Australian Belly Tank

[Milwaukee Midget]

Those aussies are holden nothing back . . .

[Dr Goggles]

If it ever dies, you could cut it up & have Kingswood for the fire place. Most people over here won't catch the pun in that one mate.
  Sid.

Sid, you've got the gig. No probation period , you're part of the crew .

You did say though...."if it ever dies".......as the colonel said once " how do you get rid of a fig tree?...............you move"

I chop the blazes out of it every year and it rises to the challenge and grows like bamboo, I was hopingthat those panels would grow into it but the co-director didn't share my aims there........ HJ /HZ parts aren't so valuable yet.

Those aussies are holden nothing back . . .

Hey Bronze Fonz ,we're talking holy words here I don't want you "general-izing"....now, I'm a Statesman( look it up) but if you take our Marque in Vain you'll be between the DeVille and the dead fig-tree.

 

[Elmo Rodge]

Eeeeeeeeeek.  Wayno

[kiwi belly tank]

Lynchy's on to it, no fff...( oh, cant say that ) surprise there. "Premier fire wood", not sure it wood burn.
  Sid.

[Milwaukee Midget]

If it ever dies, you could cut it up & have Kingswood for the fire place. Most people over here won't catch the pun in that one mate.
  Sid.

If this is what gives the king wood, I'd hate to meet the queen.

It would appear that stateside, the king had an unnatural fondness for decorative luggage racks, whitewall tires and faux veneers.

[SPARKY]

posted on my facebook today---got 7 more---MF----is going to owe you BIG TIME!!!

[Dr Goggles]

Hey Sparky, you're on FB?...... I'm loving the new Ratical build, I'm employing some of your bingeneering techniques, rather than the CAD bible we had open for the build of the SOS........structural analysis on the Sprite of Sunshine involves taking three steps back squinting a bit and saying yes , or no.

I had Craig "The Professor" Watson a good mate who's a real hot-rodder over last night. I haven't kept a pair of oxy-acetylene bottles for a while and he was happy to bring his over.He gets around in an unmolested '56 F truck, he seemed quite surprised when I told him he could probably get a good price on it as a trade in and get himself into something decent.

We heated up the radius rods on the Prefect chassis and bent them out to the edge of the tank perimeter, took a fair bit of heat but it looks good , I left them just a little shy so they'd have a little load on them when they're done up. At the last minute it occurred to me , as they are tiny little things,that rather than cut the wishbone part off completely so I was left with just empty pipe I cut it back a little longer leaving two inches of the forging in the end of them, that means rather than weld a nut into the end of them I will just drill and tap a 7/16 hole into the end of the solid and thread in a heim joint, noice!

Craig seemed pretty happy with the look of it all and despite being a flathead man he saw the hot-rod sensibility in what I'm trying to achieve, an engine/gearbox/clutch package that's ten inches deep? perfect.........

Back at it tonight.

[Freud]

Do "The Girls" portrait..................

Then forward to Simon and Eye.

FREUD

[Dr Goggles]

I have what has been described by the resident physician as a "man cold", I ache all over and this morning coughed up an advanced life-form, I waited til the cold and flu capsules had seemed to have taken some effect and wandered out to the laboratory...firstly here's a shot of the radius rods we bent on Thurs night



As I said I didn't bend them all the way so they'd have a little load on them when they are done up.



Here's the pinion on the diff, those four holes are going to be handy, I'll use them to mount a plate to support the chain drive on both sides as it comes across from the primary on the bike motor.....I have to extend the cog out about three inches to clear the crank case as the crank will sit on the centreline of the car and the chain will be about a six inch jump



Then I took the rear radius rods off, and the spring , I'll remake the rods, shortening what I have and mount them off the shock lugs that can be seen on the axle...



I'll cut a half moon into the end of the chassis rails and then run a piece of 1" wide strap around the axle tube welding it top and bottom to secure the rail to the axle tube.



.that's it for today, I'm couch bound.

[4-barrel Mike]

Gogster:

  I must be missing something; looks to me that all you're doing by leaving "a little load" in your split wishbone is to preload a bunch of bind into your spring shackles. 

Mike

[kiwi belly tank]

I like ya shop floor mate, looks like the Bremworth is wearing a little thin in places though or is it actually a Victorian shag-pile?
If you spend enough time on a plane with all those foreigners breathing their junk all over ya, you're gunna pick up some sick. Ya just can't trust those bloody foreigners.
Get well soon & get on with it.
  Sid.

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Attention Dr. Goggles:

Beieve it or else, we forgot to deliver the t-shirts to you when you made your visit to SpeedWeek last month.  Since it was our error (and for that matter, we forgot lots of things) -- what's your mailing address?  We'll ship them to you soon.  You're welcome to give me the address in confidence - so the spammers and scammers and groupies don't start pestering you.

[Dr Goggles]

I like ya shop floor mate, looks like the Bremworth is wearing a little thin in places though or is it actually a Victorian shag-pile?
If you spend enough time on a plane with all those foreigners breathing their junk all over ya, you're gunna pick up some sick. Ya just can't trust those bloody foreigners.
Get well soon & get on with it.
  Sid.

Bremworth......... If I had a shed big enough to fit TWO bellytanks then I'd be working on the "poured by pissed part-timers" slab , but as you see this is a "plen air" job. Whatever it is I caught got a whole lot worse yesterday but is now on the wane It seems, I think the moaning was what knocked it on the head   .

Gogster:

 I must be missing something; looks to me that all you're doing by leaving "a little load" in your split wishbone is to preload a bunch of bind into your spring shackles.  
Mike

You may well be right Mike but the immediate job here is to slam it together, all of those bushings in that suspension are goosed, when it is together then I can go a tinkering and adress those things that the rushed build didn't , now we all know that could be a long time hence but that's my story and I'm stickin to it....

Attention Dr. Goggles:

Beieve it or else, we forgot to deliver the t-shirts to you when you made your visit to SpeedWeek last month.  Since it was our error (and for that matter, we forgot lots of things) -- what's your mailing address?  We'll ship them to you soon.  You're welcome to give me the address in confidence - so the spammers and scammers and groupies don't start pestering you.

If only there was a way to separate the spammers and scammers from the groupies....then we'd be on to somethin'.....I'll get the address to you Sir SSS.

[kiwi belly tank]

Yeah, I know what ya mean mate. I'm a grass roots kinda guy myself, no pun intended. My liner reaches diagonally corner to corner in the shop without the nose & tail.
Reminds me of the days when I started working with Al, way back when we were still in the garage behind his mothers house in San Gabriel. We would take the nose, tail & chute pack off & put them out on the lawn. I have a little more space than that but I have a lot more car.
Glad to hear the demons are leaving ya scrawny little body, i bet ya whit was a little off.
  Sid.

[Dr Goggles]

Someone hassled me this morning ...." why haven't you put anything up about the trip?"......"well, I'm struggling to get the mag stuff done, and I can't get a laugh out of it, I haven't had time"....

Now, I traveled with Simon Davidson , who, to coin an annoying phrase is " a great artist in his own right"....... he'll hit me for that. I didn't really take a camera, I picked up a GoPro along the way and so I have lots of pics of me trying to turn it on, some time lapse and some other stuff...hmmm, so the only photo's I took were on my phone, now they aren't art but they do convey something....the trip was such a dense sensory experience that there is no sense writing a travel diary, it wouldn't be right... it would be tooo sane and sanitary.....so here as a taster is my phone photo diary, it's the bits that won't be published anywhere else......

We landed at LAX and dashed to the hire lot, Simon saw the opportunity of getting a GT Mustang for $100 a day as silly to walk past, you can't hire a four door family car here for that....now, this photo is obviously AFTER Wendover because I'm unshaven and wearing Gord's Studie shirt but it'll do for now.....



We picked up the GO-Pro from Simon's mate Drew in Venice and went to the "Trashcan"( El Tarasco) for breakfast.... then we were off to Orange to collect a Telecaster that I'd bought on eBay and for Simon to buy some new lenses, this I might add was no small undertaking, one was the size of the Saturn V....we skidaddled outa there and headed for 29 Palms,



I was having "Breaking Bad" flashbacks as we toured the surrounds and sat on a hilltop to watch the sunset. We returned to the Motel where it was free Taco night, this was to be a continuing theme..........the next day we avoided the Freeway and bolted up to Vegas stopping at Searchlight, for Mexican. Simon had promised a friend we would visit a Tiki bar that he had recommended....


I had a Martini and then a Mojito, they worked. Then we decided to go an get something to eat, it was late, we ate at a trailer run by a Colombian guy, making Mexican. It was fantastic and cheap....the rest of the lot was taken up by a 24 hour tire joint, we thought that was pretty funny, they didn't....." NO PHOTO!!!!!" Simon was keen on taking some night-time shots of Vegas , I tagged along humming to myself...."   

Can you guess where I'm calling from?
The Las Vegas Hilton
I know it's hard to hear
It's just the echo on the line
Yes, that's right I'm calling from
The Las Vegas Hilton
I just wanna say that I'm feeling fine.....funny coz I never liked the Little River Band.





We made it to Wendover the next day after a lazy blast , they make for good cruising those 5.0 Tangs.... now, I didn't find Land's End Lynda until Sunday but here's a photo anyway, You're lookin good Lynda, I just noticed I could lose a bit of the gut.




Now, losing the gut wasn't gonna happen on this trip. One of the few times we didn't eat Mexican was when we ventured into the deadly buffet at the Nugget, I don't know why. It wouldn't have seemed so overwhelming if it was like not 10pm and I wasn't severely sunburnt and hey, even hungry. Simon didn't miss a beat, he eats like a horse with a herd of tapeworms when he's not hungry, apparently he was hungry. I ambled along behind and added sample size serves to my plate......I stared for a while at the chocolate fountain , you can think up your own jokes for this one.




I have deliberately avoided as much Speedweek coverage as I can here , but there will be a little. We met Gord Driedger after ogling his beautiful blue 53 Stude. Gord's resolutely casual presentation , cigar, mo and racing suit seemed a great representation of what we liked about the week, here over the scoop of the Ford is the Stude. It's a terrible photo...but like I said...

Each time we saw the Stude I'd ( until Simon began to pre-empt me with ..."yeah, you said") say...."Jeez, that'd make a great street cruiser"



I've got no idea what I was doing here...why I wanted a shot of that sports bike in the background or what but well there you go, me grimacing, at Wendover....I don't remember ever at any moment thinking I wasn't enjoying myself....so I dunno what this was about.....



Graham and I got treated to a ride when Stainless and his mate Alan went for a buzz of the flats in Al's 6 seat Cessna, it was just sensational, here Bob and Al argue over the operating instructions for the plane......just kidding , Al was pointing out the restricted airspace surrounding Bonneville, Bob wanted to see the salt further up the lake...........we did get shots of the shadow of plane flying along the main track between the mile markers, no , of course I'm not putting one here....well, maybe later.



I've made some great friends here on landracing.com and not least among them is Wayno my bellytank brother, hey we're both muso's too what could there be not to like?...here Wayno was showing me the cool bakelite harp holder he'd made....I gave Wayno a pebble from Pendine Sands , I wish you could have seen the look on his hard of hearing face when I first handed it to him.... Wayne spent half the time I was with him turning to the nearest person with that Elmo Rodge grin on his face and saying "What, on earth did he just say?"...granted Wayno ,I talk too fast, I mumble and in a dialect none of you guys understand.....



Then we met this guy, some of you may know him........great to catch up Jon



The night after Wendover we stayed at Wayno's in Salina, now just around the corner was this sign that should be on the front of my shed.


Up the road from Salina was Gunnison , this was the window of the fuel stop.....while I sat there a kid walked up the street with a python wrapped around him, fair enough.



further up the street we saw this Ponty G8 or something, we know it as a Holden Commodore.....the entire conversation we had with the Salesman about it was lost on him, he's probably still shaking his head....



Leaving Salina we came across Bill Spencer and his lot in Glendale UT..... he was tanned and workin on a factory 409 Chev that the family bought new.......no, no photo of Bill, or the 409, just the busted ones on the hill



We were in a hurry, we went through Flagstaff, I was humming "Route 66", Phoenix, it was 104 at 10pm and then onto Gila Bend where we stayed at the "Space Age Motel"



Lo and behold the brekkie menu at the SAM was kinda Mexican, but once again as we'd say "good tucker"....here Simon is having a bad hair day, we were in a hurry yet again to get to San Diego and catch up with Sammy and Jack Dolan.



We gunned it along the border headed for SD, got looked over by the border guys a few times but waved on each time.



We spent the last 36hrs in Venice and amongst other things I played this Les Paul, it had stamped on the back" Not for resale"......hmmmm, where did this come from I asked the owner knowing it would be somewhere interesting....." Oh , Mark Ford from the Black Crowes, it's nice isn't it"




more, later, maybe.......