Rain, storms and malfunctioning cars...

[Neeek]

My car gave me the s last night. In case you don’t know, a fairly hefty storm hit SE Queensland last night. I was in it.

I decided, against my better judgement, to drive to Mt Tambourine in the Gold Coast hinterland to deliver a stove that I recently sold on eBay. The poor bloke had no way to pick it up from me, so provided he gave me some petrol money I said I’d be happy to take a drive up there. Guess I picked the wrong night.

Bombing down the M1, I kept thinking “please don’t hail, please don’t hail”. Should my car cop the might of a hailstorm… well, it just doesn’t bear thinking about. But I continued.

My next piece of frustration was climbing up the mountain. I could’ve walked up there faster, not because I was stuck behind a road train up a 12% incline, but because Wags was screaming in second at 45km/h, unable to go faster. I cursed. Such pathetic power. I felt embarrassed.

Over to my right I could see out of my open window that the storm was rolling in rapidly. Menacing black clouds high up, and green soup floating over the rolling hills. It spelled hail. I’ve never been trapped in a serious hailstorm, and I honestly thought that this was it. I’d have to buy new guards, a new bonnet and fill the roof with bog before a respray. Not happy. I should’ve listened to my wife who called me minutes before I left home saying “I’ve just checked BOM, and there’s a huge storm coming over – red bits everywhere… are you still going?”. But I had gone past the point of no return.

Once I’d reached the top of the mountain, I made an attempt to find this bloke’s home. Then it started raining. Properly. I turned down the right road, and I could barely see 3 feet in front of the windscreen, let alone beyond my bonnet. But still, I persevered. The bitumen road was windy and narrow, but I knew I was on the right track. I also knew that this guy’s house was at the end of the road. Bitumen suddenly became loose grading. And it happened.

There was a huge scraping sound, and the car jolted. I had inadvertently turned down a dirt track, with pretty big berms. Oh, ****. So I shoved it in reverse and tried to back out, using the ramp of an upcoming berm as a small run-up. Furious wheelspin ensued, and all I succeeded in doing was sliding sideways towards some trees and a large drop. I put the handbrake on, turned the car off, and pondered. Then I went out to have a look at what the ground looked like – it was a river of mud. I was soaked. I ran back into the car and checked my mobile reception – big fat nothing. More swearing.

I honestly thought that I was going to spend the night out there in the middle of the woods. Lightning was striking around me and the rain was coming down in sheets. So I drove down a track a little further, bumping and scraping the underside of the car until I found a place wide enough to turn around in. It was the quickest and most slippery 5-point turn I have ever executed. I powered back up the hill over the berms with first gear howling in protest and the underside of my car banging against the ground. Not fun.

So I drove back up to the roundabout at the top of the hill and waited. When the rain had calmed down (after I noted a leak near the accelerator pedal… grrr…), I called the bloke I was trying to find. He drove out to meet me and we went to his house, which turned out to be right next to the road I almost met my maker on. Of course, the last time I was down there I couldn’t see the gate to the house… hell, Ronald McDonald could’ve been sitting on my bonnet bashing The Hamburgler with a hot apple pie and I wouldn’t been able to see him doing it.

So I pulled the stove out of the back of my car and got some money in return. We shook hands, and parted company. The rain had calmed down a bit, so I made my way back down the mountain. Lights on, wipers on, demister on, radio on… and every time I pressed the brake pedal, the bloody alternator light came on! Great – I’d survived this far but would now be stranded a hundred kilometres from home in the rain with a busted alternator. Wonderful.

I continued. At the bottom of the mountain, I was waiting at a set of lights to turn back onto the M1, and the car died. Hmm… I started her up again, and all was well for a few seconds. Then it idled a little low, and died again. Thank God for manual chokes – I pulled it back a bit, cranked her over and was fine. Pulling away from the lights, the clutch pedal took a while to bite, and I hopped like a rabid kangaroo all the way through first gear… clearly, my clutch plate wasn’t happy either. Probably 10 years old, so hardly surprising. But I didn’t want it to kick the bucket right now.

The rest of the journey was uneventful – the wipers sped up a bit once the engine got some revs, and I made it home. This morning, the car smelt a bit wet inside (sure enough, the carpet is damp), the car stalls at idle intermittently and the clutch is clearly on the way out… not a peep from the ALT light, though.

The only saving grace of the whole trip was filling up at a servo near home, where the bloke in the Camry in front of me started up one of those “I had one of them once” conversations. After complimenting me on the excellent condition of my car, he asked if it was a six or an eight. I told him it was a six and we both shrugged. But I commented that it was going to get a fresh 351 very soon. We smiled, and I meant it. Work starts next weekend for the transplant.

And I’ll never deliver a stove ever again.