BigBlog

I haven't been able to get my Navman to work because when I plugged it into the cigarette lighter, there was no power, although the lighter itself would heat up. Anyway, I have just found a ONE CENT piece stuck in the bottom of the socket, and as the lighter is live even with the ignition key turned off, there has been a possibility of a short and fire in the car ever since I have owned it. How long is it since we stopped using one cent coins?

The last year has been kind of frustrating. (and expensive)

In September 2007, the diff became noisy and I decided to have it repaired. I hoped the problem was just a failed bearing. I removed the diff (you can do this relatively easily in a vehicle with an independent rear end) and took it to Melbourne for repairs. Unfortunately there had been damage within the diff, requiring the replacement of the 2 spider gears, the spider gear shaft and the 2 thrust washers. Obviously these are not available locally and they had to be imported from the Lamborghini Factory in Italy. When these arrived the diff was re-assembled with new bearings and seals throughout. This took just over 2 months from diff removal to re-fitting. The first test-drive resulted in a vibration  which was cured by re-aligning the entire drive train. The next test was good until a vibration at around 95 kmh occured. This was fixed by re-balancing the drive shaft.

While the diff was out, both half-shafts and the 4 CV joints were cleaned and checked. One CV was worn and had to be replaced - luckily I had a spare in my boxes of spares that came with the car.

I also replaced the 4 headlights as the old reflectors had lost some of the shine and the lights were quite dull. They are better now, but still need a bit more work when I get time.

I spent some time chasing a wiring fault with the interior cabin lights - there are 5 lights in the cabin, each light can be turned on at a switch at the light. There is a red warning light in each door so that when a door is opened, the 4 interior lights turn on, and the red light in that door illuminates so oncoming traffic can see the door is open. There is a switch on the dash which turns on the 4 interior lights, but not the red door lights, and there are 2 switches at each door which operate when the door is opened. Not a simple circuit. After repairing a broken light fixture, and re-running a couple of wires, I now have lights working in the cabin for the first time since I purchased the car.

In March of 2008 we decided to take the car to AutoItalia - a display of Italian cars and bikes held annually in Canberra. On the Friday drive to Canberra in convoy with a Lamborghini Urraco from Melbourne, the car started making bad noises from the rear which got worse as we continued into Canberra. I assumed the worst thinking the diff had failed!. The car got us to the Motel and that's where it stayed for the next day. Saturday night we had a great dinner and social time with a number of other Lambo Club members who had arrived in Canberra that afternoon. Sunday we drove to the display area and contacted the NRMA who came and checked out the car - a faulty wheel bearing being blamed for the noise and vibrations. We left the display that afternoon with the car on the back of a truck for the trip back home. I contacted my mechanic in Melbourne and then started hunting down a new wheel bearing - not easy to find. I obtained 2 new bearings from Germany and had both rear wheel bearings replaced, as well as some work on the rear suspension, a full fluid change, service and tune up. Had a great trip home from Melbourne - no bad noises, just the fantastic noise from that great V12!!!

While the wheel bearings were being done, one of the handbrake pads was noticed to be dragging on the disc and was worn down. This needed replacing urgently before any damage was done to the disc. BUT there are no new pads available in Australia. I took the worn pad out and had new friction material bonded to the backing plate - but there may be a problem with heat causing the bonding material to fail. I had a spare set of new pads sent in from the USA in case of any further problems - more spares.

Hopefully that is it for now. I hope to be able to enjoy driving the car again - it is definately more fun driving it than working on it.