After many months of frantic preparation we finally had the car packed and ready about 1.00am on the morning of the starting day - August 14. Little things like the driving light bracket snapping before we were out the gate seemed very trivial – even the elusive ‘burgundy bag’ that had all Bill’s charges, manuals and medicines were left behind.
The starting line was at the Moonee Valley racecourse, where we were sent off by Shane Warne and other members of the Australian Cricket team.
Every one in full costume and high spirits – we didn’t have a clue!!
  
The morning course sent us to Winton raceway for lunch via the Ford Performance centre off the Hume Hwy. Winton raceway was the start of a niggling electrical problem, and we had the indignity of being jump started by car 269, the Wombats in a 1962 Wolseley.
Afternoon saw the police closing the main street of Glenrowan and directing us into the pub – that must be a first.
A short day all on bitumen and we got to Corowa with plenty of time to spare and went down to see Leslie at the Corowa Golf Club for our first batch of used vegetable oil. We spent the next few hours filtering in the hotel bathroom and hung the battery up for a re-charge.
This was a long day and our first taste of real ‘bashing’ on dirt roads. No real dramas in the morning (except for a few jump starts) to lunch at Lake Wyangan near Griffith, but had a slight mishap that afternoon when we changed the ‘cav’ filter and broke the glass bowl. No worries – put a spare in-line 5 micron filter and had the ‘mercedes’ filter to back this up.
Afternoon wore on and as it became dark we realised the alternator was not charging properly and we had virtually no headlights. Drove about 200km under moonlight – those grid gates loomed out of the darkness awfully fast. Finally latched onto car 93 ‘Effie’ and followed their dust trail into Nyngan, arriving about 9.00pm. A few problems for other cars – the ‘Wombats’ blew a head gasket on the Wolseley and car 1717 (the ‘Police’) hit a deer (yes – not a kangaroo) after nearly being locked up for impersonating Police officers the day before. Car 420, a 1974 Mercedes 450 SEL also had a head gasket problem and after getting repairs drove through the night to catch up – unfortunately hit 5 roos on five different occasions – they were a bit jaded next morning.
The welcome and entertainment at the local caravan park was the highlight of the trip. One massive open fire, stocked one tree at a time by a huge front end loader and a truck decked out for the band.
  
We had enough oil from the previous day to give us the ‘night off’ filtering, but had to re-charge the battery and fix the alternator.
Mr Mercedes – Alan Lennox from Mobile Workshop Alpha, just happened to have the required regulator for our car and it fixed all the charging problems immediately.
We ducked around the corner to the ‘Dolphin Take Away’ for some more vegi oil and we were on our way.
Relatively trouble free until, after coming around a tight right hander, we thought we had a flat tyre. Turned out to that the top control arm bush let go, as the mechanic did not tighten up the bolt when they were replaced it only a few weeks earlier. Mobile work shops made up a bolt to fit, found another bush and had us going again within the hour - amazing. Just prior to this we were nearly in an accident when one of the cars hit a roo, the car behind speared off into the bush when they realised they had no brakes and car 888 – a stretched limo- nearly collected both of them. We came through the dust just after unscathed!
We finally made it to Moree by 6.30pm. We had to set up our ‘still’ in the motel bathroom again to get us to Charleville next day.
Got away at about 8.30am, and after paying our ‘fines’ to cross the border into Queensland at Mungindi, stopped for lunch at Dhirranbandi (fantastic local steaks).
We had noticed earlier when we were fixing the control arm bush that the suspension had collapsed a little on the left side – springs or shocks?
 We started to bottom out the left tyre on the guard on most dips – no problem, go faster!
Pulled up for afternoon passport stop at Bollon and we were getting worried about how much more vegi oil we would need to get us home. Decided to buy 8 Litres of Cooking oil from the local IGA. Lucky we did as we rolled into Charleville with about two litres to spare!
We were pulled over by Justin & Danielle Whatmore about 80Km out of Charleville.
These kids do ‘Charleville School of Distance Education” from home and its not every day they have 100 strange looking cars roar past their front gate. They have produced a small video and are looking for our votes via their web site - http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/healthy/physicalactivity/smart-moves/yr4toyr7.html
Final run into Charleville probably roughest of the trip and really tested our suspension!
Accommodation was difficult, but with a wonderful gesture from the local tourism lady Karin & husband Mark – who let us use their spare room behind their service station, the ‘Fuel Café’. We had to assure other competitors that we were NOT filling up at the bowsers! Had great area out the back to filter oil that we picked up from Jodie at her kitchen in the local RSL – very good oil- thanks Jodie.
 
A major fund raising day followed by a concert at the racecourse by Melbourne band ‘Ruckus’. Our support crew, John and Frank also joined us for the day – they brought another drum of orange oil and more vegi oil up from Brisbane.
 
After a late start fitting a new shock absorber to the front left, we were on the road again….but not for long!
Just out of town we dropped a fan belt – turned out the mechanic that replaced it previously fitted the wrong size – lucky we carried plenty of spares.
 About another hour down the road we heard some worrying ‘grinding’ noises and after checking underneath saw smoke coming from the diff. It was basically dry – again we specifically asked the mechanics to check this before leaving (moral to this story is that we will have to do all our own checks next time just in case). Filled with thick ‘Lucas’ additive and gear oil and set off again. The grinding was still there – it turned out to be the front disc dust plate touching the disc – lucky for us as we may not have stopped in time to find the problem with the diff oil.
We also noticed that the rubber boot that protects and houses the lubricant for the drive axle had split and for the next few thousand Km this was held together by gaffer tape and cable ties – no problems!
A quick stop and yarn with the kids at Adavale for lunch and then on into Barcaldine – historic town that claims the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ that ‘shaded’ the first meetings of what was to become the Australian Labor Party. Unfortunately this tree was poisoned recently and is only a memory now.
As we had sufficient oil prepared in Charleville we didn’t need to ‘top up’ again until Emerald the next night, so we went straight to our accommodation at the Globe Hotel.
 The proprietor Pat and his daughter made us feel really welcome and it turns out Pat has owned the pub for 40 years and his father was one of the original Shearers that helped start the ALP. Iain even slept in the same bed as Kim Beazley – had good springs!!
Pat even lent us his car, tools, carport etc and cooked breakfast for us all (well …. needs practice with the toast) while we did running repairs to the diff.
Got away with the fleet in the morning and while all the cars were queuing for petrol we got to the front of the pack. Unfortunately this didn’t last long as we hit one hole too many, and with our already low clearance, put a hole in the sump and finished off our bash plate. Nothing a bit of epoxy putty and fencing wire can’t fix – again saved by the Mobile Workshops!
 Rolled into Emerald with limited oil in the tank, but we had arranged the place we were staying at to have 4 drums for us. This hope proved a little premature, as someone had ‘knocked off’ 2 of the drums so we had to start ringing around town for some more. We were NOT going to resort to Diesel!
We eventually tracked down a man (Daryl Hayward) who picks up used vegetable oil from most places around town to make Bio-Diesel. He was good enough to grab us a drum and present us with his new CD ‘Down Under Country Vol 1’. He was actually the winner at the 2007 Australian Country Recording Awards for ‘Best New Talent of the Year’. Set the ‘still’ up in the bathroom and away we went.
As this was our last day on the road, we were determined to make this a trouble free day. The start at the ‘Emerald Nth Special School’ was a colourful and noisy place to be, with the mobile workshop boys kept very busy (by others this time) and plenty of school kids getting various gift packs and sweets etc.
  
The roads were good today and just as we were about to lead into the finish at Yeppoon, the tape holding the diff seal together started to un-wrap. A quick tape over and we were away and crossed the finish line at Rydges resort in about 8th place – “oh what a feeling”!
 We had still had to drive the car into Rockhampton for media commitments and then up to Mackay (next morning) to pick up another two Mercedes 300TD for our fleet, so we dropped into Kathy at the Cedar Park Fish & Chip shop for a top up. Another few interviews outside the café and Kathy was good enough to serve us lunch - Fish & Chips (with the oil to go)!
The presentation dinner was a good opportunity to hear about the fund raising exploits and comments by various schools and people along the way. We had complete strangers stop us in the streets and donate cash -this is typical of the reaction to the bash vehicles, especially from those in more remote locations.
 We had committed to Variety that the equivalent cost of the fuel we ‘didn’t’ purchase would be donated, and we estimated that we used about 70 Litres/day on average for 7 driving days at about $2.00/Litre. Almost $1000 given to Children’s charity instead of those ‘nasty’ fuel companies!! We achieved a ‘bronze’ award for donations totaling over $10,000
This is somewhat overshadowed by other teams that raised much higher amounts, with the award given to Car 6 for over $140,000 raised – what an effort. The entire bash is expected to raise about $1.4m this year. We plan to do even better next year!
 Special mention must be made of our ‘major’ competitor – car 269, the Wombat Wolseley. David, Greg & Steve donated their rare artwork wombat hats which we happened to buy, whilst Steve forked out a very generous sum for a ‘variety bash’ didgeridoo.
It must also be mentioned that a ‘special’ award was presented called the “Harry Burghardt Memorial Award” for the team that overcomes the most obstacles on their way to the finish line. It came down to just us and the Wombat Wolseley (did their head gasket) but we out ‘obstacled’ them!!
There are various options other than petroleum diesel for "diesel" engines, more properly called compression ignition engines.
1. Biodiesel
Biodiesel requires hazardous chemicals to be reacted with vegetable oil. It is time consuming, potentially polluting and dangerous and results in only an 80% yield. The balance is a hazardous mix of glycerine, methanol and caustic. It requires no modification to the vehicle and is promoted, at least in part, because it is relatively easy to commercialise and regulate.
2. SVO (Straight virgin Vegetable Oil)
Works well without possessing or blending provided the fuel system has heating equipment but may need a thinning agent in cold climates. We oppose it's use on the grounds that it competes with food production.
3. WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil)
Requires only filtering to remove particles and water and as with SVO needs to be heated to reduce viscosity prior to the injectors. As with SVO, may require thinning agents depending on the type of oil and the climate.
Our choice was for the fuel with the least environmental impact hence we used WVO. Because we were driving through arid regions with very low overnight temperatures and we could not control the type of oil collected along the way we added between 5 and 10% orange oil.
Some of the oil collected had very high levels of chicken fat which increased the viscosity to a point which would not have flowed through the fuel system without a thinning agent and heating of the fuel in the tank. Some people use kerosene or petrol or even high levels of petroleum diesel but orange oil works as well if not better. We had no problems with the fat as we ‘cold filtered’ it which removed it leaving only the oil.
Our additions to the fuel system are:
- 12 volt fuel pump at the fuel tank to assist the standard lifter pump on the engine because of the higher viscosity of WVO in relation to petroleum diesel.
- Heat exchanger plumbed to the cooling system to heat and therefore reduce the viscosity of the WVO. This is only effective when the engine reaches operating temperature.
- Segmentor and "CAV" filter to remove trace amounts of water and particles of 5 micron in size or more.
- Heater blanket around "CAV" filter thermostatically controlled to operate between 70 and 90 degrees. (12 volt)
- Inline 12 volt glow plug heater to also heat oil prior to engine reaching operating temperature.
- Flexible 12 volt heat elements wound around the injection lines just prior to the injectors to ensure cold starting and efficient running especially prior to the engine reaching optimum operating temperature.
Some of this equipment is unnecessary in warm climates particularly if the source of oil is known and controlled. The electric heating, or at least some of it, is also unnecessary if the vehicle runs a two tank system allowing it to start and reach operating temperature on petroleum diesel and then switch to WVO.
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