The Roaring Season

David McKinney wrote:The story about the dear old Tam was that she had concrete ballast on one side to keep her on an even keel...

Quite right about that concrete ballast David...interesting story here regarding her permanent list to Port
http://www.bluestarline.org/wallace_trickett_2009/walley_t31.html

That most probably explains why a few years back i always thought Bob Homewood had a lean to the right after a couple of drinks, but it was instinct kicking in to allow him to be on the level for the ferry trip.

Rod Grimwood wrote:That most probably explains why a few years back i always thought Bob Homewood had a lean to the right after a couple of drinks, but it was instinct kicking in to allow him to be on the level for the ferry trip.

ROD! Best call so far.

The Tamahine was also top heavy which was amongst the reasons for the ballast and the fact that she rolled her guts out. When I was a small kid we used to live at the whaling works and can still remember some of her interesting entries into Tory Channel.

Well I was lucky enough to have sampled the strait crossing in old concrete bum ,the Tamahine,I am also lucky that I don't suffer from sea sickness or any form of travel sickness ,at one stage of my life I was a regular traveller on both the Picton and Lyttelton crossings and yes I guess I helped the bar takings along on the way ,I can remember some real rough crossings with the old screws churning out of the water,we used to get these little cabins to sleep on board on the late night Picton crossing and I know one night the boat was getting tossed around so much the cabin door wouldn't stay shut and you had to wedge yourself into the bed to stay there
Some good memories of those days of doing things people will never get the chance to do again ,like flying on some of the dodgy old aircraft of those times,including a 4 hour trip each way to the Chatham's in the days of the Cray fishing boom by Bristol Frightener,I remember that trip well because one of my fellow travellers was a man of the cloth ,that reassured me a little until the old Bristol warmed up with a lot of popping and farting ,then he took out his little book and quietly read it ,I wasn't so sure about things then

Bob, the little book wasn't the "Best Bets" was it.

Bristol Freighter "Frightener" great term, weren't they different. False sense of security by calling them "Safe Air" Mind you they flew evey day with a lot of freight and all was good. Winter was the best as they did have great air flow, no need for little fancy jets to direct air onto your face while you read the travel brochure.

The Bristol Freighter, ten thousand rivets flying in formation.

No there were no "Best Bets"on that trip ,the thing that really made you flinch was when the pilot feathered the props a bit every so often and the engine note changed ,you suddenly became very aware of the expanse of ocean that lies out there you could actually check out most of those rivets as you flew, and the exhaust flames on warm up in the early morning light was something else

Swallowing

Actually I see that Haynes the Workshop manual people now do a manual for the DC3 ,wonder how long before they do one for the Bristol Freighter then we will all be able to relive those times

SAFE. Straights Air Freight Express, during the operational hours of their heyday a Bristol used to fly over Blenheim every 12-15 minutes. Father had a transport business in Blenheim at that time and sure carried a lot of goods that traveled by them.

The ground crew could unload and reload them in 12 minutes and they were usually refueled at the same time as they only ran minimum fuel loads so as to maximise the freight carrying capacity

I vividly still remember the day that one got caught up in a NorWester wind while approaching Woodbourne and was blown semi backwards across Blenheim until it crashed into the Wither Hills killing the crew.

I was also at the air show at Woodbourne when one made a low speed pass on one engine and could not pull out of it and crashed into the Omaka River bed close to the airport, this time the crew walked away ok.

[quote="Carlo"]SAFE. Straights Air Freight Express, during the operational hours of their heyday a Bristol used to fly over Blenheim every 12-15 minutes. Father had a transport business in Blenheim at that time and sure carried a lot of goods that traveled by them.

The ground crew could unload and reload them in 12 minutes and they were usually refueled at the same time as they only ran minimum fuel loads so as to maximise the freight carrying capacity
I vividly still remember the day that one got caught up in a NorWester wind while approaching Woodbourne and was blown semi backwards across Blenheim until it crashed into the Wither Hills killing the crew.

There is a memorial at the Russley Golf Course in CHCH for one that crashed.
The Accident report reads " A sudden gust of wind registering 33 knots (61 kmh) was recorded at Harewood at 11.33am. At about this time the plane was seen by a number of witnesses on the ground to literally fall to pieces. The starboard outer wing folded upwards and backwards and then separated, falling and landing on open farmland. The nose doors, the floor of the freight compartment (with the freight in position), and the rear portion of the fuselage with the fin and rudder attached all separated from the rest of the aircraft just before impact.
Pieces were scattered over an area of more than a square mile (2.59 square kilometres).

Maybe that 'man of the cloth' was on to something Bob!

Dear old 'Yards and Yarns' seems to have slipped down the pecking order lately after being one of the most popular threads on the roaring season, so I thought I would get it back onto page 1 again with a question....a serious question to do with race cars. Not about building, racing, & restoring race cars but about keeping a race-car engine cool, or coolish....yes, seriously. Yards and Yarns seemed to me to be the most appropriate forum to make this enquiry on, as it may turn out to be a 'Yarn' so I dont want to pollute other threads with a whole lot of bullshit. QUESTION..... Has anyone out there heard of, but more importantly TRIED....waterless coolant....more specifically Evans or Liquid Intelligence 115 which is available in NZ....Evans is sold in Australia, and L.I. 115 could be the same stuff, but I dont know. There seems to be 2 camps here.......1....those who have used it and swear by it, and 2....those who HAVEN'T used it and rubbish it. I have spoken to a friend who runs an Historic Speedway Midget powered by a V8 60 with Edelbrock heads, etc producing about 220 hp, and this machine regularly has a coolant temperature over 250 degrees F, and oil temperatures over 300 degrees F with no problems. Previous to using LI 115 this engine would pump all its coolant out after a workout on the track, especially when stopped, and this has now ceased since using waterless coolant. Sounds amazing I agree, but my friend has no financial interest in the product so has no axe to grind and he is a very long standing member of the VCC and knows a thing or two about engines, especially V8's. We all know that in standard form the flat-head used to be like a tea-kettle due to Henry's odd design for getting exhaust gases out, so to keep one of these old girls from boiling their heads off is a victory indeed. The main ingredient in liquid intelligence 115 is a mixture of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol with some inhibitors in the mix. Now I know that manufacturers of antifreeze etc say that no more than 70% of the coolant should be glycol, and yet this stuff is used at 100%. Theoretically it's cooling SHOULD be inferior to water....which is the best conductor of heat away from metal, but which has an annoyingly low boiling point.....212 drgrees F. [I think God should have foreseen this when he made the world and everything therein, and had water boiling at 300 degrees F.!!!!!!!!!] I do know also that the great Jay Leno, a guy with a magnificent collection of cars in America also uses it, and endorses it. Now I know there are some bright, THINKING fellas out there who will give me a sensible and considered answer to my question. I await the response with interest.

The question I had was "what is a good temperature for an engine to run at?
There seem to be a lot of advantages, ie no pressure which is only there to raise the boiling point and no water to create rust.
Everybody I have met who has used the stuff (liquid Intelligence) swears by it, seems only the non users are sceptical. There are heaps of the Whangamat cruisers using it now.
I have yet to convert BTW

Slightly off your topic and Im sure Bob Homewood will have something to say about this but it seems to me the best way to make your classic run cooler is to run it on E85. In fact from what Bob told me you usually have trouble trying to keep your engine warm if you have converted to use it with the cooling system as it was on avgas. Of course there are other considerations when converting to E85 but that is one big advantage for sure.

Gerald, I had a cooling issue with one of my cars - usual problems of a relatively high performance engine with a smallish radiator and small nose aperture. I had a look at the LI 115 product and eventually contacted their technical people in Australia. What I was concerned about was by putting an additive into the radiator water was I actually increasing the operative temperature as well as raising the boiling point. The technical people at LI 115 were very helpful and advised that the operative temperature would increase by around 10 degrees but the boiling point would rise by an amount greater than this.
In thinking about it, this wasn't what I really wanted as my problem was a too high operative temperature. I contacted some of the UK historic racing guys and they advised a Millers product called "Extra Cool" (http://www.millersoils.net/1_Millers_frame_MOTORSPORT.htm). I got some from the NZ agent (http://www.millersoils.co.nz/) and it dropped my operative temperature by over 10 degrees and its never boiled since. I now have it in all my race cars. BTW - I have no connection with Millers.

Thanks you Guys. Roger, is Millers a similar product to 'Water Wetter' which I know a lot of people use with success. My critics of LI 115 say that it might be ok in a vintage car with a relatively slow revving engine...Mr Jay Leno for one, but not in a high performance machine like our 150 hp Mini. The cruisers that oldfart mentions fall into this catergory. I had a suspicion that the engine bores in particular might get hotter with LI 115 but that would be offset by an increase in boiling point as Roger has pointed out. The product has a very definite oily feel about it which would slow down its passage round the cooling system which I think is a good thing. Am slowing down my water pump speed with a bigger pulley as I am sure that at 8000revs it is just cavitating, which is why a lot of Mini racers use electric water pumps that run at a constant speed. This is fascinating and it is a problem that a lot of race cars have, so keep the ideas coming, I appreciate it.

I don't actually know whats in the Millers Extra Cool but from what the UK guys say I don't think its the same as water wetter.
The issue with water pump cavitation is another thing I dealt with. My engine is based on a 105E which probably ran no more than 4000rpm in standard form. In modified form I run it over 8000rpm and so I did a few calculations and changed the size of the water pump pulley so at 8000rpm the water pump was slowed down so it turned at the same speed as a standard car at 4000rpm. This improved cooling but I still made further improvements after I put the Extra Cool in.

Talking about Seagrove ,got me thinking ,there must be a few of us here that remember and have some stories of the WW2 Surplus stuff that was around for quite a few years, back when I was real young there were a couple of people who had gathered up a lot of this stuff at the right moment and price and then sold it on ,my father was into radio and used to spend countless hours listening to radio stations from all over the world ,logging their programs ,then getting a QSL card from them,his source of radio equipment invariably were old ex aircraft communication receivers,which he coaxed back into life ,one time he was visiting one of these places in search of more radio stuff ,we spotted four wheels with hubs and axles for our trolley ,which we managed to persude him to buy us ,now these would have been the best trolley wheels I had ever seen at that time ,they came with tyres and ran on bearings ,you could go real fast with them ,we never knew what they came off ,but in later years looking at photos I have worked out they came off a WW2 bomb trolley , later on when I was building my Singer Nine special ,the War surplus places were a good source of supply,not quite F1 standard but it fitted the bill well back in those days,then later when I moved onto Chevs and Ford V8's ,I made endless trips to Ray Vincent's , then again in later years there was my old mate Ron Dwen he was handy before the days when you could walk into a shop and buy aeroquip fittings and rod ends like you can now ,and the good thing was sometimes I could swap it for a tune up on one of his big American cars that he liked to own

I remember people buying War Surplus GMC trucks - I imagine more than one person started a viable transport business on that basis. I also recall bren-gun carriers being bought, possibly as cheap tractors?
Even as late as the 1960s there was a huge yard in Lower Hutt full of old GMCs. I'm pretty sure it was run by the Gillies family, whose sons were later big in Mini-7 racing