Range required to cross the nulla

[bagmaker]

(I cannot find a "tongue-in-cheek" smilie button)

[Hans]

Hi Bill, sorry to read of all your problems, trust you have it sorted out now. Do you know at what rpm's your jakes are set to activate? Mine were set to activate at 1000 rpm but as we are mainly doing the west and central they have been adjusted to activate at 1200 rpm. I normally don't drive with the jakes on. Only engage them in hilly terrain. I was told that driving with the jakes on there is a higher engine oil usage. Not sure how correct that is. I think I have also noticed what Terry described as the jakes dragging when the oil is thicker as in an oil change. Our 6V92TA mechanical idles at 600 rpm, and we have a 7 speed Eaton gearbox. Normally get 3klm/litre and cruise at 95 km/hr from the GPS as the speedo shows about 103 km/hr. Should be leaving Perth to head for the CMCA Rally on Tuesday. Been here for nearly 8 weeks. Maybe catch up at Bathurst next year. Not had any problems with the second supplier's studs. Regards, Hans

[Busman]

We are having a complete set of studs and nuts made, should be done next week, that was the major issue, funny thing was it all came in three's. e.g. 3 times the lack of power, then the trailer plug and 2 fuse incidents, then the original stud problem and another 2 of wrong supplied studs.
Was all little stuff apart from the studs, just a matter of working through them till none left.

Have talked to Cameron at CPF on Monday and he s quite sure it will be an intermittent fault in a microswitch. Don't know at what speed he has set them to activate.

I drive with them on and use no oil anyway so I doubt that is the case, on a 2 stroke they are not fantastically effective anyway, but I lurvvvv the sound !
Used them down the gap with no problems. Yeah I know, a Detroit Diesel with no oil consumption and no leaks, rare beast indeed but used none before the last oil change with nearly 10,000 K's on it.

Dunno about Bathurst Hans, will depend on what you think of the Albany rally, if you enjoy it we will give Bathurst a go.

The hot prospect turned up yesterday, Indian guy and his wife, here for an hour and made the decision to buy the joint !
I told them to go away and think about it and then come for another visit, not to jump in like that, but I think it just hardened their resolve, now they want to be in before summer which means we will have to tip a bit to the kids for the money they would have made for the remainder of their tenure.
They had a really good year last year so they are loath to leave, this guy will wait I am sure so we will just have to see how it plays out.
The 5 acre vacant block next door sold yesterday for $550,000 so that values this block at over a mill, plus the business.

Time to get out though, both state and federal govs are looking at taxing "unearned profits" from zoning changes which I think is stealing myself, if they restrained their spending they would not have to put their hands so deep in our pockets.
Country is screwed when you have to start taxing peoples private dwelling.
Rant over
William

[Busman]

Rant 2

Some caravan park owners do not know what a big rig is, rang one in Narrabri, yeah no problems, pulled up outside and he nearly had a heart attack, told me too big, show me the site, no problems, put VP in there, left him scratching his head !

When we needed to find one in Gilgandra, to change studs, one was advertising BIG VANS NO PROBLEM, so we pulled up outside and he came running out into the middle of the street, blocking off his precious driveway and yelling out "too big, too big". I pointed at his sign and he went and turned it face down, so we found another just down the road, sign was back up as we went past next day.Silly bugger !

Stayed at a rec ground at Yelarbon on the Cunningham Hwy on the way back, did not have a big rig suitable tag, found we had the whole oval that we could use.

You just cannot trust these guides, good for an indication only we have found.

Rant 2 over
William

[bagmaker]

Which guides do you use William?
Wikicamps?
Camps# book?
CMCA's new WIKI?

I have retreated to just the wikicamps app and yes, some of the comments people put on it need severe "filtering"
One on the side of Kidman way recently "lots of road noise"
Duh

"really busy at easter" and a week later "not much firewood around"
Duh

[pet-els]

Bathurst rally will [should] be much larger than Albany as its on the east area.
The rally will be sited behind the Pits at Mount Panorama [the police patrol the roads] no racing MH around the track.

PeterH

[Dot]

Maybe it could be the MH doesn't like a male yanking her gears!!! try a female at the pointy end and see the difference it makes.. Hope it comes together ok.

[Busman]

Have any of you ex truckies used water mist injection on your diesels ?
Seems to be a whole industry in the states.
Reason is, I have been aware of how much better the 6V92 T in VP runs when it is raining (cold moist air is more dense so more bang each time there is combustion). Coming back from Sydney last January it started raining near Grafton and the rest of the trip just flew by. Every long hill I came to, you would look at and calculate roughly where you would have to drop a gear, only to find VP accelorating up the hill in top.
I noticed the same thing, to a lesser extent when we dropped down Cunninghams Gap the other day. Up the top was the hot dry air you would expect, down the bottom was a few degrees cooler and there was a bit more humidity in the air as well.
You could feel the difference as soon as we hit the 100 zone at the bottom.
Other touted benefits are no soot and clean combustion chambers (no carbon buildup)
Interested in any real life experience with this.
William

[BruceS]

No experience with misting and I'd be careful doing it.
All the extra bits on big diesels achieves exactly the same effect.
Turbo to compress, after cooler to ... well cool the air. (CoolPower MacK?)
All the engines and all the miles/km's that they do, you'd have to think they would have tried every possible thing they could come up with to outdo the competition.
I'm quite sure if Detroit thought electric fans, electric retarders and boost misting (etc etc) would give better returns in the long run without causing catastrophic failures, they'd be using it world wide.

[T1 Terry]

Have any of you ex truckies used water mist injection on your diesels ?
Seems to be a whole industry in the states.
Reason is, I have been aware of how much better the 6V92 T in VP runs when it is raining (cold moist air is more dense so more bang each time there is combustion). Coming back from Sydney last January it started raining near Grafton and the rest of the trip just flew by. Every long hill I came to, you would look at and calculate roughly where you would have to drop a gear, only to find VP accelorating up the hill in top.
I noticed the same thing, to a lesser extent when we dropped down Cunninghams Gap the other day. Up the top was the hot dry air you would expect, down the bottom was a few degrees cooler and there was a bit more humidity in the air as well.
You could feel the difference as soon as we hit the 100 zone at the bottom.
Other touted benefits are no soot and clean combustion chambers (no carbon buildup)
Interested in any real life experience with this.
William

Are you refiring to water mist over the intercooler or direct water mist into the combustion chamber/air intake. Over the intercooler has been around for a long time, into the intake manifold requires precision placement and ultra fine misting nozzles. The issue is water droplets entering the combustion chambers, settling in the piston bowl and eroding the piston crown as they explode into clouds of sup heated steam. The increased torque is for real, super heated steam releasing energy on the downward stroke, cooler running as the combustion chamber temp is carried out into the exhaust manifold by the steam droplets, more responsive turbo spin up due to a denser exhaust gas stream yet cooler turbo temps.... the piston crown erosion is the issue.
There is a win/win solution, feed the water in as 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, the first combustion ignites these gasses to release energy and recombine as water droplets held as super heated steam within the combustion chamber, this superheat steam energy is released on the piston downward stroke, as the pressure reduces the steam is desperately try to revert back to water droplets and it can only do that if it releases heat energy and therefore increased heat energy is carried further through the power stroke. The catch to this has always been that more energy is required to split the water than recovered in the re-combining process.... but solar is free and you already have good batteries to store free solar
Been experimenting with this on and off longer than I have been experimenting with lithium batteries, and just like the batteries the experts told me it couldn't be done