McGowans Island - PART TWO - Near disaster

Who would think a windy morning when you want to fish would actually be a blessing.  Thank goodness for mother nature.  Here we are standing around with our fishing buddy neighbours, looking at the white caps and commiserating that we would not be fishing that morning.  We were enjoying a cup of coffee, having a chat when Kev observed and then enquired if our fuel tank normally hung so low.

Standing 20 metres from the car it looked like the BT50 had a grader blade attached to its chassis, so yep something was definitely not right with the fuel tank.  Now this fuel tank had just been installed  prior to us leaving and was completely missing the vital nuts that bolt the fuel tank to the chassis.  This left one small bracket at the front of the tank supporting the weight.  This bracket was not designed to hold the weight on its own especially over corrugations resulting in it failing.  Imagine what could have happened if we hadn't discovered, that our fuel tank was about to fall out.

Snapped centre front bracket

First view - passenger side of car
Missing nuts from bolts -second bolt was found in chassis

So what happens in remote places with no facilities when this happens to you?  Well people just came out of the woodwork to help.  Mainly thanks to our terrific neighbours Graham & Val, Kev & Jackie and Spider and Michiala all thinking caps were on and all hands on deck to start fixing the problem.

The car was taken over to the only concrete pad next to all the wrecks that had been written off and driven up on a couple of stone blocks.



Days amongst the wrecks - The generator constantly being brought
over to keep the fridge cold

TASK 1 - First about 129 litres of diesel had to be drained out of the tank.  Now this was the first time since we purchased the car that I regretted we got such great fuel economy.  With 5 different peoples jerry cans we started emptying the car, Graham taking point under the car directing fuel with his 'hand funnel' into a bucket.  These buckets were then emptied into the jerry cans via Spider.  Task 1 competed.



All hands on deck

Draining Diesel

TASK 2 - Take out the tank.  No one had ever done that before and there was no instructions.  Donna goes to the house to ask to use the phone to call the installer for instructions.  Even though they were faxed to the house and emailed the internet was very patchy and neither came through.  A fellow camper (horizontal stripy shirt) had recently had a tank designed for his Mercedes 4wd with Brown Davis and had dealings with the owner so he offered to phone him direct, back up to the house we go.  The owner Cameron from Brown Davis was extremely helpful giving advice over the phone.  Task 2 completed.



TASK 3 - Weld the tank.  Another camper (boiler maker by trade) said he would weld the tank up for us but we would need to fill the tank with water.  Now this was a scary moment and I was apprehensive about filling the tank with water as I could only imagine the water damaging the engine.  Boiler maker welded the bracket onto the tank.  Task 3 completed.



Thanks McGowans for the equipment to weld the bracket on.

TASK 4 - Fish.  Now to put everything back into prospective the wind had lessoned and we were here to fish not fix cars.  As luck would have it Kev had the same tow hitch as our boat trailer so we went for an afternoon fish.  The diesel fumes did not seem to deter the fish for Graham and Kev and they had a blinder catching Saddletail perch.  Being good fishing buddies we took a hit for the team keeping the Sharks occupied while they pulled up many a quality red fish that we all got to enjoy for dinner.  Task 4 Complete.



Taking a hit for the team

Double Hook up



TASK 5 - Clean the fuel tank.  What can I say except flushing a diesel tank many, many, many and some more times with diesel to get the water out is no fun.  This took quite some time over two days so we fished in between.  Task 5 Completed.

TASK 6 - Reinstall the tank.  The hunt was on to find 2 nuts to fit the tank chassis mount bolts.  Just when you think something so small is going to pull you up, unbelievably Sue finds nuts that match.  Our problem now is how do we stop the nuts from coming off like the previous ones.  Simple - Silicone.

Reinstalling the tank

Brown Davis maintained contact with us during this time even though it was not a tank issue.  In fact I would highly recommend any Brown Davis fuel tank especially given the customer service we received and how they took pride in their product.  Cameron generously offered us another tank at cost and organised installation in Broome. The installer at Broome has reassured us that the nuts won't vibrate off his installation job.

There were plenty of after market long range tanks at Kalumburu, but ours was the only one to have fallen out.

The shiny side to this mishap was the people.  The comradeship and the ingenuity they showed in problem solving to get the tank out and back in without the right equipment.  The selflessness shown by all who were involved at McGowans during this little ordeal was inspirational as they could have all been fishing, it was their holiday too, thanks to all.




Fueling McGowans job complete