Well after 9 hours we finally made it home from a fantastic trip to Mount Gambier, South Australia, with a few other Vics and Sth Aussies. That's a 9 hour trip that we should have done in less than 6. Actually we are lucky to make it home at all.
They say that bad luck comes in three. So I guess we should be right for a while.
Let me premise this to say that up to recently we haven't had much trouble with the cobra
but this particular road trip has topped it off.
We started the trip late Friday morning. We had travelled a couple of hundred kilometres when we hit a pot hole going up a hill
Ouch...why does it always hit worse on my side.
Next thing we know a
load of smoke it billowing out from the bonnet scoop and into the cabin.
Jason jumps out of the car and rips open the bonnet. He quickly notices the anxillary wire from the battery has come away from the alternator. The plastic casing has disintegrated and burnt away on the numerous metal parts. The wire was also arching up on the metal. What a god send to be wearing driving gloves at the time...otherwise it would have made a mess on his hands. He ripped off the wire which broke in several pieces. The beautifully worked sheeting he had covering the battery also was bent back pretty quickly. It seemed like ages went by but it was probably a few seconds. How lucky we were that Jason built the car...knowing every bolt and wire in it....and to know that the wire in question was a "spare" so we were right to continue on our trip.
Mind you Jason did not take it any easier for the remaining few hours to Mount Gambier...to minimise the risk of hitting other pot holes hard...some people just don't learn do they.
Anyway we finally made our destination and had a fabulous two days with other cobra fanatics....until the trip home.
I remember Bernie saying to us before we left, "take it easy when you pass Hamilton as there are road works".
Fate is a funny thing isn't it....not.
Well we leave at 1:30pm (Vic time). We are about 15 kms past Hamilton and haven't seen any roadworks. In front of the car I see what I expect is another pothole and brace myself. I can't feel the cobra bottoming out, just a scraping sound. Next thing it seems like
oil is sprayed from the skies over the car, into the cabin and on ourselves. "Not the sump" was my first impression.
Again Jason quickly shuts the car down and we pull over to the side of the road from the second time. One look at Jason tells me we aren't going to get away with this one so fortunately. He looks under the cobra and yells some choice words which this forum wouldn't let me repeat. We get the rag and wipe down the car. It isn't
oil but transmission fluid. This reminds me of another trip (in another car fortunately) where we broke down 3 times with holes in the tranny line...but that is another story.
Anyway we ring the RACV (for non Aussies, they are a road side service group). What did we do before mobile phones? So we just wait the hour before they arrive.
In the meantime Jason walks back to the part of the road that put us in this predicament. This time is wasn't a dip in the road but a mound of bitumen (black top). I say a mound because it was about three inches high with a dip on the right hand side. The trail of tranny fluid was about 300metres long.
Well the RACV guy arrives with his tray truck just as a police car goes by. Remember to take note of that.
What an adventure getting the cobra on the tray. With extra planks of wood, a steel bar and about 15 minutes later we finally get the cobra on the tray. Off we head back to Hamilton. This is about 3:30pm in the afternoon by now. At least getting the cobra off the tray wasn't as bad as getting it on, for some reason. But alas it took about another half hour to get the damn thing up on the hoist...again with extra blocks of wood to lift to cobra up high enough to clear the side pipes. At this stage we didn't know where the problem lay.
This is where I pause to consult Jase....in his words..."the brass right-angled connector that joins the transmission line to the transmission was knocked up into the shifter mechanism...which caused it to snap". Okay you got that. Why are guys so matter of fact. Jason asked this guy how many years he has been in the business. 45 years. I feel in good hands. By this time it is getting close to 5pm on a Sunday in a country town. No one is open that is going to help us. We didn't know whether we could get another connector.
Our 3 year old daughter was being looked after by the grandparents. Since it was three days since I had seen her I didn't take comfort in having to spend the night.
Thank goodness for the perserverance of Don, the guru and my saviour, as he will be named. He suddenly has an idea and gets out his welder and bench grinder and goes about putting this connector back together. Hooray for the guru.
So 6pm comes around and we finally drive out of Hamilton. Rest assured we took particular note of the problem piece of bitumen into Hamilton, so when we came back out we knew what to avoid. At least Jason was driving at a reasonable speed now.
We finally go around the problem spot. Thanks for the warning Bernie.
Yes we are on our way.
We are literally 2 kms further down the road. Over the hill comes the same cop who went by us when we were broken down on the side of the road earlier. I look over at the speedo and Jase is only doing about 112 kph, in a 100 zone....hardly speeding when you take the parallex error into consideration...maybe only 108 kph.
Next thing you know his lights go on. "You have got to be joking", I thought. For the third time we pull over to the side of the road. "Any reason why you are speeding", this young cop just out of the Academy states. "Well, you saw us on the side of the road earlier", Jason goes. "Yeah, well sorry about that mate but I am just about to make your day worse", he goes. "Oh great, a cop with attitude!!!!", I thought. How novel. Seriously whenever we have been pulled over for speeding before I can't ever recall being booked...usually they are spellbound by the car. Unfortunately, not this one.
"Do you realise you were doing 119kph", he says. I can't believe it...it must be a joke. We know the car is 5kph out but in our favour. ie. if we were doing 124kph then yes we would be doing 119, but we knew that wasn't true because Jason was being so cautious not to hit another pot hole. By now Jason had enough of the bad luck so he just took the fine. Don't worry I will be sending in a letter of complaint to them.
Finally we get back on the road again and we make it home at 10:30pm that night. We go in to see our daughter fast asleep and no matter how many "Porsha it is mummy and daddy...she didn't wake up". Oh well, we roll into bed, the cobra tucked away in the garage, to contemplate our next trip.
So I take out the challenge....what cobra road trips from hell do you have to tell. Please share as I imagine there are worse stories out there.