Aussi Speed Week & Road Trip in 32 Coupe

Initially the plan was to leave speed week on the Friday allowing 3 days to get home so we would be back in time for the misses to go to work on Tuesday. How ever with the worry of the gearbox and not knowing if we were going to make it we decided to leave on the Thursday give ourselfs an extra day up our sleeves which was quite sad as we were both really enjoying both speed week and the people we had met.

Now a few of you have made comments about the misses as in great that she came on the road trip I wish my wife was more adventuress etc. Now I am sure you are all wondering why there have been no pictures of her on this little adventure so far, thinking there must be something wrong with her as no normal woman would go on a trip like this. Well I can tell you she is normal nothing hideous about her, I haven't posted any pics because I haven't got any of her on this trip, what you say no pics, the reason is one she took 95% of the pictures you are looking at on this thread, I did take some pictures of her with her camera, now before we left home on the road trip I told her to take lots of pics as I was going to do this thread on the HAMB, when we got back home I asked her to load all the pic on to a stick so I could take it to work ( I work away from home 1 month away one home ) which she did how ever she did not load any of herself which I did not know about until I got back to work. I have asked her to send me some but she said I took all horrible pictures of her. Anyway at about day 3 into this thread I sent her the link, the first thing she says to me is what that about not having sex with your girlfriend at the bottom of your page. Anyway cut a long story short she is enjoying the thread and last night she relented and finally sent me one picture of her on this trip which was taken on the road home, so it is coming.



This is a pic of me Wednesday evening just had a shower, shave got the new speed week T shirt on, just heading over to Marks camp for drinks with him and the boys, you will notice on the table there is a cocktail shaker and all the ingredients to make a Margarita, the misses likes a good Margarita.

 

Cully thanks for posting this story driving your Hot Rod for many thousands of miles your the man. Four deuces on a flathead you certainly know your flatmotor. Your certainly living the good life.

 

What a great story, Cully...thanks for sharing!

 

No Big Al, Youir NOT the only one.............I'm kinda' gittin' used to seeing them !

 

Thursday morning all packed up ready to start the long trip home, saying fairwell to some of our fellow neighbour camper's lots of good people here.

 

Well done Cully,

I wanted to catch up and have a chat but worked the GPS start line the full week. You'd have done better turning in at Kimba, it's an all weather road and a shorter trip for you.

Glad you made it home, I was in the canteen the night the plea went out for gear oil.

Couple of quick corrections, Mark Dunn owns the orange lakester, Kurt is his son.

Al Fountain has his tank for sale, less engine (not sure on the trans).

The little liner from Adelaide had ignition issues and would not run under load so spent the week trying hard to sort it on the GPS track.

The Clare boys all have shares in their 'Liner though I'd bet Colin and Trevor shelled out the $$$, it came in from the US a while back and they've done it proud to date.

The yellow Monaro of Wayne Pickles was indeed at Bonneville speed week last year.

More pics and info at http://www.dlra.org.au/2013.htm

Cheers,
Rob

 

Rob,
Thanks for the info have made some changes.

Cully

 

Great thread mate....you deserve a medal and so does your missus. I wonder what all the Flathead haters think now????

Last time I drove my Flathead 3W in that kinda heat, I went thru the same amount of water and sweated it all out too.

Mind you 7 hours was enough for me, I dunno how you did it in the heat of summer across the desert for 3 days. Super taxing conditions in the 5W for sure.

Mucho kudos....

PS: You've got Vintage Air stashed somewhere under the dash dont ya? Wink....

Safe trip home !!

 

With all our fairwells out of the way me and the misses jump in to the 32, fire the flathead up sounds sweet, I put in to 2nd gear and all so gently start easing my foot off the clutch, with a clunk, clunk, clunk we make our way out from the salt bush camping area, heads turn our way as we clunk past fellow campers, I turn on to the dirt road and slip her in to 3rd way before she wants to, the engine lugs as we slowly build up speed 100 mile of dirt road until we hit the bitumen our journey home has just begun.

 

Finally made it to the bitumen now heading west for home.

 

Arrived at camp spot for the night 60 km (37 mile ) west of Nullarbor road house turned of the bitumen on to a small rough dirt track about 300 meters (1,000 ft) to a fantastic camp spot right on the cliff edge off the Great Australian Bight, there are some great camping spots out here. Total distance covered today 910 km ( 565 mile ) gear box still holding out has not got any worse since leaving the salt.



Better start setting up camp for the night.



All set up including fire ready to light.



Time for a photo don't know why the misses kepted telling me to step back a little more.



You don't want to be a sleep walker around here or wander of in the wrong direction for a wee in the middle of the night.



Watching the sun go down does not get any better than this.

 

I had packed a couple of bottles of champagne before we left home, for valentines day but we did not have them on valentines day due to it being such a hot drive we were both a bit buggered and I was happy just having a cold beer. Anyway the night before we left the salt we gave one bottle to Mark as he was going to try and get in to the 200 mph club the next day and had one for ourselfs we told mark to crack his bottle on Thursday night and we would do the same to celebrate, little did we know mark just run under the 200 he still has the bottle and says he will have it with us when he cracks the 200 next year.






Ok guys this is the one you have been waiting for, this is the one and only photo of the misses that she has sent me toasting to Mark she says its the best photo of a bad bunch.

 

hey cully -you wonder why your misses does not to post pics of herself, she agreed to go a long distance road trip with you,(with no running water ,no hot water ,no regular toilet, etc) I am sure she did not sign up to be scrutinized by abunch of HAMB ididits all over the internet, she has likely got more morals than car guys ! she deserves gold stars given out on a regular basis for accompaning you on your road trip .

 

That is truly a superb story, excellent pictures.Thank you very much for sharing your trip with us. Get home safe !

 

Road trip stories are the best and this is one serious road trip! That coupe is one hell of a car. Thanks for posting, very enjoyable read.

 

What a great road trip story, thanks for sharing!! Haven't seen that style camping rig before..second floor bedroom?

 

Now that's what I call a road trip...thanx for posting.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "IF you can't fix your car on the side of the road, you'd better stay home,or put it on a trailer." YOU Sir, KNOW HOW to fix your car and keep it going...!!!

Takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to take a flatty on a cross country trip, especially taking your Missus along...

Thanx for documenting the adventure...

R-

PS, a lot of the pix are still missing (red x's) on my monitor...

 

Super thread Cully33. I'm getting Photobucket moved/ deleted on the last 20 or so posts.. I don't get it.
The margarita table looks fun..

 

I don't know whats going on with photobucket, I load pics one day the next there gone and I have to re-load once they have been re-loaded the second time they seem to stay, re-loading now they will be back soon.

Cully

 

Friday morning 22nd Feb day 9 of our adventure waking up to million dollar views all for free.

 

Cook some bacon for breakfast pack up the camper ready to hit the road feeling good about the 32 has made it this far with only 1 1/2 gears. Put it into second and all so slowly start making our way down the dirt track to the bitumen clunk, clunk, clunk and then bang second gear completely lets go, holly shit I think I put her into 3rd and ride the clutch to get us back to the bitumen and pull up on the side of the road. I look at the misses now she has a worried look as do I. I think that with the gearbox oil cooled down over night and thinkened up its picked up a broken tooth from the bottom of the case and sent it though the gears. We are about 140 km (87 miles ) from the next roadhouse I say to the misses we will try and make it there then reassess what we are going to do. I put her in to 3rd and gently ride the clutch once we are rolling a bit I let the clutch fully out engine lugs but steadily builds up speed, now 3rd gear has a clicking noise. 1,780 km ( 1,106 miles ) from home with only top and reverse gear.

This guy was the only one in the coupe who still had a smile on his face.

 

cully, thanks for posting about this journey with your wife and coupe. This is an epic trip, awe inspiring to me.

 

Great trip. Great coupe.

 

Gees Cully you have got the suspense building now ,,,will top gear survive ?awaiting the next installment,,,,,,,great thread on a great trip ,,

 

Something tells me this story will end with Cully backing his trailer down the road for the last hundred miles

 

You will just have to wait and see coming up soon the grand finally

 

With a 140 km of bitumen between us and the next roadhouse and 3rd gear going click, click, click a lot goes though ones mind, I tell the misses that I am going to have a look at the gearbox when we get to the roadhouse.

 

We pull in out front of Border Village roadhouse which is just on the South Australia side of the border, lucky for me this is one of the few roadhouse's out here with some trees out front and there was one there just waiting for me.

 

I go into the roadhouse to see if I can buy some sort of container for dropping gearbox oil into, they don't have anything for sale but the girl at the counter checks with the manager he comes out and I tell him about my gearbox issues, he has one in the back of his ute, hands it to me and says just put it at the side of the roadhouse when your finished I will get rid of the old oil for you. So out comes the floor plates, pull the top off the box off and drain the oil I get my torch (flashlight) and start having a good look inside the box, main shaft is not to bad some minor damage but the cluster gear has teeth missing all over the place. I get my finger up into the drain hole and start pulling teeth out once I have all the teeth out I pore some petrol (gas) into the top of the box to try and flush out any fine metal, I have a better look at the cluster gear it seems to ok on the bearing shaft not dropped just missing teeth. Fill the box up with new oil and put the top back on, floor plates back in.



Some off the teeth pulled out of the gearbox.

 

It's taken about 1 hour to clean the gearbox out and get it all back together, all the time thinking about the situation and what to do. I know that in top gear you are just driving though the main shaft 1 to 1 ratio and that the cluster gear is just going along for the ride, as long as the cluster gear bearings don't collapse causing the main shaft to jam up it should be alright to get us home provided the clutch can stand up to all the top gear starts its going to have to do, with only a small fuel tank and 4 carbs sucking the fuel back I need to re-fuel every 200 km ( 125 miles ) thats a lot of top gear take offs plus once I hit Perth I will have about 9 sets of traffic lights to get though before getting home. I decide to press on.

Once away again and cruising down the road I start doing the sums in my head, if we stop and over night up the road the next day I will hit Perth in the late afternoon in the peak hour traffic with all the traffic lights, I tell the misses I'm going to drive on though that way it will get us in to Perth in the early morning no traffic, I'm feeling good now that all the broken teeth and metal are out off the gearbox.