Type 1 fuel leak notes

[helowrench]

I dodged a bullet the other day.
I had fuel smell in the cabin that showed up on very cold mornings.
Ice came, Ghia was parked, and a fuel puddle appeared under the transmission.
Rear tire went flat, and as I was inspecting the tire/puddle, I saw that the fuel was coming out of the drain hole in the tunnel.
Well, drip pan went under there until it got above freezing. I feared the worst, namely a bad steel line in the tunnel.

Lo and behold, once the tire was off, I could see that the rubber hose was bad, and the fuel was running down into the tunnel, past the grommet.
I work on enough aircooleds that I keep hose on hand, so replacement was fairly quick.

I got lucky, no fire, no harm.

Reminder, change your hoses

Rob

[aussiebug]

Nice one Rob.

Like all old cars, you have to listen to them, and look at them regularly to catch a small problem before it becomes a big one.

28c (82f) here in Aus at the moment...makes you want to migrate south for the winter doesn't it?

[Marc]

...makes you want to migrate south for the winter doesn't it?

I get over it quickly when I remember the things like Taipans, Bullet Ants, Funnel-Web Spiders, Blue-ringed Octopii, Salt-water Crocs, Irukandji & Box Jellies, etc., etc. that are part of the package. If I stay in Western Washington and don't go into the mountains (or certain neighborhoods downtown), there's hardly anything that wants to kill or seriously injure me. Must sound boring to an Aussie

[helowrench]

Nice one Rob.

Like all old cars, you have to listen to them, and look at them regularly to catch a small problem before it becomes a big one.

28c (82f) here in Aus at the moment...makes you want to migrate south for the winter doesn't it?

I would love to come down theere, been a dream of mine forever.

Maybe i can get my company to send me down to go to all of our field bases in AUS..........

[aussiebug]

You're military?

Come on over. Your dollar is worth about $ 1.10 over here, great scenery, best beaches, very safe, and we even speak English.

I enjoyed a recent visit to Dave in Washington state. First visit to the USA. Interesting topography near Dave - the scablands and ancient floods from glacial lake Missoula. Even had a drive of his bug. Doesn't feel right driving on your side of the road though

[aussiebug]

...makes you want to migrate south for the winter doesn't it?

I get over it quickly when I remember the things like Taipans, Bullet Ants, Funnel-Web Spiders, Blue-ringed Octopii, Salt-water Crocs, Irukandji & Box Jellies, etc., etc. that are part of the package. If I stay in Western Washington and don't go into the mountains (or certain neighborhoods downtown), there's hardly anything that wants to kill or seriously injure me. Must sound boring to an Aussie

Hi Marc

Welllll, I've lived all over Aus, never been bitten by a croc, blue ring octopus or box jelly fish, though I did get stung by a bee once!

One little counter to your words above... on arriving in Seattle to see Dave, he and his wife drove us over the mountains (great scenery) back to his home in the tri cities. Driving through one small town a bunch of cops cars went wailing past. A few minutes later we caught up with them crowded around a guy lying face down on the median strip. Dave's wife said ( totally unconcerned) " probably another drug shooting" and they kept on driving without another thought. My wife and I looked at each other and both thought " turn around and take us back to the airport" .

Almost no guns here in Aus. Much safer in that respect. Almost every US citizen I speak too just doesn't understand the depth of your gun culture. If no one has a gun then no one needs one to protect themselves! Your constitution might have made sense in the Wild West, but it REALLY needs amending to take out that " right to bear arms".

[Marc]

Eastern Washington is completely different from the "Wet Side" - topography and climate (including political) are more like northern Idaho/Montana. On the west side of the Cascade mountain range, from Canada to northern California, things are generally lumpier, greener, and damper. We're overcast 60% of the time and have measurable rain about 140 days a year, but average "only" about 37" annually, well below places like Dallas Texas which have torrential downpours now & then...and the Western Diamondback rattlesnakes don't like it here. http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natm ... ake_nm.jpg

I had my Beetle converted to RHD for a while and it's definitely odd driving from the wrong side for the traffic flow - not a problem most of the time (I was a mailman once so spent a lot of time driving from the right) but the visibility at some intersections can be real trouble. I'm sure it's much harder to adapt to the reversed traffic, even when the car matches the roads. Instinctive habits become all wrong (like which way to check for traffic first when entering an intersection).

The way I understand it, it hasn't worked out all that well down under since they confiscated all of your guns. The genie's out of the bottle here, there are far too many firearms in existence to think that it'd be even remotely possible to remove them all - the only ones taken will be from lawful owners, the criminals will still have theirs. If there was such a thing as a magic spell that would disable every gun in the country tomorrow I might understand the argument that we don't "need" them; but I still would not accept it - our founding fathers were insistent that private citizens should never be deprived of the means to resist governmental tyranny. Our Constitution does not give rights, it exists to restrict the powers of government - and the Second Amendment is there to emphasize that the GOD-GIVEN right to a means of self-defense is not something that government can take away.
This is not the proper forum to debate the issue, and I certainly don't think anyone's going to change their opinions on the subject because of an Internet discussion, so I'm not going to say more than thanks for your opinion about our Constitution.

http://www.examiner.com/article/dispell ... -wild-west
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012 ... -increase/
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/home-i ... 6311651859
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jakew ... read-this/
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreen ... c-problem/
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gun ... 24998.html

[helowrench]

was going to post following Marc's, but he is right in that this is not the place for that.

I love having one forum where I can hang out and not get dragged into Constitutional debates.

I used to hang out over at a Volvo site, and man is that place rough for anyone not leaning left.


Rob, the scenery here in the US varies so much, it is unbelievable. I have traveled through many of the states, and have seen wonder (of some kind) in all so far.
It is amazing how much it can change while in the same state in most cases.
I live in TX now, and we have from high desert (up near Amarillo) to true desert (El Paso), coniferous woodlands (NE texas), swampland (coastal SE TX) etc etc.
It is 900 miles to drive E to W through TX on Interstate 10.

I am in Dallas, and miss the woods of the SE states. what they call trees around here would be considered shrubbery in many states.

Rob

[aussiebug]

Thanks guys.

You're right, this is not a political forum and ill refrain from further comments about your constitution.

Re the scenery. Australia is a VERY old land mass and sits in the middle if a tectonic plate, so no volcanic activity, and very few earthquakes. The mountains have worn down a lot and are more rounded...highest peak is a little over 7000''. So we don't have any Mt Rainiers or Monument valleys, but the scenery here is endlessly fascinating none the less.

Saw a wildlife documentary in the USA the other day. Some super spectacular stuff. I had never seem pics of the sand desert at the end of the Colorado river before, for example.

We have very few big rivers through the centre of Aus, because we don't have big mountain ranges on both sides of the continent to trap the rainfall like you guys. But despite that we do have the third longest river system in the world, the Murray Darling system. Though in a really dry year, you can step over the Darling river in its northern reaches.

Rob, we all know that Texas is a big state, but you might be interested to know that we have a one cattle station in the Northern Territory which is bigger than the whole state of Texas. The cowboys have been taught to fly choppers to round up the cattle-I kid you not.

I used to drive an interstate car-carrier truck, it took just 2.5 days to drive south to north Coast to Coast (Adelaide Darwin) 2000 miles. Dodging kangaroos, emus, sheep, cattle and wombats all the way . On that route trucks can haul three trailers so are over 150' long, and in a few places in the Northern Territory, mining trucks haul 5 trailers. Try passing that lot in a 53 hp 1500 bug, you need a clear 2 mile stretch to do it! In dry years the grass is all gone and you get only red soil and saltbush. In wet years the whole country becomes a sea of green grass and fat kangaroos.

Kangaroos can not move their back legs independently, so when startled they always jump forwards in whatever direction they are facing, and THEN start to turn on the hop, so they are very good at leaping out if the bush straight in front of your car and often at head height - sometimes they'll come straight through the windscreen. Emus just try to outrun the vehicle and will run often run alongside for several hundred yards before the get tired. Both have the road sense of a house brick.

Very few large towns inland of the coast, and the small towns can be 2-3 hours driving apart.

Heard a sad story on the tv news this morning. A 70 year old Tiger Moth aircraft with two people on board went down off the coast of Queensland, the Gold Coast. I had a flight in that actual aircraft a year ago when visiting family up there. Sounds like it broke up in the air as they have not found the occupants yet, just wreckage. I'm a plane nut, and that was a beautiful aircraft and superbly maintained, so it's a bad event for me personally.

One thing I'd love to see in the USA is the Reno air races with the Mustangs and such flying fast at low level.

[helowrench]

Understood Aussiebug, I occasionally get dragged into a discussion on how to get helicopter parts from Sydney to Karratha, quickly!!!! All of our helicopters are SAR or oilfield stuff. Brazil. North Sea. Africa. Australis. Etc etc.
by the very nature of our work, the bases are in the middle of nowhere.

The sheer size of AUS coupled by the very low population densities, yields massive isolated areas.

[helowrench]

Holy crap batman.
aussiebug, I just caught what you said about the huge cattle station.
You must be showing that Texans are not the only ones telling tall tales, because the largest cattle station that I have ever heard of was Anna Creek, which is just short of 10,000 square miles. Dont get me wrong, as that is just a freaking great big, huge........tracts of land. (Obligatory Monty Python reference), but it still is quite a bit short of the 266,000 square miles of Texas.

Also, yep, we have a bunch of ranchers who have their own helicopters for hearding. Odd side note, if they only fly over their own land here, they do jot jeed pilots license, or any training. Makes me shudder to think about the maintenance practices.