Things didn’t quite go according to plan today.
We said our goodbyes to our new friends, with invitations to call in on our way down the east coast, and headed south back towards Denham with a view to drive the 4WD track to Steep Point (the most westerly spot on mainland Australia) , the lighthouse on which we had seen the night before across the bay.
On the single track section of the sandy road out of the national park we pulled to the side to let a vehicle pass going the other way. At this point, we both noticed a slight burning smell. I looked down and saw faint smoke rising from around the handbrake lever next to Anne’s leg (she was driving at the time). A lick of flame appeared as Anne was switching off the engine and I cut the electrics. Instinctively Anne pulled on the lever to apply the handbrake (as you do when you are about to exit the vehicle) and felt the cable snap, whilst I patted out the flames. The immediate drama was over as the fire was out, but now we needed to check the extent of the damage and find the cause.
There was no real fire damage to the handbrake or gaiter, just a snapped cable. A check of the hand brake drum showed that it was fine, not sticking or jammed on, so we thought we should be able to carry on out of the park under our own steam. About three vehicles passed us as we had the tools out to work on the vehicle, and all stopped to enquire as to our situation and make sure we had enough water and suchlike.
As we started up and carried on driving out, we tried to think of the cause. By the time we’d had a soak in the hot tub at the homestead (rather warm, but it was good to be clean) and driven into Denham, I’d come to the conclusion that it was an electrical issue, and a voltmeter check of the cable showed that it was carrying a current when the ignition was turned on. A call to Ben back in the UK, who was on his way to work, confirmed our suspicions. He said that it was likely to be an earth problem; probably the main earth cable between the chassis and the back of the gearbox had come loose or was damaged, so we should check it and ideally run a second earth from the engine block to the chassis. With a damaged earth cable, current tries to find the next best path to earth which, in a Land Rover’s case, is the handbrake cable. Unsurprisingly this cable isn’t designed to carry that sort of current and will heat up and subsequently melt as a result, or, as in our case, set fire to the rubber gaiter around the handbrake lever.
Luckily we’d kept the spare battery lead that was surplus to requirements when Ben fitted our split charge system, so I ran that from one of the bulkhead support bracket bolts to a bolt on the engine block which restored electrical order to the vehicle. We were still without a handbrake as we didn’t pack a spare cable, but, as our friend Chris texted, “Handbrakes are for wimps”.
It was about 5pm by the time we’d sorted things out and, rather than continue south, we decided to return to Cape Peron and surprise the NSW guys. The drive back in seemed longer than I remembered and we arrived after dark, but were welcomed back and they insisted on feeding us. In the end we had three different main courses, preceded by Iain’s fruit loaf as a starter which he’d cooked earlier in the day in his camp oven over the fire’s embers.
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