2007 Toyota Nationals

[wilbo666]

Wow,

What a trip home :S

Took for ages!

Home now tho, and new car looks sweet

Was good to meet a few new QLD faces!

Cheers
Wilbo

[thechuckster]

am wake ;-)

thanks to Wilbo for doing lots of tuning work on the way down - we improved from ~6Km/l to >8Km/l (i think one highway-only stage got to 10km/l) The roads from Toowoomba to Goondiwindi were very ordinary, the road surface got progressively worse and is no better than the Inglewood road except for there being fewer corners.

Big turnout of cars for the Saturday Show - my pics wil appear in Qld Toyota Car Cub mag. Would be great to see more cllassic cars next time - 90% (me included) were modified?

Cliff takes best pre-86 car, Simon is runner up and David (with his super-charged V6 camry) is one-point away from best sleeper (won by the super-charged 1UZ cressida).

Good fun drag racing opn the Sunday, even tho the 18RTE has no traction and did stupid single-spinners when i tried to launch... (1/8th mile times of 11.2 to 11.58 with speeds of ~110-120Kmh across the line). Much discussion on the way home about diffs and improvements...

The return trip (like any good plan) was a clusterfuck... off-boost accell and cruise was crap and featiured lots of surging so driving was taking a bit of concentration ... then one fuckup after another hit us.

~30 km from Armidale, highway was closed due to accident (head-on around 10 degree corner, 2 fatalities) - we arrive behind 60 or so cars stopped on highway. After hanging around for 15 mins we turn around to go south then east via Walcha to Armidale. This probably adds 1.5 hours to the drive.
- At Walcha we notice that the catch-can is 75% full and the dump pipe is now sitting against the idler arm bush (explains the extra noise and heavy-than-usual steering) so we stop for can emptying and buying small amount of world's 2nd-most expensive petrol. The engine is by now constantly shuddering & missing - i decide to ignore this in the hope that the problem will go away...
-On the Armidale bypass we all pull-up for a quick chat and the car refuses to re-start. Much angst and theorising by all . Fuel pump not working . Fixed broken solder joint (sensor-earth from ECU) with zip locks, copious swearing and Wilbo's assertiveness. As dark approaches i notice that with the shuddering & missing comes lights and tacho flickering and quick power offs and ons.
-25k outside of Glen Innes, Alternator light comes on - but the shuddering & missing is now gone! Woo Hoo!! Drive 25k on the battery at night - am impressed by the supacrap battery actually doing his well.
-Pull up in Glen Innes - further angst from everyone (as we're now about 5 hours behind schedule) but heaps of help and theories thrown into the melting pot... left-engine mount has collapsed B-terminal on alternator has been hitting and arcing onto the mount (hence the missing/shuddering electrics). Once the alternator 80Amp finally blew, the missing and light flickering went away!
-Engine mount bracket eventually massaged away from alternator and' we're able to continue driving. Another 2 hours wasted
-Brett & the Hilux boys decided to head back to Brisbane via Tenterfield & Stanthorpe and the rest of us leave shortly later towards Tenterfield and Casino.
-Many exiting moments driving thru the windy/hilly bits from Tenterfield down to Casino - we only passed 2 or 3 cars for the entire 120+ Kms. Most corners taken using the entire road. Road was obviously designed by someone who had done rallying - between ourselves it was suggested that we try it at higher speeds with pace-notes durng the daytime
-Uneventful drive by Wilbo from Casino to LIsmore then onto the Soarer (where i first navigate him to the wrong house as i've circled the wrong street for some reason).
-Andrew leads us towards Ballina then after a long break and much admiring of the Soarer we limp back to Brisbane in varying degrees of tiredness.

I get home with the eastern sky turning blue from sunrise and am in bed shortly afterwards (approx 5am) and wake up 8 hours later at 1pm.


Big thanks to the folks who helped me get home: Wilbo666, brett_celicacoupe, Andrew162, 1JZ~lux and AdamAW11 - please give these guys rep as they deserve it.

Hopefully we can all meetup on Sunday 29 at the TTCQ BBQ. I will do my best ot lean on Simon & Cliff to bring their cars as well.

cheers,
Charles.

[adamaw11]

That was one hell of an adventure

Meeting lots of good people, good times and good drinks.

I'm still chuckling to my self at all the highlights of the weekend.

Glad we all got home safely in the end.

[Robbos_Toyotas]

not such a good trip jhome for me - my fuel pump died 5k outside of warwick at 10pm, i was lucky my uncle was in brisbane and could tow me home in his landcruiser - 4am i arrived...im still recovering from no sleep!!!

[Andrew162]

very long trip home guys, and lots of frustrating antics had along the way, as aptly described by chuckster already. got home about 12.30am and scrounged as much sleep as I possibly could. sorry I wasn't as much of a help as I could have been to you guys with the dreaded RA40, but I think a few others were in the same boat, only offerings of tools helped relieve the situation somewhat. nevertheless, wilbo and chuck did a great job of getting the car home in one piece. I'm just glad I could have helped with the later stages of the trip home, and those twisties were quite a bit of fun.

sadly I have exhaust issues with mine right now, a baffle in a resonator has come loose, and I'm thinking an exhaust hanger came adrift over some of the tougher spots of road. going to examine it a bit closer after dinner, and take it back to the exhaust shop tomorrow morning for fixation.

good event guys, great to have met all of you and hope to do it again next year. cheers for the rep too wilbo and chuckster.

[NVD-086]

Sounds like you guys had a hoot! Next year i'm gunna come!

[adamaw11]

Sounds like you guys had a hoot! Next year i'm gunna come!

thats good to hear, try n round up a few more if you can! we're trying to bolster the QLD turnout. I'd especially like to see a bit more of a 4ag(z/t)e turnout

[1JZ~lux]

That was one hell of a long trip home. Parted company with Brett just outside of Beaudesert at 12:15 and droped my mate off at his place at 12:30 and I got home at 1am only to get up and got to work at 5. Thank god for V. The Nationals were great and it was really good to put faces to the names. Wilbo and Chuckster did really well to keep the RA40 moving forward on the trip home. Brett and I passed 2 cops on the last leg of the trip but thankfully no tickets (there was also a RBT). The Lux wasn't too happy on the last leg, the lack of a thermostat ment I had to tie a piece of cardboard over the front and the Vortex fuel had it backfiring and lagging. I'm now looking at getting a TRD thermostat. I also may have an engine mount problem as the pipe that sits next to my clutch master cylinder is now hitting the MC when I start the car. Easy things to fix though and I'll deffinately be back next year.
Charles, the TTCQ BBQ sounds great idea. Hopefully I'll make it.

[brett_celicacoupe]

yeh wasnt too bad of a run back once we got going again.

very glad there wasnt any issues with the police.

i was very suprised that your mate passed the RBT

everytime i seen him there was alcohol in his hand including first thing in the morning when i got out of bed

also thanks to chuckster and wilbo for the accomodation

[Andrew162]

oh yeah, in Tenterfield, you guys didn't have to pull in behind me to get breath-tested as well. the first thing the cop said to me was "ahh, a couple more volunteers??" when I'm guessing that, unless you'd been signalled to pull into the RBT station, the cop wouldn't need you to pull in as there's only one of him, and he can only deal with one at a time.


ok, I have some pics of the RA40 carnage! this was at the Armidale(?) bypass....




trying to locate source of fuel pump issues....


megasquirt does not always equal 'good times'.


18RTE holding strong for the trip ahead, glitches already up it's sleeve.


hmmmm.... and a deserved bird from Charles for taking that shot.

[thechuckster]

lol.... at least there's no butt cleavage shots from all those hard workers....

damage bill (excluding fuel) for the trip home:
$133 for BOTH engine mounts (drivers side separated as i lifted up engine, passenger-side completely mashed up from the abusive weekend)
$70 - centre tailshaft (flopping around much like the passenger-side mount
$?? lost tools - 14mm deep 3/8ths socket and my near-new 3/8ths rachet (probably on driveway of the Glen Innes Caltex)

... relatively minor so i'm not too worried sort of.

am not sure why i followed you in when the cop pulled you up for the RBT ... i think we'd got into the habit of doing whatever the lead driver did

Anyway, it distracted the dude and we got marked down as non-drinkers - plus up here, i always get pinged to blow into the machine

[JustCallMeOrlando]

Hehe, sounds like some of the fun we had on our road trip Good to hear you got home alright!

[brett_celicacoupe]

i also followed 1JZ~lux into the RBT in tenterfield.

"ahh another volunteer" he says

i didnt know he was actually pulling over for a RBT

[1JZ~lux]

My mate, although he had been drinking throughout the day, had only had 3 or 4 in the 12 hrs it took us to get there. Do all the cops use that new type of breathalyzer? What does it actually measure??

[Robbos_Toyotas]

We must organise a wednesday night for all of us to go to willowbank for a drag. Now ive got my hilux happish, i wouldnt mind seeing just how slow it is