MORLEY’S WORKSHOP
TEDDY BEARS ON BUMPERS AND REFIXING FIXES
Want to know what’s funny? Funny is when you come up with a great idea on how to fix a problem on your car/bike/tractor, and then, once you’ve pulled it apart to work your magic, you discover that somebody else has been there before you. And they’ve tried exactly the same fix you have in mind.
It happened at the Melbourne Bloke Centre the other day when Torrens and I were inspecting the forgotten Celica, my new RA40 Outlaw in the making. I went to check the oil on the dipstick, as you do, but managed to pull the dipstick and its tube out in one assembly. Oops. Plenty of oil on the stick, but even I was pretty certain the tube should have stayed in the engine.
No probs, says Torrens in that what-could-possiblygo-wrong tone of voice he reserves for situations like this, we’ll stick the tube in a vice and put a little knurl on it with a centre-punch. That’ll give it a rough edge and enough purchase to keep it in the block once we’ve drifted it back in. This seemed like a splendid plan. The engine has minimal blow-by, so even if the seal isn’t perfect, it’s not going to spit oil every where thanks to a pressurised crankcase. Which means all the tube has to do is sit at the right height to give an accurate reading when the dipstick is pushed into it. Brilliant.
And it was, until we cleaned the grease and gunk off the tube and discovered that…somebody had pulled exactly the same centre-punch stunt some time before we came up with it. How we larfed.
Anyway, we decided to press on with our plan, but use a punch with a bigger centre to make a more pronounced knurl and maybe give the tube a bit more purchase than it previously had. I also added a schmear of copper-based gasket goo before lightly drifting the tube back into place and reinserting the dipstick. It seems to have worked, too, and I’m still pondering who it was and when it was that the tube was first attacked by a backyard mechanic and a centre-punch. It’s kind of like looking at old tools and machinery in a museum and wondering who the people were that used them and what they did besides.
It made me think, too, about the number of times I’ve opened up an engine or gearbox to find that a previous unfortunate has felt the need to make the change I was about to. Like the sheer number of Holden red motors I’ve seen inside where the fibre timing gear has already been replaced by the GTR’s alloy one. Or the Holdens I’ve seen with one-tonner clutches already fitted. The Speco-Thomas f loor shift conversion was another popular one (if a lot easier to spot).
What about you lot? Tell us about the times you’ve had a great idea for a modification or a fix, only to discover a previous owner has had exactly the same thought. And along the same lines, what were the mods you used to carry out with pretty much every new second-hand car that came your way? Mine was to hit the wreckers and find a Bosch GT-40 coil to replace the (usually perfectly good) stock coil. In fact, I’ve still got a box of discarded, no-name coils in the workshop; cast-offs from my obsession with the mighty Bosch GT-40. Ah, happy days.
The other work carried out on the RA40 so far has been to get it to run properly just so I can move it about. I mentioned draining the tank and fitting a new fuel filter, but take a look at the photo here of the original fuel filter being emptied en route to the MBC after handing over the cash. Yep, that rusty red crap was all the way from the tank to the engine bay, but at least the filter was doing its job because the carburettor is amazingly clean. And once we’d emptied that muck out of the filter by the roadside (twice) the old 18RC fired straight up and ran like a top. Toyotas eh?
A question of pride
Re your hoodie-wearing Commodore kids and the sign age they prefer to plaster all over their cars: It’s just people wit h low self-esteem who believe that they are cool to be associated with the brands prominently displayed on t heir cars. The Eye Candy logo might look sexy to those struggling to find favour with the opposite sex. To t hose of us who don’t have the same problem, these signs scream `WANKER’. I can understand the attraction with Playboy’s iconic bunny logo, but I can’t see t he joy in making your car look like a mobile billboard for fashion or energy drink brands.
I know I’m showing my age here (I’m in my 60s) but in my day, we’d spend our money on better performance and handling. Stuff like ex tractors, lowered springs, Holley carbs, sports ex hausts or, my favourite, the Mr Gasket Bug Catcher. Ah, the Bug Catcher sitting out t he bonnet of my SL/R5000 Torana on my worked 308. Life was good in t he 80s ! Matthew Smith, Beaumaris, VIC YOU KNOW what, Matthew, I reckon you’re on to something with the theory about a lack of self-esteem leading kids to turn their cars into four-wheeled advertisements for companies with which they have no connection (bar the stickers). It’s human nature to want to belong (we’re a pack animal at heart) but when you’re such a grub that no other part of society wants to let you in, you tend to turn to an entity that can’t cast you out. It’s just like a lonely little kid having an invisible friend, isn’t it?
And trust me, some of these urchins really are grubs. You should see the way they relate to each other online. Fair dinkum, if they spoke like that to each other face-to-face, there’d be a punch-on within seconds. But because it all happens online (and don’t get me started on that one) these days, there seems to be a feeling that being rude and boorish is the only way to make your point. One more reason I don’t really engage with forums and websites.
On the other hand, maybe plastering stickers all over your car is the only way to express yourself these days without incurring the wrath of El Plod. I don’t reckon a VT Commodore with a Bug Catcher hanging out the
bonnet would last long on the streets of 2019, would it? And while I get it that the Catcher was a performance mod, not a decorative one, if you’re honest about it, I bet part of the thrill of having was that your peers knew what it was and respected what it stood for. Mind you, none of that explains why an energy drink or a brand of those ridiculous duds with the crotch around the knees should inspire respect and reverence.
I read somewhere a little while ago that because so many kids now conduct the vast majority of their personal relationships online, they’ve actually lost the ability to interpret facial expressions, tones of voice and the ability to generate empathy for the way somebody else might be feeling. Now, I’m no big city shrink, but don’t those symptoms sound to you like somebody we once described as being on the spectrum?
Jeez, this is getting heavy isn’t it? Anyway, I’m also with you on one other major point: The 80s were bloody brilliant. I didn’t have an SL/R5000, but my girlfriend’s father did have a bright-yellow LH SL/R with a six-cylinder (a red 202) and a manual gearbox. That was the first car I ever drove with a tacho and the first time I ever touched the pre-metric ton (It was a car of many other significant firsts, as it turned out). He’d have throttled me if he ever knew what I got up to in that car. But if he knew what went on with his daughter, the Torana would have been a mere side-show. Yep, bring back the 80s, I say. I’d vote for that. (I wonder where she is…)
Have Bear, will travel
I lived and worked just outside Brisbane, but moved to the Sunshine Coast a few years ago. A friend (I will ca ll him Clive to protect t he guilt y) has a lways reg ularly driven up from Brisbane to v isit for t he day. Any way, I purchased a giant pink and white teddy bear (like the ones you see in shops about Christmas time) and presented it to Clive, ask ing that he place Bear (he was too embarrassed to name it) in t he front passenger’s seat whenever he drove up to see me. I got him to promise to not only do t hat, but to always make sure Bear was buck led up for her (pink, remember) protection. In return, she would keep him safe on t he road.
For years, Clive kept his promise (He would ask me what was I thinking?) and always had Bear with him when he v isited. It was not long before Clive started to rega le me wit h a ll t he attention Bear was attracting when travelling back wards and for wards from Brisbane. He said
“HE’D HAVE THROTTLED ME IF HE KNEW WHAT I GOT UP TO IN THAT CAR” OPPOSITE PAGE Humble bear as poorman’s ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’.
BELOW How much more of this can a teddy bear?