Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

No, Ian. I didn't run the Hume much. I was more interested in getting away from Melbourne. I didn't much like the city or Victorian law enforcement as applied to trucks and drivers. My Melbourne forays were nearly all down the Newell. I did have a drink on occasion at the unlicenced plonk shop at Rutherford. Other establishments popular with interstaters in those more carefree days before the breathalyser were the top pub at Deepwater, Red Lion at Glencoe, Wingen, Willow Tree, Bendemeer. Tomingley, Tocumwal, Wobbly Boot.

Any of the truckies familiar with the Koala Motel on the Princes Hwy as you get into the Stoney Rises heading west? (west of Colac before Stonyford)



DL

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

Moonbi 1 & 2, O'Sullivan's Gap, Pretty Sally, Black Mountain before the highway was realigned, and so on.

Reminds me of my first trip up Moonbi, as a child (1951?). There was Mum and Dad in the front and us three kids in the back of the 1931 10hp Swift. Travelling with us were my uncle and his wife and youngest daughter in their 1926 Rover 9 tourer.

The Swift had the advantage of a four speed box, so did Moonbi in second, and we stopped at the top to wait for the others. One of my lasting memories is the Rover coming round the final bend in first, with my uncle leaning out the side to see, as the windscreen was obscured by the condensation and dust from the plume of steam rising from the radiator.

...the old steam from the radiator....

I can remember as a child it was quite a common occurrence to boil the radiator on a summers day. Nobody seemed to mind ....it was the rule rather than the exception , so you pulled off the road and lifted the hood (remember it was a hood and not a bonnet).....but never lifted the radiator cap. You'd wait until it cooled down enough to drive on.

Which reminds me of the time my father was waved down one evening and told that his engine was on fire - it wasn't; just that the timing linkage from the timer (commutator for the coils) on the front of the camshaft to the spark control lever had fallen off and it was running very retarded. The apparent fire was the glow of the exhaust manifold, visible through the vents in the side of the bonnet and through the radiator.

Just stopped the engine, hooked it back up, gave it a crank, and drove on home with the timing more correct. (That was in the 1923 Ford, two vehicles before the Swift, and would have been in the mid 1940s)

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Reminds me of my first trip up Moonbi, as a child (1951?). There was Mum and Dad in the front and us three kids in the back of the 1931 10hp Swift. Travelling with us were my uncle and his wife and youngest daughter in their 1926 Rover 9 tourer.

The Swift had the advantage of a four speed box, so did Moonbi in second, and we stopped at the top to wait for the others. One of my lasting memories is the Rover coming round the final bend in first, with my uncle leaning out the side to see, as the windscreen was obscured by the condensation and dust from the plume of steam rising from the radiator.

The first time I went down the New England I was a spotty faced teenager riding in one of our petrol engine Commers with my father. The service station at Bendemeer had a WW2 6x6 tow truck to pull low powered old trucks over the steep gradients of the time before the road was realigned, straightened, and lowered. We didn't need it. God alone knows why. Dad was not averse to putting on a bit of pudding, 12 tons on an 8 ton body truck. The idea was to book a trunk call to the station and reserve a place on the tow list. This would have been circa 1956.

Our family did the New England a number of times in the 1950s - and we dreaded getting caught behind you lot on the bad hills! (The Swift was replaced by a 1948 Austin 16 in 1953, and a new Simca V8 in 1959).

Supposedly the first Tour de France bikes only had 2 speeds, which were changed by turning the wheel around, as it had a sprocket on each side, if that wasn't a good ratio the whole wheel would have to be swapped for another.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Our family did the New England a number of times in the 1950s - and we dreaded getting caught behind you lot on the bad hills! (The Swift was replaced by a 1948 Austin 16 in 1953, and a new Simca V8 in 1959).

I well remember going up the steeper climbs on the New England and Pacific Highways at walking pace in low first. Waves of heat roiling up through leaky floors and cabs with the door propped open for some ventilation. Always scared that if the engine stalled you would need a tow to get going again as there was not enough engine to take off laden on a steep bit. Commer Knocker with 135 horsepower and a bogie trailer probably grossing 25 tons.