Well i did the annual Alice to Brisbane Trip last week, accross the plenty highway (only way to go in a real 4wd) and only broke down once this time. (was a good trip this year) No flat tyres but i noticed that the fuel consumption went through the roof, but no other signs were noticed, it got that bad that i had to pull over and find out what was wrong, thought i had puntured a hole in the tank. Anyway after getting out and realising that the engine was spewing diesel and a rapid rate of knots i ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, shutting the rig down and grabbing a fire extinguisher (it was 40 degress outside so the engine must have been round 70. anyway after a bit of fault finding and calculating that i had lost about 40 litres of diesel, i found that the return fuel line that comes out of the fuel heater(i think thats what it is, left the manual at home but thats what it looks like) had come off, clicked it back on did a leak check and was back on the road.
gotta love the easy fixes, especially in the desert. Has anyone else had this happen????, was happy i wasn't driving a petrol engine cos there was a lot of fuel all up the sides of the car and spewing out of the engine.