Thread: Sixth year ownership report.

Now I'm safely back from Africa its time to write up Charlie's annual report.

Thanks to a 7,000km trip through central Australia we travelled almost 18,000 km during the year and the odo is sitting at just under 199,000km. Still a lot of life left in him

The trip was a clockwise loop from Perth to Laverton, along the Great Central Road to Uluru, then Kings Canyon, Palm Valley, Alice Springs and the East McDonalds. After Alice it was down the Stuart Hwy to Coober Pedy, Kingoonya, the Gawler Ranges and back to Perth across the Nullabour, taking the short cut from Norsenam to Hyden. Approximately 1/3 dirt ranging from fast gravel to rough 4wd tracks, sand and slippery mud. Fuel consumption average was just over 12.7l/100km which wasn’t too bad given we were at close to GVM and had a roof basket. No punctures or mechanical issues either, aside of replacing the air filter in Alice Springs as a preventative maintenance measure and a windscreen.
Cent Aust tripfinal2.jpg

So on the maintenance log. After a big splurge last year on Accessories, I've managed to behave my self. As to be expected for a 15 year old car there have been a few non routine issues pop up, but nothing major or terribly expensive.

Firstly thanks to an idiot driver not slowing down when passing, I copped a smashed windscreen in the East MacDonalds. A really nice golf ball hit which broke both sides of the laminated screen. Heavy duty clear duct tape (from Bunnings) patched it up nicely for the remainder of the trip and when I got home my friendly mobile windscreen repairer replaced it.
ROVX5117.jpg
Insurance covered it all (aside of a modest excess) including supplying new plastic trims for A pillars and windscreen top. Big shout out to Mario of Prestige Windscreens for his excellent work and service.

Instrument binnacle. After all the corrugations through central Australia my instrument binnacle was looking decidedly shabby. I was going to bite the bullet and buy a new one but found out that they are an NLA item. Found a fibreglass one on Ebay made by the Malaysian chap who does fibreglass trim bits for land rovers. Further details in this Post

Instrument binnacle repair tip

Early in the year I had an intermittent issue where Charlie would start spluttering and not revving past 3500 RPM before properly warmed up. Eventually traced to an intermittent electrical fault in the MAF filter and a sticky wastegate.

Around the same time the temperature gauge started wandering around between cold and the normal ½ way position, plugging in the nanocom revealed decidedly cool temperatures (low 70 deg) on a summers day. First thought was a stuck thermostat, but not wanting to go through the hassle of swapping it out, I decided to look at the coolant sensor and wiring which was much easier to get to. The sensor was a bit grimy and wiring conduit across the front of the engine had seen better days. A blast of contact cleaner and some new conduit later, normal +80deg temperatures were again seen.

So on that note roll on another year.

Cheers

Steve

PS and if you can't sleep previous threads can be found here.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/discovery-2-a/174474-one-year-d2-ownership.html
Second Year of D2 Ownership
Third year of D2 ownership
4 years of Discovery Ownership
Fifth year of Discovery 2 Ownership

Originally Posted by edddo

Thanks
3 days!
Might have to revevaluate the route home from Laverton..that’s just not enough time to have a look around.

You can apply for longer than 3 days and also detours off the main route, but then its no longer an automatic on line approval process. Ditto if you apply for more than one permit in any 12 month period on the WA side.

Cheers

Steve