Tuesday 25 April 2017

Silver Sponsor - Special K from WA

Team Booger Mobile would like to welcome back their long time supporter, and first sponsor for 2017, Special K from WA!!

Kaye and her husband John are good friends of Team Booger Mobile, having followed the journey from pretty much the beginning.  They have even visited Team Booger Mobile HQ in person all the way from Western Australia!!

Welcome back Kaye - truly a special sponsor!!

Saturday 15 April 2017

Fuel gauge problem - part 2

Having found that the fuel gauge was getting power correctly, but still not reading correctly, Damian figured it was time to dig a little deeper...


Out with the instrument cluster again...


And back in...


Having found this didn't work, Damian removed the fuel tank for the second time in two days...


Out with the new sender...


And compare the float level with the old sender...  Clearly different.


After adjusting the float level slightly, reinstalling the sender and putting the fuel tank back in, Damian was hoping that the fuel gauge would now magically work...


Alas, it wasn't to be the case...


Damian threw his hands in the air like he just didn't care, and decided that there must be something else wrong with the gauges.  A google or two showed that a common problem was the voltage regulator packing it in.  Ordering one off eBay, Damian decided that putting the passenger side back together would be the next focus...

Needing a bit of sticky stuff to patch a small hole in the glove box, Damian found some Dial before you Dig stickers courtesy of the boys in 1100... these things turn up EVERYWHERE!!


Glove box reinstalled...


Heater box and under-dash air vent reinstalled...


The fuel gauge issue was starting to be really annoying...  It was bad enough that Booger Mobile only got around 250km to a tank full of fuel, but would be even worse if the fuel gauge wasn't working...

Damian was beginning to wonder if it wasn't time to let the poor old girl have a rest…

Friday 14 April 2017

Fuel gauge problem - part 1

So, after arriving home from esCarpade 2016, Damian noticed that Booger Mobile's fuel gauge wasn't playing nicely...  It wasn't reading correctly even when the tank was full...


A minor annoyance was the boot seal ungluing itself a little bit...  Probably should fix that too!!


Thinking that the issue might be the fuel sender, Damian headed under the car to have a look, discovering that it was actually leaking slightly... Time for a new fuel sender!!  Naturally, this meant emptying the fuel tank.

Of course, with the tank nearly full, it was going to take three jerry cans to siphon it out of the tank.


Damian noticed that his primer pump for the siphon had perished, so wrapped it in...  a latex glove!!


With the fuel removed, it was time to check out the sender...


Undoing the old sender means removing the fuel hose, sender wire and undoing the locking mechanism.


Boofhead stopped by the shed to check out what Damian was up to...


Damian removed the old sender, and checked out the inside of the tank... looked pretty good still!!


Clean as a whistle!!



then discovered that the new sender wasn't going to go in quite as easily due to catching ever so slightly on the locking mechanism...  The tank was going to have to come out!!


And out with the tank...


Careful not to tip any of the remaining fuel out the sender hole...


Now what?


Boot hole still looks as good as ever... bit dusty...


Damian clowning around...


Merlin photo-bombing while Aidan helps Damian get the remaining fuel out...


Must be empty enough to work on now...


Bit of gunk, but not too much... 


The new sender sitting not quite in place...  took a bit of gentle persuasion to get it in there!!


Refilling the tank - enough to check that the seal is good on the sender.


Aidan demonstrating safety first while under the fuel tank!!


After fuelling up, Damian checked the gauge...  still not working properly!!


Damian pulled the gauge cluster apart to check that wires hadn't come loose... one had - would this fix the gauge?


While having it in pieces, Damian took the opportunity to replace/reposition the coloured parts for the indicator, high beam, oil and generator lights.


Put the dashboard back together...


And the fuel tank was finished!!


Something wasn't working again, so out with the dash cluster...


After a few choice words, Damian found that the gauge still wasn't working properly, but all other lights etc were.  Back to the drawing board!!

Sunday 2 April 2017

Fuel problems surface again...

On 1 April, Damian had to attend the compulsory Camp Quality companion training day... He took Booger Mobile for a drive to give the newbies a good idea of the cars they could see if they came to esCarpade!!


The trip to training went beautifully well... the trip home was a disaster.  By the time Damian got half way home, in very heavy Saturday afternoon traffic, Booger Mobile was coughing, spluttering and stalling every time the engine went to idle.  Barely making it home (after some irate, impatient people showed their displeasure by leaning on their horns), Damian was a little annoyed and locked Booger Mobile in the shed.

The next morning, Damian thought he'd check things out.


Top off the carby, all seems fine.


Thinking that Booger Mobile might have had a bit of water in the fuel (or similar), Damian thought that biting the bullet and buying an expensive, water separating fuel filter might be the solution he's been looking for!!


With so much stuff under the bonnet, the only space Damian could find to mount such a large fuel filter was on the firewall...


Of course, to get to that, the entire underside of the dash on the passenger side needed to be removed...  Why wouldn't it?


There's the space to drill through...


Naturally, no installation would be complete without needing a custom bracket made - in this instance, to hold the fuel filter a little higher up the firewall in order to clear brake lines.


Angle grinding and taking a photo... Damian is multi-talented!!


Couple of mounting holes...


And a rubber spacer...  looking good!!


Paint the bracket...  Then of course, realise that there are two more holes required, drill them and repaint!!


Drill some holes in the firewall...


Attach the fuel hoses required...


And voila!!  Installation complete!!


After bleeding the fuel filter and going for a test drive, coughing, spluttering and stalling was sorted.  But would this be the end of the problems?