Engine failure

The AEC AH-760 engine blows up.

After camping at Heifer Creek for the night, we prepared to continue on to Texas, enjoying the countryside as we travelled.

Now the main diesel fuel tank has a sight glass or clear plastic tube to provide an accurate indication of the fuel levels, and this tube had oxidized badly and was difficult to read, so a decision was made to replace it at the next fuel stop while the diesel level was low to avoid spillage.

After carefully calculating that there was sufficient fuel to reach Warwick (Based on previous fuel consumptions), we warmed the engine and built up the air supply. Departing the camp grounds at Heifer creek we turned left and headed for the New England Highway.

We had to negotiate several one-lane bridges with oncoming semi-trailers before beginning to climb up out of the valley. About halfway up the hill the engine began to miss a little and I noticed she was puffing a bit of white smoke from the exhaust stack. A quick check of the instruments showed no problems, so I assumed that the fuel pickup pipe may have been too short and she was sucking a bit of air on the hills, as we had never driven her with the fuel level so low before.

I managed to pull to the left halfway up the range, and shut her down, then decanted half a jerry-can of diesel into the tank. She naturally started up fluffy as I had not bled the fuel system, but I was searching for a safer place to pull off the road. We limped to the top of the hill and pulled into the large parking bay there to finish refuelling.

While waiting for the last of the jerry-can to decant into the tank, I checked the oil level again and even topped it up a little, water etc was fine too as we had only checked everything 10klms earlier at the Heifer creek camp. At this stage, everything appeared normal, just a dose of air in the fuel system. I fired her up again, and because the hand primer pump is a challenge to access, decided to "crack" the injector lines instead to bleed the system.

She ran reasonably well with a slight "miss" in one cyclinder which should clear as we got going. I had just selected 5th gear, and was monitoring the exhaust stack in the mirror when I noticed what looked exactly like a piston ring fly out from the rear of the engine bay. Now that's a pretty unusual thing to see happen, so I flicked on the engine bay camera and saw bit flying everywhere before the camera blacked out.

Kind of figuring that this was not to be a good omen I searched for a suitable place to stop, with nothing but steep road shoulders for about a kilometer. At the same time I saw even more bits and pieces flying out the back in the mirror, so I flicked the rear reversing camera on and saw that the front of the A-framed White Suzuki was now entirely covered in oil. Realizing that this was now a terminal issue, I managed to squeeze the whole 12 metre long rig onto the road shoulder with inches to spare.

This was tow truck time, and after establishing there were no fires happening at the back, I simply whacked the lid off a stubby and started dialing on the phone. Hey, what else could you do, I wasn't going to be driving an inch further!

Now I thoroughly recommend Sowersby's Towing for any breakdowns, accidents, or just needing to shift a bus. Call Warren on (07)4632 5024 if you need towing anywhere and tell him we sent you. Their rates are good and the service is great.

After a brief stay in Toowoomba, many thousands of dollars later, we have a new engine fitted. CYA.

Watch this section as we are currently upgrading this entire site and will be including a new section on repowering our motorhome. This also includes replacing both the gearbox with an Allison auto, and replacing the engine with a turbocharged Volvo.