Absolutely filthy

The car, that is.

There are very few driving experiences I've had to beat the likes of a RBRR or 10CR experience. Exhausting as they may be, it's a real buzz to travel such long distances, and as for the camaraderie ... superb! However, last weekend Ella and I headed off to see a bit more of Tassie, and that was really, really, really good.

There are regional public holidays in Australia, and last Thursday we had "Show Day" in the south of Tassie. A great excuse to get out of town. We've already seen a fair bit of the south, some of the east, and a bit of the west. So we decided to do a road trip up the guts of the island to the north end of the state, then out to the wild west.

As we left town on Thursday I decided the clutch was definitely getting worse - so after half an hour, we pulled over and bled the clutch. I think when I changed the slave cylinder a month ago the realignment must have let some air in somewhere, because it's been great again since bleeding and hasn't got worse again ... touch wood.

The drive north down the Midland Highway is nothing special, fast but pretty boring. After lunch in Launceston we headed west to Devonport, where the fragments of dual carriageway finally peter out. So after 3.5 hours the intersting driving began, along sweeping coastal roads that took us to Boat Harbour, where the sea is most definitely blue!

A bit further west along the coast is Rocky Cape National Park - complete with Aboriginal caves nicely built into the quartzite.

I also spotted a "stupid sign" ... which way's the beach?

We camped by the sea at Black River, and had the whole place to ourselves ... except for some pademelons and wombats.

Next day we got to the first of the dirt roads! We tried to do the South Arthur Forest Drive - it's supposed to be a loop in amongst some impressive forests, with lots of windy roads and tracks and very little traffic about. Unfortunately though the loop was, erm, broken. Floods in August wiped out the bridge - look at these photos and see if you can spot the huge chunk of dolerite that was ripped up.




Never mind, we made our own way back around the loop, crossing lots of other interesting bridges:



Then we pushed out to the tiny town of Arthur River on the west coast for the night. Now you're talking - these roads were pretty rough, but solid.


Unfortunately it was extremely dusty too, and the boot was filling up with dust!

At Arthur River we had one of those very lucky moments, though. We were just about to eat our dinner (kangaroo stew cooked on the barbeque!) when Ella noticed fluid leaking from the car. We had driven 15km up the coast to get a full tank of petrol, and the full tank was trying to run out all over the campground. Amazingly, it was spotted before more than a litre had run out. It wouldn't have been fun to be stranded this far out with no fuel I can tell you!

The next day I got to drive the best road I've ever driven in my life. For over 100km we didn't see a single other vehicle as we ventured down the Western Explorer road. It was all dirt, loads of mountains, lots of variety from open plains to forests. Totally idyllic and a real treat to get to know how to handle BOB, on dirt, at speed, round corners. Even Ella seemed happy with this as you can see from the photos:




We arrived in Corrina - an amazing old frontier place - with big smiles on our faces, and after a coffee break, headed back inland, along more dirt roads, to Waratah, and then to Cradle Mountain for the night. I got a video of a Wombat from BOB too ...



After a night at Cradle Mountain it was time to head back to Hobart - via lot more great roads, of course. Here we are above Great Lake in the Central Highlands (at about 1,400m - which is high in Australia!).


All up we did about 1,100km, much of it on slow roads and all within the hours of daylight... it's not recommended to hit Wombats (colloquial term "Badger") as they're pretty hefty.
So what about the subject of this entry ... well that's about the state the car is in now - filthy. It's caked on like concrete, actually, could be fun trying to clean it.

MONSTER DOUBLE POST: Heritage / Are you sitting comfortably?

HERITAGE

Whilst I was back in England recently, preparing myself for a Toledo experience (more of that later)I had a look through my Dad’s old photos … and got a glimpse of my Triumph heritage. It was funny to see my folks before I was born. Apparently in the sixties it was de rigueur to smoke a pipe and sit on your Triumph motorbike and pose for photos!



Dad has fond memories of driving to Nice, via the Alps of course, in 1972 in his Vitesse. Mum, probably doesn’t as she had to stand around in the snow in Switzerland for photos! Unfortunately when he sold the car to a friend it was written off shortly after.



Then there was one of his Dolomites … this was the 1850 in Chinon in 1973, it had all the SAH work possible to make it as quick as a Sprint. I think it was this car that ended up mangled but that might have been the Sprint he had later.




ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

I’m finally sitting comfortably. Until mid-August the broken driver’s seat diaphragm had been supported by a piece of wood. The seats had also suffered VERY badly from sun bleaching and the Bri-nylon had completely disintegrated on the outer shoulders of both seats … I should’ve taken photos. I set out to find some replacement modern seats that would offer a bit more support and take up a bit less space, too. One thing – I didn’t want MX5 seats. So, here’s what I ended up with:



Yes… MX5 seats. After three months of searching I couldn’t find anything better I’m afraid, and they’re a lot more expensive than in England. I got them fitted professionally though as I’m no metalworker, so they’re raised 35mm and mounted on the original rails to maintain the same height as the Triumph seats. A bloody good job they did on them, too. I’ve now wired in the headrest speakers as well, which was worth the effort I think.

Another change was made just before I left to come to England, and that was identity. BOB is now officially Tasmanian. A rather simple test was done for roadworthiness, and proof that oil doesn’t drop from the undercarriage more than once every 40 seconds was good enough for Tassie!

I brought back from England some new 160lb Witor front springs for BOB. These are now fitted, and make the whole car feel a lot more stable – a lot less diving under brakes, and the strut tops and insulators were replaced as on one side they had compressed and were causing a fair old lean. The only problem is that I’d got quite used to the camber the soggy ‘S’ springs gave and there doesn’t seem to be as much grip under hard cornering as there was before. I guess realignment might be a good idea.

I also had a surprise when Ella picked me up from the airport when I got back from Europe. The clutch was virtually inoperable, so after a 29 hour flight I found myself feeling the slave cylinder for leaks in the airport car park. Sure enough it was leaking, so on the way home we picked up a recon. 3/4 inch cylinder and I had to fit that. Well at least I could do I suppose and it wasn't too dear. The clutch is better than it ever has been now over the last two weeks, but I noticed last night that the pedal doesn't seem to be returning too well ... time for more investigations by the sound of it :-(