I’ve been with the 4WD Club for 4 years now and every monthly meeting I see the piston broke trophy get handed out to some poor unfortunate member who unfortunately either damaged their vehicle or it required the most repairs over the preceding period since the last general meeting. I guess sooner or later your time comes up and last month was mine.
Rex, that’s my fourbie’s name, copped a load of dirty fuel that blocked the transfer line between the two fuel tanks. The little fuel transfer pump did its best to deal with this – in fact it gave it’s all and unfortunately expired in the process. Unfortunately, I was not aware of this and the result was Rex ran out of fuel on the F3 when the main tank emptied – even though the sub-tank was full. An after-hours tow to Adam’s workshop (for some reason it’s called John Dale Motors (maybe that’s his alter ego?) some sleuthing by Adam and the problem was identified and fixed. Great outcome but possibly not a wise move as at least 3 other Club members saw Rex in all his glory in the workshop so….. let’s just say the piston broke trophy was not unexpected!
So, with trophy in hand I left the meeting but, on the way to my car there was this extremely strong force overpowering my hand carrying the trophy that led me to Adam’s Jeep. The trophy clamped itself to the bonnet and there it stayed! I could not move it and a voice in my head said take a photo. “What?” I thought. Take a photo said the voice. “Ummm sure” I thought – so I did. Mysteriously, I could then lift the trophy free of the bonnet. Weird!
On the way home the trophy jiggled and jangled and, I thought I might be going crazy but I am sure that at one time the jangling was in beat to Lucky Town by Bruce Springsteen that was playing on my stereo. Once at home I thought, what do I do with this trophy and, without any idea I left it in the console of the fourbie. That night I had a dream and normally I don’t remember them the next morning but this one I did. I dreamt I was sitting in my fourbie and the trophy was talking to me and what a sad tale it was!! Handed around to strangers month after month, being left on the floor of fourbies and having to listen to them go on about themselves, or worse still dumped inside a strange house and left alone with no one to talk to and nothing to do! The worst of it was no one knew his name – and for those interested its Horace but he prefers being called PeeBee.
It may have been a dream but I thought heck why not take the trophy around with me. So I did and you know what PeeBee (yes, we’re on a first name basis now and, dare I say, even friends!) is quite a character – fearless too and boy does he like getting out and about, having someone to talk to and being part of the gang. The more places I took him the more he jangled and jiggled and opened up about himself. In fact if you take the time to get to know him he is quite personable. He thinks Nissans are full of themselves bragging about how tough they are, the current crop of Toyotas are too hoity toity to talk much because they believe they are Kings of the Offroad, Jeeps are fun because they always want to go out and get dirty (hence why he dragged me over to Adam’s for the photo shoot), he wants to get back to Max’s Triton to see what other mods have been done since he was last there but, at the end of the day he says “Give me a good old 80 series to ride in”.
We took him camping with us. That’s him on the table to the right of Maddie. He’d sleep on the front seat of Rex each night and come out each time to join us in the day and we’d do all sorts of things together. He likes playing Sudoku (he wasn’t too bad either!) and wasn’t too unhappy about having a Corona beer, although only one otherwise he gets a bit too jangley and it gets a bit high pitched and feverish. He very much wanted to go surfing with me but his fear of water (particularly salt water) and sand was just too much for him to overcome. Can’t say I blame him.
Over time he and Rex got quite chummy and I’m sure they confided in each other quite a bit most of which I wasn’t privy too but PeeBee did tell me that Rex really wants a good waxing as his scratches are starting to show a bit too much! Guess his Christmas present is sorted although I was thinking he’d like a set of MaxTrax to help him get out of some difficult situations with his pride still intact (please don’t mention the trip along Lemon Tree road that I took him down when leading a trip to Big Yengo NP. He still hasn’t forgiven me for getting stuck on a stump!).
In fact, they got on that well together that PeeBee fearlessly offered to help dry off Rex’s wheels after he got a wash post the camping weekend. A damp chamois is as close to water as he wants to get but – hey good on him for going that far I say!
So, it’s the end of our month together and rex and I will be sad to say farewell but I promised PeeBee that I would write this article about our time together and ask that, should you ever get the opportunity to have him for a month don’t leave him floating around your fourbie all month or worse, leave him at home all alone. All he wants is some company, to go on some adventures with his new minder, have a bit of a yarn. He likes a photo shoot too!
And who knows, he may open up to you like he did with me and Rex and you might all have a great time together.
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