Woke up yesterday with the need to take the Zed for a run. You know how it is.. So we decided to drive south from Toowoomba, through Warwick, and have lunch at the Customs House restaurant at Wallangarra on the Qld-NSW border. Yep, a couple of hours drive should be enough...any further south and you start to feel the need to drink cat piss, barrack for loosers in blue, take a liking to hillbilly music. :LOL::LOL: So there we were, cruising along, enjoying the thrum of the exhaust on the backroad between Allora and Warwick - some nice straight stretches and a few tight S's for good measure. About 20 minutes outside of Warwick, I had 5 bikers suddenly appear in my mirrors, and on the next straight, the first 4 blew by me. Just as the 4th guy got in front and I could see that the 5th was about to make his run, the guy in front of me swerved suddenly to miss a bloody 3 foot length of 4x4 that was lying across the road just to the left of the centre line on our side of the road. With a guide post right there as well, there wasn't much room for me so I swerved left and there was just enough room to get through between the guide post and the length of timber. Luv that hicas! The 5th biker behind me had to react damn quick too, because he didn't see any of this coming. All survived, though, without a scratch. Ten minutes down the road, cruising along serenely, when all hell breakes loose in the engine bay! There's an almighty squeal from a belt, loss of power from the engine, and the dash lights up like a Xmas tree, with Check Engine light, Cat light, Ignition light, and about 3 others that I can't remember now. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road, and the engine died. Temp is good, oil pressure is good. What the...!! A check under the bonnet didn't reveal anything amiss. Water is odd. When I tried to start the engine, it would fire and run, but would die within a few seconds. The squeal of a belt and smell of burning rubber provided a clue to the problem. Turned out that the air con compressor had siezed in flight, and locked up solid. This put enormous drag on the engine but at highway speed it could handle it. However, when I pulled over, the drag from the belt caused the engine to stall. Solution ? - Turned off the air con, and the clutch on the compressor disengaged so I could motor back to Toowoomba as normal, but minus air con. I guess I can live with that for a while. On these winter days, the heat through the firewall and transmission tunnel do a very good job of warming the cabin. Repair ? - Would it be better to recondition the existing compressor or get a new one? Search reveals that costs could be steep for a new one. Cheers Pete
Either recon the existing one (don't know how much?) or get a 2nd hand one from Cresta. John will do you a deal thru me. I am going there this week (can pick up for you and you get it on tech day or I could freight it up there COD) Let me know ...
