Further South

Well, the move went very nicely.

I drove the Triumph down to Hobart from Brisbane last week - 2,400km exclusive of the ferry trip across the Bass Strait. I had a great time. The drive from Brisbane to Melbourne was fairly boring - long straight roads with little traffic apart from Road Trains.


I won't say much about it though, as I intend to do a little article for Club Torque.

I had an overnight stop in Parkes ... very appropriate as it is the sister city to Coventry. About as memorable as Coventry, too.


Once in Tassie it was all change, though. Lots of twisting roads, and beautiful scenery. Also the opportunity to 'race' with local drivers along very enjoyable roads, and the car behaved magnificently ... even with its ful load.

I had a quick peek in the Launceston Motor Museum - saw a TR5 . I then took the long route down the east coast and camped for a couple of nights on picturesque beaches. Superb fun. 28mpg was pretty good for a long cruise (with intermittent bursts on the twisty roads), and less than a litre of oil.The only issue with the car is a badly scrubbed front tyre ... some adjustment needed here I think.


Here's the undercover parking available when camping in Tasmania:


I didn't see a single Triumph on the road on my way down, but on a half hour walk around Hobart the day after I arrived I saw three 6-pot Saloons. Since then I've seen two of them driving around a fair bit. I've also seen a white Stag, and tonnes of other old cars. Although the weather's a lot cooler here, the humidity is very low, so it seems that the old cars survive well - I've never seen so many old Fiats and Alfas ... even in Italy!

The most exciting 'spot' so far has been by eagle-eyes Ella. Around the back of a house, under a tree in the garden she saw a red Mk1 GT6 - it looked to have wires on it, and considering it appears to be 'unloved' in surprisingly good condition. I have a feeling I will be knocking on the front door one day and asking whether they want to get rid of the manky old sports car rotting in their back yard...

Top of the Props

Yesterday was taken up almost entirely by a trip to the Prop Shop ... more commonly known as Universal Driveshaft Services Queensland. Trevor showed a fair amount of interest in the Datsun converted driveshafts I have and we spent a bit of time looking at those - he wanted to check them out. Then we took the propshaft off and he confirmed that the spline was buggered.

I asked for a quote for an uprated propshaft and a standard one, and he worked out the spec's for a shaft which would be 1.5 times the strength of the standard fit ... unfortunately with the house move looming I couldn't really justify it, so we went for the normal one. They made up a new shaft completely from new, and I watched from the 'viewing area' above. I can vouch that it is perfectly balanced, as I watched it being stripped of all paint and balanced on a 20 foot long 'Schenck' machine and could make out the dials they use to set these things up. Then it was repainted and put on the car.

I took the opportunity of having the car up on the hoist to get a good look around underneath. There are a few patches where the underseal and paint has chipped off but no rust, and a couple of very small rust patches up the front, but otherwise it looks pretty good.