Bombala to Bredbo and Cooma
It’s 6:15am and we’re gathered in the carpark of the Imperial Hoel in Bombala. It’s 2 degrees outside as we warm up our cars and wait for the last person to come down. This will be our final day on the road and I think everyone is looking forward to going home. The trip has been immensely enjoyable, but we’re all starting to feel exhausted. As soon as we arrived in Bombala last night, I went straight to my room and crashed on the bed for an hour or so. I got up and joined the boys for some pizza afterwards and managed to get a good night’s sleep. I was finally feeling recharged. I hadn’t managed to get a good night sleep on this entire trip.
I bridge the pins for my fuel pump relay and the car fires straight up, but stutters a bit – this is to be expected. For those who don’t know how a K-Jet fuel injection system works, there is an electronic cold start fuel injector (the other 8 are mechanical) that fires only when cold starting the car. The purpose is to fire an extra shot of fuel into the intake since the fuel system is depressurised after sitting for several hours. Having a bridge on the fuel pump relay as well as the cold start injector effectively floods the engine and it takes a few seconds for this excess fuel to burn up, causing the stuttering.
Our first stop for the day is Cooma. We head off just as the sun is rising and travel through rolling hills of grazeland. This is a part of the snowy mountains and even in spring without the snow, the view of the undulating hills through our windscreens is spectacular.
We stop to refuel and have some breakfast at Maccas. We’ve been generally avoiding Maccas and other fast food stops on this trip, preferring instead to try the local bakeries for a pie / sandwich / lamington / custard tart. These little country towns generally have really good traditional Aussie bakeries.
Cooma to Crookwell to Lake Lyell
We’re so close now to home now, there’s no way I’m having this car towed home! My fuelling issues are starting to go from inconvenient to problematic. Where previously once started, the car would run perfectly, I’m now finding it stalling as I drive. It comes with no warning. I’m driving then find the engine has cut out. I’m starting to question whether there’s more to the problems I’m experiencing. Could there be an underlying electrical fault? A bad earth? The bridge I am using to jump the pins for the fuel pump relay is showing some signs of intense heat. The plastic insulation on the pin connectors to the fuse are showing burn marks and the casing on the 25A fuse is slightly melted. Fortunately the actual fuse hasn’t blown. A fuel pump should only be drawing 5-7A of current, so this is concerning.
We had lunch at the local bakery – Matts Bakery Cafe – and chat about our cars over a perfectly made pie and vanilla slice. Then back to our cars.
We continue on through the great dividing range driving up and down the steep undulations, until I radio the boys “my car has stalled!”. We pull over and have a look. Crank the engine a few times – Nothing! Remove the bridge and reinstall – Nothing! Try again – Life! OK, let’s go!. We drive on for another 5-10 minutes and repeat – “it’s OK, I managed to make a rolling start!” we continue on. To attempt a rolling start I switch the car to neutral, switch off the ignition and try fire it up again. Not exactly safe, as with the engine off I lose power assistance for the steering and brakes, but it works. This pattern continued on until we were well clear of Cooma. We must have stopped half a dozen times before the land levelled out and my problems finally stopped. At one point I was considering calling a tow truck as it was stopping so frequently there was no way I would be able to continue this for the whole trip home.
At the last breakdown stop, we received a message from Kanwal – his dad was rushed to hospital and he would be pushing on directly home! We were saddened to hear the news and to lose Kanwal for the rest of the trip, but we wished him well and left the group. He let us know later that his father is in a stable condition and should make a full recovery. Good news!
We pushed on towards Lake Lyell. This would be our final group stop for the day. From this point we would all make our own way home.
We enjoyed the view from Lake Lyell and took a few photos before saying our goodbyes.
John & I live nearby and would be heading off together, Will saw a 450SLC with a for sale sign back in Bathurst and will be heading back to check it out (we later found out, it was full of rust!), the others would be heading home via Bells Line.
Home!
It was good to have an escort in case I was having further car trouble. I decided at this point, it would probably be a good idea to drain my fuel tank when I get home, so that I could see if I have any debris in my fuel tank. Since I was around 100km from home it made sense not to refuel and try get home with as little fuel in the tank as safely possible. I had about 150km to travel with a little under a quarter of a tank, plus reserves. Will it get me home? I tried to avoid refuelling, but saw the level drop off to near empty as we entered the blue mountains. The reserve fuel in the tank could probably get me home, but I didn’t want to risk it – if it was debris that was causing this issue, it would only be worse on low fuel. I added 15 litres knowing this will get me more than 100km of highway driving. I get home without stalling again.
In total I travelled 3923Km over 6 days.
Next steps
Although I think, my fuel accumulator is the most likely cause of the issues I had been experiencing, I do want to be quite thorough when resolving it. this is the plan:
- Drain fuel tank
- Inspect fuel strainer and replace if necessary
- Replace fuel accumulator
- Replace fuel pump relay
The fuel pump and filter were both replaced less than 1 year ago, so I won’t be replacing these. I believe they are OK. I could hear the pump working whenever the relay pins were bridged so I’m quite confident this is not the issue. Over the last 12 months I’ve also replaced my ignition leads and coil, so I can’t see these being an issue either.
I will also be testing the fuel pressure to make sure there’s no other issues.