Packing...

With just five more sleeps remaining before Damian and Angus head off on the 2018 Camp Quality esCarpade, Damian thought a rainy Sunday would be the perfect day to start packing the car...

The boot on Retro Rock-It is positively cavernous, particularly compared to that of Booger Mobile!!

One spare tyre and a bag of spare bits in the under-floor wheel well...

And the rest of the spares, tools and safety equipment in the boot... with still plenty of room for bags!

So the next five days for Damian will be like this:

Monday - Work and basketball training;
Tuesday - Work;
Wednesday - Work;
Thursday - Work and basketball game...  Probably should pack clothes about now!
Friday 3:00am - throw clothes etc into Retro Rock-It, double check list of "last minute" items...
Friday 3:30am - head off to pick up Angus at 4am...
Friday 6:00am - meet 808 (Purple People Eater) at Warwick...
Friday 8:30am or so cross into NSW at Goondiwindi and lose an hour due to daylight savings...
Friday sometime in the early evening - arrive in Bathurst!

One last thing... a quick fundraising update...  The current total raised by Damian and Angus this year stands at: 

$10715.05

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Preparation...

Twelve days until Damian and Angus head off to the 2018 Camp Quality esCarpade… time for some preparation...

But first...  Damian's friends Paul and Catherine, along with Catherine's mother Denise like to keep a money box during the year to contribute towards Damian's event costs (fuel, lollies, spares for the car etc)…  This year, they have contributed an amazing amount...  Damian is already planning how he can put that to good use...

Spare fuel containers locked and loaded...

Ever wondered what $100 worth of Mentos looks like?  Wonder no longer!

Damian spent the rest of the afternoon ticking off items on the scrutineering checklist and locating various bits and pieces ready to load them into the boot...

esCarpade 2018, it's nearly time!

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2018 esCarpade Route Map

Two and a bit weeks to go...  Time to upload the 2018 Camp Quality esCarpade Route Map... aka Where are Angus and Damo?

Here's the text version...

Day	Date	What’s happening?
Day -1	Friday 19 October	Drive to Bathurst (~1050km)
Day 0	Saturday 20 October	Bathurst (Scrutineering and Welcome Dinner)
Day 1	Sunday 21 October	Bathurst – Parkes – Dubbo
Day 2	Monday 22 October	Dubbo – Hermidale – Bourke
Day 3	Tuesday 23 October	Bourke – Glengarry Hilton – Lightning Ridge
Day 4	Wednesday 24 October	Lightning Ridge (Lay Day – Wash Car/Fix Car/Fix Sanity)
Day 5	Thursday 25 October	Lightning Ridge – Baradine – Nyngan
Day 6	Friday 26 October	Nyngan – Condobolin – West Wyalong
Day 7	Saturday 27 October	West Wyalong – Cootamundra – Wagga Wagga
Day 8	Sunday 28 October	Drive home (~1300km)

The map version looks like this:

Download your own copy (A3 size) of the 2018 Camp Quality esCarpade Route Map.

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Filter Change...

Less than three weeks until esCarpade…  Damian thought a new air filter and fuel filter wouldn't go astray...

One shiny new air filter...

Old one is a bit dusty!!

Comparison...

After replacing the air filter, time to jack up the passenger side to reach the fuel filter...

It's conveniently located up behind the chassis rail just in front of the passenger side rear tyre!!

And a shiny new one installed...

How grungy was the old one?  A bit!!

Lastly, after the new tyres last weekend, there were some white patches where the old weights used to be, and new lead weights that needed painting red...

That's better!!

Not too much longer now - probably time for Damian to contemplate cleaning up the shed and locating the spare parts and safety items that need to go on esCarpade with him...

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Tyres and More Stickers

This blog post is the combination of a snappy bit of painting on Wednesday night (the first three pictures), followed by the work on Saturday (the rest of the blog post).

Because the yellow outline needed plenty of time to dry, then a second coat, Damian waited a few days then retraced the outline...

Let's all chant together... RETRO!!

ROCK-IT!!

RETRO ROCK-IT!!

Saturday morning rolled around, and Retro Rock-It was booked in for a fresh new set of Yokohama Geolandar All Terrain tyres...

A quick pre-tyre-change measure showed the following:

Driver's Side    - Front - 20.5cm.  Rear - 21.5cm.
Passenger Side - Front - 20.5cm.  Rear - 21cm.

What does this mean?  Let's measure with a biotin bucket...  here's the front.

And now the rear...

Off to the K-Mart Tyre and Auto Service at Burpengary...

Straight onto the hoist...

Looking the goods...

Damian brought the old tyres home with him, as even though they weren't particularly fabulous for this year's esCarpade, they were still relatively new...  Here's a tyre height comparison...  The old tyres were 205/65/15, and the new ones 205/70/15.

In real terms, this means the new tyres are 2cm higher overall, which should give a 1cm increase in clearance (as the other 1cm in height is at the top of the tyre, of course!

The shoulders on the new tyres are more chunky, too... however the rest of the tyre for an all-terrain is not as aggressive as it could have been...

Damian selected these tyres for their all-round performance (both on and off-road), and their superior handling in the wet.

But what does that all mean?  After the tyres were fitted, the measurements were as follows:

Driver's Side    - Front - 22cm.  Rear - 23cm.
Passenger Side - Front - 22cm.  Rear - 23cm.

A 1.5cm gain all round (with an extra 0.5cm on the passenger rear, that could be down to measuring error by Damian).

What does the bucket test say?  Clearly more at the front...

And more at the rear also...

The tyres do fill the guards a little more, though...  And eagle-eyed blog readers would see that there are now some white patches (and lead weights) that aren't red due to the balancing process requiring lead in different places...  Damian will paint these in due course.

One amusing anecdote...  At the tyre place, the mechanic threw the spare into the wheel well - it was a tight fit!!  He and Damian laughed that it would be interesting to get out - they were right!!  It took quite a bit of effort to remove it!!

Whew!!  Thankfully you can't hear the words Damian muttered...  After some fine-tuning of the wheel well with a hammer it was a lot better, but still a pretty damn tight fit...

Damian had a brain-wave...  Perhaps an old seat belt through the tyre would act as a removal tool?

Off with the end...

And into the wheel well, hooked through the centre of the wheel...  What do you know?  It worked!!

Onto stickerising…  There can never be enough stickers on a bash car (as Bill pointed out in the comments of the last blog post), so how to make these fit?

How about some flames and a cut-out to go around the indicators?

Yep, that's where it's going to go...

Voila!!

And one for the other side...

Again, that's the spot Damian's talking about...

Nice... fits like a big fitting thing!!

The rooftop pod is still a little colourless... Damian attempted to put a sticker on there, but it wasn't particularly secure...  Off it came again - Damian might need to add some paint by hand!!

Here's a good suggestion for a Giggle sticker...  unfortunately that's on the boot lid, so no one would see it!!

Probably a bit small for this place.. might use a larger sticker instead...

Like this one!

Here's another lonely looking spot...

And this one is a bit lonely too...

Holy flaming Camp Quality, Batman!!

And remember Giggle from the bootlid shot?  He found a home here...  Nice maroon helmet!!

Looking the goods now!!

So that was another exciting instalment of Damian stickerising Retro Rock-It...  The esCarpade is now less than FOUR WEEKS away, and apart from some minor theming, Retro Rock-It is ready to pack and head off...

Stay tuned for some final posts prior to esCarpade as the finishing touches are applied, and then of course, every day of esCarpade will be blog time!

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