LPG + Water Crossings

[DiscoClax]

I did some four-wheeling in the Howqua region in central Vic over the weekend and learned a valuable lesson. They had some significant rainfalls over the previous few days, which made for some excellent playing, but also made the odd gentle creek crossing somewhat more challenging. Anyway, I knew I was getting a bit low on gas (my guage is a bit dodgy, so I use the trip meter as a guide) but the engine was still running strong so no issues there. I came to a river crossing that was somewhat swollen (Lickhole Creek, if you must know...), scoped it out, asked a camper nearby and all seemed fine. Depth was measured at just under a half metre, flowing at about a metre per second. Low range, locked, nosed in and gave it a bit of throttle to push through as some water started coming over the bonnet and.... the engine died. In the dead centre of the flow. There's water hammering into the driver's side at above hip-height and I'm there with a dead engine. Would restart, run poorly and then die again. Hmm, not good, thought I. Couldn't drive it out on the starter (auto). Mate in back seat pipes up with "try petrol" after a few more fruitless start attempts and rising stress levels. Fires instantly and strongly on petrol and drives out the other side without the slightest drama. Bl00dy obvious now, and not a mistake I'll make again. The tanks would have been at around 40-50degC after some low speed, high throttle work and were suddenly chilled to maybe 5degC = a massive drop in vapour pressure. I effectively ran out of fuel nearly instantly as the tanks submerged and cooled. About an hour later I tried running on gas again and it would run fine but with reduced power. Ran perfectly as soon as I could get to a servo and fill the tanks.

On the plus side, the door sealing is way better than I expected. The GPS trace shows that I was stationary in the middle of that creek for around 50 seconds, say an even minute of exposure all up. I know I couldn't have walked across it, the flow was too strong. Despite that, total damage was only about half a cupful of water that pooled around the base of the B-pillar of the driver's side. And that seemed to be largely due to the lower door seal joiner section being out of location, leaving a 1/4 inch gap (now fixed). Impressive, if you ask me. Another advantage of the superior 3-door...

Oh yeah, and I've checked all of the oils and they're all good (no water ingestion) - also impressive. Mate got a brewski for his clear thinking efforts.

So, lesson learned, and no damage done. 'Twas a good day, even if I was humbled by a D3 a few hours later - but that's another story.