Mereenie Loop and Oodnadatta Track

Hi Rach Again

I should have also said that if it is wet, then keep well away from the area.

Here are a couple of images showing what both tracks are like when dry.



Cheers



Stephen

Not another tough Outback tourer. That brings back memories of me and my little Cooper S on the two wheel tracks between Mt Isa and Boulia in mid summer in 1967. My map said the road was sealed.

Those little flying shoe boxes were not bad in those conditions.Mini /Austin 1800

Crossroads Alice

Yep. My heroes :)
We drove a 1963 850 from Adelaide to Darwin and back for our honeymoon in 1967. Start off the relationship in the manner it was to continue.....

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

Hi Rach

One piece of equipment that can save you a lot of frustration is a good quality Tubeless Puncture Repair Kit and a good compressor. They may not be cheap, but will last you a lifetime if you look after it, and ours is more than 15 years old and still like new, apart from a number of new boxes of strings.

Do not get roped into the cheap kits, they are not worth the money and I have seen them brake when being used. We have used ours dozens of times on both our vehicle and other people that we have come across with no means of repairing a puncture.

You will have a great time and all the best.



Cheers



Stephen

Anaconda currently have their tyre repair kit (Dune brand) for $29.99 for members, which is about a $20 saving on regular RRP.

The handles are metal, not plastic & to me they seem almost identical to the ARB & Bushmaster kits. Only the colour & branding seems different.

Is there any particular car stuff (aside from spare tyres) that we should bring on the road trip?
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At the time I did those Nullarbor trips I was in the RAAF. I was stationed at 1 Central Ammunition Depot in western Sydney and had to go to Pearce just north of Perth. To me it was just a trip from one base to another so I just threw all my gear into the car and took off. The fact that it was around 4000 ks and I was leaving Sydney on Friday afternoon and intended getting to Pearce on Monday afternoon was nothing to be concerned about.. I got there alright but I took it very easy on the dirt section.

One of the men told me the stones on the dirt section could puncture the fuel tank so I got some aerated plastic foam type of stuff that had been used as packing around missile parts and glued it all over the fuel tank. That was my only preparation for the car. I did not have a spare anything.

In recent years my wife and I have done a lot of solo touring on many of the major Outback roads and some of the not so good tracks built by Len Beadell. We have a single cab Hilux with a home made light weight camper on the back. The car is standard and always well under GVM. Once again we take bugger all with us.except for puncture repair equipment. We have enough Rema Tip Top products to internally repair just about any size hole in the tread, shoulder and sidewall.

It is the drivers that break cars in those conditions, not the roads or tracks.,

Rach
Don't waste your time with old tyres, as they are likely to puncture quickly and you will have wasted your money and be no closer to your destination.
Just start the trip with new or near new tyres including the spare (you will eventually use them). If you are a scrooge like me and your current tyres still have some life in them, hang onto them, they will only cost you the refitting fee.
I wouldn't take spare oil, if you are losing that much oil between fuel refils (you do check your oil every time you put fuel in?) then again it's not likely to get you far. I'd take some drinking water. About the only additional spare I would take are spare -new fan belts (again you will eventually use them).

A lot of dust will reduce your engine life, but that's months and months worth. Red dust is no different to any other coloured dust. like city grime. Your car has an air filter for that reason, think about having a new one installed before you go or check when the last one was installed. Get the mechanic to show you how to open the air filter box and if need be, you give it a partial clean by "banging it" to remove loose dust. When you get to a major town or service centre you can blow the dust out with an air compressor (from inside out). I really doubt you will need to clean your air filter out though.
If your car at 160 000km has never had new shock absorbers (struts), I would be considering getting new ones installed
As said above, drivers and their speed cause vast majority of problems.
Mark

I would go an all terrain tread but not an LT necessarily. There will be better handling and riding P rated tyres for your car which more importantly weigh a lot less and will strain your standard suspension less.

Also any words of wisdom on the red dust? Dad told me it would get in the engine and do bad things. But will the dust actually affect the engine much (lifespan, bits stop working)?
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It will if you take the air filter out and throw it away but I don't think you are likely to do that.

The only dust you are going to encounter (except for wind created dust) will come from passing cars. The traffic out there is not like Sydney during peak hour so you won't see very many. Dust coming from your wheels is not going to get into the air filter even if the intake is under the front fender like many utes.

All air filters let a certain amount of dust in because they all have tiny holes in them to let air pass through. The engine has been designed to cope with the minute particles that get through those holes. I have always used genuine air filters, not after market.

If you intend doing a lot of unsealed road driving then a pre cleaner can make a big difference. These are not practical on many cars but it is easy to put one on the top of a snorkel like you see on many utes. There is one big problem involved with that though.

I walked into Donaldson's Pre Cleaner . head office at Wyong NSW a few years ago and asked about their cleaners for my Hilux. They said none of their bowl style cleaners are suitable. The reason being the air has to change direction at 90 degrees to get up into them so the faster you go the less air the engine gets. They are designed for stationery engines or low speed things like tractors.

I made a scoop for the top of my snorkel with the pre cleaner on top. That solved that problem. It resembles the old postman or referee's whistle that had a revolving pea inside them. The air comes in and swirls around. The only way out is up through the angled vanes in the bottom of the pre cleaner and off into the car's air cleaner.

You would be amazed at how much dust it collects, even while driving around cities for extended periods.

Just one more point: if you want to spend an hour or two or three reading about punctures then have a look through this link
. punctures

You may find these DVDs useful. I have most of them and they are excellent. They do not contain any advertising DVDs