Thread: Calling Alice Springs members, Series 3 owner needs help at Ayers Rock

Hi all. Michael2 from this forum is currently at the resort at Ayers Rock, part of the way through a Deserts run.

He has broken a front spring on his Series III long wheelbase Landrover. As he has parabolic springs, he needs to replace both sides.

Is there anyone in Alice Springs or surrounds on this forum who can help him out with a set of front springs, urgently please?

His contact number is 0425 734 760.

TIA

Thanks to Will & Duane for their quick responses. The SIII (with a Defender support vehicle) had just crossed the Simpson, come up the Finke to Alice track and gone out to Boggy Hole. The parabolic suspension seemed to perform well in handling & load carrying, but that was not to last, the (F)(L)main leaf broke on corrugations on the Ernst Giles Rd. Still managed to make it to Kings canyon and on to Uluru (mainly because I didn't notice the break at first and thought it was a # shocker, which I replaced with a spare.

Anyway the # spring was at the end of a list of mishaps, I had a tyre blow out on the Birdsville Track, a flat requiring a tube and another flat requiring topping up air in the Simpson. I Stripped an axle flange on a Salisbury Diff in the Simpson (had a spare); the engine decided to go through heaps of oil and become a 2-stroke ; the fuse box had a corroded connection on the headlight fuse, my circuit breaker kept overheating and clicking off, I thought it was a relay problem and pulled the dash off, eventually I bypassed the fuse and hard wired a circuit breaker in it's place.

Anyway, given the heavy oil consumption & the # spring, I thought I'd call in the help of my RACV Plus cover. Though they say they'll get you a hire vehicle to complete your journey, they can't always. They told me I was too isolated for that. I told them there was an airport and 5 car hire companies within walking distance from where I was, still they reckoned they couldn't get me a vehicle that the hire companies would allow out of the state. They did offer to fly me and my passanger home and get the car back in the next 4-5 weeks.

That's when I called the forum for help. The springs from Alice were supposed to rendezvous with us on the highway, so we pulled the # spring off, filed it, warmed it on the BBQ and welded it. We drove the 250km to the rendezvous point, but the springs weren't there, so we kept going and the weld lasted 2000km, 350km short of our destination. En-route the LPG backfired (for the first time ever) and the Finer Filter caught fire!!!!! I just had a cyclopac and a droopy for clean air now. Anyway, we rewelded the spring at Sea Lake and put an extra strap on (mild flat steel strap) and made it home.

I'm now in the market for an early Defender wagon (sub $10K) will travel for the right car.

Just for interests sake, total fuel bill for a 200Tdi for the 6,000km journey was $1,170, the SIII cost $1,267 in fuel (petrol & LPG). However for the 1,000km from Mungerannie (Birdsville Tk) to Alice Springs via the Simpson Desert via the Warburton Tk, the Defender used 130 litres of Diesel and the SIII used 280 litres of fuel (70 LPG, 210 ULP).

It was a great trip, the Land Rover got us there, and we got the Land Rover back .