We had a couple of nice days, but that was over shadowed by the breakdown of the Dozer. After a days work , codensation in the starter motor turned to ice and the soleniod in the started burnt out. So it was off with the starter in -35 degrees , dress up the conatcts the best we could and hope it would start the following day. Its did , but then the day after , it froze up again.
By this stage it was time to head back to Casey . We had a couple of options open to us , Drive the 36 hours abct to base in one hit , or park up for the night and leave the Dozer idling. This option we didnt take. As 10 hours idling was fuel we couldnt afford to be burning for no gain. Possible other problems had to be taken into account. So we headed off. The trip home wasnt without its problems . The soft snow took its toll on one of the sleds and a ski joining chain broke , causing the rear sled to track off centre.A couple of huge 'D' shackles fixed this problem.
After 24 hours of driving , the charge light came on , meaning one of a few things : a fault in the alternator , a broken wire , or broken fan belts. It was the later. So I took an educated deciesion to turn off the machine.Being hot , I figured it would start easy. ( I hoped !!) After a record 2 min belt change , it fired up without a problem.
Unfortunatly , out Met Tech went to the loo, and on exiting the door , wasnt holding it quite tight enough , and the wind took care of the rest for him and tore it off its hinges.
The rest of the trip , was thankfully incident free, and we got back to station at about 1am