As I have stated recently there's been a few changes at the Spirit of Sunshine Landspeed Laboratory, Possum Park and Idiot Wonderland. Cutting to the chase it means that I have made some improvements to the nerve centre, the hearth of landspeed happenings in Sunshine, the shed. I had bought a pair of roller doors some time back, due to the crapstorm that my life was they served as spidertoriums and yard art, last weekend I finally got one of them sorted as the new door of the shed, the old baltic pine doors were on their last legs as the hinges had disintegrated, they were unlockable. The week before I had built some shelving to take square buckets. That was a big developement, anyone who does grinding and painting in the one space and tries to do anything else in there will know the problems that that arrangement engenders. Now I can store stuff in dust proof containers , up high too, giving me more floor space.
So.
Next weekend is the Chopped Hot Rod and Custom Show (
http://www.chopped.com.au/ ) we have decided to take the S.O.S for show and tell, no we wont be putting it on the dirt track, we may not even be able to get it off the trailer, those of you with a flat bottomed car with an inch and a half of ground clearance will see that as a problem on grassy areas.
So.
Yesterday we started the program proper for 2014. The car is the most intact that it has been after a meet. After the last run at Gairdner this year we pulled the electrical system out of it. When we got home I hosed it out before I took it off the trailer , then I dried it with compressed air. When I got it into the shed I put it on the front stands and bought a gallon of WD40. I put the WD40 in my pressure sprayer and hosed the whole thing time and again, each time I went to the shed for the last six months I would give it a bit of a spray. When we started the clean up it was good to see that the car is in better nick than ever. Sure there was dust and crap stuck all over it but almost no corrosion. I had also given the car a bit of a dose of aerosol silicone before and at the lake, cheap and effective.
The Colonel rewired the system, I spent most of my time annoying him, there are some things I'm a natural at. Pete Quick turned up , he brought stout and a fuel pump/carb or something off his Armstrong Siddely Whitworth Mobile, we added some of the Colonel's home brew to the stout for black and tans and ate pasties....... We drained the fuel tank( yeah I know I should have done that ) put in some fresh juice and grabbed the extra battery from the F truck and cranked it over...we had a few little issues at first then it started. Ran as rich as , and blew smoke, but it ran. The oil looks fine, there was a half a piston in it, no, seriously it was good, we'd had no issues apart from the fuel pump dieing on the end of the last run, that was a wire that got too close to the headers and got cooked.
As I was doing a few things here and there I thought to myself, "I love this car, everything we've been through to build it , run it and what it has done, it's a story and it's a part of us, but most of all, we ain't done yet"
I took some shots:
Racing ain't never hurt this car, it's main enemy is trailering closely followed by the hi-rise jack which it fell of while we were lifting to do the diff swap at the lake. The tail piece of the car has suffered over the years and I'm gonna have to buy some argon and weld up the skin there, repair the fastener holes and straighten it all out a little bit.. looks worse than it is, but it ain't great....
Heres the Colonel working his magic.....
I think this one is called "pulling a rabbit out of a hat"
Here is the Haltech that will be aprt of the solution to the problem of not going fast enough....
I think this part is the motor, the water tank is off and that yellow thing would be the scatter shield if my memory serves me correctly.....
Haven't tried the cider yet Colonel, about to crack one of the lagers though......
Topic: Australian Belly Tank (Read 3516458 times)