Dave Silcock Jags

[jim short]

Amco.meat pies, Macs,truck drivers are always{by macs I asumme you mean big macs} . now I must calm down but big trucks like big women allways excite me,the 190 as we called them was the largest truck in NZ in the 50s made by The International Harvester Co.they had 110,,120..170 and the 190 later on I had a210,that had a Cummins 220hp 2 4speed gearboxs .The 190s{think xk same feeling}started with an L model.petrol motor two gearboxs a 3sp and a 5sp,No power steering untill the 210,,The early ones we had vacum brakes to the 4axel GMC trailers leaf springs,,roll over real quick ,this means on a hill if you miss 1st gear {crashboxs by the way] you had one and one only chance to stop before your reversing was put to a rather nervious test,.The steep hill between Tokora and Whakamara called No 7was a testament to this test with 7 loads of logs all on top of each other for quite some years,we had one truck with a real low diff and it used to take close to 30 mins to reach the top{today probably 3 to 4 mins if that} .A kilometer before the hill there was a stream that in the summer we would soak our boots completley and by the top of the hill they would be dry,.As this is of subject I will just say in 95 at the last Wigram meeting I was chating about the gearchanging in these trucks explaning when I was joined by Spencer Martin and had had the same experiance with these 190s

[jim short]

There was various was of changing .when a driver moved on the new one took over that unit ,straight around to the trailer bay borrow the gas and reshape the levers to suit

[Oldfart]

My memory was that the old main rd hill into Cambridge (South side of town) could be used to see whether you could use all the gears too!

[jim short]

Sadly a thing of the past ,to hit a hill and go down using both boxes bit like music sadly there a few who know what I am saying.you talk to the moden trucky and he thinks you smoking something strange!!

[markec]

I drove a 120 back from Middlemarch to Dunedin as a favour one night, middle of winter snowing heavily,only a windscreen, the others were gone, vacume wipers, talk about sweat. Melted the boot rubber,how guys drove them in the summer I'll never know.What about the Ford Thornton's, when they broke off all the crown wheel rivets.

[Dave Silcock]

Jim, I'm not up on my trucks, all I know about are Bedfords and Austins.......Yeh yeh, I know. Not a MANS truck. But you dont have to be a MAN to drive a modern truck......just watch 'Ice Road Truckers'.....there are some pretty cool, and just pretty, dames driving these things......automatic transmissions, I ask you!!!!! Anyway the truck model you used to drive...rl190/rf190, are these MAC trucks? I guess in 1965 they didn't have auto trans for real 'He-men'. Just gobble a few more Big Ben Pies to build up the leg muscles. I'm sure they had power steering though, unlike the K Bedford. You had to be a MAN to drive that!!!!
Trouble is they buggered your back as you well know......no ergonomic seating.
Now Dave, you have got to be joking about the engineers report. And why were you 12 DAYS late. For Gods sake, get off the grass.
How do you justify $1200 for a half-hour inspection. Do you have to strip the car so all the anchorage points can be inspected. This is ridiculous. Cant you tell them to go jump!!!! Don't answer that....they will probably tell YOU to go jump....grrrrrrr.

No Gerald I kid you not,the roll cage was professionally built out of chrome moly and TIG welded in 08, and inspected by a MSNZ tech person.He informed me that I did not need one as it was a road registered car. I had decided to future proof the car and fit one in the construction stages as you would. I stupidly decided to wait till I could do all the paper work for the car at once not thinking it would take another 4 years.LOL. I sent the application form to them on 12/1/12. on 31/12/11 the regulations changed in that the extra strength of chrome moly, was in effect not recognized, and the main hoop had to be made of thicker mild steel. The upshot of this is that I either have it modified to comply or pay a professional firm of engineers to certify that it is strong enough. There are only two such firms prepared to do such work as the insurance they have to have is very expensive. it 12 days earlier previously it was strong enough.

[woody]

Markec, Would have been tricky getting through Lee Stream and Deep Stream areas.

[Howard Wood]

Dave,

I have sent you a pm with the contact details of someone who may be able to help you. I had exactly the same issue with my "02 cage, having been assured that the design which varied slightly from the MNZ book drawings was all OK, only to be told at final sign off that an engineer's report was required.

[AMCO72]

Dave, I really hope Howards advice has been of use to you. This is a ridiculous situation. If MSNZ want to change a specification for something on a race car, thats fine. Everything constructed AFTER that date has to comply. But you had not only started your rollcage before the advised date, but finished it. They might as well tell all of us to modify our cages to suit the new specification, which is not going to happen, I hope. As you know, all we have to do normally is supply some photos of the frames construction showing anchorages etc, which someone at MSNZ studies, and so long as the job is done by a recognised fabricator, all is sweet. I think that if any official was to actually look at the 'Blue Car', they would very soon come to the conclusion that this machine was assembled by a very dedicated engineer with many many years of experience.
Why would you built a substandard frame in a car anyway, it might be vital in saving your life one day. Think I'll take up 'Chassis Racing'.....just got to find some rusty water-pipe for the frame on the old Plymouth!!!!!!
J.P. Morgan, shipping magnate said.......'A man always has two reasons for doing the things he does: a good reason, and the real reason'.

[AMCO72]

Well, that was probably an over simplification of the roll frame requirements, but you get my drift. What I want to know is how can an engineers report be of much use anyway. The ONLY way you are going test your frame, is to crash the car and see what happens, as used to be done years ago when new designs were propelled into concrete blocks to see what deforms and what doesn't.
I dont want to be around when they crash test the 'Blue Car'.....might need more that a bottle of Jim's rum to calm me down!!!

[markec]

The Inter was a 6x4, partly loaded so had some traction,just a fair bit of wheel slip on the hills, Deep stream was the worst.

[jim short]

Thank God .I thought I had realy lost the plot ,the 120 was a truck !!thought it was Daves 120 now perhaps you will understsand why I am like I am in the sumer it was pumice dust in winter pumice mud bush roads wide eneough for one and a half trucks The empty one must give way and as you were always trying to catch the one ahead you developed good reactions believe you me

[Rod Grimwood]

After reading about this crap with Daves car, some thing is telling me that after my tidy up of my little car, some one in Wellington is going to stuff it all up. As i stopped years ago because of this crap, and it looks like there is still a lot left in the bowl. I just can not be bothered with over the top officialdom any more. I am desperately tying to find my old log book, if i don't find it, that may be it, as i am not changing any thing. Thats how she has been since about 1967 with little bits changed over time so we shall see. (it is still away off yet, so things may mellow/change) TUI Yea Right

[markec]

The ease of finding the log book may depend on how tidier a Kiwi your better half is.If you were married to her at the time of taking the netball players back for a drink etc, you may never find it.I hope you do as it would be a shame for another colourfull character from the past not return to the track.

[Dave Silcock]

After reading about this crap with Daves car, some thing is telling me that after my tidy up of my little car, some one in Wellington is going to stuff it all up. As i stopped years ago because of this crap, and it looks like there is still a lot left in the bowl. I just can not be bothered with over the top officialdom any more. I am desperately tying to find my old log book, if i don't find it, that may be it, as i am not changing any thing. Thats how she has been since about 1967 with little bits changed over time so we shall see. (it is still away off yet, so things may mellow/change) TUI Yea Right

I would not go to too much trouble finding thst log book Rod, they will scew you no matter what you do. Like you I gave up racing cars because of idiot officals. in my case 19 years ago when a clerk of course black flagged me for draggind off two cars in front of me on the grid. He threatened me with fines and cancellation of licence. I put my Cooper Vincent on the trailer and went home never to return. Sold the car to the Canadians. Niel Stuart retired the same day when I told him why I was going home. So I have decided that the Blue car is not going to race under the current regime. There is no point in it, if I can have this much troble over a rool cage. imagine the licence and the COD!!! Fourtunately it is a superb road car and with some higher gearing will be even better.

[AMCO72]

Dave, I am going to pen an answer to that letter, but I need to sit down and think about it!! A couple of 'Jums Rums' might do the trick.

[grelley]

The reason MANZ require an engineers report is to absolve MANZ from any liability should the sh-t ever hit the fan. If this did happen and it went to a court of law, a lawyer would ask the approving official what his qualifications were to approve the cage, which unless he was a suitably qualified engineer,would be none. I have a Cortina with a cage in it to Sched AA. This cage would not pass the current regulations, but because it has a log book, I could still race it, so if you can find the logbook with the cage specification approved you should be ok. I know of instances in NZ where owners of BTCC and DTM BMWs (genuine cars) have also had to supply engineers reports for the cages because they differ from those in the manual. A lot of the enforcement of regulations came about after the Queenstown saga, where volunteer officials were left facing criminal charges.
Grelley

[Trevor Sheffield]

I would not go to too much trouble finding thst log book Rod, they will scew you no matter what you do. Like you I gave up racing cars because of idiot officals. in my case 19 years ago when a clerk of course black flagged me for draggind off two cars in front of me on the grid. He threatened me with fines and cancellation of licence. I put my Cooper Vincent on the trailer and went home never to return. Sold the car to the Canadians. Niel Stuart retired the same day when I told him why I was going home. So I have decided that the Blue car is not going to race under the current regime. There is no point in it, if I can have this much troble over a rool cage. imagine the licence and the COD!!! Fourtunately it is a superb road car and with some higher gearing will be even better.

You can add my name, the late Ron Roycroft and no doubt many others, to the list of those involved in this same saga.

Trevor.

[AMCO72]

Dave, it sounds as though you have made up your mind about the Blue Car. Because of the hassle you think you are going to have to get it on the track, you will give up now, and just have some fun with it on the road. That is sad because the enthusiasts are going to be denied the pleasure of [a] watching you race again and [b] seeing and hearing the mighty machine that you have created.
Officialdom has won! I know you are not the kind of person who takes kindly being told what to do. It must be our generation, because the younger fellas going motoracing seem to accept all this 'paperwork' as part and parcel of the sport. I know my son goes through all this quite regularly, but as he says to me....'Dad, if you want to go racing, get used to it; they have got you by the balls'. And as Theodore Roosevelt said.....'if you have 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow'!!!!!!!
The problem is that our generation, the over 65's, were used to, as Frank said, doing it our way, then all it takes is one stupid accident, and one jumped-up official. and the whole scenario changes. We should all probably accept that the 'good old days' have gone for good, and all us 'old farts' are good for is maybe flag marshalling, important though that is.
I dont know whether you have any health issues, but if you do you will be in for a grilling, and if you don't suffer from a mental illness now, you very soon will. I can't see you having trouble with the COD as the car is clearly T and C, a lot more so than some of the machinery out there, but this roll frame thing has got me puzzled. Greeley, this car has not got a log book, yet, and you say that you have one for your car, which is just as well, because it doesn't comply with todays rules, and yet you can race it if you want. Well I'm sorry, but what has the rule got to do with safety then, if you can race a non compliant car, simply because it has a log book from away back, which is Rod's problem too.
I was hoping that Howards tips were going to be of some assistance to you, as if anyone can help you, he should be able to.
Ah well, I have to tell you that I am coming to the South Island early next year, doing a tour of the restoration shops, and of course yours will be high on the list, including a drive. Perhaps we could recreate the 8 mile chase from ChCh to Leeston, in the 'Blue Car' instead of the XK120 C, and I have a pretty good idea which car will be the fastest, and it's not the 120.!!!! Back to 'Jums Rum'.

By the way markec.......interesting observations!!!!!

[Russ Cunningham]

AMCO! Hope you're not suggesting that you may break the speed limits between CH.CH. & Leeston? Jum would not take kindly to that.