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TASMANIA TOURING PHOTOS

GREAT OCEAN ROAD VIDEO

FINISHED CAR PHOTOS

GREAT OCEAN ROAD VIDEO No2
 

Current Activity

January 2024

We have just returned from our Tasmania tour covering about 3,500 kms over 3 states. All went well with no significant car issues other than a couple of screws shaking loose. We met up with a few of our TR Register friends along the way. We covered all nature of roads including gravel roads in the north east of Tassie. I need to work out how to get Google maps to advise when dirt roads are on the route or do better research. Other than that the navigation went beautifully. I have my iPhone mounted so I can use the maps navigation as my wife cannot read maps at the moment due to eye issues and it is difficult to do in the TR anyway. We covered some great roads in our travels and I have recorded the tracks on a navigation app. We drove to the top of Mount Wellington and also on the Highland Lakes road through the centre of Tasmania and also the Great Ocean Road on our return to Adelaide. I will post a bit of video on the latter if I can as it is worth a look. This is the equivalent of the coast drive through Carmel and Monterey in California in my opinion.

The pictures tell the story!

December 2023

Preparations have commenced for our grand tour commencing in mid January. We will be travelling through 4 states and close to 5,000 km's in the TR. Our first leg will take us 700 km's across to Geelong Victoria where we will embark on the Spirit of Tasmania for the voyage across Bass Straight> We disembark at Davenport in Tasmania where we stay the night before driving around the north east coast to arrive at Bicheno for a couple of days. After Bicheno we travel down to Port Arthur for a night and a visit to the Port Arthur convict colony. We will then travel to Richmond where we stay for 5 nights at the Charles Rueben cottage on a winery estate. We will use this a  base to visit Hobart and surrounds before heading north to Launceston and then finally back to Davenport to reembark on the Spirit of Tasmania to land back at Geelong. From there we swing around Port Phillip bay and head north east towards Orbost for the night. Our final destination for the next few weeks is Tuross Heads on the Pacific Ocean on the south coast of New South Wales. Late in February we will head back to South Australia most likely via the New South Wales high country, travelling through Cooma and Tumut before stopping at Wagga Wagga for a few days. We will then head home probably stopping at Mildura for the night before arriving in Adelaide. I will start posting pictures of the car preparation although other than checking oil levels I am pretty comfortable with it at the moment. i have spent this morning adding foam onto the soft top at the windshield to stop wind noise and rain entry. One of those things you are not sure it works until you have to travel through a rain storm but hopefully it is an improvement on the original!

More updates to come as we get closer.

Oct 2023 update

I have completed a number of events since the car was registered 

  • March 22 TSOASA Show and Shine - won the Pride of Ownership trophy for Sidescreens

  • October 22 Drive to Merimbula New South Wales (approx 3500KM round trip) for TR Register Concourse- won the encouragement award

  • March 23 McLaren Vale Classic & Vintage cruise

  • October 23 TSOASA Show and Shine - won the Concourse trophy for Sidescreens although there was minimal competition

Other than that I have had many drives in the Adelaide Hills and around the beaches of Adelaide.

 

 

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Click on the picture to see more current photos
 

PROGRESSIVE BUILD PHOTOS 

Summary of the Rebuild

The images tell the story but just to give a timeline to this saga.

The car was taken off the road about 2011 but no work really commenced until late 2012. I will bullet point the activity by year

  • 2012 removal of components

  • 2013 finish removal of components and take body off chassis. Chassis repair takes several months. 

  • 2014 Chassis painted and suspension reassembled after painting and new parts fitted. Mid year stripping of paint off body panels starts

  • 2015 Relocated from Victoria to Adelaide South Australia. Car was relocated in September but not much was done this year

  • 2016 Cut body in half and worked on rear half in different location. Repaired rear tub. Relocated to new house during this year. A lot of work on rear tub was redone later and panels replaced

  • 2017  Commenced work on the doors trying to recover the original outer skin. Soon gave up and ordered new skins which needed a lot of work to get to shape. I needed the doors rebuilt to use them to reconnect the front and rear tubs. In June I managed to cut my finger with a grinder and that was the end of work for that year!

  • 2018 Big year, rebuilt doors with new skins and then replaced rear quarter panels on rear tub and then set up front and rear tubs on new sills with replacement B pillar. This was a very challenging time and it was late in the year before I finally welded the quarter panels and fitted the floor on the drivers side.

  • 2019 Finished the drivers side and commenced work on the passenger side which went a lot quicker as the tubs were now fixed in place. I finished the floor closing by making panels at the rear of the Kilmartin floor pan and welded them in. Cleaned up the rear guards and rear of the car and painted the car so I could work on smoothing body work. I spent a month working on the bonnet to get gaps and shape correct.

  • 2020 The first half was spent correcting gaps on panels, finishing the floor, engine bay area and gearbox cover before I commenced paint in May.

  • 2021 With the body paint done I started on assembling the motor. This proved to be a whole lot harder than expected on account of a leaking welch plug on the 'rebuilt' head which I though was a head gasket issue. Finally overcame all issues and got the motor running well enough so the final stage was interior fitout. The car was registered in October of this year and roadworthy inspection.

  • 2022 Still had some trim issues to finalise as well as fitting of tonneau and soft top and retrimming of the sidescreens. Also had to replace the jets in the carburetors due to an incorrect supply issue. It has taken a while to fine tune all the bugs out but the car is reliable and FUN!

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