Thread: Ron Visited Me Today

Ron (101Ron) is on his way from the South Coast to the Swim-In at Corowa with his son, Ryan stopping over in Canberra for the night as his wife is also in Canberra at the moment.

He gave me a call this afternoon wanting somewhere to pull up for a while to do some repairs on his 101. On the way from Nowra to Braidwood his drivers side exhaust manifold broke on its neck and was extremely noisy.

I have a set of old manifolds but both are cracked but I remembered that Canberra Motor Works had a set two years ago so I gave them a call. The proprietor was out and they would call me back.

Ron climbed under and determined a temp repair might be able to be made using some jubilee clips, fencing wire and exhaust gasket cement. Ron put one jubilee clip over the break to stabilise that area - we used a dremel to cut in some slots in the old manifold so the clip had something to clamp on and used other clips joined together to keep the broken bit pulled up to the manifold.

We then compared tyre sizes as 101 owners tend to do and Ron took some pics. Ron's Simexs are about 1 1/2" bigger in diameter than my BFGs. The BFGs are clearly a better all round tyre but the Simex with their big side biters would be better in the mud.

As CMW had not called us back we then decided to travel over there as it was on the way back to where Ron's wife was staying. I took my Haffie with Ryan as a passenger with Ron following but the Haffie died on the way - no compression - so was left on the side of the road.

We continued on to CMW where the owner searched for the manifolds but it looks like he sold them sometime in the last 2 years since I saw them (I should have grabbed them). So back to my place to get my RRS and trailer to pick up the Haffie and check whether the fix was holding.

We got the Haffie and Ron went on to see his beloved.

Ron was intending to go from Canberra to Tumut and then on to Corowa from the there but the Brindabella Road is a bit rough and the exhaust was never going to hold together.

So expect to see - maybe you will him first down in Corowa tomorrow. If you have a drivers side 101 manifold for sale at the swap meet - save it for him.

Me will be setting up to pull a Haflinger engine out for inspection - starting with the rockers, heads and then pistons. It has a bit of blow back and is blowing some oil of the crankcase breather.

Cheers

Garry

I would buy yours, it is just money is just too tight for me currently I am still paying of some off other bills.