Day 40-41 - Car and Caravan Jobs in Melbourne

Wednesday and Thursday - Car and Caravan Jobs

This was originally part of the week's diary. Both these days were mainly taken up on the car and caravan. This was originally part of the week's diary, but it ended up so long and detailed I figured I'd split it out so those who are utterly disinterested in this type of thing can just skip the story rather than having to scroll through screens of dull mechanical and electrical nonsense! :)

Pajero - Steering and Suspension

This was the just after I picked the car up in December 2019 -
the tail is slightly low here even with no extra rear load,
although you'd not really notice it if it's not pointed out.

From when I first bought the Pajero I'd noticed some clunking from the front right corner when going over bumps, and intended to get it looked at somewhere along the way. I took it into Pedders Suspension in Moorabbin Wednesday about midday and they found several things needing doing, including a worn tie rod end which was causing the rattle.

They also found the rear springs had sagged, probably because the previous owner had used it for towing too. This probably accounts for why the rear of the car always sank so easily when the van was on, in fact even with just the drawers in the back the tail was still a bit low. You can see all this from these photos. It's very obvious bringing the car back, so we bought some weight distribution bars before we left, but even in the Mt Gambier photo it's still a bit high at the front.

So I booked the car in to get the work done the next day.

Bringing the rig back home in Dec 2019, here at Maccas in Moss Vale, NSW. Nose in the air, and not because it's snooty!

Much more obvious here. This was at Mt Gambier on Day 9 - again, a high front, low tail.

The front tyres were almost due for replacement too. I had considered getting these done out in a bushfire-affected community if we'd been able to raise some additional funds through the GoFundMe campaign to justify paying for this service out of town, but unfortunately this initiative wasn't a success so I booked them in to get them done in town at the same time. Pedders needed to do a wheel alignment anyway, so it seemed sensible to do the tyres at the same time as you normally have to pay for an alignment when tyres are done.

The rig after the new rear springs and a much lighter pressure on the weight distribution hitch. Ride height almost level now!

I also noticed they had tow hitches available there, so I spoke to the proprieter about ours - it rattles around a lot inside the 50mm tow hitch receiver on the car. I had been looking into getting some welding work done to stop it rattling so much but he said he'd take a look at it for us.

Caravan - Battery Replacement

Separate to all this, I'd been considering getting a fixed solar panel on the roof of the van to try to get a bit more range out of the batteries. You'd have picked up a bit of a theme so far of batteries running down and needing more sunlight. The van has 2x 12V 105Ah AGM batteries in parallel which seemed like a decent enough capacity. I'd had them on charge for several days now while at Aunty Pam's so they would be fully charged, yet when I turned off the power to do some work I was surprised how quickly the voltage dropped from the 13V it should have been at on standby with the charger disconnected, down to about 12.6V. AGM batteries are considered exhausted once they're at 11.8V, so this was a bigger drop than it should have been for no load. I considered whether perhaps one or both of the batteries was needing replacement.

It would have been around Tuesday when I checked the two batteries. One of them was quite cold but the other was fairly warm. This was after both of them having been on charge for the same amount of time. I didn't expect either of them to be warm once they'd fully charged. I checked them individually and found that as soon as the charger was turned off, the warm one started dropping voltage very quickly. After a few minutes it was down to about 12.7V while the other was still at 13V. The situation became clear - the warm battery had failed and was dissipating current internally, and in the process pulling the other battery down with it. This is why they were going flat so quickly, not throgh lack of input charge from a solar panel, alternator or any other source. I phone Doran, from whom I'd bought the van back in December, and he advised he'd fitted one himself about 12 months ago (the one staying cold) but the other was in it when he got it. Based on the dates I figured the old battery was at least a few years old, and from its condition, was evidently due for replacement.

So Thursday was a big, ugly, slow and expensive day! Aunty Pam followed me down to Pedders in the morning to drop off the car.

Caravan - Downlights

 While waiting for that to be done, I installed some Narva 87644 pendant LED downlights I'd bought from eBay in the van above the kitchen table. When the kids are asleep and I'm trying to do work in the evening I found I needed some lights. I put these in on Wednesday I reckon it was, and they work a treat.

As I write this on Saturday evening 14 March, I'm in the van at 9:40pm with the soft warm glow of one of these lights providing some gentle illumination just of the table area, away from the kids! :) These are very small physically but nicely adjustable and put out sufficient light, and are a good visual fit.

Caravan - Freezer Door

The fridge's freezer door wasn't closing properly so I took a look at that but only ended up managing to break part of the freezer door! :( We made some calls and found Everything Caravans in Clayton South had one for a good price.

So once the car was ready at 3:30pm it was a race against the clock to pick up the freezer door from Everything Caravans by 4:30, and the new 98Ah battery from 4WD Supacentre in Dandenong. It was supposed to be done by lunchtime so I was a bit annoyed to have so little time at the end. They'd got all the suspension done and sorted the towbar out for us, but the first problem I found was that the tyres hadn't been done! There'd been some mixup between Pedders and the tyre people, so I raced next door to get that done. This ran me late for Everything Caravans, but Helen promised they'd be there after 4:30. I got the door, left at 4:41pm with a 19 min drive to 4WD Supacentre which closed at 5pm, not allowing for the obvious fact that I'd never been there to know exactly where to find the entrance, front door etc! The new tyres certainly got a workout on that drive - move over Jehu! They were closed when I got there but reluctantly opened the door, reminding me they closed at 5pm.

So what was the verdict after all that?

Well the new batteries are MUCH better! I put them on charge overnight and after a light load test (1.5A for about an hour), they both settled at 12.94-12.95V. We've only had a couple of days with the new batteries so far, and since leaving Aunty Pam's we've been driving each day, but I've not seen them drop below 12.6V even when using the inverter. Time will tell, but we may not need to get a rooftop solar panel!

-- Greg