24-03-2014, 12:01 PM
It's been a mad fortnight in Addoland. Work, more work, a 900-mile road trip and then more work.
The road trip was the "fun" part. Saddled up a hired Triton 4×2 ute, hitched up a car trailer and towed my '64 Ford coupé over 450km to storage. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Bonehead set off without checking reverse blockout on trailer was released. Did the first hundred miles with an unbraked trailer. Holy s***, it was hair raising at times on the freeway.
2. Trailer (loaned) was not checked for tyre pressures - I assumed "ready to go" meant that. Yeah, right - the NSR tyre was damn near dead flat. Put air in, and the handling improved out of sight.
3. Arrived at my shed, and aforementioned bonehead had left the keys at home. 50 mile round trip to borrow the spares off a mate.
4. Triton gets a flat on the NSR tyre. I change it after dinner (falafel roll with extra chilli) in the angle parking bays of Wagga Wagga's main street.
5. Discover the cars in the shed are largely immobile. My Dee has had a tyre explode from age, in the hot weather and the 12V tyre pump won't inflate the spare. The Spitfire's fuel tank has rusted through and the leaking fuel (now well dried) glued its flat tyres to the floor. Resort to using the Triton with ropes and chains to drag a succession of cars out into the commercial carpark.
6. After literally working all night, ready to return to Sin City with flat-tyred Spitfire on trailer. Totally, totally shattered. Get twenty miles out of town and stop in a layby - sleep 45 minutes in the truck's tray with a pine block for pillow.
7. Pass by mate's place, collect Optima battery and return borrowed keys. Drive an hour, sleep another twenty minutes in the tray. This drive/sleep situation, punctuated by ever-increasing amounts of caffeine, saw me home about 9:30 in the evening.
8. Next day, deliver Spitfire to panel shop and collect a Pug for storage in Sydney. Discover just how badly the Spit's offside steering stub is bent - major, major toe out. Bastard will barely push, even with 30 pounds in the tyres. Panel shop curse me many times.
9. Pug tries to jack-knife trailer at 60MPH as the NSR tyre has suddenly gone flat again. Horrible, horrible, scary few seconds while I fought to rein it in. Pug unloaded, flats fixed (horse shoe nail found in tyre), all borrowed items returned.
Naturally, I backed this up with a quiet weekend of helping friends renovate and paint.
Anyway, I'm back and into it again...
The road trip was the "fun" part. Saddled up a hired Triton 4×2 ute, hitched up a car trailer and towed my '64 Ford coupé over 450km to storage. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Bonehead set off without checking reverse blockout on trailer was released. Did the first hundred miles with an unbraked trailer. Holy s***, it was hair raising at times on the freeway.
2. Trailer (loaned) was not checked for tyre pressures - I assumed "ready to go" meant that. Yeah, right - the NSR tyre was damn near dead flat. Put air in, and the handling improved out of sight.
3. Arrived at my shed, and aforementioned bonehead had left the keys at home. 50 mile round trip to borrow the spares off a mate.
4. Triton gets a flat on the NSR tyre. I change it after dinner (falafel roll with extra chilli) in the angle parking bays of Wagga Wagga's main street.
5. Discover the cars in the shed are largely immobile. My Dee has had a tyre explode from age, in the hot weather and the 12V tyre pump won't inflate the spare. The Spitfire's fuel tank has rusted through and the leaking fuel (now well dried) glued its flat tyres to the floor. Resort to using the Triton with ropes and chains to drag a succession of cars out into the commercial carpark.
6. After literally working all night, ready to return to Sin City with flat-tyred Spitfire on trailer. Totally, totally shattered. Get twenty miles out of town and stop in a layby - sleep 45 minutes in the truck's tray with a pine block for pillow.
7. Pass by mate's place, collect Optima battery and return borrowed keys. Drive an hour, sleep another twenty minutes in the tray. This drive/sleep situation, punctuated by ever-increasing amounts of caffeine, saw me home about 9:30 in the evening.
8. Next day, deliver Spitfire to panel shop and collect a Pug for storage in Sydney. Discover just how badly the Spit's offside steering stub is bent - major, major toe out. Bastard will barely push, even with 30 pounds in the tyres. Panel shop curse me many times.
9. Pug tries to jack-knife trailer at 60MPH as the NSR tyre has suddenly gone flat again. Horrible, horrible, scary few seconds while I fought to rein it in. Pug unloaded, flats fixed (horse shoe nail found in tyre), all borrowed items returned.
Naturally, I backed this up with a quiet weekend of helping friends renovate and paint.
Anyway, I'm back and into it again...
![[-]](http://berlingoforum.b-cdn.net/images/collapse.png)
alut:
