Steering Knuckle Maintenance

The steering knuckles are possibly the most neglected moving part on an Oka. With a bit of regular greasing they are quite reliable and just sit there and rotate in response to the steering wheel while soaking up all the road shocks thrown at them.
But they are fairly critical items and there are potential wear points which need occasional attention:

• The nylon bushes around the upper king pin gradually wear, allowing the wheels to lean in (negative camber).

• The bearing race at the bottom of the knuckle supports all the weight of the Oka, and since they sit for long periods in substantially one direction, the rollers can pound grooves in the bearing cup.

• The grease seals in the top and bottom joints can wear and allow the ingress of water and dust.

• The "C" ends of the axle tube can deform slightly causing the wheels to show a negative camber (lean inwards at the top).

• The steering arm holes can be worn oval by loose tie rod ends

These problems can be solved quite effectively with a bit of maintenance at the same time as the wheel bearings are being inspected and repacked with grease. To start the process:

• Remove the wheel, brake calliper, free wheeling hub, spindle locking nuts and washers.

• Withdraw the hub and wheel bearings,

• Remove the spindle, brake calliper plate and dust protector.

• Remove the top king pin cap (nuts on the RHS or bolts on the LHS steering arm). Loosen nuts/bolts progressively, the caps have strong springs under them.

• Withdraw the axle shaft to inspect the UJ and inner splines.

The king pin exposed after removing the top cap, nylon bush and spring.

The top nylon bush with some thinning visible on the top right. This one is only a few years old and will be OK for a few more yet.

After removing steering tie rod, the top cap and lower bearing support, the knuckle can be pulled out at the bottom and fiddled over the king pin. Be careful not to damage its surface.

 A dirty “C” end of the axle after removal of the knuckle.

After removing the steering tie rod, the top cap and lower bearing support, the knuckle can be pulled out at the bottom and fiddled over the king pin. Be careful not to damage its surface.

The lower bearing and worn oil seal will probably drop out or can be pulled out after removing the knuckle. The bearing cup and dust cover can be carefully tapped out using a large screw driver around the edges of the dust cover.

When knocking out the bearing cup, ensure the driver doesn’t slip off the edge of the bearing or it can penetrate the thin dust cover (as in the lower picture). Knock any sharp edges flat and put a smear of gasket goo over the top of the cap after assembly. This will keep water off and prevent rust as well.

And after being cleaned up a bit and the bearing cup and dust cover removed. If the king pin is still smooth and not rusted or pitted, it can be reused (replacement is apparently only possible by those with super-hero strength anyway).

Check the inside of the top of the knuckle for wear from the nylon bush.

Some of the greasy knuckle components. The top cap on the LHS is part of the steering arm.

The bearing cup showing signs of wear grooves caused by the pounding of stationary rollers.

Steering knuckles removed (obviously) and being cleaned of kgs of greasy mud.

The bearings can be bought locally but the oil/grease seals are very difficult to source locally and may not be the same size, although they still fit.

The upper seals are difficult to find but are not too critical . The old ones can be reused if you trim off any tatty edges.

Hold the dust cover up with a magnet while installing the bearing cup from below.

The bore for the bearing was about 20thou out of round, probably stretched due to the 1/2 million km of stress. I chilled the cup in the freezer but it still needed a lot of heat to expand the arm sufficient to allow the cup to be tapped in from below, open side facing down.

Tapping the cup flush in the arm is OK with a block of hard wood and a hammer, but it needs to be recessed a further 5mm for the oil seal. You can use an old cup as a driver but be careful that it doesn’t get jammed in because it’s a bugga to get out. It probably doesn’t matter if the cup isn’t fully home as the weight of the Oka will push it in and the the top spring and nylon bush will take up any slack.

Fully grease the new bearing and insert it together with the oil seal up behind the bearing cup. The old cup can safely be used for that purpose.

The fully greased bearing and seal refitted into the lower arm.

With the knuckle reassembled, check that grease pressure doesn’t start popping the seal out when regreasing the bearing. If it moves, it can be levered back in with a couple of screwdrivers.

The knuckle reassembly complete. Loctite the top and bottom bolts, fit new spring washers and torque to 80 ft-lbs.

Because the wheels were leaning in (negative camber) due to slight bending of the “C” ends of the axle tubes, I fitted camber correcting wedges before reinstalling the spindles.

I also smeared gasket goo over the dust cover to prevent water lying there and causing rust.

The spindle and camber shim in place.

Before reinstalling the axle shaft check and degrease the UJ. These UJ’s take a lot of torque, more than the drive shafts UJ’s due to the 4.88:1 torque multiplication ratio of the differential. The must also transmit that torque while operating at acute steering angles. One of mine was dry and showed signs of wear so it was replaced.

Before installing the axle shaft I cleaned the end and wound a couple of turns of waterproof tape around the shaft in the area that the inner seal lip contacts the shaft. This is to try to reduce the inevitable oil leakage from the diff housing due to stretching of the seal. It might not work but it’s worth a try and certainly easier than replacing the inner seals.

Install the axle shaft by sliding it along a length of plastic strip to stop it picking up dirt and transferring it to the diff gears.

The brake calliper plate, disk protector and spindle back together with nuts Loctited and torqued up to 60ft lbs.

After repacking the bearings and fitting a new rear hub seal, the hub was reinstalled using my new Stage 8 spindle nuts. The first couple of tries were a bit fiddly but certainly less frustrating than the tabbed washers they replaced, and will make removal of the hub a lot easier in future.

A ring of grease was inserted around the bearing area to reduce the ingress of water.

There is provision for 2 bolts on the brake calliper keys in but only one hole in the calliper plate so I drilled and tapped anther hole to add some assurance that the key can’t vibrate loose.

Notes:

1) The thick strap across the calliper is a valuable addition to ensure the calliper can never fall off. It requires fixing holes to be drilled and tapped in the calliper frame.

2) The steel packing pieces around the ends of the brake pads reduce the movement (slop) of the pads when the callipers have worn somewhat.

3) Replace the spring clips under the lower tab of the rear pads to stop them rattling.

The hub all back together with a free-wheeling hub.

The final task was to reconnect the steering rods, which is a bit tricky since the tie rod hits the bottom of the spring before the bolt can clear the knuckle.

Turning the wheels fully inwards just enables sufficient clearance to be obtained. I also replaced the torn and tattered rubber boots while I was refitting the tie rod ends, and then greased all the joints.

One bolt hole in the LHS knuckle had been worn oval shaped due to a loose nut and to fix this the hole will be reamed out and a bush fitted to regain the original round tapered shape.

TBC when it’s all back together and tested...

Post Repair Notes (July 2015):

Yes, well all was OK for a couple of years but in July 2015 on a trip to Melbourne, we suffered a sudden and violent wheel wobble on the freeway which I could only control by stamping on the brakes. I put it down to something wrong in the king pin swivel area.

Analysing the problem:

We drove home slowly so as not to aggravate things and once in the comfort of my shed, I dismantled the steering system to investigate.  I found nothing specifically broken or damaged but the upper bores in the steering knuckles did have a pronounced lip and some ovality which would have reduced the pressure on the king pin and allowed some steering instability. (The bore diameter varied from 2.050 to 2.060 inch max, but the nylon bushes were in good condition, 2.040 inch diameter uncompressed). Also a couple of the tie rod ends were slightly worn and needed replacing. The latter (plus having an oval tie rod hole remade and increasing the toe-in a bit) tightened things up but still allowed the occasional random wheel wobble. Not stable enough for along trip.

Fixing the problem:

So I took the knuckles to a local machine shop and asked them to re-sleeve the bores and mill out to  2.040 inch (the Dana spec is 2.050 +/-10 thou).  A vertical slot was also needed for the nylon bush guide. That work removed the lip and allowed the nylon bush to be compressed more, to hold the king pin nice and tight in the knuckle. I also fitted a 3mm washer above the nylon bush to increase tension further since the springs were a bit weak and I couldn't get new ones in the time available. These fixes generated sufficient friction to prevent dangerous wheel wobble from reoccurring. 

For good measure I also replaced the steering damper with a stronger one (Powerdown SS2720, the normal Oka recommendation is SS2716).

Testing the repairs:

On our 10,000km trek across WA in 2015 we encountered no further wheel wobble, but I had adjusted the toe-in too far and had to back it off a couple of times to make the steering lighter and less prone to "digging in" while cornering. Tyre wear had also been more noticeable on the outside of the tyres.

The Oka manual says to adjust the toe-in to 1.0 to 1.6 mm measured "at the tyre's outer diameter", which I hadn't noticed before. The normal method is to use the wheel rim as the reference point for measurement since it's more stable and repeatable. Using the rim would have given me far too much toe-in (probably 5-6mm) if measured at the tyres outer diameter (wherever that is). 1 to 1.6mm toe-in on large diameter tyres is almost parallel.

So I'm now planning to properly adjust the toe-in, fit new king pin springs and try to induce wheel wobble again with the original steering damper to see what actually cured the problem.

New Oka Owners Group Website

The website for Oka owners (Oka4wd.com) suffered a major crash in October 2012 causing all the forum entries, video links and some photos to become inaccessible. Surprisingly, the hosting company provides no service or tools for customer site back ups. Subsequent pressure on the hosting company did managed to get the forum entries restored but nothing else.Nevertheless, confidence in the host company has been seriously damaged so we decided to build a new and more capable website based on a more robust platform (Joomla).This is still a work in progress but the forums are recovered and back in operation and many of the technical documents have been restored. The site can be visited here or click on the photo below.

We are currently working on a new social extension to the site with Facebook-like functions (although with a rather more serious aspect) which will include comprehensive member profiles, photo and video uploads, events management and group capabilities.

Note 1: This new website is for Oka owners and people with an interest in Okas. It is NOT the Oka Company website which can be found here (no longer accessible as of March 2013, presumably due the intending relocation of the company to Malaysia).

Note 2: In April 2013 the new site was the subject of a hacker attack on the php backend files. This took the website off the air for a few days while it was fixed and the security holes plugged.

Derusting the Oka

Rust holes can occur at several places on an Oka but mostly they are cosmetic and affect only the outer body skin and its support bars. Seldom will the main chassis rust badly.

I’ve found the best solution is to cut out the rusted metal, scape, brush or grind off as much surface rust as possible and coat with RANEX Rusbuster.

An old paint brush adapted to apply the Ranex

This converts the surface rust to an inert coating which can be directly painted. RANEX is also good for just painting on to rust spots or rusty bolt heads.

I then cover the holes with thin white aluminium sheeting either glued, screwed or pop-riveted on, and smeared sealant around the edges to keep water out.

Common rust areas are:

Front side rust hole (both sides). The cross member is badly rusted.

Rust hole where the windscreen meets the front scuttle.

Rust hole where near the air filter

Hole covered with a thin plate

The rust hole covered by a thin plate, the sealant has attracted dust from a subsequent trip

Clutch, from Michael Hession, Feb 2004

Clutch Problem - From Michael Hession, Feb 2004:
While we were away in Victoria, just after Christmas, we had to have our clutch replaced. The reason being, the Thrust Bearing failed and damaged the fingers of the clutch pressure plate. The bearing failed due to incorrect free-play adjustment. The clutch face was in good repair, but the pressure plate was unserviceable due to the damaged fingers. Two points that came out of this exercise were:

1. Clutch Type
2. Thrust Bearing Free-Play Adjustment.

1. Clutch Type
The standard clutch as fitted to all OKAs is a ceramic clutch and as OKA state in the owners manual, should not be slipped. If you do slip the clutch you will cause rapid wear to the clutch, pressure plate and flywheel. The ceramic clutch was fitted as early testing showed failure of an "organic" clutch. An organic clutch plate is what most people would recognise as a normal clutch plate.
It was recommended by Andrew Kee of Whitehorse Trucks (ex OKA dealers in Morwell, Victoria) that I replace my clutch with an organic type. He had supplied some ten of these to various OKA owners and had had no problems. The advantages being that the clutch can take some slip without undue wear or problems, and it is much softer on the drive-train giving a smoother take-up of the load.
The new NT OKA has an Organic Clutch. I have since learnt that Paul Nott is a good source. The clutch that was fitted to my vehicle is made by Daikin and if you go on their website you will find they have a listing for OKA (WA) and the part numbers start with OK.2. Thrust Bearing Free-Play Adjustment
Terry of Eastside Trucks, Morwell, carried out the repairs to my vehicle. He explained that it is a common problem, that he has found a lot of OKAs have the free play on their clutches incorrectly adjusted. Too often the thrust bearing is under load and therefore working (turning) continuously, leading to early failure of the thrust bearing, or at worst a slipping clutch.To ensure that it is adjusted correctly the following procedure needs to be followed:
        1.        Remove the inspection plate from the bottom of the bell housing (6 screws). Some vehicles will have a grease nipple for greasing the thrust bearing.
        2.        With the plate removed you will be able to see the side of the thrust bearing. With a long screw driver you should be able to freely rotate the bearing with the clutch disengaged.
        3.        If the bearing turns freely, all is good so far. Have someone operate the clutch pedal. As they slowly push the pedal down, you keep on turning the bearing until it stops. At this point the clutch pedal should have moved about 25mm; if so your free-play is adjusted correctly.
        4.        If the bearing does not turn freely, you either have a seized bearing or more likely not enough free play. You will need to adjust the free play by adjusting the adjustment bolt, which is on the opposite side of the bell housing to the clutch lever arm. N.B. Too much free-play will make it difficult to disengage the clutch.
        5.        You will need to test your setting to make sure you can still disengage the clutch.

2012 Outback Trek Blog Sections

During the 3 month period from June to September 2102 we did a long trip across several deserts and outback tracks across WA, NT and SA.

Our blog for this trip has been published in several sections:

Home to Great Central Road via Yulara
Great Central Road to 80 Mile Beach across the WA desert tracks, accompanied by Dave and Pauline
Port Hedland to Carnarvon down the Ningaloo coast
Carnarvon to Marble Bar across the inland of WA
Marble Bar to Derby via Broome
Derby across the Gibb River Road and Wyndham to Timber Creek
Timber Creek to Tennant Creek via Kununurra and Katherine
Tennant Creek to Alice Springs
Alice Springs to Home via the Old Andado and Oodnadatta Tracks

Our trip took us 14,000 km in 3 months across 3 states, 5 deserts and 10 outback tracks.

The tracks we covered were:

Great Central Road (from Yulara to Tjukyirla)
David Carnegie Road
Eagle Highway
Talawana Track
Canning Stock Route (centre section from Well 24 to Well 33)
Kidson Track
Gibb River Road
Parry Creek Road (Wyndham to Kununurra)
Old Andado Track
Oodnadatta Track

The deserts we crossed were:

Great Victoria Desert
Gibson Desert
Little and Great Sandy Deserts
Pedirka Desert
plus part of the Simpson Desert

Considering the pounding and difficulties on some of the tracks we've done, I continue to be impressed with the capabilities of our Oka. It's a 6 tonne monster but it's also our home and lifeline while in remote locations. It's not fast or nimble but there are not many places it hasn't successfully taken us to (and brought us back from).

We had no punctures (although 2 tyres have made their last trips), no major breakdowns (only a broken shock absorber mount) and only a few of the normal electrical problems. All the mechanical mods, upgrades and preparations worked fine.

So another very good trip, the best part being the Eagle Highway section (which has substantially disappeared from view now) while in the company of Dave and Pauline and several casks of wine.

Home to Great Central Road

5th June

Left home 12.30, lunched at Pt Wakefield and reached Mambray Creek rest area for the night after 250km today.

Called D and P for quick chat.

Compiled a TWF (Things We Forgot) list.

6th June

Went shopping in Pt Augusta for all the things on our TWF list and got most of them, and fuel.

While doing 90kph on the Stuart Highway north of Pt Aug we were overtaken by huge road train, and 75000 litres of volatile fuel moving at 110 kph is something you don't want to get in the way of.

A stone thrown up from another road train made a large chip in the windscreen beneath Vinko's a/c label. It will probably spread to become a $400 insurance claim.

Camped at the Bon Bon Campsite after a tiring 400km drive.

Defrosted fruit from an over zealous fridge on the lid of the pressure cooker filled with stew. J thinks there's a mandarin missing.

Is there a mandarin missing?

Called in D and P with a shopping list of things we will run out of and possibly can't get more of along the GCR, like fresh veggies.

Road train parked in our rest area ablaze with lights.

7th June

A very cold night, the GPS and Reversing Camera both declined to work initially. I had to prod the camera wiring with my bit of expanded aluminium that I had found by the roadside. (Luckily I had ignored all suggestions to throw it away). I also had to reboot the computer to get the GPS module to respond.

We called in at Coober Pedy for water, more last minute shopping of TWSF (Things We Still Forgot) list and fuel ($1.695). Sadly the cheap fuel place (Bulls) has closed down but the Mobil store half way though the town was much cheaper than the Caltex roadhouse.

North of Coober Pedy there are many flat topped mesa hills, part of an ancient land which is almost completely worn down except for very hard materials protruding from the surface, such as mesa hilltops and road signs.

J saw a burnt out double decker bus in a paddock, or it could have been a burnt out cattle truck, both of which performed the same basic function.

We stopped at Cadney Park for comfort break, but not fuel at $1.98

Later we came upon a police roadblock for an overturned road train trailer. Pallets of crushed cans littered the verge plus what appeared at first glance to be an upside down small car which we feared might have been involved in the accident. Fortunately I think it turned out to be a small car trailer probably fallen from the road train, since it only had 2 wheels. It looks like the 3rd trailer of the road train wandered off the bitumen and overturned, spilling it's load. Some truck driver will have some explaining to do.

The 3rd trailer (far left) is upside down

This was the load on the 3rd trailer

J claimed to have seen Sturt Desert Peas but this remains uncorroborated by a competent botanist. We bypassed Marla since we needed neither fuel nor sustenance and camped at the Chandler Rest Area. I couldn't make contact with D and P on the radio due to base operator Robert taking up all the available radio time We've done 431km today and 1081km total, in 2 1/2 days. Oka going pretty well, now cruises at 90kph quite happily (previously it was only happy at 80kph) but of course higher cruising speed equals higher power equals higher fuel consumption (7 down to 6 km/litre). The replaced injector pump seal and air filter housing presumably makes a difference. 8th June

Only 314 km today but a pretty good day's drive, passed into the NT but passed up fuel at Kulgera at $2.10 .

Called in at Erldunda for fuel ($1.97) and had lunch. They have emus to gawk at and Telstra coverage so we checked the internet and sent emails re dishwasher to MS and A.

We found our first flies today (or did they find us?), not too many and the sleepy winter variety, but a portent of things to come.

W drove down the Lassiter Highway to the Mt Connor Rest area for the night. A beautiful camp site amongst Desert Oaks.

We saw a "We Drive on the Left in Australia" sign, not outside an international airport or ferry terminal as you might expect, but on the Lassiter Highway in the middle of Australia! You'd think by the time motorists got this far they would have worked that out.

There were plenty of people at Erldunda, long queues at the pumps, but very few on the Uluru road, and almost no tourist busses whereas the area used to be infested with them. No more busloads of Japanese tourists. The Finke Desert Races are on this weekend which may account for some of the Stuart Highway traffic.

J doing washing, nice dry wind but cool and sunny. Everything dry by evening except woolly socks which always take days.

Tomorrow we'll move to Yulara to do shopping, refill gas bottle, top up fuel and water and head out Sunday morning for the Great Gravel Central Road (GCR) west.

9th June 

We stopped to look at Mt Connor, which is a very impressive mountain and we don't see why it hasn't been opened up for more tourism. It's totally different to Ayers Rock or the Olga's but in the same vicinity on the same road. In fact geographically the three are all aligned and about the same distance apart. It's on private land so the only access is via a few specialised tours (flights etc). Surprisingly there is a nice but unnamed salt lake just behind the sand dunes north of the Mt Connor lookout.

We found the dump point in the Yulara industrial area, near a bus maintenance facility.

Supermarket shopping at Yulara was pretty good and not as expensive as expected.

Topped up gas bottle (2kg for $9.90) and fuel ($2.13/l), both less than expected.

Walked up sand dune to see Uluru, saw lots of animal prints, surprising in centre of campground

Spoke with A on phone.

Radio reception was completely ratshit due to the electrical noise emanating from Yulara village so I just assumed D and P could hear me (which he could) and asked him to check Pauline's Facebook page where I had written some notes.

D and P called later and we arranged a radio schedule 12:00 WA time (1:30 CST) the next day, to discuss a possible delay/route alteration due to storms in SW WA.

10th June 

Left Yulara campsite and passed through the NP entrance without having to pay the $25 per person entry fee since we had a permit to travel west on the Great Gravel Road. Nevertheless, we did a circuit of The Rock anyway in gloomy overcast conditions, quite unlike the spectacular sunshine of yesterday.

We struck out for the Olga's in similar conditions but carried on west on the GCR. We reminisced about the "old" days when you could drive all around the domes of the Olgas and could even climb some, but not now, one road, one car park and only 2 defined walks you can take. That means that 90% of the Olga's treasures can no longer be experienced. An unintended consequence of the Mabo decision.

The GCR has mostly been regraded recently and was a pretty smooth drive for 150kms until we reached Docker River Aboriginal Community where it returned to its original corrugated sandy state.

But just after starting down the GCR, a large camel darted across the road in front of us. A couple of seconds later and we would have collided with him a-midriff. That would have been catastrophic for both him and us. A ton of camel has a lot of inertia and his body could have ended up in the cab and that would have been the end of our holiday, our Oka and possibly us as well, we have a bull bar but it's not a camel bar. We never thought any of that at the time of course, we just stopped quickly, took some pictures and carried on.

This is the very lucky camel that nearly ended our trip and dented his hump

On a good day the GCR would be a nice drive. It's a wide, 1000km lonely gravel road which extends from Alice Springs to Laverton, but most people would never have heard of it let along driven along it. It's relatively smooth (ie a fair bit of sandy/gravelly corrugations more suited to a 4WD but not caravans) and not a difficult or tortuous drive but it is very remote with only 3 or 4 roadhouses at 300km intervals with minimal facilities and absolutely, totally, nothing in between except a scenic desert environment. No Maca's or RAA services out here, you're completely on your own. And you need some (free) aboriginal permits to use it.

But the rain started soon after the camel incident, not a lot, just a gentle but annoying pitter patter on the windscreen, but it carried on like that all afternoon. (Post writing note: and all night). Fortunately the track is sandy so it hasn't turned into a quagmire, yet.

The Great Central Road with a few spots of rain, otherwise a nice wide open track.

At lunchtime we stopped at Lassiter's Cave, where, in January 1931 he sheltered for 25 days after his camels bolted taking all his possessions, food and water. He was searching for his mystical gold reef which he claimed to have first discovered 34 years earlier. He really should have noted its GPS coordinates.

Anyway, after 25 days cave life, with only 1.7 litres of water and the support of a local aboriginal family, he started walking the 140 km east to Mt Olga (in mid summer) hoping to find his relief party. He made it only 55 km before he died, taking the secrets of his gold reef with him. We are travelling in mid-winter and none of the creeks we've crossed have any water in them.

Did I inherently know all this historical stuff? Nope, I just copied it off the signboard.

While at Lassiter's Cave lunch spot we erected our big antenna and made contact with Dave and Pauline who were somewhere in WA, afflicted by the severe storms. Gravel roads on their planned route were likely to be affected by rain so they were seeking an alternative all-bitumen route to meet us on the GCR. We'll contact them again tomorrow to reassess the situation.

We had noticed water leaking from the top of the main water tank while driving but not when we were stopped. I presume one of the breathers on top of the tank has either broken or got knocked out when we filled up with high pressure water from the Coober Pedy water facility. I need to investigate and fit something else to keep out the dust while allowing air to breath in and out, like a washing up sponge held on with aluminium tape or tie-wraps.

In the meantime we have no need to rush, and since the day was gloomy and damp, and we could see none of the interesting terrain, we stopped for the night at the Docker River campground, Kaltukatjara.

It's potentially a nice spot, sandy camping areas set amongst weeping desert oaks and surrounded by red sand dunes, but sadly, like most things Aboriginal, it's suffered from neglect, vandalism and lack of management. The toilets are woeful with no doors and there's no water in the pipes. There is a full page notice in the entry hut apologising for the state of the campground and promising to rectify the deficiencies whenever they could but "it was hard work". There is supposed to be a camping charge but they can't even get that organised. Nothing has changed since we were last here in 2007.

Fortunately J liberated a late issue of Women's Weekly from the Yulara laundry so she has some very interesting articles and crosswords to do.

Contacted D and P, route still inconclusive, will contact again at midday tomorrow.

11th June 

Water leak turned out to be nothing more than water slopping about and coming out of the breather, both of which are present and correct.

The rain disappeared overnight and it was bright if not sunny as we headed west again towards the WA border and down to Giles Met Office (which runs on SA time). Nothing stirred there or at the Warakurna roadhouse.

We stopped at the junction of the Old Abandoned Gunbarrel Highway and called into D and P. They are coming up the GCR to meet us as their original route is too iffy, weather wise.

The GCR is now much better than our previous trips and is a 75-80kph gravel road if you keep an eye out for dips and sandy patches, and camels.

Camels on the Great Central Road

We stopped by Len Beadell's Sandy Blight Junction Road plaque, even though it's now 9km from the actual junction due to a road realignment to an aboriginal community.

Sadly I noticed an oil leak from the front diff so I'll have to keep topping it up. Frustrating because I replaced the seals 2 years ago (which is a week's work involving removing the differential assembly and all the hubs, bearings, brakes etc) and unblocked the breather pipe last year.

The Shire of the Longest Name

We passed through the Shire of the Longest Name but were saddened by the signs imploring us to keep unleaded fuel locked up or handed to authorities for safe keeping whilst in their area.

It got quite hot and sunny for a while, I even tried out the a/c, before clouds re-came-in and we finished the 300kms to Warburton. We refuelled at $2.43/l and are staying in their campground overnight, but apart from access to water, there are much better free desert campsites to be had.

Tomorrow we'll meet up with D and P at Tjukayirla Roadhouse (which I call Chuckalolly Roadhouse), 250kms further west.

Continue our trek here, across 2500km of desert tracks to 80 Mile Beach.