Page 64 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing mag

CAMPING
& outdoors
HTo the Cape or not to the Cape
and Fraser Island.
The van needed its bearings checked, so I pulled them apart and found a little water in them from the recent trip to Fraser, and be- cause they had rust on the bearing cones, I went to replace them with the spare Holden
I, it’s Craig Tomkinson here.
Outdoors
by CRAIG TOMKINSON
New axle – hubs with greased bearings in place and a full set of wheel nuts duct-taped so they don’t shake off on the rough roads of the Cape.
Replacing bearings on the 1983 Jayco. They had a Wiseco set up – Holden inner and Falcon outer bearings.
The author is hoping to see a few things up the Cape with his kids if the road is open. It’s been 29 years since he was last there.
Page 64 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, July 2020
What a wild few months we have all had. Me, being a school cleaner, was classed as an essential worker, so I worked all the way through, which was good but I didn’t go fishing as much as I
I rang a local auto sparky and asked what it would cost to rebuild the starter motor, he said around $200 but seeing it had done 750,000km, the gears and shafts would most likely be very worn – I ordered a new one and will check out the old one another day.
wanted – only once. For my holidays I was going either to Cape York which was shut or to Inskip Point, also
Both the starter and isolator switch turned up the next day, so I fitted them to the 80 Series.
bearings I had.
Well it turned out they
closed.
Then Inskip opened
weren’t Holden – I took them to Automate and found out they were Holden inner bearings with Falcon outer bear- ings – what used to be called Wiseco in the 1980s.
up and I thought I would go camping for 28 days but no, I wasn’t quick enough and missed out on a site.
Wow, the new starter just rolls the old 1HZ motor over much quick- er.
By the time they opened up more camp sites, our old 80 Series LandCruiser was play- ing up.
With that done I was going to head to In- skip Point but, because there were only two weeks before school holidays, I pulled the pin on that idea as I need at least three weeks to make carting all my camping gear there worthwhile.
I bought some NTN Japanese bearings.
It started fine at 4.24am for the trip to work but at the end of my shift the starter wound the motor over though it was really slow.
How lucky have I been?
Still it started, so on the way home I called into Slips Automate Spares in Cooroy and they did a load test on the both batteries.
I’ll wait until after the school holidays and go then.
That van has done 20-30,000kms on the black top and western dirt roads, and I was carrying the wrong spare bearings because I thought they were Holden bearings!
They were in great condition, so I took it home and checked all the battery connections, which were also fine.
A trap for young play- ers that.
When I bought the four-wheel-drive seven years ago, the old fel- low I bought it off just used a 3-way boat bat- tery isolator switch and I thought that might be on its way out, so I or- dered a new one.
With the travel re- strictions lifted, my wife Donna, our four kids and I thought we would head up the Queensland coast, but our old Jayco Pop Top van needed some ten- der loving care after our trips to Darwin
Luckily, I pull them apart before each trip to repack the bearings with fresh grease.
In the meantime, I had cut back to two days a week at work – I now work Mondays and Tuesdays, and am lov- ing it.
My advice is if you’re going to carry spares make sure they’re the right ones.
The family were dis- cussing just going up around Cairns and back, then word came through that Peninsula Development Rd might be opening up.
* continued P65 www.bnb shing.com.au