Had an interesting day looking at small historic towns enroute to Queenstown. Rosebery was the first but I spent the time getting back onto the internet after a couple of days out of range. Then on to Zeehan a thriving mining town surrounded by forested mountains in Tasmania's west. Very old buildings on either side of the main road with historical connections. On to Queenstown similar to Zeehan with historical connections but the area has been ravaged by mining in the past.
We looked up Queenstown in Camps6 and found #174 The Gravel Oval and are camped there. Lucky for us there was a day picnic for the kids hosted by one of the local employers with many entertainment rides available, good to see them enjoying themselves. The local Lions club provided hamburgers, sausages and soft drinks at very reasonable prices so that saved cooking and washing up.
The only dark spot was how the van coped with the hills, it made it up very slowly and down with using the gears to avoid brakes overheating. But by the time we reached Queenstown it wouldn't turn off, pre igniting. If that happens tomorrow I will have to spend time going over the electricals again. Hopefully there may not be too many hills on the way to Strahan but as usual if anything goes wrong it seems to be at the weekend when spare parts are unavailable. John
Hi John If you loosen the bolt that stops the dristrubter from rotating, just enough so that it moves. Now start your engine and whilst idling turn the dissy one way and thn the other, you will hear the engine reevs change, turn it the way that makes the revs increase and engine seem to run freer, at that point the spark is too advanced, now turn it back the other way a little, you will hear the engine load up/revs decrease every so slight. That will be the correct timing, now tighten it back up. If when you accelerate and load up your engine and it PINGS, you will pick the sound it is also to advanced. Most mechanis my age never bothered putting timing lights on to check timing. cheers blaze
G'Day Blaze and OG, I am no mechanic like you blokes (anything but) however John mentioned pre ignition and the engine keeps running after being switched off.
I seem to remember somewhere in the deep distant past this happening to me and it turned out the engine had coked up at the head (like hot coals burning) which was igniting the fuel and keeping the engine running. Can you comment on that and if the engine head needs to be de-coked?
Please forgive my poor explanation, it was a long time ago.
Thanks for the comments guys, the head was overhauled recently and then taken off to renew the gasket so that would not be the problem.
I will follow Blaze suggestion to check the timing. But for now it has travelled on a couple of occasions since without incident so I will leave sleeping engines lie.
Must admit I do remember you had the engine head overhauled and thought it was a bit too soon afterwards to be "coking up" unless wrong ignition settings or something else was causing it to coke up again. Again, my mechanical experience is start, hold the steering wheel, point and go!
Looking at it from a dodo's point of view, I couldn't see how it could be pre igniting from the spark source when the spark control (ignition) had been turned off other than being caused by hot coking being the source. Good luck with the rest of your trip! Although a few dramas and repairs etc, overall I think your hippie van has served you well when you read your blog and the areas in Oz you have visited during your travels.
