2 February 2012
Nothing like leaving things to the last minute. The brake booster wasn't working so before I took off for Melbourne I thought I'd better sort it. I had a spare in the shed off Bandit2, so sent that up to Sydney to get rebuilt. They turned it around in a couple of days which was awesome. So it was up to Trev's on the hoist to get the thing on. The workshop book says to unhook the brake pedal and take the whole extension arm off, but I reckoned I could just do the booster itself. It all went fairly smoothly, the only issue was access to the bolts to get a spanner on them and turn it. Lucky for the hoist so I could get at the 2 bottom ones from underneath. And even luckier for Trev's collection of short bent spanners so I could get the top ones off. All back on and sorted in one evening, that must be some sort of record for me!
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4 February 2012
Time for another road trip to Small Ford Sunday in Melbourne. Up early on the Saturday morning and headed off to Goulburn to meet Steve. He'd gotten his Cortina ready to rock and we headed off after getting a Maccas breakfast and topping up the tanks. And fitting new wiper blades to the Cortina (which was a great idea as you'll see later on). The SFCC guys were planning on meeting at Gundagai at about 9:30am. We made it there only to find Theo, the others had motored off ahead. So me and Steve kept on going. As we passed through Holbrook we saw the others parked up grabbing refreshments, we kept going as we planned to stop at Albury for lunch, and they were much faster than us anyway. And sure enough they motored past us just out of Albury and were gone. All KFC'd and fueled up again at Albury, we kicked on into Victoria. It was all smooth sailing with another stop outside of Seymour to let old Betty cool off a bit. Then we roared into Melbourne, and 2km from the motel as we exited onto the freeway ringroad there was a muttered call on the radio from Steve, and he wasn't in my mirror anymore. Turns out his left rear tyre had let go at about 100kmh and tried to chuck him off the road. That got his attention. A rescue mission was sent out from the motel as the others had seen us parked up. But we'd got the tyre changed and back to the motel no worries.
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After checking in the whole crew decided to give the cars a wash. So we broke out the motel fire hoses and tried to use up all of Melbournes water at once. It was a great sight seeing the motel parking lot chock full of cool cars. Then after a quick shower we all went over the road for dinner and a few beers.
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5 February 2012
Sunday dawned a little overcast, and bloody windy. And it didn't let up all day. We were up early and headed off to the traditional bakery for breakfast and coffee. I bet they weren't expecting that for their Sunday morning trade. Then off to the show by about 9am. We all got parked with our same models and then had a good wander around checking out all the cars and trying to keep the dust out of our eyes. It was a shame it was so windy, it kinda got to me after a while and took the shine off an excellent show. And for some reason I didn't take any pictures of Betty at the show, must have been distracted wih all the other awesome cars there. After the trophy presentations me and Steve decided to pack it up and start the trek home. We filled up and grabbed some drinks and got going into the wind. All the way to Wangaratta we could see a massive storm brewing and tracking along next to us. About an hour out from Albury the rain and wind hit us. It chucked it down. There were branches and sticks all over the road too. It pounded us all the way into Albury where we stopped for fuel and a feed again. The rain buggered off while we ate, and I locked the keys in the car again. More hunting for packing tape. We got underway again and made it to Gundagai before the sun started going down and the trucks came out to play. We spent the next few hours playing dodgems with the b-doubles and trying not to get in their way too much. I dropped Steve back at Goulburn and headed for the coast. After a very steady trip over the mountains (I didn't want any encounters with the wildlife) I made it back around midnight. A great weekend again.
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26 February 2012
There was another classic Ford cruise on, and cause after April when the new baby comes I probably won't get much of a chance to get out I thought I'd jump at the chance to get to another event. It was an early start to get to the meeting point up the old highway at Berowra. Of course I left home to early and made it with plenty of time to spare and was the first car there. It was a cool drive up the old highway then along the freeway up to Budgewoi. We had an awesome spot at a park right on the water. The Hunter British Ford club met us there too, and there was some excellent cars there. My favorite was the Anglia wagon. On the way back I stopped in just off the M2/M7 and grabbed a welder off a bloke. Then headed for home. Only one more hiccup at Albion Park when I stopped for a snack at Maccas. The line was huge so I gave up on food, but on getting back to the car i'd locked the bloody keys in it. So a trip to the bottle shop and a root around in their bins got me some packing tape and we got back in. Then smooth sailing to home again. It was a long day but awesome to get out in the car again.
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6 May 2012
I'd heard about the Wings Over The Illawarra car/air show last year and thought it'd be cool to get along to. And then the SFCC guys said a few of them were coming too, so what better excuse did I need. Steve trailered his mk1 down to our place and we left from here. It was a great day out. Lots of cars in the show, and plenty of awesome planes to look at and watch fly. There was nearly too much to see for just one day with all the cars and planes.
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20 May 2012
The National Motoring Heritage Day had an event out at Berry, so I crazilly suggested that I take the girls along to their first car show. Uncle Denis and Aunty Leila came along for support (and cause there was only 1 kids seat in Betty). There were some cool cars there that I hadn't seen before. But most of the time was spent keeping kids amused and located once their short attention span expired.
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29 July 2012
Late July and its the All Ford Day at Eastern Creek again. Thought I'd get along for a look at this, and met Steve in his KA Laser along the way. The cllub had a great turnout of cars again, and was good to see some new ones as well. The Mk2 race car with the dry sumped 2.3 Duratec was incredible. Old Betty cruised up and back ok, but there is still a vibration coming from somewhere that I should sort out. Might be the tailshaft (but then it was balanced only a couple of years ago). I'm guessing its something amiss in the auto box. There is plenty of ATF coming out of that as well. Ah well. Park her in the shed till later in the year.
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12 October 2012
Just to prove that old Betty still runs I had to get her out of hte garage. Maya was having her birthday party in there, so Betty had to go out up to Trev's shed for a couple of nights. A bit of cranking to get the fuel in and she fired up. I should change the oil before heading up to Sydney on November 11. That gives me a few weeks.
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11 November 2012
The old girl got a hose off and rolled out of the shed for the last show of the year, the SFCC Display Day. This time is was a drive up to Heathcote and then down Heathcode Rd towards Liverpool. So something a little bit different for the drive. As usual it was an excellent day with a hige turnout from the club. There are some very cool cars getting about. The other couple of photos were just in the garage in December. I must have taken them just to remind myself of what Betty looks like, in case I'd forgotten.
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