I really hate the way some task you thought would be challenging enough becomes suddenly even more difficult once you have already go into it, either through blind ignorance or because something isn't the way its supposed to be.

Replacing this Disco front end was always going to be a challenge. I didn't have access to a concrete surface as any garage space available to me was too small for the size of the car. So grass it was. I didn't have half my tools because they are lost somewhere in the Pajero, presumably rusting away with it. So I had to rely on runs to the local Supercheap and a few mixed tools that my old man happened to leave behind. It made the whole process needlessly difficult, which reminds me of something I saw a while back about Scott and his attempt to reach the South Pole. For some reason, he didn't want to use dogs (presumably he was allergic), so they had to walk the whole way. They all died. Dogs might have made it a touch easier. (Coincidently, or not, his ship was called the Discovery.)

Obviously, my problems weren't quite on the same level. For a start I'm not allergic to dogs, but it was kinda chilly while I was working on it, so I think its in the same ballpark. Absolutely.

My lack of the right tools was a real pain though. I couldn't swap over the calipers because I didn't have the right socket (and nobody stocked that stupid splined type). So I had to change over all the brake lines to suit the new diff calipers. This is where it started to get fun. See, for some Land Rover reason, the Disco has to separate brake line circuits, which isn't all that unusual. A lot of cars do, its usually just one for front and one for rear. The Disco though has two circuits for each front wheel. Each circuit drives one side of the calipers. Which is kinda clever, but it makes the front end a mess of brake lines, and I'll get to the fun of bleeding this system later on.

This was a hassle because the brake lines where imperial. I didn't have flare spanners that were imperial and the only set I could find that were, didn't have the right size (7/16ths, but they had everything but). I had a cheap set of imperial spanners, so I came up with a great idea of grinding out just enough from a ring spanner to allow it to slip over the brake lines. Naturally, it failed immediately costing me the use of my only spanner in that size, or at least the ring section of it. It was a great idea though.

I managed to pull all the calipers lines off eventually with only mild mincing of the ends, and only one grinding. The rest of the bolts gave in deceptively easily given the experience the weekend before. And before I knew it the diff was out. When I flipped it over, I saw just how much damage the cv cage had been doing to the swivel pin housing. Whoops, again.

Dragging the new diff over the grass into place was a real pain, so I cheated and threw the wheels on it and wheeled it under the car. Which worked brilliantly (suddenly beam axles aren't so stupid an idea), and before I knew it I had all the arms, track rods, steering rods and springs and shocks fitted. It pretty much happened that quickly. Rattle guns are truly awesome, I think you could find a use for one in just about every part of your life. From opening jars of pasta sauce, turning on taps, winding down car windows, all the way to cleaning teeth, etc. A great tool.

With the diff all fitted, I hooked up the brake lines and topped up the fluid. The reservoir pretty much ran dry, so I knew I was in for some brake bleeding fun. The manual says bleed the master cylinder, than bleed calipers in reverse order of their distance from the master. Which I did, both circuits and even having to remove the front wheels just to get to the bleed nipples. A real fun job. The brakes were still as spongy as ever even with perfectly clear, air bubble free fluid. So I repeated this process starting with the master and working back to it. Still no improvement. And again, still no change.

I was about to punch the nearest British person, although the Kiwi neighbour nearly qualified by choosing this time to discuss his Ford Sierra Cosworth Twin Turbo 4WD something or other, which he tells me about every time I happen to wander near that side of the yard when I'm visiting the parents (or more likely stealing tools). The car, by the way, has never been seen as its in New Zealand, but based on previous "conversations" I've had with the guy (about how great oxyhydrogen gas is for your fuel economy, how his radar detector is completely undetectable, etc, etc), I'm thinking that his Sierra is actually just a Ford Fiesta with a racing stripe and a hole in the exhaust.

In order to avoid a trans-Tasman diplomatic incident, I gave up and decided to drive it home as is. This was in reality a pretty stupid thing to do, but driving it home meant I could actually get parts and work on it during the week (which I naturally didn't do). Driving it home though was fairly intense. It stopped ok(ish), but I needed to pre-pump the pedal to not hit the floor. I did this by left foot braking everywhere and pumping the pedal a few times whenever I approached a set of lights (green or otherwise). Despite a few clencher moments coming down hills, I managed to get it home safely with the road going public of Brisbane none the wiser.

I haven't actually touched the car since (except to repair the central locking/install alarm), though apparently this issue is fairly common with Land Rovers. The solution is to try reverse bleeding which I'd never heard of before, but apparently its still not 100% perfect on the Discos. Still, what a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

I've mostly been driving the Disco around lately, for a few reasons. Firstly because it's ride is far more comfortable on the shoddy roads I drive during my daily commute. Secondly, those roads were underwater for a couple of days. (Although I didn't attempt any water crossings because wet carpet smells fucking horrible.) Mostly though, its because of how much easier it is to drive around in. In a 4WD it's surprising how many people will give-way or change lanes to get out of your way (as opposed to into) when you come barrelling up behind them on a motorway.

I know its annoying to be tail-gated, but being annoyed doesn't make me change lanes. It just makes me drive slower, much slower. (Yeah, I'm that guy.) At least that's the case in a normal car. In a 4WD, looking in the mirror is more to see if your boat is still attached than to worry about other road users. I do actually mirror check before changing lanes, but a lane splitting bike rider that I can't see has to ask themselves the question, "Exactly how much damage am I going to do to this 4WD, and how much is it going to do back?" Sup, Marc.

Another reason, of course, is because I don't have to worry about police chasing me in my driveway for an random breath test.

"Good afternoon, Sir. You've been stopped for the purpose of a random breath test."
"You know this is the second time I've been RBTed in my driveway."
"Yeah? Well maybe you shouldn't drive a car that shoots flames."
"... uhhh? Right-o..."
"Oy, where do you think you are going!?"
"Uhh... Just checking my mail. I live here..."
"Well, stand somewhere where I can see you."
"I'm not going to run am I? I live here."
"Well I don't know that, do I?"
*holds tongue for the 10 minutes it takes for the GPS to get a signal*

The Disco isn't exactly flawless though as I hinted in the last post. I bought it with a shagged front-right CV. Really not that big a deal. Parts are cheap for these things, even new. So I picked up complete front and rear axles for not a lot of money from a later model (which have tougher running gear). I figured it'd be easier to change the whole lot over than to fuck about with CVs, and swivel pins and all that caper. It was also a decent strength upgrade, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about snapping bits and pieces if I run bigger wheels and tyres.

I headed around to the parents place, because there's a lot more room there (the Disco doesn't fit in my garage) and all the better tools I haven't yet stolen are there. Last I heard the parents were in Melbourne, or somewhere near there, so I also didn't have to worry about doing things properly either.


Before I put it up on stands, I had a look underneath to see exactly what had to be done. The Haynes manual is pretty much useless for this, as most things are described in a single line without a diagram. Gregory's are far better, though swapping an axle isn't exactly rocket science. Under the car I noticed a couple of disturbing things, firstly a bunch of bolts were missing entirely from housings, and a couple were loose. The really scary thing was the track rod tie rod end on the drivers side. I had noticed that the steering had a bit of wander, well a lot of wander. I ignored it figuring it was something to do with the CV on the drivers side or something. It was actually much worse than that as the video on the right shows. The nut which is supposed to be locked in place with a split pin had come loose, and undone itself and the joint had been cracked. Or more likely, someone had gone to replace it, undone it all and cracked it and then promptly forgotten about it. I'm not sure what had stopped the nut from coming all the way off, but if it had it would have been a spectacular failure at speed. The wheel would have been dragged back to full right lock and who knows what it would have done. I thought the steering felt a bit odd, pays to actually check things I guess. I would like to find the person who left it like that and punch them in a face though. It's possible they just reused a shagged out split pin, or they didn't fit it properly. Whatever, I think I'd punch them right in the ear, because that fucking hurts.

The next thing I did was pull off the wheels, which turned into a Matt Dale-esque saga. The easiest job in the world, right? Straight off the bat I didn't have the right socket. Raiding the old man's tools for sockets, all I could find were imperial. (Strangely enough every nut and bolt I've found so far on the Disco is metric, how very progressive of British Leyland.) I ended up going to a hardware store to buy the correct (27 mm) socket for an absolute steal at $10. The next part was even more fun. I had two new front tyres fitted in order to pass the road-worthy, and the blokes who did it clearly decided that they were such good tyres they'd never need replacing and fitted the wheel nuts with what I can only presume was the world's most powerful rattle gun. It's really embarrassing how hard it was to remove those wheel nuts. Using a 400mm breaker bar on the socket did nothing, even adding a length of lead pipe I couldn't budge them.

I eventually got them off after like an hour of putting my entire weight onto the end of the lead pipe, and bouncing. (I actually bent the breaker bar doing this, and then sheared the centre pin clean off, but luckily I had a spare.) Seriously, why the fuck did the wheel nuts need to be that tight? Tyre shop mechanics, if you are reading this (unlikely, I'm pretty none of them can read), you've got an ear punch coming your way. Cunts.

After that drama, the rest of the bolts fell off pretty quickly. Under the front of the Disco there are about a thousand different arms to hold the wheels where they need to be, but most proved to be no resistance. It helped that by that stage I had found a rattle gun and an air compressor. I was also using a ball joint cracker tool, which is pretty much cheating, but it goes to show how much easier things are with the right tools.

A couple of bolts were hidden behind the the hubs, which made getting the rattle gun on them a bit difficult, so I pulled apart the CVs to see what shape they were in. The drivers side one was completely minced. The cage that holds the ball bearings in place was gone, completely pulverised. All that was left of it was sitting on the bottom of the housing. (Drivers side one compared to the passenger side CV.) The joint was dry, so I'm thinking that was the likely cause of the failure. There was that much junk in the bottom that before I pulled it apart the wheel would catch turning it left and right by hand. So, really I'm surprised this car could steer at all. That might explain why people got out of the way. Maybe they knew something I didn't?

With the hubs off, the next step was to undo the final four bolts holding the diff on. This is where I hit the wall. They attach the traction arms to the diff, and even with the rattle gun I couldn't get them to shift. My last remaining breaker bar was just about ready to give it in so I called it a day. I'm going to have another crack at it next weekend with a much more serious socket + breaker bar. 3/4 inch drive or whatever it is. If that bastard doesn't break them, I don't know what will. After that, its just a matter of lifting the new complete (and working) diff into place, which I'm sure will be really easy, and bolting it all back up. Easy.

Also, I've enabled anonymous comments on here. The new login code has been broken forever, and I can't be arsed fixing it. Porn spammers, do your worst.

Apparently, my latest car purchase was more of a secret than I had intended it to be. In fact it was probably one of the best-kept non-secrets ever. The old rumour mill just doesn't work like it used to I guess. Or maybe just nobody cared?

Yeah, unlikely.

To end the mystery though, I bought a Land Rover Discovery. An early 90s model, with a 3.5 litre Rover V8. British racing green. And, to be honest, I quite like it. I've never owned a British car before, but heard all the usual stories from Dads everywhere. Usually about Triumphs or MGs and how they were always breaking down and completely wacky to fix. Four digit names with two digits of horse power, but sitting 2 inches off the ground so it at least felt fast. Still it was certainly not fast enough to get somewhere before it all went Pete Tong. In summary, they were cool but terrible.

The Disco isn't really too much different. It is a 90s car though, so it's a lot more sane and probably slightly better built. Probably. Everything is at least in metric. (That I've found anyway.) Most of the quirky things have a charm to them and its almost as though they did it on purpose. The handbrake drum for instance (there's only one) is located at the back of the gearbox. The axles can be pulled out with the wheels still on. The diff can then be pulled out by undoing the front housing. That's cool. Things get a bit weird in the engine bay, there's no radiator cap, just an overflow. The washer bottle holds seven litres. (I've had cars where the coolant capacity is less than that.) And speaking of capacity, mine is a 3 door, but it can seat 7. Fairly comfortably, although you'd probably only seat your red-headed children in the back row. Half the panels are aluminium too, so it's actually surprisingly light. Relatively anyway. It's actually a 3rd of a tonne lighter than the Pajero. Or rather, than the Pajero was, you know, before the rust. And oddly, despite it being a 90s car, it has no catalytic converters. Which as Gene discovered, helps tick that box that all my vehicles need to tick. Yep, it drops the occasional flame on the over-run.

Which speaking of, is one of the best parts of driving it. I've always wanted a V8, in the same way I've always wanted a turbo car (thanks, Chase HQ). Most of these wants were established from watching TV before I was even 10, but its nice to close the loop that part of my childhood. And it does sound tough. It's not a fast car by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure sounds a hell of a lot better than a Mitsubishi 4 cylinder. Even if its not the fastest car to the speed limit, the V8 tells a story on its way there. It's not an overbearing noise though, easily the quietest car I've had since the Breadbox, but I think it just about pips the Skyline to the line for its soundtrack. Which is good, because it lacks a stereo at the moment. Mind you, in a straight line it swings just enough to create a similar swaying motion you'd more likely see at the end of Young Talent Time than in a car. There is just a little bit of play in the steering, I'm not sure how much of that is normal.

One of the most handy things about the Disco, though, is its ability to tow. It can actually tow almost twice its own weight, which will be handy I don't doubt. It's just a shame I don't have two, it is a Land Rover after all.

(NOTE: I've deliberately excluded all the stuff I've already had to fix from this post.)

There's a saying, the wording of which has completely escaped me, that basically implies that if you work hard on something you'll appreciate it more when its finished. I don't buy that at all.

In my opinion there's nothing more satisfying than putting absolutely no effort or thought into something and coming up trumps. Even more so when someone else has and its failed miserably. The same goes for how much someone spends on something in a way as well. I've mentioned this before, most obviously in reference to Patrol drivers. Meticulously detailed, cheque book engineering.

Boring. Then some blokes with an eBay Pajero built with a beer in one hand and a grinder in the other manage to show them up. Not exactly David and Goliath, more Daveo and Goliath. Dragging himself off his couch and spinning his Playstation controller over his head by the cable, the controller slips from his Cheezel stained fingers and cops Goliath in the goolies. Victory.

Of course, the Pajero failed as often as it worked. Generally with hilarious, yet somehow non-fatal, consequences. Arriving at a destination was generally more of a surprise than a relief. Usually there was a small crowd waiting to hear the story which they had waited for, in growing annoyance, for the past 2 (or more) hours.

It's easy to mistake attention for admiration, and I don't bother to distinguish. There is something amusing though, about lowering expectations to the point where others expect disaster and yet pulling it off like you had planned it that way. The Pajero lowered expectations to the point where people would be disappointed when it didn't fail. It disappointed a lot, but not nearly enough.

The issue was that problems of engineering were being replaced by problems caused wear and tear. Our old pal, Entropy, was at work. In fact in the last 3 months or so, he's been really busy. The body has rusted out significantly, the tail-shaft is gone, a front CV is shot to pieces and the starter motor is ruined. Opening the bonnet is a like stepping into a metallurgists nightmare. Almost every metal component is showing signs of corrosion. Even the engine block.

It's easy enough to ignore that though, just drive it until the car splits in half. Unfortunately, brake lines are also steel. Within the past week or two, the brakes have degraded to the point where you need to pump the brake pedal 3 times to stop the car. Even then, holding your foot on the brakes will push the pedal to the floor. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I had planned on taking my boat out for its first test run on Saturday but after driving to the end of the street I decided against using the Pajero to tow it. In fact, I decided that it was time to scrap it. I kind of expected it to go with more drama than that. On its lid perhaps. A roadside fire ball. Maybe driven into the ocean. Or more likely, a combination of these.

So for my boat's maiden voyage with its new motor I hit up the old man for a tow. He was still absolutely convinced the motor was too big, too powerful and probably not pumping water. That was annoying, but at least he can reverse a trailer properly. It's a black art I haven't quite got the hang of yet.

The only boat ramp open to the public was the Manly Harbour boat ramp. I'd be launching my 3 digit boat (even I had doubts about its sea-worthiness) amongst boats with 4 extra zeroes on their price tags. My main concerns were that I had no idea what the rated engine capacity of the boat was, I had no idea how heavy this motor was or if the boat's transom could even support it and if the other two were ok, I had no idea what'd it'd do in the water or under power. That's the fun of buying eBay. Given the Pajero and recent Batracer performance, I wasn't holding my breathe.

I started the boat while still on the trailer to confirm that it was pumping water. It did, so one box ticked. Next was to actually see if she floated. Actually launching it off the boat was more difficult. The motor was down and it has no electric or hydraulic power tilt. You just have to man-handle it to lift it up. Considering it weighs probably twice my weight or more, its not that easy. Impossible from within the boat, at least. Rolling it off the back of the trailer, the boat lifted the nose quite high in the air. This worried me. Although it was simply because the boat was pivoting on the trailer, alarm bells were starting to ring. I was imagining that this would be how it would sit in the water.

Thankfully, once it was in the water it sat perfect. I was relieved, but probably more so surprised. My dad I think was feeling a bit disappointed, given how he had been telling me how wrong I was all this time. The real supportive dad, you know. He didn't say much now though, other than to agree it looked good in the water.

I hopped in and took it for a few laps of the harbour, but never got a real chance to open the taps because its all a 4 knot speed limit. Engaging forward or reverse gear is a bit harsh. I actually know nothing about outboards, or if they have a clutch or synchros so I'm not sure if this is normal or not. It sounds like Thompson at 1:12, except the noise is actually audible. The sort of whopping crunch that I hadn't heard since the last Pajero gear-shift.

At low speeds the boat feels a bit terrible in the water, but that's apparently pretty normal. I didn't take it out into the bay to open the taps, because I had no rescue boat and not much fuel on board. I'll probably take it out next weekend and really give it the berries. I'll probably mess myself in the process.

But, wow. It turned out pretty well considering my complete ignorance of boats, physics and maritime laws. I might even be getting good at this.

Oh, hey. A blog? I have one of those?

It's been a while. And perhaps a few of you have actually successfully completed reading the novel which is the post previous to this. Though if you haven't, if I was you, I'd wait for the movie.

There are a million things I could post here that have occured in the last 3 or so months. It'd be a very long post, and I'd be bored of it before even you were. I won't, go that far back, for even if I wanted to, it's mostly a vague cognitive mess of engines, beers and hilarity that you-had-to-be-there for. So lets stick to the last fort-night instead.

Now to get you up to speed, on a couple of things. I bought a boat. About 4 metres long, 70s era speedboat, very cheap. Now, boats aren't usually my thing. However, my recently retired dad was constantly in my ear complaining about being bored out of his mind. Apparently you work your entire life the worst possible thing you can do is retire. It's boring. Of course, being retirees him and my mum do the caravan thing. This is also apparently shit boring, so the idea is to drive until you don't recognise anything. Set up a camp. Talk to other bored old people about this thing you just towed 4000 kilometres ("It's a custom built 2003 Millard, built on an 1986 chassis, they are stronger you see, with pop-up roof - 6 foot high ceiling - air-con...", and so on). Once you are bored with that watch DVDs or TV on your flat screen. The things are kitted out with just about everything you can think of. I'm not sure the parents actually enjoy it, or they just need something to do that badly. Either way, they spend a stupid amount on their campers (they have two, and they decided against buying a Coaster).

So, anyway, when they aren't holding up traffic on some busy interstate, they've got even less to do. And my old man, decided that fishing would be a good start. A mate of mine had a boat laying about that he didn't use any more as he had moved overseas. He destroyed the motor, though I never quite worked out what he did. Something about water going everywhere, and he had to paddle home. So, I got the boat cheap. And I borrowed a tiny 20hp motor so he could do his fishing. Before I dropped it off I took it out for a run up the Brisbane river. It went alright with the 20. Just started to pull the nose out of the water with me in the back on the tiller. Still, way too slow. I judged it needed to be twice as fast. And fluid dynamics 101 tells us that to go twice as fast you need four times the force. Or in this case: horses. 80 horse power? Lets round it to 85.

I dropped off the boat at the parents, and left it to him to play with. I figured he'd be able to fix a few things up like get the cable steer and so forth working. I think he took it out once, decided fishing was actually quite boring and found something better to do. Though he did agree that it needed more power. Except the number he came up with was significantly lower than mine. Naturally.

Probably even more naturally, I didn't listen. Ebay came to the rescue, and I found a suitable motor for cheap. I felt it was a pretty good deal, which is to say I have spent more on a night on the town and regretted it less.

There's no such thing as a free lunch though, and the retrieval required collecting it from the Gold Coast. Wouldn't be a drama, I just needed a couple of people to help lift it. Anyone who's lifted an outboard of significant power by themselves would know that you can't. They are ridiculously heavy, even if they don't look it. And this one was a V4.

I convinced a mate who was driving down to Lismore to make a detour. No dramas there. No more than a 30 minute hold up, really. So, I dusted off (or rather defoliated) the Pajero which hadn't been used in weeks. Its in a truly horrible way right now. If you owned a pet that made noises like it does rolling down hills in gear you'd take it out the back with your rifle. Turning corners at speed, unnerving at the best of times, is now done to the sound Trent Reznor's earlier work. The banging that is produced is comforting in a way, but only because when it stops it will be worse. The tailshaft unis have enough slack in them that at low speeds they act like spokie-dokies everytime they complete a half rotation. And the noise they produce when you get on the throttle is quite unpleasant, imagine it as hearing the noise made by a drunk girl falling off a bar stool at the Regatta and her head meeting the floor. Though not the same note, the cringe your wear is the same, and the looks you get from pedestrians is one of concern for your well-being.

My initial concern at the sheer number of demerit points I was going to get hit by was outdone by the new concern I wouldn't even make it that far. Yet, somehow it surprised me. It made it to South Port without a hitch. So, we pull up to the house and park and Jason comes up to the car window.

"Yeah... I think I broke ... something."

Something had let go in the passenger side front wheel assembly in the 944. A quick inspection and wobble test quickly showed it was catastrophic. The wheel was able to move more than an inch independently of the steering. A wheel bearing had shat itself. Badly. We popped the hub dust cover and there were metal shavings everywhere. Yet somehow it had only just occured. We were only a few hundred metres from the highway off ramp when it went. The driving through the back-streets probably hadn't helped, but compared to what would have happened at highway speeds it was pretty lucky. And we hadn't gone far. Barely a click. It could have been worse in so many ways. 100km later he'd have been in the middle of nowhere with no roadside assistance (Pajero or otherwise). A flatbed driver would be rubbing his hands with glee at the idea of towing a 944 that distance back to Brisbane and the money he'd make doing so. He might even be able to get his teeth fixed.

We collected the outboard, which coincidently was massive. The engine cover by itself was roughly the size of Daniel Thompson's helmet. Give or take, he'd probably find it pinched slightly. What a bargain, though. Then set about finding a car trailer to get the Porsche home. Apparently, on the Gold Coast there are only 2 places that hire trailers within a 20 minute drive of there. One was some bloke who was so paranoid about ball-weights, kerb-weights and braking capacity on the phone that we didn't even bother to drive there. I could picture the look on his face already when the Pajero pulled up. I've seen it a few times.

The other place didn't care so long as the lights worked on the trailer, they probably did, but the lights on the Pajero didn't. So, I lied. It would have been nice if they'd reminded us to un-clip the overrun brakes, but I'll get to that later.

Loading the Porsche on the trailer was a hassle because of how low it was. The chassis rails dragged so we had had to park the Pajero in a school loading zone, drive the Porsche up onto the footpath and try load it that way to minimise the angles. Appropriately the wheel bearings were now making noises that sounded like finger nails down a blackboard. Even with the kerb, it still wasn't enough, so we wound the trailer jockey wheel to its full extends to lift the back of the Pajero up and the back of the trailer down. That had done it, and we attached the Porsche with the only fastenings we had, its own handbrake, the chain around the front cross-member attached to the winch and two old ropes from the back of the Pajero. We some how managed to tie it down with some knots that would have made Lord Baden-Powell weep, but at least they held. And in fairness, being securely attached to the tow-vehicle in this case probably isn't what you'd call safe.

The entire drive home felt like constantly being in the first 10 seconds of a Queensland Government road safety ad. You knew something bad was going to happen, which was inevitably going to end with an impossible amount of carnage and some poor bastard trying to explain to to a police officer what the fuck they were thinking, and everyone learning a harsh lesson in life. Thankfully, it never quite came to that. Not quite. But nearly.

As I said before, we never flicked the lever for the over-run brakes. So the Pajero, which isn't brilliant at stopping in the same way its not brilliant at starting, had the best part of 1800 kilograms pushing from behind, an outboard motor in the back which probably weighs about half that again, and a 1980s Porsche attached with twine, just for good measure.

Then, it started to rain.

You can probably guess what happened next, so I'll just leave you with the bullet points:

• A set of lights
• A lane-splitter, unaware of the Newtonian object behind them
• A green light that apparently looked red to said lane splitter
• Possibly the most loudest 4-wheel lock-up in history, leading almost to a jack-knife
• Five seconds of utter panic
• Two minutes of non-stop swearing
• A greater appreciation of life in general

The rest of the trip was significantly less terrifying, though the brakes did get spongier and spongier. The rain thankfully stopped. When we eventually got back to Brisbane, two things became pretty clear. One, the trailer over-run brakes weren't working. Two, the Pajero brake fluid reservoir was completely empty. Whoops.

Whatever, I was just happy to not be driving it. Such a stupid, dangerous vehicle. So, anyway, back to this boat. I got the motor back to the parents' where the boat lives. Threw the motor on (I had to use a block and tackle). The old man is convinced its too powerful ("You wouldn't want to go wide open with this motor"), which only convinces me its spot on. It's not quite Clarkson, anyway.

I still need to hook up the front-controls, so I can actually steer it. And there's the whole me-being-unlicensed thing. And its still completely possible it'll sink. So I'll need to invest in bilges, probably.

However, the best thing about this motor is that its old enough to not have exhaust baffling of any description. Its loud as hell and the exhaust doesn't exit via the prop like on newer motors. The benefit of all this? It drops stupid flames when you back off on the throttle. Fucking awesome.

Also, I sold the Gemini. Sad-face.