Shite japery in Aus (Now with freshly half baked content) WA & NT

[philibusmo]

Right you 'orrible lot, there's a little too much nattering about sweet fuck all and not enough hot chod fixing action on here at the moment. But never fear for I have tales of chod fixing from the other side of the world, and will keep this as a bit of a running thing to document any vaguely relevant shenanigans while on my travels.

So...

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As I have previously posted in the News 24 thread or something shortly after I arrived in Australia I decided that being without a car was not something that suited me and I should buy a car as soon as possible.

I was spoilt for choice for large six and eight cylinder motors and quite fancied a Holden Commodore, all of which seemed to have trashed interiors:

Or a Ford Falcon, here in Tickford XR6 flavour and owned by many not careful hooners:

Or finally a Ford Fairlane, basically a long and very comfy Falcon, usually owned by giffers for long distance driving across the outback.

 

In the end I settled upon a 2003 Ford Fairlane in BA 6 banger flavour, purchased for $3300 from Colin the Iranian in one of the less desirable areas of Perth.

It ran well. Enough. And had a measly 317,000 km on the clock with a service of almost everything due, a drivers window that would only go down, a useless handbrake and a very lumpy idle. However the air con is icy cold, the cruise control functions and the seats are supremely comfortable. Perfect. Also 'roo bar, that's what really sold it to me.

 

The first things to be done was a service, of which I have no pictures because if you want to see pictures of a flippin' oil change then you really need to get a life. Anywho, it got an oil and filter change, air filter, pollen filter and brake fluid change which made a slight improvement to its running and firmed up the brakes slightly. I followed this by changing the front and rear brake pads which were down to almost nothing and had a look at adjusting the handbrake mechanism which I decided was almost impossible and gave up on - more on this later.

 

I decided that the most pressing concern was the drivers window due to the risk of coming across a card or coin operated barrier. I found a new mechanism and motor in a wreckers yard and readied myself to strip the door down to fit it. This didn't happen quite as soon as I had anticipated as my cousin called, almost in tears as she had somehow managed to lock both sets of keys in her Mk6 Fiesta. I'm not quite sure how she managed this, but no bother, a quick bat with a hammer soon had the passenger side rear window in many pieces all over the rear seat and the keys retrieved. In an excellent stroke of luck, the wreckers yard I had got my window mechanism from had a Mk6 Fiesta that had a heavy front end bump but both its rear windows intact. Window was duly bought, and slapped into the rear door of the Fiesta with only minor scarring to my lower arm trying to reach some of the more difficult fixings.

 

That done started pulling apart the door on the Fairlane and found possibly the best named circuit board of all time

GRIZZLY MODULE

I have no idea what it does, but it sounds like it'll be amazing when I find out.

Fitting the new motor and mechanism was quite straight forward and I made sure there was some silicon grease in the window runners to make sure it wasn't about to die again.

 

More to come shortly, or in two days time, but hold onto your hats as it will include gasket fitting and dicking about with hand brake shoes!

 

I bet you can hardly wait

[Junkman]

Don't they have anything older?

[philibusmo]

Don't they have anything older?

They do, but these are of the age where there are plenty in wreckers yards should something go wrong, you can practically rebuild them from the content of the local Super Cheap Auto and Australian cars of this age are still made almost entirely of 'fix it with a hammer' technology.

 

Besides junkman, I thought you would be a fan of a large, cheap and simple executive car with a 4.0 straight 6 or 5.0 V8 with squishy suspension and tyres and a badermatic gearbox?

[Skizzer]

GR37.  EVERY car should have a Schefenacker Grizzly Module.

 

Digging your roo bars, too.

[Shep Shepherd]

I'd love to experience a big Aussie sedan or station wagon in its natural habitat one day

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I learned that the population of Oz is like 22m people, or just over a third of the UK population. In view of that, it seems amazing that they were able to keep their motor industry going as long as they did, its not like they are going to be able to export huge numbers of RHD straight six barges round the world.

 

MOAR PLZ

[flat4alfa]

That Falcon Longreach across the road looks clean and is getting on a bit.  can we have moar photos of that please?

 

 

Please get a Rover Quintet soon

[2MB]

I've always liked the proportions of Aussie saloons through the years. One of the four door muscle cars from the 70s would make sense in the UK but I'm sure the cost of getting one here would make it nigh on impossible.

[philibusmo]

With my success with the window and aware that I will be doing some big mileage in this motor carriage I decided to turn my attentions and my $139 tool kit towards the cause of the lumpy idle. I suspected an air leak somewhere around the manifold which would also explain the less than sterling fuel consumption. Obviously for something that weighs about the same as a small moon being dragged along by a 4.0 six pot I wasn't expecting it to sip fuel like an AX diesel but I was rather hoping for above 20mpg.

 

Some spraying of carby cleaner around the cylinder head caused the revs to rise slightly when around the inlet to cylinder 5 so that appeared to be the route of the problem, although a glance at the spark plugs also revealed that not only were they the wrong type (this should have the fancy platinum plugs) but they also looked like they had been in use since about 1953. I decided to change both the plugs and the gasket.

 

Here is the petrol munching lump, spark plugs and coil packs are under the black plastic panel on top of the cam cover.

It's not a bad design really, all the ancillaries sit on the front and are easy to get to, the airbox and pipework need removing to get to most of the actual engine components but it's not a huge hassle. Also the cams are chain driven which is apparently robust enough to not worry about.

 

On looking at the inlet manifold it became obvious that the plenum chamber would also need to be unbolted (along with the throttle body) to allow access to the manifold bolts. My trip to Super Cheap Auto to get these parts was fun trying to explain to the woman behind the counter what a plenum chamber was so she could find the part number. I think she eventually thought it was some sort of pepper grinder or something, but never the less I left with the right gaskets and set to work.

 

The one thing that really bothers me with this car is the inappropriate use of Allen key bolts. The plenum chamber was held in place with about 14 of these bolts, all down in places only just accessible with the long end of my 10mm Allen key and done up to a nice high torque. Eventually they were all undone and various bits of writing loom and vacuum pipes were unplugged so I could lift it free revealing easy access to the inlet manifold and some (not BMW diesel) piss flaps. Access was still a little limited due to the fuel rail and injectors but not quite as bad as it looks in this photo.

 

With the bolts undone I could pull back the manifold, dislodge the squashed old gasket and simply* slide the new one in place. Of course it wasn't quite so easy getting the gasket lined up and not fall out as I faffed about with the manifold, but I got there in the end. The new plenum chamber was then popped into place and I came across that major problem that I think we've all had with many cars; the moment where a tool disappears off the face of the earth, in this case the Allen key. I remembered placing it safely on the opposite side of the engine bay, on top of the expansion tank, but after searching for over an hour, I couldn't find it anywhere. Then it went dark, spiffing.

 

The next morning I rose bright and early to search again and after another half hour I found it jammed under the passenger side headlamp. It was so thoroughly stuck that I needed to take the light out to get to it, I still haven't quite worked out how it got there. With the tool found the bolts were put back in and I plugged everything back in before changing the spark plugs. Easy enough, although the rear one was a bit of a squeeze and once fired up it idled smoothly and since then the fuel consumption has improved dramatically, now up to almost 26mpg on a run!

 

Apart from some minor work such as ripping out a box of electronics under the steering column that seems to serve no purpose other than to beep about everything and fitting an aux connection to the stereo, I just drove this car without incident for about 8000km without incident which might be a record for me.

 

Then in the space of 2 weeks I received two speeding tickets (the first ones I've ever had as the speed limits here are stupidly slow and the traffic Nazis are really not sporting with the way they catch people by hiding behind bushes of deserted stretches of road) and was then stopped again by the police as they 'wanted to check over my vehicle'. They gave it a pretty good check over but I think they were checking I didn't have 100 kilos of heroin or sherbert dip-dap or whatever under the spare wheel. I was thankful that they didn't check the handbrake as it was the one component of the car that was not functional - although it is generally not really necessary on an auto. I'm not going to go into the details of Western Australian traffic law but if they had found that then they could have put a yellow sticker on the car which would have created a whole heap of misery for me. Thus I decided to pull my finger out and fix it.

 

But I'm bored of typing now, so you'll have to wait for this next amazing* development...

 

So I'll leave you with these two shit photos of the V8 Supercars race I went to at Barbagallo Raceway.

Ford, Holden, Mercedes, Nissan and Volvo were all competing and was a thoroughly enjoyable day out. Would recommend.

[UltraWomble]

I never cease to be amazed by the cost of interstellar mileage cars in Australia.

I have a friend who bought a Datsun Ute because she needed something reliable to lug pet food about in and paid about £2800 for something you would struggle to sell for half that in the UK

[philibusmo]

'Sup Shiters. How's it going?

 

Everyone have a good time at Shitefest?

 

I had a wonderful time. By myself.

 

But no matter, as I am now going to really bore you with an amazing tale about handbrake adjustment. So as I was saying a week back or whatever, I got stopped by some over zealous traffic cop just south of Bunbury and had my car checked over. He couldn't find anything wrong but was annoyingly thorough. Anyway, he didn't check the handbrake, the only thing that I knew wasn't working but it hadn't really been a problem as being an auto I just left it in park when stopped.

 

I'd had a look before and found the little adjustment wheel kerjigger was almost impossible to get to and seized so I'd sacked it off for another day. The handbrake shoes use the inside edge of the rear brake disc as a drum. Its a fairly standard cable set up using a lever to push out the pistons of a basic brake cylinder and thus the shoe. I couldn't really see anything wrong so assumed it was all bollocksed and bought a major rebuild kit from Super Cheap and jacked up the back end of the car.

 

A very serious notice on the jack made it very clear to only use it on hard, level ground. But on the Mandarin farm that I was working and living on at that point I only had sloping sand.

And that is how all the nuns and kittens were killed.

 

I'd expected this to take an afternoon but turned into a right war and is without a doubt one of my least favourite jobs ever.

 

The problem was actually very simple, where the handbrake cables pulled the lever which moved the cylinder there is a rubber boot, which had perished and fallen to bits. This had then let The red Australian dust in which through repeated use had worn down the bits inside so that they didn't quite work as they should and the brake shoe wouldn't move.

 

The problem was that this boot is held in by the piston housing, which in turn I held in place by two 10mm Allen key bolts. Blocking access to these is the hub that the disc and wheel bolts to which cannot be removed separately from the drive shaft. Removing the driveshaft means that the rear wheel bearing has to come out which is designed in such a way that it'll go in easy enough but can't be taken out without damaging the bearing.

 

 

Obviously I wasn't going to go through that daft carry on and so managed to get one of those wobbly Allen keys in through a hole in the hub to get the bolts out a couple of mm and from here I managed to pull the old rubber boot out, but couldn't get the new one in place to protect the new lever and pistons, so I stuck it in place with silicon sealant and put a little groove into to the lever to hold it roughly in place. Despite how easy this sounds, it took flipping ages and I was getting nibbled by stripey mosquitoes. Not even being helped by one of the dogs on the farm much odds.

Jack is a rescue dog who I got very, very close to adopting, but taking him travelling with me wasn't really ideal.

 

With it all back together it looked roughly like this.

 

now that little lumpy wheel should be turned to adjust the brake shoe o that it is very close to touching the inside of the brake rotor when the lever is down. Of course, anyone can see that this is a stupid system and that little lumpy wheel is impossible to turn when it is being squeezed in by the shoe, especially when you're trying to do it through a piddly little hole in the centre of the disc. I got it all adjusted as best I could, after spending about a day doing both sides, and when I was putting the wheels back on I found that with the handbrake on, I couldn't turn the wheel using the wheelbrace that came with the car, so that seemed good.

 

Of course when it came to testing it out on the road, it turns out that the handbrake is only marginally less shit than it was before and will only stop the car pulling itself along if you're facing uphill. I'll have another go at adjusting it this week.

 

After that I'm off for a long road trip up the west coast, over the north coast and back down the east coast. I have a swag, some tools, a big container of water for me and vital fluids for the car so wcpgw?

 

To take my mind off just how much I failed at fixing the handbrake, have a picture of a 213ft tree with metal pegs bashed in to the trunk that I climbed to the top. There was an amazing view up there.

[PiperCub]

The red dust you refer to, is this the same ultra fine stuff that the locals call 'Bull dust'? If it is, an Aussie mate of mine has relayed stories of 1) How it gets bloody everywhere - including places you think were totally sealed & 2) How amazingly destructive it is. It seems to wreck anything it's left in contact with for even a short period.

[CHRIS1980]

Only in oz would you get a saloon car with a bull/roo bar,love it. I'm new to this forum so sorry if this a dumb question but are you an ex pat out there? It's been on my mind for a while now but would love to move there. If only to smoke around in some of the motors they have.

[500tops]

Jack <3

[dangerousdave]

I love all aussie cars I was born over there the first 3 years of my ife my dad had a proper aussie muscle car a Chrysler valiant charger with a 318 (5.2 ltr) v8

[D Spares & Tyres]

I'd love to experience a big Aussie sedan or station wagon in its natural habitat one day

They are shit

 

Had a 4.0 Falcon when I was out there. Had all the power of a European 1.6 but used 3 times as much fuel. Leaf springs on back too......

 

Utter shite

[Noel Tidybeard]

maybe de-glaze the shoe surface and put a good chamfer on the leading edge of the friction material as one used to do with a bmc mini

[philibusmo]

It is bull dust I'm refering to, I can confirm that it does get everywhere. For about 6 weeks I was working in a mining laboratory which involved handling samples that were mostly made of this red dust, including smashing the crap out of the the lumpier samples with a hammer.

 

One day I got back from work, brownish red from head to toe, it made its way through my clothes to my skin. I showered for about half an hour until the water stopped looking mucky. The next day I went for a 10k run and by the time.I got back I had developed the look of a blotchy fake tan where sweating had pulled yet more dust out of more pores. Its pretty horrible stuff.

 

@CHRIS1980 I've been in Australia for about 4 months now. So far I've only been in Western Australia and tbh unless you like living in isolated suburbia, I wouldn't recommend Perth as a place to live. Further south is nice, and green which is a bit of a novelty here, but once again it's all so isolated and the speed limits so strict that it feels very limiting. From what I've heard the East coast is the place to be though, so I'll keep you all up to date as I go.

[philibusmo]

They are shit

 

Had a 4.0 Falcon when I was out there. Had all the power of a European 1.6 but used 3 times as much fuel. Leaf springs on back too......

 

Utter shite

I find my Fairlane reasonably sprightly, it's obviously very heavy so no supercar, but it has about 230bhp from its 4.0 DOHC straight 6 and is a reasonably entertaining thing to blat around in once used to the weight of it, I don't have leaf springs though, by this point they have got a little more sophisticated. That's if you can actually call anything Australian sophisticated.

 

The more basic domestically produced sixes and eights are designed to be rugged rather than fast. I have found this remarkably capable on gravel and dirt roads. Believe me though that the speed of the FPV fords and HSV Holdens really is anything but slow, even the slightly more standard SS Commodore and XR8 Falcon can get quite a wriggle on.

[Shep Shepherd]

Jack is distinctive doggage ^^

[flat4alfa]

I experienced the car interior bull-dusting with frequent abandon.  Travelled for miles on graded roads and the dust got in everywhere, no ideas where it was getting in but it seemed to teleport inside the vehicle.

 

Didn't make much difference what I was in, the effect was the same: brand new 1990s Ford Laser or 1980s Gemini or 1970s HQ Kingswood(s)

 

I hated it.

 

Wish I still lived there though.  It's grim in Blighty.

[flat4alfa]

Just seen this

 

 

 

Picture doesn't do the height of that justice - I also went to the top of that! - in torrential rain.  Slipped more than once, still alive though

 

I lived in WA for a year, based Armadale but also lived up in the Pilbara for a bit. Lived-off coast fishing (mainly mackerel) and cans of VB.  Mind you it was 20 years ago I've heard Perth is a lot more built-up now.  Drag Racing was down in Pinjarra, IIRC

 

the traffic Nazis are really not sporting with the way they catch people by hiding behind bushes of deserted stretches of road

Look out for Jaywalker Nazis too.  They stand there in the shadows, in their shorts, waiting for you to cross a street where you're not supposed to then come out guns blazing

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_Tree

[Ghosty]

These stories are cracking, keep it up.

 

I have a lot of family in Aus: Old Man used to live in Adelaide ('50s/60s?) as did a lot of the family and he's one of only a few that came back.

 

One day he was digging in his back garden, and he found an entire car buried... and left it there?

Probably still there.

[philibusmo]

Now for the answer to the question that was on absolutely no ones lips: Did Phil ever manage to get the handbrake properly adjusted?

 

Well you'll be pleased/displeased/indifferent to know that I did manage to get the handbrake adjusted, and I only ended up with a blood blister on my index finger, a split lip and a painful left hip. Result.

 

Now on to non handbrake related news; on Sunday I'm off on a road trip from Perth, up the west coast of Australia and then along the north coast, out of WA across Northern Territory and into Queensland where I should then go south down the east coast and through New South Wales and into Victoria, ending in Melbourne. I'm expecting this to take a few months at least and I'm going with a lad from Durham, a Belgian couple and a girl from London. We're all going in the Fairlane except the girl who is taking her Ford Ka and convoying with us.

 

Rather her driving it than me. I had a look over it the other day to make sure that there wasn't anything obviously about to go wrong with it, and while the engine and suspension seems relatively healthy, pretty much everything else is pretty knackered in some way shape or form.

 

 

The good: 4 good Yokohama tyres and sills are solid.

 

The bad: The clutch is very high, the brakes are crap, oil black, it's clearly been in a front end shunt, bonnet release lever barely works, aircon is broken, radio defunct, using indicators turns off headlamps unless it puts them on full beam, front bumper end cap keeps almost falling off, interior smells, windscreen washers inoperative, engine sounds like a skeleton wanking in a biscuit tin that's been pushed down the stairs, A pillars rusty, starter motor lazy, door cards falling off, lacquer peel all over, oil leak from rocker cover, bonnet is a different shade of green and doesn't line up.

 

She only wants to get it to Darwin (about 4000km away) but even so I'm not convinced it will make it without any trouble. I did change the spark plugs as I've never seen any that look so ropey and still allow the car to run, and the air filter which was almost as black as the oil. She's planning on selling it in Darwin, but seeing as the smallest coin here is a 5 cent piece, I don't think that there is currency small enough to give this car any value.

 

Wish us luck!

[skattrd]

Good luck Phil, have you got a tow rope for the Ka? as it sounds like you may end up dragging it part of the way.

[LC Torana]

Don't they have anything older?

Yes, but you tend to get into "collector" car terrritory if you want a good one.

 

Some examples of Australian made Fairlanes:

 

You can have this 1986 ZL with 360,000km on the clock for A$599

www.ebay.com.au/itm/151716918262

 

But a 1978 example with 563,000km will set you back A$2,500

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/181774198709

 

And thirdly, a 1966 Galaxie 500, wearing Fairlane 500 badges will set you back an eye-watering A$10,900

www.ebay.com.au/itm/151705367804

[philibusmo]

Good luck Phil, have you got a tow rope for the Ka? as it sounds like you may end up dragging it part of the way.

I have a single yellow shoe lace. That'll be enough to pull the weight of a Ka, no?

[Norbert]

Cable tie round the Ka's bonnet release catch, route it towards the driver's side of the car round the back (engine side) of the central support, then turn it towards the front of the car and poke through the grille. Put the stub of another cable tie on it to stop it falling back through the grille. Hey presto - emergency auxiliary bonnet release (although you need a pair of pliers on it). Regularly do this on the Ka snotters I end up with as the release levers are made of cheese.

 

Good luck!

[philibusmo]

Good day Shite fans! Who remembers this tread? I almost didnt, and I was the one who bloody well started it but there you go. I had meant to keep this up to date as I was blezzing around Australia but found that I had very little internet for the first month and then after that I really couldn't be arsed.

 

But now I can be arsed so ready yourselves for some additions to this thread which promise to be substantially less interesting than Barret or Hirst's latest Shite thread bonanzas. And that's a guarantee.

 

I left you back in July with a horrible Ka, my substantial Fairlane and a long journey ahead. The jourmey started poorly as it was incredibly windy and pissing down with rain. I went to pick up my companions for the journey who had been found on Gumtree: a pair of Belgians called Matt and Lyse and another Englishclad who is confusingly also called Phil. With them and their luggge in the car it became apparent that we really did need a roof rack as there simply wasn't enough space and having bags, bread and a can of petrol piled on the Belgians in the back would probably soon become tiresome for them.

 

So off to Super Cheap Auto we went to purchase a roof rack and basket which we then fitted in the car park while the rain steadily got harder. We then drove to a multi story car park to plonk the stuff on the roof and cover it with a tarp and (a bit late) rendezvoused with the girl with the Ka. We managed about 4km before the Ka failed to proceed as the cooling system shat itself so we decided it was probably for the best to leave it in Perth so that it didn't do it again in the middle of the outback.

 

Then commenced the first day of the journey North which was unpleasant the whole way as the storm got stronger and the wind was strong enough to push the car off course - which with people and luggage weighs about as much as the moon. We stopped at a hostel in a small town called Cervantes. Apart from an utterly silent Chinese couple we were the only ones there. The owner of the hostel had a fixation with mad conspiracy theories and aliens, the walls of the hostel were covered with the most insane drivel he had printed from the internet and his "extensive DVD collection" was much the same with only a few non-bat-shit-crazy titles amongst them. These two basically sum up the place:

 

 

The next morning was better and we carried on North to Geraldton where nothing particularly exciting happened other than we got to watch some Germans attempting to rebuild the starter motor of their Hilux in the hostel kitchen.

 

The next stops were Kalbarri and Denham where I got to use my swag. For those who don't know, a swag is basically a tiny tent for one person that is super easy to put up and pretty weather proof, they also have a foam matress inside and are surprisingly comfy and cosy. They just look like a canvas coffin.

 

While in Denham (also known as Shark Bay) I came across a vehicle I had never seen before; the Suzuki Mightyboy which is possibly the world's most useless ute.

On leaving Denham I noticed that the left hand indicators were no longer working which was puzzling. It was decided that we ignore this inconvenience for a while and get to the next big town, Carnarvon, and fix it there. By the time we reached Carnarvon the left indicators were working again, but unfortunately when the brake pedal was pushed all the brake lights and which ever indicators you were trying to use would illuminate, so indicating while braking meant coming on and off the brake in quick succession to get the desired blinking indicator.

 

Once we had reached Carnarvon we decided that as annoying as this was, it was not a good enough reason to spend any more time in that shit hole than necessary. The town was pretty shonky, but the hostel was one of the most appalling buildings I have ever set foot in. To list a few faults:

 

Some ceilings leaked, others were collapsed.

The men's toilets had a wasp nest in it

The ladies toilets had a pidgeon

One communal room was full of flies and smelled as if someone had died

The smoke alarms were either broken of simply missing

Here was a sandwich toaster on the roof

There was a ping-pong table but it was missing its legs and broken in half.

Those are only the points I can remember off the top of my head almost 4 months later, I know that there were many more faults and it looked like a disused working men's club full of European squatters.

 

Rather than spend too much time in the hostel, Phil and I decided to get utterly rat arsed with some Estonians instead. They were drinking like they didn't want to live.

Anyway, with that miserable hole dispensed with we continued North towards Coral bay and Exmouth and we became used to the electrical gremlin and drove around it for a while as actually fixing it just seemed like such a bother.

 

About a week after Carnarvon we went to Karijini national park which is stunningly beautiful and I highly recommend. If this was a forum about interesting topographical features then I would elaborate further, but it's not.

 

While here, two motoring based things happened. Firstly I accused a man of being an independent financial advisor and then he fell over and smacked his head, due to this I got the chance to rally a nearly new Mitsubishi Pajero along some dirt roads at speed to deliver a first aid kit which was quite good fun. Secondly there was two routes across the park, a quick dirt road and a long tarmac road. We had been told by the park ranger that we really shouldnt take the dirt road unless we had a big proper 4x4 but we were on the other side of the park and Phil and I really wanted to get back to the camp site and have a beer so we decided to take it anyway despite protests from the Belgians. We made it without too much bother although the rear view mirror has always been bit wobbly since and I don't think the rear suspension will ever be the same again. One unexpected consequence was that all the electrical were suddenly behaving themselves. After a small amount of investigation we found the tow bar wiring was frayed and shorting out. The dust from the road had covered all the exposed wire and stopped it shorting, so we cut back the wiring, capped it with duct tape and tucked it behind the bumper with a cable tie. This may be the first instance ever of Australian bull dust actually fixing a problem with a car. We think the wiring had been damaged from my earlier rallying around dirt roads in Kalbarri as with all the people in the car, the to bar wiring was not far from the deck.

 

Little else motoring related happened in Western Australia although on a side note, we stopped in an excellent hostel in Broome which amongst other novelties, had a chain smoking transvestite on a motorised bicycle.

 

Next stop; Northern Territories - although that will have to wait for the next installment, mostly because I'm tired and typing this out on a touchscreen is somewhat awkward, but fear not because this frankly pathetic amount of chod bothering takes a dramatic upturn soon.

[philibusmo]

It's time for the Northern Territories, featuring no Renault 20s or Leyland Princesses but fear not because there is an obscure Datsun!

 

Before I start I will just say that the Northern Territories is massive and full of basically nothing. It also incredibly hot and exceedingly boring to drive through. However it does have its good points, large amounts of the main roads outside of the towns have a 130kph speed limit which translates to about 80mph in old money. This is vastly more acceptable than the 110kph you are stuck to through the rest of Australia. Some sections right in the centre are completely derestricted with just a sign saying "drive to the conditions" which as the roads are pretty much arrow straight with nothing for miles around basically means you can drive as fast as your fuel consumption will allow before you reach the next servo. It's very important to remeber this as if you run out of fuel then you could well die. I didn't run out of fuel or die.

 

On the way into Darwin there were a fair few floodways which usually cause a dip in the road, fully loaded and with 4 people on board we found that the back end frequently grounded out, but luckily the tow bar mount has a small but hefty skid plate welded on to it so that (and the wiring) took all the force of each impact. On checking it turns out that the rear bump stops have a larger that usual part to play in the rear suspension set up of these Falcons and Fairlane and they were utterly knackered.

Once we reached Darwin the Belgians left to do some Belgian stuff and left Phil and I. With less weight in the back, I still haven't been bothered to fix the rear suspension properly but it will get done in the next couple of weeks before I sell it.

 

Darwin is only really a city because its the biggest place in NT and by far the most interesting feature was this Nissan EXA.

Anyone who was just here for the Datsun can now go back to whatever else they were doing.

 

There was also this Daewoo Kalos Sedan which looks especially misery inducing wearing $2 wheel trims.

While in Darwin, Phil and I got a job running a couple of market stalls, selling yoyo balls the the opportunity to plunge your hand into a vat of boiling wax. I am not making this shit up.

 

One perk of the job was that it came with a vehicle to transport all the balls and wax heating machine, the downside to this perk was that the vehicle in question was the most comprehensively knackered Volkswagen T4 Transporter in existence. When we got it we knew that the back door wouldn't stay shut and although it had a 5 speed gearbox, only the first 4 of those speeds would function. On further investigation we found that there were a number of novel features such as a manually adjustable volt meter, a dashboard that would literally fall apart at any moment and a complete lack of power, balanced out by marginal brakes and borderline illegal tyres.

The rear door was almost held shut with a bit of bungy cord but things kept moving around and pushing it ajar so we kept losing stuff. When we noticed an entire folding table make a bid for freedom when exiting a round-a-bout we decided that a quality repair was in order so we got a few bits from Bunnings and smashed the original door mechanism with a hammer. A few holes punched through the door skin with a hammer and screw driver and before you know it we had fashioned a perfectly secure* door lock.

We also began investigating the gear box problem and found it relatively common for these 2.5 pez engines to end up stripping all the teeth on just the 5th gear without destroying anything else because it lives in its own compartment down the end of the gearbox which is accessible from the wheel arch. We tried the local VW dealership for the part but when we gave them the vin number it turned out that it was originally an automatic ad had been converted to a manual box. Due to this they couldn't find the part, so we went to a wreckers yard instead where we found one with the correct gearbox, but then realsied we needed a gear puller for this exercise and gave up. There wasn't a great many interesting cars in this yard, but there was a Mazda 121 (which looks like a hat) being worn by a Ford Laser as a hat.

When we found that the market stalls were only just paying our beer budget and not much further we sacked off the VW and Darwin in general to head for Queensland. Half way there we decided to take a slight* detour to Alice Springs to see Ularu. This detour turned out to be about 2000km in total.

 

Ularu was quite good for a massive rock, although there were too many tourists for my liking, and some of them were French.

 

On the way back through Alice Springs, we stopped to have a look around the transport museum which was really rather interesting in a very dull, car bore, sort of way. Luckily Phil is also into cars and was an apprentice mechanic before a motorbike crash ended his apprenticeship and he ended up pulling children out of barriers at an indoor kart track before coming to Australia.

 

The museum has a wide range of vehicles on display that have some vague relevance to Australian culture. It focuses heavily on trucking and Kenworths in particular, although there are a range of other cars there including a pair of very early minis, one of which is a Cooper S which I was considering offering to buy, then ship back and sell for many cash money prizes.

Many of the cars sport a solid but distressed look about them which I quite like as its exactly what old cars in the middle of the outback should look like. There was also this Dodge Corronet which seemed to have been running on town gas like in the war. Sadly while there were pictures showing that it had travelled quite a distance at some point in its life there was nothing telling the story behind this contraption:

And finally for our bus fanciers there was quite a collection of miserable looking public transport solutions. My favourite, and possibly the grimmest was this Leyland Leopard(?) ex school bus. You could practically smell the burned childrens flesh on the vinyl seats.

I have got more pictures of the various motorised conveyances that were on display but my mobile Internet here is too dodgy to upload them so you're just going to have to lump it for the moment. If you're in the area then come have a look yourselves, I personally preferred it to the big rock but that was pretty good as well.

 

Next stop on this whistle stop tour Queensland which will include an unexpected Rover...

 

Thank you for reading, I'll let the Leyland Leopard say the final two words...