David Leikvold wrote:Hey Rob, what are you doing with '34 rails when you should be tank building?
You're sounding like my bloody missus Dave ) and I'm not sure I have an appropriate response. It came up, I bought it and 8 months later it finally made the trip north from Norm's.
I had a bog stock Morrie coupe, 6 foot antenna with fox tail on the rear bar and a wolf whistle under the bonnet. I pulled more birds with that car than half the others combined, go figure. I bought it a after 3 trimatics and 2 Aussie 4 speeds in the HQ Statesman I was flat busted but needed to get to work. The Morrie was the cheapest car with rego in the Saturday Tellie at $350. I caught a taxi over, begged the price to $300 and off I went.
The first issue with the Morrie was the left front shockie tore the threads out of the firewall. We can opened the passenger floor and bolted it through. A week later a mate riding in the back complained about the seat bouncing when we hit a bump. Closer inspection revealed the front right spring hanger had torn through the floor. We plated the floor from underneath, put a crowbar in the rear hanger and two mates held a tape from front hubcap to rear hubcap. When both sides of the car matched we welded the front hanger back on. 2 weeks later we did the other side
A bit later we were out at Castlereagh for the street rod drags. After the drags we were headed home and I hooked a tight left, the spare gearbox in the boot (doesn't eveyone have one of those?) slid across and shorted the number plate light causing everything to go out including the motor. Shortly thereafter the cabin fills with smoke from the boot and I bailed, locating the problem as I opened the boot and everything came back alive kinda.
A bit further down the road it started to rain, the wipers worked but the lights quit. A mate that was following drove right up my freckle and slightly to one side so I could still see but the whole thing keeled over on the freeway at St Marys so we left it there and came back the next day. Seems minis weren't the only Pommie vehicle suceptible to rain as the damn thing started and I drove it home. From that day forward the headlight acivation came by twisting several red wires together that hung below the dash. I'd done a good job on the wiring at castlereagh as when you had the headlights twisted on and your foot on the brake you could turn the ignition off and the motor didn't stop until you let the brakes go.
We're not done yet, one day with three of us on boad we're coing down the road fom Menai to cross Alford Point bridge and by unanimous vote decide to see just how fast the 998cc of mush can go, all went well until the needle hit 70mph when we hit what came to be known amougst our circle as "hyperspace". Knowing what I know now, we should all have been dead many times as when in hyperspace the whole car shook and flexed so violently that the windscreen should have popped, or at least cracked out of protest.
The last bit of fun was the fuel pump, it was mounted on the firewall, passengers side and at random intervals it would sieze the points and of course, the flame went out. The first time or two it got a flogging with the crank handle when I came up with an alternate idea. it was a great ice breaker when going out with a new bird. Trunling down the road we'd be going to the movies or something when the flame would expire. They'd look at you all worried like and I'd tell 'em to stamp on the floor. This would generally be the first time you'd get "that" look. I'd reach over to their side with my left foot and stamp a couple of times on the passengers floor and away we'd go. Ah the stuff of legends.
Finally firt gea let go and the Poms being engineering giants thoughtfully designed a gearbox where reverse and first are very friendly. I drove that car for 3 months like hat as I just couldn't be buggered to fix anything else.
2 weeks after I moved house the bloody thing got stolen, proving that there is always someone more desperate than you out there!
Sorry for the novel, I was on a roll
Rob