For those of you who have been following my idle miss problems with
my M8 Greyhound, the saga got worse yesterday.
In the afternoon I decided to take it for a road test. We went out of
town (I live close to the edge) and had driven probably 10 or so km
by the time we were on the way back the eninge had been running like
a swiss watch and all was well....... I had been keeping an eye on the
temperature guage and noticed in the last few minutes that it was
now well up but still at an
acceptable temperature. Soon after, I looked down again and it was
sitting on 100°C, oh, oh. So I then started watching it every couple
of seconds and it suddenly started going up; pulled straight over
to get off the road and switched the motor off. Just great, out in
the sticks with a broken tank and a very large puddle of water on the
ground and its 4pm on a Sunday!
Luckily I had brought along my wife's mobile phone so I rang her and
asked for her to come and get me. She arrived with some cold drinks
(10/10 for smart thinking!) and then we went and collected some tools
(I suspected the new head gasket had leaked and the situation could
be recovered by retorquing the head) and 40 litres of water.
After letting the motor cool off I trickled water into the radiator
while having the motor turning over (the Greyhound has a seperate
ignition and starter switches, so you can turn the motor without having
it try and start) as I was worried about cracking it.
Well, the water started running out as quick as I was pouring it
in - great!
I have never seen a motor leak coolant so quick and I have blown my
share of hoses and welsh plugs.
It appeared to be coming from the back of the motor well below head
gasket height, in that impossible to get to location where there is a
heavy cross member and the petrol tank in the way. So no field
expedient was possible. Time for another trip back into town to get
the APC and the "A" bar. Due to all the chatter in the last few days
on the MV lists, I have been reading the do's and dont's of towing
heavy vehicles and as luck would have it I had bought the very same
model of tow bar at a scrap yard a few years back that has been the
subject of discussion. So I had downloaded the tow bar manual from
Chuck Chris' site and read it only 2 nights ago. My bar came with
the knuckles, but not those gadgets that allow you to connect it to
a bumper bar. My thanks to all concerned in those discussions and
Chuck.
So after connecting up the tow bar there remained the uncertainty of
whether the Greyhound would be a passive tow or one of those vehicles
that would try and do its own thing. Also, towing a 6 wheeled vehicle
behind a full tracked vehicle is mixing 2 very different steering
geometries, so I was worried they would fight each other.
So I stationed a mate in its drivers seat with an observer. As it
turned out, he said it went very
well. A sedate pace that I gradually increased to 18 mph saw us home
by about 6pm. By the time everything was packed away etc I finally
ended up at home and eating at 7.30pm, which was before dark, so that
was one good thing as I had no desire to be in command of that lot
after dark.
I have still to get into the engine bay with a mirror and light and
confirm that there is a welsh plug (freeze plug/frost plug) at the
back of the motor and that it has blown. The manuals are no help.
In which case the motor will have to come out as I am unaware of
any way of getting access to this area unless I can do so by removing
the fuel tank and the cross member. I do not know whether the cross
member is removable - anyone?
Some days it is better to stay in bed.
-- Regards Doug++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Armoured Vehicles Collector _______ _/_(_o_)_\_ ____ _/|___|_|___|\_ /____\ / [___] [___] \ Douglas Greville _/[o]___\_ /\_ [o] [o] _/\ Broken Hill __/=_|____|_=\__ |w||___________||w| N.S.W. /__\__________/__\ |w|\u u/|w| Australia |w| \ / |w| |w| \_________/ |w| |w|$ \______/ $|w| [w] [w] [w] [w] M8 Ferret dgrev@ruralnet.net.au
Web Armour site at:
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/lsm/dhmg/index.html (UK mirror site)
and
http://members.nbci.com/dgrev/index.html (US mirror site)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 04 2001 - 08:10:46 PDT