Well the time arrived and I went back to Queensland to visit with my parents and to finally get the car running and sort it out with all the newer new parts.
I must say, with the right bits and pieces, the Counts brakes went back together in a matter of 30 minutes and apart from one slight laps of concentration on forgetting to completely tighten one pipe, which resulted in a vast lake of brake fluid all over the nice clean floor of the garage, the brakes are working fine again. I fitted all the other parts, managed to install the radiator and get a decent clearance from the fan with the use of a nicely weighted rubber mallet to "adjust" the radiator mounting panel, which must have been damaged some time in the past, before I owned the car. For some reason the old radiator didn't seem to mind the bend in the panel, but the new one certainly did.
I fitted an old auxiliary gauge cluster and the temp sender was telling me the car was about boiling all the time, so just in case, as the radiator and hoses were very hot, I took the new thermostat out again which is supposed to be an 88 degree unit and have left it to run without one again like it always has done. I still think that it runs very hot for a car without a thermostat, but have to say that was really only when the temp outside as at the high end of the 30 degrees C, when the air outside was cooler the car would sit around 80 degrees C.
Additionally I have fitted the UHF CB under the dash, though find that I am going to need an external speaker for it mounted in a better position as I can't hear it over the noise of the engine and such while the car is running. I also have a twin outlet power socket that I can use for charging the sat nav unit and whatever else may need charging. The speedo in the car is still not reliable and to be honest I am not too sure it is up to much good as it "flickers" between speeds when driving at a constant speed. Thus the use of the sat nav, not for finding the route, but more for the GPS speed readout.
So now I guess you realise that I have actually had the car on the road and it certainly had a shake down trip. First up I took it for a run from my parents place out to the old farm for a brief visit and photo outside of the gates (pic below), before heading back to town via a rather long round about route, which is basically when I decided it was running far too hot (according to the gauge).
After a bit of fiddling about trying to get the rear tail lights working and basically having to run a complete new wire from the front to the back all was good, for about 20 seconds, until the car and engine bay filled with smoke. I managed to turn the lights off and stop the melt down, and thankfully it was one single wire that burnt out on the parking lights circuit. I managed to find the culprit that caused the near fire in the car, it seems that it is either the wiring to the number plate light or the light itself as with this left unconnected all the lights worked perfectly. Thus it was with much happiness that I re-installed the lights switch, fixed up some rather dodgy wiring that had previously been done and everything was right to go. Well except that I needed to install the locking fuel cap that I had forgotten about, the Count's was still the original and I must say the black plastic of the new locking cap leaves a lot to be desired, as you can see in the pic, when compared to the nice chrome original.
The antenna for the CB sits nicely behind the over-rider in a hole that has been there for a great many years where a previous AM CB aerial was mounted, the new CB is light years better and at only about a quarter of the size too. The tail lights are new as the old ones bulb mounts and wiring points were all very fragile and the circuit board in them was basically held together with tape. The little light under the bumper in the pic above is the LED indicator and it is certainly bright enough to be seen.
Ok with all of this done, permit and insurance in place and the weather looking good I set off from Gympie last Monday (3 Feb) and went via Kilkivan and Toowoomba in Queensland and then the New England Highway to Armidale in New South Wales for a over night stop.
This was a trip of 662 kilometres and basically took 11 hours, with a few fuel and water stops as I was averaging about 80 kilometres per hour. The next morning I left Armidale about 0700 and drive south over some really taxing hills that certainly had an effect on the speed. I stopped briefly in Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia (thus the next pic)
Given the lack of headlights I decided to have a break for another night in Canberra, to meet some old friends and to sort out the issue with the headlights. First up it was back to visit my now dear friends at Supercheap Auto to get some bits and it turns out that every time I put the headlight stitch back into the dash the headlight wire would pull out of the mount and be totally disconnected, no matter how I tried to connect and mount it. I finally managed to crush a clamp on terminal end so it would fit into the wire mount of the switch and crimped it to the wire, this seems to have sorted the problem. I finally have reliable lights and all is almost good, I just still don't have a interior light or dash lights that work for some strange reason, yet to be sorted.
Thursday morning sees me on the road at 0630 and other than the short stretch between Canberra and Yass the road is dual highway all the way to Melbourne, so no more having to pull off the road to let the trucks go on by! Given the golden guitar pic I felt it was only right to get some more of the big things on the way, unfortunately I missed getting a pic with the big merino at Goulburn on the way through between Sydney and Canberra as it was getting dark and I really wanted to get into Canberra before the light went, so I made up for that with three other big things between Canberra and Melbourne. First stop was at Snake Gully, Gundagai, about a 150 kilometre trip, where as in the song, the dog sits on the tucker box, which it has done for nearly 81 years. Ok size wise it isn't really a Big thing, but given its history I reckon it qualifies.
This Ettamogah was the original one in Australia and copied versions has been created in other parts of the country (one in Queensland, actually geographically not that far from where the Count has been staying, though its never been to that one, yet), though unfortunately this one at Table Top New South Wales is no longer open as it closed in 2011. I must say though that given the fact that it is closed, it is in an extremely good state of repair, it looks like it has just closed for the night.
Heading south again it was bypassing Albury and then crossing the border into Victoria (the Count has not been in Victoria since 1993 for the Morris Minor Nationals as Ballarat, (and it got to that via a trip around Tasmania too I might add!) all up a quick 21 kilometres to stop and visit briefly with family friends and the people who found the Count and looked after it until it was given to me as a 21st birthday present. This is certainly the Counts area and it should probably know its way about the place better that I ever would. Photos were taken to pass on to the original owner and I then hit the road again. 81 kilometres further on still heading South, it was a stop at Glenrowan, for a visit to the big Ned Kelly. Glenrowan of course being famous for its association with the bushranger Ned Kelly, who made his last stand there and was finally captured after a siege and shoot out with the police. It is a quiet little town today and they really have spent some money on it since last time I turned off the highway to visit it, they have made quite and attractive improvement to the place, it looks quite friendly and inviting.
Finally after a quick sandwich in the park with some friendly magpies it was back into the car and on the last leg into Melbourne, unfortunately timed to coincide with the afternoon homeward traffic. Thankfully it seems the mega bucks that they have spend on the ring road have been well worth it as the traffic at no point even looked like coming to a stop, actually it barely even slowed down, which was brilliant! After a final 235 kilometre stretch it was pulling up out the front of the house and home, again for me and the first time for the Count, all up it was a trip of 2092 kilometres and it was done with barely any oil used and no coolant lost either. I re-greased all the appropriate places in the car park at Singleton Plaza after having lunch on the second day, and will do it again in the next few days as well.
Quite a shake down trip and one well worth taking as it is always good to go on a road trip and it basically shows that the Count should have no problem getting around Australia come June. I think the greatest distance done between fuel refills was 268 kilometres and that (according to the gauge) was with a quarter of a tank left to go, mind who knows how accurate that may be. So, though I am no expert, I think I was getting something like 7.39 litres per hundred kilometres, which I think isn't too shabby for a 1955 Morris Minor with a 948cc engine, Series II gearbox and 4.55 diff, given that it was mostly done at 80 kilometres per hour and that means it took a heck of a lot longer to get anywhere than it would at 100 or 110kms. Route followed is basically:
I guess the next adventure now is to get it registered in Victoria, which hopefully will be fairly straight forward.....
Hopefully....
