Saturday 31 August 2013

Scrutineering and Qld esCarpade Experience

Scrutineering day had finally arrived, and Angus arrived early ready to have his first drive in Booger Mobile - they headed to the BP at Morayfield (on the highway) to meet up with the others - they found the two new entrants (Team Alex and Team Ryan), well, their cars anyway, and settled in to wait for 808 and Afro to arrive. 

Upon arrival, Tony from 808 immediately got himself in the way of Damian's picture... nice one Tony!!


Afro and 808...


Angus was smiling and happy - Damian looked tired - seems his sinus problems from earlier in the week are still causing a bit of puffiness in the face... it's a good look though, and he can certainly carry it off!!  ;-)


The cars hit the road to head to Gympie...  Damian swung into the right hand lane to get a quick photo...


After fuelling up at the BP in Gympie (of course), the teams arrived at the scrutineering point.


Booger Mobile went up onto the hoist (after Damian politely waited for the new teams to have their turn, except for Team Ryan who he overlooked - sorry Andrew!!)


No problems at all with scrutineering - a completely clean sheet of paper!!  Gordon pointed out a couple of minor (non-scrutineering) things that Damian made note of to look into either for this year or next year...


Purple People Eater (808) seem to have found themselves some nice new stickers for this year... good one!! Nicely lined up, too!!


After saying good-bye to the Bundaberg teams, it was time for driver briefing for the esCarpade Experience drive...


And out onto the road they went...  Angus had his first taste of navigating, and after scratching his head at the tulips (little pictures showing what the intersection looks like at the instruction), he was all over it like a fat kid in custard!!


Woohoo!!  Dirt!!  Time to test out Booger Mobile's new LED lights... and they were spectacular!!


Following Shark Mobile 2 through the bush...


Past the Gympie Music Muster site at Amamoor, and past these rows of tents too (probably overflow from the muster site).


Then...  tragedy befell Booger Mobile!!  After descending into a floodway at around 30km/hr, there was almighty BANG!!  Damian looked at Angus and said "That didn't sound good..." and heard a clankety clank clank noise...

Pulling over to inspect the damage, Damian found that the strut top mount had pulled the  mounting bolt through the top of the strut tower...  Didn't look good, and the esCarpade Experience came to an abrupt halt for Team Booger Mobile...


Damian called up Ben and Gordon, who attended and did a running repair (or more accurately, a "let's stop this from getting any worse") to the strut top mount.  These particular mounts are a bit shorter than the original ones in Booger Mobile, and have been in since Monday (after Damian located an issue with the original top mounts).  At the time he wondered if they would leave enough travel...  wonder no longer - the answer is NO, THEY WILL TOP OUT!!


Damian and Angus headed back onto the bitumen very gently, then crawled slowly through Amamoor and into Kandanga... where they found Team Ryan with their bonnet up - just having a few tuning issues...  Ben and Gordon were onto that (how did they get in front???), and there's no photo, so here's a pretty picture of the train bridge at Kandanga!!


Up Obi Obi Road to Mapleton...  Heading up Obi Obi, Damian noticed a vehicle behind him, so he pulled over to let it pass, only to find it was his uncle who lives nearby...  After stopping for a chit-chat, they decided to drop over to his house for a quick coffee, before heading up the hill to the lunch point at the Mapleton Pub.


At the pub - glorious day for it!!


The Qld Crew who made it through the esCarpade Experience (one way or another) and found their way to the Mapleton Pub!!


Damian posing with Booger Mobile... looking a bit dusty!!


After a very gentle, and ultimately uneventful trip home, Booger Mobile was safely back in Damian's shed...  Angus decided to stay to check the damage...


Top mount off...  Turns out the damage was pretty much cosmetic - the bolts hadn't actually done any tearing or cracking of metal etc, but simply bent the little slotted bit of metal just enough to pop out of place...

Angus used a bit of gentle persuasion to put the metal back into position!!


Damian suggested that rather than just putting the bolts back in, using washers to spread the pressure would be a good option!!  Angus got in the spirit of things and photobombed this photo...


The top of the strut tower (with paint removed to check for cracks etc) - you can see the washers in place to spread the load!!


Repainted, and with the original strut top mount  refitted...


Damian thought this photo (blowing dust out of Booger Mobile's K&N air filter element) would be far more impressive... but it wasn't.


So, the upshot of it all is this...  The boys missed the fun part of the day due to the damage to Booger Mobile, HOWEVER, the damage turned out to be far, far less than was feared, and the fix far simpler than was dared to be hoped for!!  This is partly due to good luck (that only one bolt pulled through in the initial instance), and partly due to good management (that Damian heard the noise and immediately stopped to investigate if there was an issue).

Of course, there is still the original issue to deal with - the other strut top mount is missing it's little saddle to hold the strut rubber in place, so Damian will have to go in search of a replacement for that, but all's well that ends well in terms of damage!!  It could have been much worse - if all bolts had let go it would have caused damage to the bonnet!!

So Angus' first drive in Booger Mobile was an adventure, but he's very much looking forward to the Camp Quality esCarpade, which is now a mere SIX WEEKS AWAY!!

Stay tuned folks... there's plenty more to come in the near future!!

Friday 30 August 2013

Pre-scrutineering stuff...

One more sleep till scrutineering...  Damian whipped out the timing light and adjusted the timing on Booger Mobile...  Test drive was successful!!


He also replaced the concerning accelerator cable with a heavy duty v8 cable that is considerably longer, thus allowing a much nicer curve around to the carby!!


The donated UHF gave Damian grief on the last couple of esCarpades, so the poor old thing seemed to need a bit of a rest...  time to replace it...


With a nice, shiny new one!!


Voila!!  Installed!!  The wires hanging down at the back are some that will need to be tidied another time - there was room for another flasher switch on top of the previous UHF, but not this one, so the switch will be planted elsewhere!!


Artistic shot of the bonnet emblem...  for no apparent reason!!


Some of the esCarpade stuff that Damian has thrown in for scrutineering... This is the bare minimum gear required to pass scrutineering - regular blog readers will realise that the boot is chock to the gunnels come esCarpade time!!


In the morning, Angus will be arriving for his maiden trip in Booger Mobile as the boys meet up with the other Brisbane based entrants before heading up to Gympie for scrutineering and the Qld esCarpade Experience...

Blog post on Saturday night for sure!!

Monday 26 August 2013

Carby finished, Booger's head redesign continues...

With scrutineering only five days away, Damian thought that getting the new carby installation finished was a good option...


Installation finished - fuel leak gone... 


The old accelerator cable is still concerning Damian...


Bash plate reinstalled...


Looking the goods!!


Time to keep working on Booger's revised theme...  Back to the hand stitching...


Regular blog readers would remember Damian spending over 20 hours hand stitching Booger's head back in 2010...


Looking pretty good... if somewhat grubby!!


More stitching...


And time for a facial...


What's with the butt shots???


Looking clean, and wondering where his nose went!!


Still a bit to do before scrutineering on Saturday, so stay tuned!!

Saturday 24 August 2013

Wiring tidy-up and a new carby!!

One week out from scrutineering, Damian had arranged for his friend Ash (an auto-electrician) to come around to run some relays for Booger Mobile's headlights (to allow them to get full power - thus being bright enough to actually drive with at night)!!


Ash brought his friend Tim along (also an auto-electrician), who decided to do a bit of a tidy-up of Booger Mobile's wiring (while installing a fuse box under the bonnet).


Tim setting stuff on fire... alright, maybe he was soldering!!


Fuse box partially installed...


Ash's turn to set things on fire!!


Fuse box finished and wiring on the passenger side all neat and tidy - thanks Tim!!


Next cab off the rank - Damian decided to cut his losses on the old carby (which was actually new, reconditioned twice, dyno tuned once, rejetted and still bloody leaked fuel), and bought a reconditioned carby from a different company...

Looks pretty flash!!


Uh oh... in keeping with the tradition of nothing bolting straight in, Damian spotted a potential issue...  The height that this little ding dang sticks up...


See how low it is on the original carby?


Of course, because it stuck up higher, it clashed with the air cleaner...  Typical!!

Damian sought advice, then went with the idea of punching a hole in it...


There you go!!  But what to fill it with?  The bottom view looks neat!!


The top view is a bit ordinary, but it's hidden by the top cover for the air cleaner... winning!!


New carby test sitting in place... the bolts line up!!


All the brackets etc moved from the old carby to the new one, the fuel line installed, accelerator cable reinstalled...  And it started - second go!!  (In fairness, the first go was just to draw the fuel up to the carby, so didn't really count!!)


Voila!!  Just needs the air cleaner reinstalled and it's ready for a test drive... that will have to wait for another day!!


After working on Booger Mobile, it was time for Damian to munch down a Cheese Burger in memory of Julian, a young Camp Quality camper who passed away a couple of years ago, and would have turned 18 today...

Rest in Peace young Jedi... you will never be forgotten.


Scrutineering is less than a week away - things are getting serious now!!  Stay tuned for more blog posts!!