Cribs

Ok i don't really know much about these faux T-Birds except something about some Swedish designer and a company called Viztech, and knowing me these things have probably been around for two years and are old hat.......but.......in a world full of 'retro' rides like the new Chargers, Camaros and the awesomely homosexual PT Cruiser this is one i would actually own. Especially if i was featured on MTV Cribs.
What?................. it could happen one day. They might wanna do a feature on a greasy bogan.

50' Fleetline

Is this not the coolest four door Chev you've ever seen? I wouldn't change a thing.

Heart Surgery

Rust flakes from the fuel tank was making my motor run like shit so i pulled the carby and went right through it. Found an air bleed and jet partially blocked.
Pulled the fuel tank and cleaned the fuel lines but later when reassembling, the tank started leaking fuel..... pulled it out again and now I'm going to cut the rusty base of the tank out and weld in a new clean patch. More work but done right once is better than doing it twice.
All that and still fix the tranny leak.

Bong On

Been on a little R & R lately catching up on everything but cars and blogs.
Usual stuff like fixing up the house to random stuff like building a handrail for my dads church. I'm a firm believer in no good deed goes unpunished, so I'm hoping that one won't bite me on the ass.
The Valiant has good and bad news. The good news was that i was able to ditch the car at good ol' Mez's place so he could take it for a wheel alignment and get a roadworthy sorted and am happy to say it is now legally registered to terrorize the streets.
The bad news is it leaks oil from a suspected torque converter seal, which means i gotta pull the box out one night this week, and lastly rust flakes from the fuel tank have blocked the carburettor and caused the motor to run like shit.
It all sounds bad but i feel like I'm on the home straight now.

The Stoke

If you wanted to and haven't yet gone to the Museum of Brisbane skate exhibition, you better do it before it ends next Sunday. I waited long enough to go to avoid the Johnny come latelys, so i could soak it all in.

Bit of a nice blast through time of skateboarding in general with some skateboards from the 1950's to today, and a few pictures of Brisbane skaters that was a little light on but a great effort non the less, theres also a cool little skate bowl.

New Shoes

I wasn't a big fan of the steel wheel look so i got some freebie caps from the Mez and his vast collection of spares and tools i seem to be borrowing a bit from lately.

There Chrysler caps off some Valiant of sorts and i think they make the car look like something grandad would drive and understated enough to not draw unwanted attention. Perfect for a daily driver.

In other news i finally fixed my long enduring misfire, which can be put down to my own stupid error when i timed the motor up, i somehow timed it a tooth out?? I have no idea how, one tooth is a long way out on the chain, but i'm just happy to have it running right.

All i need now is someone to help me bleed the brakes and a wheel alignment and the old girls good to.................I don't want to jinx myself, lets just leave it at that.

Paddo Appreciation Day

Fuck the council. You want shit done you gotta do it yourself.

Built in 94' the park was looking a little worse for wear, so a few enterprising lads tired of waiting for the council to fix the park went about fixing it themselves and held a little shin dig to celebrate. Skates better than the day it opened.

TODAY

I Was Never Friends With Him Anyways

He thinks he's so good now with his fancy air filter.
What unfiltered air not good enough for him hey? I heard he didn't even pay a tenner for that but probably beat some guy down to 8 bucks and then handed him a ten and wanted change. Thinks he's so rich spending ten bucks. If i had ten bucks i bet i could buy 50 air filters for that, and i wouldn't even need to leave the sticker on to show people how rich i am. Wanker. Probably has a job too.
Everyone knows his carb leaks anyways, i don't even know what he's trying to hide. Once a leaker always a leaker i heard. haha.
You can tell he didn't even cut down the thread and use the fancy chrome nut that came with it but just stuck some dirty old washers and a nut under that wing nut to space it out.
Someone told me he payed someone else to fit it for him anyways, so i don't know why he thinks he's so good? I'm not even jealous! I hope that nut falls down his carby and wrecks his motor. He won't be so cool then! He'll probably come and ask me how to fix it.
I heard he has a blog to. He's probably at home now putting photos up of it on his blog. Sooo lame! I bet the whole blogs shit. "Oh hi i'm Doc look at me and my crappy airfilter" loser....

Paddo Skatepark

I grew up, slept, laughed, joked, cheered, spilt blood, got beat up, smoked, broke, invented, stole, drank whiskey, bashed junkies, high fived, shook hands, threw punches, abused police, talked shit, lost, found, greened out and skipped school just to skate there, and wouldn't have changed a minute of it, except maybe the getting beat up part, that sucked the royal dog balls.
One thing i never did was see 6ft Hick play though! God bless the fuckin' lot of ya.

AMWU

As you'd probably noticed things around here have been a little slow and hectic lately with all the flooding. And i could write a whole long list about why this isn't started and that's not finished and how it sucks that the Twilight car show got canceled and how i was looking forward to having a beer with me mates, but in the end it is what it is.
So heres a cartoon from the Australian Metal Workers Union newsletter. The best thing for me about the AMWU is that they still believe its 1933. I fully get into it for a laugh but nobody takes me serious, they just wait for me to shut up, whilst the boys laugh and egg me on.
Some of my favourite lines to shout out at or little stop work meetings are "We've all got hungry mouths at home to feed!" or "Rats get fat whilst good workers suffer! " or the all time favourite of many a man "Oh that's it i'm walkin!" all of which must be shot from the hip and said over the smallest problem.

$800,000

Not sure if anyones seen this or not but a few people sent me this and i thought it might be of some interest on here.
The pictures show a 1947 ford 1/2 ton pickup truck from Whitby , Ontario , Canada that was just sold to FORD MOTOR COMPANY of Detroit , Michigan for the sum of $800,000.00 plus a Ford F350 dually truck. This truck, according to Ford records, is one of only 35 that was ordered and built in 1947 with factory installed........ McCulloch water cooled supercharger, special carburetor, special very low profile air cleaner for the McCulloch due to hood height problem when installed intake has lower carb mounting height 'special supercharger intake', (see above air cleaner ) Edmunds finned aluminum heads, Fenton cast iron headers, factory dual exhaust. OTHER OPTIONS ORIGINALLY INSTALLED: sliding rear window, installed outside sunvisor, vacuum powered dash fan, factory compass, ashtray, smokers kit, locking steering column, dome light, inside sunvisors, fog lights; bumper mounted, some form of factory cruise control with knob & wire in dash.
This truck was being restored by Dave Hill. Dave and his father Len purchased this truck from the farmer who was the ORIGINAL OWNER, who ordered it equipped as it is, new in 1947. Dave has added his own custom touches like the early luggage rack metal box in pickup bed, blue dot twin taillights and other details. Metal covered spare tire cover. What makes this truck so rare and valuable??? As one of ONLY 35 documented originally built, it may be the only remaining original, numbers matching example that can be authenticated by a team of Ford museum employees before the offer. Apparently there 'might be' two other survivors that are in pieces and cannot or have not been authenticated.

Went To Work

It took me an hour and a half to get there the long way round but finally made it to help clean up. What we found was bad enough but i couldn't imagine the ass ache people must be having with there own houses flooded.
This is a freshly finished mini tanker turned upside down and resting on the forklift. The stands are facing upwards and you can see at the bottom the jib we use to pick the tanks up with that is built so strong and heavy it would take more than 10 men to lift.
Catch of the day.

This container is in the creek behind the workshop and would have floated more than 200 metres.

You can see how high the flood got, i didn't measure it but by eye it would be around 5 metres. There is a waste oil tank at the back turned over and plenty of sludge.

These reeds belong in the creek behind the workshop and somehow floated over the fence. They are massive.

It wouldn't be so bad except for the sludge, it gets everywhere. All our welders, hand tools, plasma cutters, band saw, press, drop saw........everything went under.

More cleaning tomorrow.

Flooded

Just a regular day in Goodna paradise. Went down for a look this morning.
10 minutes after i took this photo the water was over the roof gutters! If you know this area you would know how much water there actually is.......crazy.

The Ipswich motorway was completely flooded over. Makes me think how bad things must be at work, won't know till friday or next week i guess.

Thankfully ny house is out of the firing line, i just hope everyone out there in W.C.Zero land are as lucky as me.

Exciter

If this rain keeps up i think I'm seriously going to need one of these!
This boat was built in Williamstown Victoria by a gentleman named Tommy Watts.
Story goes he signed a deal with Mobil in 1964 to buy fuel at 8cents a gallon for the next 10 years and when the fuel price went up to 27cents a gallon in the early 70's Tommy went laughing all the way to the bank and set about building this hydroplane.

Deora 2

How crazy is this thing!! How could you not love it. A forgotten Aussie custom.
Full story here http://kustomkultureaustralia.com/

Tales Of A Cursed Valiant

What happens when you snap a seized bleed nipple off in a caliper? You go and snap an easy out trying to remove it.
The other end of the easy out is stuck in the caliper. Its now become my favourite machine shops problem. They love me.

Old Scrap

My old man took photos of these not long ago somewhere out bush. He told me but i forgot, i just remember him saying it would be a 6 hour drive to get there. He printed them out and i scanned them. If theres anything you want just contact me and I'll get the details for you.......everything was for sale.
I'm guessing it's a Dodge Phoenix below? The Ford truck in the background looks half decent.Not sure what this is, Chev? The white 39' Ford truck looks good beside it, and i wouldn't mind having the grille you can just see in the bottom picture, but he didn't think I'd be interested in the trucks.

Model A cowl looks well and truly gone. Maybe they have good chassis?

This is the last of them. The roof looks to be cut in half cross ways?? EK Ute in the background.

I Never Said I Wasn't A Fuck Head?

Remember when i spouted off that there was nothing old school about automatic welding helmets and if they didn't use them back in the day why should we??
Yeah well i was right, but i was still being a pompas wanker.
Automatic welding helmets are really good if your starting out, its just one less thing to worry about, especially if your learning to TIG weld with a scratch start not pilot arc equipped welder. Even starting a MIG welder is easier. But after a while with practice this no longer becomes problem.
The only annoying thing with the old welding helmets is the small viewing window. It's fine most of the time but sometimes when welding in some positions the helmet moves and suddenly your having trouble seeing the job.
For ages i tryed to find a helmet with a bigger viewing lense, like the cool ones you see in the old war photos of the people building the bomber planes, but the only one i could find was shaped like a fucking skull. Everything now is automatic lense.......its what the people want.
So with the Aussie dollar so good i bought this automatic helmet with a tall lense. It would be close to double the size in lense to my old helmet. If your going to buy one don't buy a cheap one if you want to weld alot. For the odd welding job they'd be ok, i'm not sure I've never used one, but an apprentice at work bought a cheap one and was getting welding flash.
These Miller ones retail at $440 but you'll save $100 or more if you buy from the states. They have all fruity ones with clowns, jokers and ten different flame designs and even an Orange County Chopper one!!!! Cooooooll.
If i find a cool old tall lense helmet circa 1944 i'll retire this one though.