along Purnong Rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=greQwHMMa60

T1 Terry

EDIT: Check out the fish taking off at around the 1:36 mark

So the common sense rule, of “If it’s flooded, forget it!”, doesn’t apply to all? 

You were very lucky none of the water covered road, had a non visible Kombi size flood created wash out section pot hole. 

[ruby6689]

So the common sense rule, of “If it’s flooded, forget it!”, doesn’t apply to all? 

You were very lucky none of the water covered road, had a non visible Kombi size flood created wash out section pot hole. 

I'm no hero, if we don't know what's ahead of us we simply don't chance it. You can get further along and it's deeper and by the time you turn around the way you came is also impassable. The road in front of house at Nimbin often flooded and I would walk into it to gauge the depth before even considering driving through. It was a 35klm detour if it wasn't passable and we took that option if we had to. Rather be late than dead.

[Pabloako]

I used the air compressor and blew a jet of air up into to the oil cooler (from underneath) and 50 years of cr*p blew out of it.  I will have a drive next weekend a see if it helps Daisy run a bit cooler.

[DavidH]

I used the air compressor and blew a jet of air up into to the oil cooler (from underneath) and 50 years of cr*p blew out of it.  I will have a drive next weekend a see if it helps Daisy run a bit cooler.

Nice move . Oil coolers are an oft overlooked problem. I had a LHS oil leak problem, for a few years, that was put

 down to pushrod tube LHS  leakage. Mechanic missed it the first time & the second. It was only when he sat it on

 the hoist & let it idle/warm up did he see the leak

It will always run cooler when clear .

Cheers

[Pabloako]

I found out why my VDO oil temperature gauge (with dipstick sender) was freaking me out and rapidly rising from about 120°C to over 150°C causing me to panic. 
I found that a dodgy earth connection (the bottom spade connector on the gauge) was making the gauge shoot up when the resistance in the dipstick was increasing.

New earth connection and it is nice and stable now .
I used a infrared thermometer on the oil on the end of the dipstick and the gauge is still inaccurate and 25°c h hotter than the oil, but I now know that the "big thick" line is my happy running temperature.

I also replace the points with a Pertronix and a new coil yesterday,  turned the key expecting it to splutter and to my suprise she fired right up! 

After that, a few beers to celebrate two successes in one day!

.