Sometimes things don't always go like we expect... There had been an odd noise in the back end of the car a couple of times while we were at the Gem Fields, almost like a stone had got caught in the brakes. Dazz pulled the wheel off and couldn't see anything amiss, and we drove out to Glenalva to go specking and it didn't do it again, so we assumed it must have been a stone. Unfortunately that was not the end of it, and a few days later it did it again. The car was almost due for a service so we decided that we would get it booked in at Emerald after Nathan left and get them to check it out. We packed everything up and headed into town for two luxurious nights in a caravan park (with a washing machine!) and had the service. They couldn't see any problems, and Dazz didn't feel like he was finished with fossicking, so we decided we'd go back out to Sapphire for another two weeks.
About 40km out of town it started making the noise again. We pulled over and discussed our options and decided that we didn't want to do more damage to whatever it was, so called RACQ. The car went on the tray and he towed the van back to Emerald. There weren't any sites available in the park we had just left, so RACQ booked us into the other park, which was a bit dustier, and came with a great view of the workshop area!
Since it was a Saturday the workshop wasn't open, so we had the weekend to wander around town. On Monday Dazz walked up to the mechanics and they went for a drive and couldn't get the car to make the noise. They checked the oils and found some metal in the diff oil, which we thought was great because now we knew where the problem was, but they weren't convinced. They told us we just had to keep driving until it broke properly so they could hear the noise.
We weren't convinced, but didn't really have any other option, with no other mechanic in town having time to look at it. We spent a couple more days in town driving around trying to break it, but couldn't so had no alternative but to head home. We decided to drive towards Rockhampton and then head south through Banana as there were more regular small towns and better phone coverage than going south from Emerald to Roma, in case we had problems. We had a lunch stop in Duaringa and happily reported to a number of people that all was going well. Just a few kilometers after Duaringa the noise suddenly started again. We managed to find a place to pull over and Dazz unhooked the van to see if he could get a recording of the noise for the mechanic. Of course, the noise was gone again. So we hooked up and decided to see if we could get another 115km to Rocky, but after only a few more kilometers there was a faint noise again.
We decided it was too dangerous to keep going east with the trucks and the hills (in case we lost drive going up a hill) so we turned around and went back to Duaringa, where there's a free camping area. After another call to RACQ and a discussion with the local tow truck driver we decided to wait until first thing the next morning to get towed into Rocky. We also did some research and found a gear box and diff specialist, who was happy to have a look at it, but said it could be a couple of weeks before he would have time to fix it. He didn't think the picture of the metal in the oil looked normal, either, which gave us confidence that he would be more helpful than the place in Emerald.
We were treated to one last stunning western sunset in Duaringa.
Another day, another trip on a tow truck...
We chose a caravan park that was within a few kilometers of the mechanic and supermarkets, and were put up the back. We had a nice grassy outlook from under the awning and lovely gardens out the windows.
We're close to Kershaw Gardens, which we can walk through to get to one of the shopping centres.
Last Sunday we walked across the bridge and through the town to the Botanical Gardens.
We have a number of kauri pines on our block at home... the one near the shed might cause some problems in a hundred years time!
The highlight of the gardens was definitely the huge banyan fig trees.
There was also a small free zoo, and who can resist a meerkat!
The mechanic turned out to be great. He called us to come and look at the problem he found in the diff. A small screw in the e-locker cracked and caused the other pins to come loose. The screw was obviously getting thrown up into the cogs sometimes, but would then drop back out of the way and the noise would stop. There's currently a ten week wait on e-lockers, so he rebuilt it with just a limited slip diff, so now we need to be a bit more careful of getting caught in the soft stuff with no rear locker.
So we now have our car back after only a week, but because of our work schedules we've decided to stay put for another week. This will also give us time to give the car a few good drives to make sure everything is working as it should before we leave town.
