Thread: No brakes on Great Central Road

Originally Posted by oldie

Today we were 140 km west of Laverton on the Great Central Highway heading west with a group to do the Canning and it was time for morning smoko. Foot on the brake and straight to the floor. After a few more pumps got pressure and a terrible metal on metal screech.

After a few checks and wheels off, found drivers side rear had discarded the inboard brake pad and the piston was pressing on the disk. What to do ?

Being from the old school I had some wire in the tool box so was able to wire the piston back out of the way and now we are in Leonora some 260km without using the brakes. The brakes are actually usable. It just takes a few pumps to get enough pressure in the system. And the brake warning light on the dash is flickering.

So what to do. AULRO to the rescue. Have had a few contacts with Dazza 4x4 over the years so I gave him a call. What a great fellow ! Thanks to Dazza going well beyond what a normal business might do, I now have a set of pads and pins on their way in less than 2 hours. But the story goes on.

I tried all sorts of avenues - couriers etc to get them delivered to Leonora, Leinster or even Kalgoorlie in less than 2 days and that was just not on. But it turns out one of the group has connections and I will be picking the pads up here in Leonora in the morning. Incredible. Just about connections !

But most of all, a huge thank you to Darren at Aztech 4x4 in Perth
.

But the next challenge is in fitting them. Any tips ?

Oldie
(Keith)

Yep, treat Darren nicely and he'll do that.
He arranged for a new alternator to be delivered overnight to Leinster (towards the middle of WA if anyone doesn't know) when I burnt mine out with a squashed caravan connection.
Ironically, we were supposed to be going the other way on the GCR en route to Uluru and North Queensland - which we did in due course via a 24 hour overnight dash to visit the fields of lights etc.

He pretty much has me as a customer for life after the last 10 years of impeccable service.

Nice to know that others here share the spirit Mario showed us.

Well done Daz.

On the other side of the country,and if Dazza can't help,MR Auto are great at that sort of thing as well.
They have a heap of parts in stock,and guys very experienced in LR's.

I have had impeccable service from them when needed,over many years.

I came across a few YL's at Bendethra (fairly steep 4WD country) once who had run out of brake fluid. After crawling around under their suzuki for a while it was obvious that one of their rear wheel cylinders was leaking badly.
I disconnected the flexible line from the offending brake and to seal it off I bent it back on itself and wrapped some wire around it. I then refilled their master cylinder with my 'emergency' brake fluid that I'd been carrying around for over 20 years, then bled the system as best I could.
Smiles and thanks replaced the gloomy looks and they were on their way home with 3 out of 4 brakes still working. I never heard from them again so I assumed that they got home OK.

I was hoping the story would involve making new pads out of mulga!

Great to hear of people going the extra mile...

A quick update on the brake pad saga.

The pads were delivered to the mine airport in Leinster by the fifo pilot at 7 am the next morning after the pads were picked up from Darrens letter box the previous night and delivered to the pilot on the other side of Perth.

Then back to camp and it was literally a 10 minute job to fit the new pads. The slowest part was getting the piston out far enough to allow the new pads in.

So we were back on the road only 2 hours later than originally planned.

We completed the Canning with no ther problems and are now in Nyngan on our way home to Sydney.

I was surprised at how punishing in the Canning was. My Defender tray back with Trayon slide on is basically stock standard and we had trouble keeping up with the highly modified Toyotas. The corrugations for much of the 1800 kms were horrendous and the more than 500 dunes had been severely chopped up by those ahead who used the power of their trucks to bounce their way up.

I am told I broke the basic rules of sandhill driving. I started most climbs in 3rd gear, then back to 2nd and on some nasty climbs, back to 1st to get over the top. Never used low range as momentum was critical.

But little Landy was still there at the end.

What a trip. Thanks Darren for making it possible for us to stay with our group.

Oldie