There are actually a couple of maintainance questions in this, as well as some musings on old cars and more tales of my life in a 245.

I know what my problem is. My problem is that I have an unfinished project car which I also use as my daily driver.

This is in itself is not the problem, I live on campus in Armidale, so the car is only used on cold mornings when I can't be bothered walking to class, or when I'm running late. I've got a very good racing bicycle which i got for free out of the neighbour's trash and I haven't had to spend any money on yet. That'll do for transport when the brick needs work.

Part of my problem is that my parent's place in Sydney, where I stay during the breaks and work, is 500kms away, with a lot of mountains in the way. This means 8 times a year I get everything running smoothly, and then take it for a fairly tough mountain drive. Then I spend the next few weeks fixing whatever broke along the way. It's a good way to find a vehicle's weeknesses, the long steep descent down to Gloucester in June for instance (I took the shortcut) finished off my master cylinder. The 245's first attempt at the trip taught me to always ALWAYS recheck the torque on your head bolts.

This is hard on my old car, but I can deal with it. Usually I'm doing maintainance over the breaks, while I actually have a job. Hopefully I'll get all the bugs sorted over the Australian summer. But what happens when the car needs to be driven over tough roads at short notice?

This weekend I needed to see my girlfriend in a hurry ('nuff said, let's keep this forum for discussing engines, not our relationships) She's doing her final internship as an education student teaching a kindergarten class on the coast, about 340KM from college in a nice little holiday spot called Forster.

After dinner on Fri night I had a friend jump start my car (broken glove box ran my battery down with that little light - see earlier post) and drove out on the highway as far as the airport where I stopped for gas. I filled the tank up with Premium, but when I went to leave the servo, I didn't have enough battery to even run the headlights.

I wasn't too worried, it had only been 10 minutes since I jump started the car, and I'd been driving on high beam. I had a very pretty young woman jump start me out of the servo and set off on my way again.

I got as far as Walcha, about 65 kms away at about 7:00 PM. The service station was closed, although there were lots of young people walking the streets who could probably have used the work (but I won't rant about what's wrong with our country towns). I was unable to get gas, and discovered that my battery was still dead flat. I asked around for a start, and an old aboriginal man gathered together a band of pushers and got me going again in no time. He told me "you gotta have black faith, brother" and wished me luck in my journey.

Feeling blessed by the kindness of strangers, but a little perplexed over my non performing charging system, I continued on my way. Another hour and a half or so on the road and I stopped at a little truck stop I can't even remember the name of. I couldn't get premium, so I put enough regular in it to get me to the other end. I still had no battery to start the car, but the gas station was on a hill and I just rolled out of there. (Note to all students, don't EVER own an automatic as your first car, you will need to clutch start in the middle of nowhere sooner or later)

Back on the road again. I'd been noticing that my Headlights had been a bit jumpy, almost flickering, with the dashlights sometimes fading. I wasn't too worried, I understood that the 55AMP alternator might not quite be up to the task of charging a completely flat battery (brand new exide and I couldn't even float the Hygrometer, it was pretty flat) while driving on High beams. The flickering headlights eventually went away and I could see fine.

I must have run the tank down a long way, because none of the towns I drove through for the rest of the journey had gas stations open. I effectively only have a 35 litre tank, due to a dodgey in tank feed. I didn't even use my spare can, and made it to Forster by 10:30. I was deservedly sent to sleep on the sofa in my girlfriends apartment, but we got a lot of issues sorted over the weekend.

I had class at 11AM on monday morning, and should have left Forster on Sunday night, but I was just too tired to face the Highway again. I got up at 4:30 on monday. I packed up my stuff and was on the road at 5:45.

Once I got on the road, it became clear that my charging system situation was no better in daylight. I had to be jump started out of the first service station, and then when I stopped again, i needed to clutch it out. The battery is on my desk now, and I noticed that even the trickle charger had a hard time getting juice into it (may not be related).

I don't know whether that's anything to worry about. What is more worrying is some issue with the K-Jet fuel system. On the road back, as the tank ran down it started running very lean, not in terms of metering I think, it was fine at light throttle, but if I tried to put my foot down it would just splutter on too lean a mixture. I did first notice it when driving uphill, which led me to believe that it might be, at least in part, fuel pump related.

I didn't feel the familiar bucking sensation of a bad intank fuel pump or feed hose, it felt more like driving on a freezing cold morning with a gummed up CPR only much worse. Just plain not enough fuel available under load. By the time I got to the next service station it had reduced me to driving uphill at a top speed of 25mph, even slower up some grades. I had to be very careful with the throttle (just the right amount of pressure or it would lean out and die) and just keeping the brick's momentum going, with no un-nessesary gear changes.

I filled it up again at the same servo where I'd clutch started it on Friday night, and once again could only get regular. Rolled it out, popped the clutch and was going well again, so it seemed. This well being lasted all of 20 minutes. Once again, no bucking, just not enough fuel available. I drove the last 100 miles at an average speed of 25-30 mph. This is really frustrating when you have an appointment to keep (I missed it). Once I got back in the national Highway, I was driving with my hazard lights on, so the trucks knew to just pass me. Somehow I coaxed the car over the great dividing range (it climbs to 3500 feet up, and I started on the coast)

This is the problem with needing reliability from an unfinished resto. We got it through roadworthy testing in a hurry, on the basis of "wait till it breaks, then fix it", since the already broken stuff was giving us enough trouble. The fuel system has been basically untouched since before the accident (1996), apart from rebuilding the fuel distributor. It really needs a complete KJet Overhaul, but in the meantime where do I start? (apart from obvious things like finally replacing the ancient fuel filter, very naughty of me to neglect that) I never even flushed the tank. Have I just blocked something up, or is this more serious?

Should I even be asking the car to do this kind of stuff at all? I'd like to hear people's wisdom on this. Currently I could be driving 400 miles or so every other weekend, all of it over mountains. I'm wondering whether it's practical for a student to subject an old car to hard miles when he's short on cash for parts. Anything less than a Volvo would have simply given up.

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Drive it like you hate it