The Great Victoria Desert

[Nab]

Is the tank buggered at the same point at the front of the tank or the side mount?

[sharkcaver]

Is the tank buggered at the same point at the front of the tank or the side mount?

No its the RHS mount which bolts to the vehicle, not the tank tab - I had gussetts put on that to stop uit happening again. I found this bracket broken last year in October just before I was to go on a trip and I welded it up - didn't have time to get a new bracket at the time and I haven't replaced it since with the new one, cause it seemed to be holding well. I dont think any other damage has occurred, but in a few days, once I clear all the spinifex from underneath the floor pan, I'll have a good look at all that has occurred.

BTW, I've edited day 6. I forgot to mention, just after packing the car I found the start battery was at 10.9V. Guess how I found that out

click, click, click....sh!t.

[sharkcaver]

Great and amazing pics.
In amongst it some misfortune unfortunately. You’ve certainly had your unfair share.

Heard about spinafex...but wow.
All up though it looked like a good adventure.

You should have seen the mass of spinifex caught between the exhaust and the rear of the tank. I never got a pic of that but it was like a wow moment.

[greybeard]

That little short hairy bloke is still chasing you around.
Good to hear you're still out there and breaking things.

[nj swb]

No its the RHS mount which bolts to the vehicle, not the tank tab - I had gussetts put on that to stop uit happening again. I found this bracket broken last year in October just before I was to go on a trip and I welded it up - didn't have time to get a new bracket at the time and I haven't replaced it since with the new one, cause it seemed to be holding well.

Hi Shane,

Thanks for posting the thread, yet another reminder of the awesomeness available so far away from too many of us. One day I'll get over there to experience some of it first hand.

I'm sorry to hear the aux tank is still giving you grief, but I think you (and Steve) are (were) using the Pajero at the limits of its design (not that I think I'm too far behind you).

I think the fundamental problem is design of the mounting of the tank. It mounts to the Pajero monocoque in four places. Unfortunately, despite the impressive rigidity of the monocoque, it does still flex, ever so slightly, so the four mounting points are unable to remain in a constant plane. So four points on the monocoque, four points on the tank, that can't always be on the same plane - something has to give. Unfortunately, you're at the leading edge of testing the Pajero monocoque, so you're experiencing problems that most others are not - so there is no great incentive for the manufacturer to change their design.

I feel your pain metaphorically, because I fear it is only a matter of time before I feel your pain literally.

[sharkcaver]

I feel your pain metaphorically, because I fear it is only a matter of time before I feel your pain literally.

Hopefully you never feel the pain brother....

To be honest, this was a repaired bracket. I was 2 days away from going bush when I first discovered it....ah crap....

I rang LRA and they sent me a new bracket pronto. But as you can imagine, that was going to take more than 2 days, so I had to weld repair the existing or I wasn't going bush. The new bracket arrived but I went bush in the repaired one. As it seemed to be holding up (and its a pain to get to with the tank in place, I've let it do its stuff. Unfortunately, it departed when I was quite remote.

So I have the new bracket in, see how that goes. I may contact LRA and see about getting one made from thicker plate?

[sharkcaver]

But here's a novel concept. Single cable jumper starts.......

Now having my aux in the rear, I need long jumper leads, 6m minimum in fact.

Putting the thinking cap on, both batteries are earthed to the chassis, so the negatives are always connected. The positives are only separated by the back feed circuitry of the IDC25 dcdc charger. Theoretically to jump start, I should only need the single cable then.

So, about to leave 7 miller's hut, I discover the paj starter is 10.0v.

Jumping from Warren was probably easier, but I had a proof of concept to sort out. So unpack all the rear of mine to get to the aux bat, and add my home made jumper lead.

At first I was worried, nothing was happening

And I was about to give it the flick as a failed concept, by using Warrens paj. But I thought I'd give it one more go. Turning ignition on, I now got red lights on the dash, apart from just the yellows I had prior. That was promising.

So I gave her a crank. Yep it was sluggish, but it cranked this time and low and behold, she fired

So the proof of concept does work

I measured start battery originally at 10.0v. The aux at 12.3v (lucky i had put solar panels on the aux the day prior while running the compressor a lot trying to blow spinifex from radiators and nooks and crannies).

I measured voltage drop on the cable. It showed the same as the Aux, so all good there. Only afterwards, back on the track, I thought about I should have measured current draw on the cable. Oh well, next time - hopefully not!

So, it took some time (maybe 5 minutes or so) to build enough power into the starter to allow cranking, but allow cranking it did.

Out of disaster usually comes a ray of sunshine

[Jack ANT]

Nice bit of problem solving.
Because I have both batteries under the bonnet my jumper lead is a single heavy gauge cable about 20cm long and I just jump positive to positive terminals.

[sharkcaver]

Vid part I now up:

https://youtu.be/428VjI-2AtE

[KiwiNTPajero]

how about you build some "give" into the mounting points so that the tank and paj can move independently.Your trips are always interesting to me not least because your scenery is so different to what we have here

[greybeard]

Forget the mounting points, just keep using ratchet straps like you're doing now. They seem to last longer than the mounting points.

[Pajaru]

Looks like a great trip. I love that part of WA.

[insect_eater]

Thanks for the great photos - I look forward to watching the video. I wonder if you should talk to LRA about a design change - you seem like the perfect test pilot for them. Why was your battery low - just on the way out or for some other reason? What do you think would be the best way to control the spinifex in radiators?

[sharkcaver]

Thanks for the great photos - I look forward to watching the video. I wonder if you should talk to LRA about a design change - you seem like the perfect test pilot for them. Why was your battery low - just on the way out or for some other reason? What do you think would be the best way to control the spinifex in radiators?

In fairness, the bracket was the one that failed on the CSR originally. I weld repaired it, and it seemed to be hanging in there. I hit a few holes a bit hard and that probably broke it again. A new one is in place now. I may investigate with LRA how I can make this stronger....but you know the story, strengthen one area, another failure point crops up.....How you build give into it?? Dunno??

Personally I like greybeards solution, just use ratchet straps lol

It was the original oem battery, near 3 years old. Personally I'm surprised it didn't fail earlier. It just had no spare capacity and a day with doors open and drawing current was too much for it.....Not that much was drawn from it during the day, the aux ran the compressor and I put panels on that as the compressor draws 26A. It was run quite a bit, hence I pulled the panels out. In hindsight, maybe I needed a few hours of panels on the starter....

The best way to control spinny - don't drive in it. Although I fitted a blind (much too late btw), I still dont reckon you can stop this evil stuff. Interestingly, Warren with only IC and sump plates gathered far more underneath than mine. His was mostly straw, mine mostly seed head. Whether that was due to me being first and clearing the seed heads, or having the additional tranny/TC plates, I guess we will never know.

Spinifex is insidious stuff. Avoid it at all cost!

Anyway, here is part ii, the conclusion:

https://youtu.be/0tOQPhJ8Puw

Cheers!

[Pwoffey]

More great footage, thanks Shane. Geez that spinifex looked atrocious. After you put on the radiator shield, to what extent did it lessen the problem?