Rustydebris, fitzee and myself went on a good search for cars and parts today. Found some cars...toured some history...discovered some remains of a long lost local street machine and looked out over the Atlantic ocean from a vertical height of between 500-700ft! Fun day! Found some pickups and a panel van, along with a 56 Chevy and some other 50's junk. Walked a trail to a hidden cove deep in the confines of a long, steep sided inlet looking for cars that had been tossed over the side of the trail and deep down into the valley. Unfortunately(?) the area had been cleaned up sometime in the last few years so the cars were gone. We got it in our heads to then take awalk up to a local area known as Red Cliff to see if any old junk was along the ww2 era service road to the long abandoned Radar site high on the Atlantic cliffs. There is a deep fault in the rock along the edge of the cliff where stolen and junk cars were often tossed over the side to fall to the ocean hundreds of feet below. Anything that became lodged part ways down the channel is still there and untouched. Only trained climbers will ever get down to them! A**** other bits and pieces we found along the service road was a red with black roof 65 Dodge 2 dr hardtop that COULD have supplied me with the parts to do a 2 dr conversion on my 63 Dodge 330...IF the 65 wasn't rusted to oblivion!!! Still, I did grab the steering column which may or may not be savable to reuse in the 63. I need a column shift and this was...OK...so I said what the hell. If I don't take it I definately can't fix it! Worth a shot! Sure was sad to finally find a 2 door parts source and have it so completely rusted out. Hard car to find down here! Last but not least (OK...maybe it is!) we found the extremely rusted remains of the two fenders of a local street machine that was quite the performer back in the early 70's around here. The car was apparently stolen and it seems we solved the mystery of just what became of it! Who knows where the body itself ever went.... Fun day and I'm BEAT. Enjoy a few pics!
The graffiti covered buildings are the remains of a former US then Canadian supported military radar/radio communication base that was decommissioned in the early 60's. The building with the vertical columns is the base of the radar dome support. Supposedly the exterior was covered in a huge dome. All gone now of course. Not sure if it was part of the US/Canadian DEW (Distant Early Warning) line that warned of incoming Soviet flights/missles during the cold war, but very likely. It's a big site but overgrown with Alder beds and stubby Spruce trees now. Very difficult to make out anything! The gun implacement pictured is right on the top of the 5-6 HUNDRED foot cliff. Standing in front of it your approximately 4' or less from the shear edge. Not to difficult to imagine the gunners had a clear shot at any shipping inbound! Rumor has it that there are actually a couple of other hidden gun implacements blasted out of the face of the cliff and accessible only by tunnel...but the access tunnels were filled or capped over when the base was decommissioned. Makes sense as you couldn't expect ONE gun crew to be that effective. Multiple guns would be required in any defensive role. The blue striped fender panels are off the lost street machine and the red/black stain on the ground is the 65 Dodge! Not much to save there!!! Thats about it...good day and we even stopped for burgers! Could it be any better!?!?
Trying to refresh my memory of what I knew about the history of Red Cliff I found this site! Covers it well and to the point...plus it has pictures from the past and present. History tied to Canada and the USA! http://outercove.newfoundland.ws/Red_Cliff_History.asp
man-o-man...enjoy this kind of trek...call me next time...funfunfun....I'll catch a ride with "Wingnutz".....
Bill I whish you would let me know when you go on these trips . Its not that I would be able to go, but some warning might help with the jealousy.
The plan was to go to just one spot in the morning to check out some steering boxes on the pickups, but of course the morning ended at 5.30pm! 3 of us were in Rustydebris' single cab 4x4 so you would have had to ride in the box!!!! We also found some fairly old 10 oz Coke and Pepsi bottles in an abandoned dump spot, so we took what was on the surface and I bet there are MANY more to be raked up if someone wanted too. I need to have a look online to see if they're valuable but I doubt it. Just thought they were cool to have, clean and put on display. Well...I got the "have" part taken care of!!! hahaha
This was a blast..I love the old car hunts but trips like this are cool..we have a good few of these abandon forts around our island. they always interested me on our past. The cliff edge was scary.. Nothing to stop you from fall over and with the wind at your back it didn`t help.
Best part was finding trhe old dodge over the bank. Kind went like this : Me: hey look another car Fitz : Come on we goes Hacker: what kind of car Me: ( already down over the bank) i dunno has torsion bars Hacker: debating if he should go down Then goes down and gets all upset witch was really funny
More like... Hacker: What kind of car??? Rusty: I dunno...has torsion bars. Hacker: (to himself while looking at the vertical drop) Oh no...NOT torsion bars!!!!! Hacker to Rusty: Jason...if that thing isn't a Dodge I'll give you a smack! (if I don't break my neck first getting down there! hahaha) I climb down somehow and suddenly realize I'm looking at this weeks Holy Grail...a 2 dr Hardtop 65 B body...UNREAL!!!! Then reality hit and I realize that there is NOTHING left to this car usable. Everything WAS there I needed for a 2 dr conversion...but nonexistant due to rust. I said a bad word...loudly. Twice. Great fun though...gotta love hitting the woods! Hahaha
while I was at the top looking down at you fools all I heard was Bill swearing!! and Jason running around like a chicken with his head cut off saying ohmygod..ohmygod ohmygod!! Tring to find the other three wheels..lol
The Jalopy Journal
