It’s more common than you imagine, picture getting your 4WD back from the mechanics for a pre-trip service with a solid tick of approval from the guys in the know, all the oils have been changed, your brakes bled, and your wiper bottle topped up with fresh soapy water, then after 20 minutes driving through the soft stuff your temp gauge starts climbing high…. What to do?

Well the first step is to stop driving and let your motor cool down, this will prevent any additional damage from happening, the next step, is to try and figure out what is happening to make your temperatures rise.

First thing is first, crack the bonnet, and have a squizz underneath your vehicle and look for any leaking coolant, or whistling steam, if you find any leaks, you should not ignore them, once you have found them patch them as soon as possible or replace the hose. Top up your coolant (at your overflow bottle and carry on down the track keeping your eyes on the temperature!)

If you aren’t encountering any leaks your issues may lay deeper within your motor and coolant system than you might be prepared to discover whilst on the tracks. There are many components within a cooling system that have to work properly for your vehicle to run efficiently, such as water pumps, thermostats, and plenty of hoses, tight passageways, and possible places for kinks or blockages along the way, as well as electric fans that help air flow that may not be running for a number of reasons.

If your vehicle is a few years old, you may have a blockage somewhere in your coolant system, a typical coolant flush performed at service time, is usually enough to make sure that this is taken care of, however, sometimes blockages in radiators can happen on the tracks, with rocks flying up and damaging your radiator core, or hoses.
By equipping your 4WD with an Adventure Kings Bush Mechanic Tool Kit, offers you all of the tools needed to repair any track side damage, and get you back on down the tracks. packed full of hammers, screw drivers sockets spanners, and much more, allowing you to get

With an improperly functioning coolant system, you will find that something as simple as your engine running warm, can result in your whole engine cooking itself, and if you drive an Automatic, even your automatic transmission, can cook as your oil cooler is located right next to your radiator.

The resulting damage can cost you thousands, in repairs and replacement parts, so how can you prevent this. An EDS data computer, this device offers a real time heads up on all of your engines data, in a clear and easy to read digital display, the EDS accesses information from your vehicles sensors via the universal OBDII port, and will give you temperature readouts, that accurately reflect the sensors output.

But that is not all that this clever little plug and play device can do. By accessing all the information available through the OBDII port you access the same information that a mechanics specialist diagnostic equipment accesses, this obviously offers you stacks of information about fault codes, fuel usage, and other diagnostic information to help you get back on the tracks.

The ability for the Engine Data Scan to clear engine fault codes, doesn’t stop at just getting rid of the flashing light on your dash, it can also take your 4WD out of “limp mode”, if you have never heard of this dreaded ECU setting, we will enlighten you…

By entering “limp mode” your vehicle enters a manufacturer designed mode, that employs a different engine mapping mode resulting in your 4WD being semi disabled. “limp mode” is intended to be a “safe mode” that allows you to operate your vehicle in a limited capacity until the fault code has been cleared off the ECU, this means that even if you have temporarily repaired the issue in question, until you get your 4WD to a mechanic to clear the code (at some considerable cost) your vehicle will be speed and RPM limited.

So save your hide in the bush, and equip your 4WD with a high powered Engine Data Scan computer, which can get you out of trouble, and save your motor from overheating and catastrophic failure in the bush!