Spent 8 hours on the side of the road stationary near Blinman, four hours trying to get a signal out on the HF.
Car wouldn't start and it was only 10:00am, tilt tray turned up at 6:30 tonight, got into the motel near 10:00 tonight.
It's ****ing down rain in the Flinders too.
Car cranked slowly, started then stalled immediately and wouldn't restart.
Cranking got slower and slower.
Pulled the terminals off the battery and cleaned the posts (negative was pretty corroded)
No better.
Some Toyota's pulled into the Nat Park registry I was in so we jumped it.
Nope.
Left it on charge from the Hilux. Cranked a little faster but no dice.
I bid them adieu, cleared the mysterious M&S auto tranny fault that appeared and tried again.
Then swapped the batteries, the Deep cycle did no better (and it's a mongrel to change, sitting where the SLS air compressor normally goes)
Swapped them back so I could use the HF. Was soaked through as it had been raining all this time, so changed clothes
Went through all the potential faults again.
Nothing.
Then took over four hours to raise Adelaide VKS, just crap weather condition and an absolute amateur operator.
Adelaide had to go through Charleville base to hear me !
Tilt tray turned up around 6:30.
We discussed what I'd done, what it could be and what to do.
Chris reckoned I could've sucked water in during the innumerable creek crossings and big puddle I'd waded through fifteen minutes prior.
I still thought starter.
Got it back to Hawker, did a load test, checked the current draw while cranking (off the scale) and jumped it again.
No dice.
Chris reckoned it was a bent rod. [bigsad]
Started to pull covers off when I saw swarf all around the idler pulley bearing.
Bingo !
Seized bearing.
Popped the belt off and it started !
There'd been no squeaks, no chirps, nothing, but I did notice what I thought was a slight rumble at revs in the 15km prior to it stopping.
I dismissed it as paranoia.
Thank my deity it's a relatively easy fix, and we were both wrong !
