Ben Sale's white 1990 NA6

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 4:15 pm

Davidau, thanks! Pretty awesome photographer! Those photos aren't in the Dandenongs, they're from the Reefton Spur. You head out to Warnambool then on from there looping around through to Marysville as shown in the pic below. Mt Dandenong is the the bottom left of the picture.

davidau · Postby **davidau** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 4:23 pm

bensale wrote:Davidau, thanks! Pretty awesome photographer! Those photos aren't in the Dandenongs, they're from the Reefton Spur. You head out to Warnambool then on from there looping around through to Marysville as shown in the pic below. Mt Dandenong is the the bottom left of the picture.

man ....I want to tag along :cry:

can't wait to get back to Melbourne and drive my car this Sunday.

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 4:35 pm

I'll organise a run out there (either an informal forum one or through the club) later this year when it warms up a bit. I'm doing a more laid back dinner Club Run through the Dandenongs to Healsville on Thursday August 11th which you would be welcome to come on even if you're not a club member (though you might be by the end of the run =P ).

davidau · Postby **davidau** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:03 pm

bensale wrote:I'll organise a run out there (either an informal forum one or through the club) later this year when it warms up a bit. I'm doing a more laid back dinner Club Run through the Dandenongs to Healsville on Thursday August 11th which you would be welcome to come on even if you're not a club member (though you might be by the end of the run =P ).

YES YES!!!

-alex · Postby **-alex** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:12 pm

bensale wrote:

Photos came out nicely!
Was a great day, great roof down weather..!
And that hashbrown stack. . . YUM

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:13 pm

I almost forgot about the hash brown stack. . So awesome that I'm tempted to go back out to Warburton just to have one myself!

emexv · Postby **emexv** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:30 pm

davidau wrote:
bensale wrote:Davidau, thanks! Pretty awesome photographer! Those photos aren't in the Dandenongs, they're from the Reefton Spur. You head out to Warnambool then on from there looping around through to Marysville as shown in the pic below. Mt Dandenong is the the bottom left of the picture.

man ....I want to tag along can't wait to get back to Melbourne and drive my car this Sunday.

Warnambool :shock:

That's one long trip Ben. :lol:

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:38 pm

LMAO, *Warburton...

Though GOR and Reefton Spur in the same day would be pretty epic!

emexv · Postby **emexv** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:01 pm

bensale wrote:LMAO, *Warburton...

Though GOR and Reefton Spur in the same day would be pretty epic!

That it would be

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 6:47 pm

The car and I went up to Sydney last week and did 3,300km in seven days. :shock:

The trip up and down the Hume was uneventful, didn't quite get the fuel consumption down into the 6's like last time but still averaged around 7.3L per 100km.

While I was up I went along on a few forum things including the 'Epic Run' Alex organised for me! It was well, epic =) Great bunch of the people and great roads. We went from Richmond, up Bells line, to Jenolan Caves, Oberon, then Goulburn, Macquarie Pass and Royal National Park. Awesome fun!

(Photo credits for most of these go to Alex)

The car has a few small issues which I am planning to resolve.

- The handbrake does not release properly, the calliper sticks slightly so I am going to need to rebuild these (annoying as I wanted to do a motorkhana this weekend)

- I have a squeak coming from my rear swaybar bushes which have worn. I'm probably going to need to fit adjustable endlinks.

- My muffler has a rattle sometimes at idle. It sounds like it's dropped a baffle. I like the sound of the system a lot so I'm looking into cutting it open and repairing it.

- I still have the issue where my bumper bar gets covered in black soot. It looks like the car is running stupidly rich but the fuel economy is good. I'm waiting until I wear out my Dunlop track tyres and buy some proper semi's and go from clubman to modified class in Vic club motorsport, I am then going to replace the cat with a high flow one as a failing cat may potentially be the problem.

- My cars paint of a few panels is still dodgy after the damage from flood waters in Tasmania... Alex and I are planning on having a crack at repainting a few panels properly next time I take the car to Sydney. I'm also going to repaint my rollbar when I change the softtop and front lip soon.

- I need a new soft top... My NB one has fallen apart beyond repair so I'm on the lookout for a cheap but decent condition NA top. Also, if anyone is looking for an NB frame PM me

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:49 pm

Today in an attempt to fix my hand brake problems I replaced my rear callipers with some I sourced off Boyracer at a very good price (thanks mate). The handbrake part of these ones work perfectly, engaging and releasing as they should =)

The thing which has me confused at the moment is that I have quite a lot of pad drag noise. Everything is adjusted properly to spec, the wheels spin without too much resistance when you have them in the air and the handbrake releases as it should. But I still have a quite loud pad drag noise... Not too sure where to go with that one other than drive around for a bit and see if it goes away.

One thing to remember is too check the slider pins anytime you're pulling apart the rear brake callipers. One side in the set I got was a bit dry so I coated both sides in copper grease so it's nice and slidey.

At least it all looks pretty =) And when I was bleeding the brakes I was reminded of the brilliance of the speed bleeders, really make the process a lot easier..!

The other day I wired in an oil temperature gauge. The plan is to run this gauge for track days. I bought the gauge a while ago quite cheaply off redMX and recently got around to finding a sender which doubles as a sump plug. From what I've read this is also the best point to measure oil temperature.

To install it I ran a wire from the sump plug sender, up through the engine bay, through the wirewall grommet, under the dash and then up to the centre console. To get power and earth under the dash I split the wires running to a interior light.

The gauge works perfectly, and it is quite interesting to see how long it actually take the oil to come up to temperature. While it's a neat install I don't love the look of it there so it will be a track day only thing and the air vent will go back in at other times.

Dweezle · Postby **Dweezle** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:56 pm

Where did you get the sump plug sender??

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 7:17 pm

I got it from this website which actually specialises in VW and EVOs.

Not expensive and it fit perfectly. Took less than a week to arrive.

Dweezle · Postby **Dweezle** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 7:28 pm

Thanks mate.
Any chance of the sender smashing the ground do you think?

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 7:37 pm

I did think about that when fitting it and looking at a few of the cars underbody battle scars... As the sump plug is on the side of the sump so I don't think so. I guess you can never say never but it's not quite at the lowest point so I don't think it is likely.

The only way I could imagine it becoming an issue is if I go off into a gravel trap and get buried of if during an off road adventure it got caught on something.