When us oldies choose to travel extensively by ourselves in our BT in remote areas, you need to be prepared for the unexpected. So when we lost a dust cap on the BT somewhere between Tjukayirta Roadhouse and Warburton on The Great Central Road, you realise you’ve got a problem. Warburton is around 550km from Laverton and about 1000km from Alice Springs, this is remote!
Fortunately, we were prepared for as many surprises as we could think of, and carried a lot of spares, & the necessaries to repair most things. I had two spare sets of bearings & seals, and before we left home I had
Bushtracker send me two spare dust caps. No problems, Warburton has a mechanic who provides necessary repairs. Unfortunately he was on holidays, - - so I’m on my own!
I’ve never ever either re-greased or replaced wheel bearings in my life! my only experience is adjusting the bearing pre-load on the BT.
A quick call on the satellite phone to
Bushtracker gave me the basics, so after an hour or so new bearings, packed with the correct quantity of high-temperature grease were installed. Only the outer bearing was stuffed, and replacing the cone without a brass drift & without damaging the cone was a challenge. For those who like me have never done this before, it takes a bit of ‘banging-in’. I found the tube used for putting on the chains on the weight distribution bars suitably soft, and OK for a ‘bearing banger’.
Feeling rather proud of the achievement, I just needed to bang-on the dust cap & we would be on our way. As recommended, a smear of silicone around the edge, then Oh bleep ! I can’t get it in! After about an hour, I contacted Grahame, across the road from
Bushtracker for advice. Grahame advised that some dust caps were a bit tight & he had made up a special tool to insert them. He also suggested bending the edges in with pliers to match the taper on the hub. However after another hour & a lot of cursing I had a dust cap that was essentially stuffed!
At this stage, one of the yard men at Warburton Roadhouse came over and suggested that there was a dead caravan at the tip, & maybe there was another dust cap. As it turned out there was a dust cap, about half a millimeter smaller in diameter than the good dust cap I still had. This looked good, but it was still too big & wouldn’t go in either. I finished up by cutting five slots with a hacksaw, folding in with the pliers, packing the cuts with silicone, & successfully banging in! To make sure it wouldn’t come out, I used more silicone around the edge and then put several pieces of duct tape across it, which would be held in place by the wheel. While this is not a good idea of having tape under the wheel, I made sure the wheel nuts were as tight as I could get them, with a dirty big lever on the wheel brace which provides umpteen foot-pound-furlongs of torque.
Successfully back in civilisation at Alice Springs, I decided to check the preload of the other bearings.
Surprise!!! The original dust caps measure 59mm diameter, while the
Bushtracker supplied dust caps measure 63mm diameter. No wonder I couldn’t get them in!
Must talk to Steve about this! Maybe inches have got confused with mm?
This is all experience, learning experience, and part of the adventure. So far I have been able to resolve every problem we’ve had on this 18,5000km desert track journey so far, and feel good about it.
Still Learning.
Neil
