ok not exactly vw realted but damn some physical labour can do wonders for your head. i had to do a few days in the wharehouse at work... i love it. yes i feel a little sore but it was REAL work, i didn't have to be nice to people if i didn't want to, i didn't have to try and sell people shit.

 

 

to top it off this evening i got a call from my ex father in law in a bit of a state, as he had cut and bailed some hay and it was starting to rain. it was only a few achers so it wasn't a big job and he has a really old bailer so the bails are small (and hence light) compaired to the modern monster bails. i quickly dashed out there and flogged the guts ot of myself lugging a bail in each hand to the pallet thingy he stacks them on, then running to get another 2 (normaly i don't run for anything if i can help it). i haven't had myself blowing so hard for years. i just kept pushing myself... i did eventually have to stop the running and then go back to one bail so i didn't fall over but damn it felt good. now i come to think about it this was probably the first time thati have really gotten to appreciate not smoking any more. 2 years ago there is no way in hell i could have done that.

 

 

on the the reason we are here, cars. my folks came up from sydney to visit and brought my "rad" wheels. i was traveling by public transport when i was there so couldn't get them here. of course i had to play with them, so out the back i want and bolted one on the front of a rolling shell that is waiting for me to dispose of it thoughtfully. (i won't say just how long it has been waiting...) i quickly fitted an old guard that was about the place to see how it would fit. how the offset worked with stock guards. from a rough eyeball it looks like it sits in about 5mm from the guard lip. close yes but still legal i think. plus so different to the normal tucked/narrowed thing.

 

it shows that i'm getting old... but the tucked thing doesn't do that much for me, mainly as it is so damn impractical. useful if you want to go REALLY low, but i don't i wouldn't be able to drive a really low car here. this town just isn't suited to no clearance. plus, a narrower track is (i'd imagine) going to make the car handle worse. i supose another thing i have against narrowed beams is in at least some cases it looks really stupid IMHO. i know others love the look but (with exceptions obviously) it doesn't do it for me. i have never been cool though .

also it is SO overdone, come on people how about something different!

 

the first thing i noticed when i fitted the wheel up to bolt on, was how well the spokes etc fit stylistically with the front drums and bearing caps. in my eyes they look great. i don't know if the person who designed/made these took that into consideration, but if so, they have/had a great eye. i'm thinking that these wheels need black drums with either a black bearing cap or maybe a chrome cap... depends on how 70's i want to go. the one problem may be, i have an old set of shermans front disks, i think that they would loose the look completely fitted over them as they have a flat face (plus they widen the track... i hadn't thought about that...  bugger.)

 

i went to take a picture but the camera has disappeared. nfi where it has gone, i hope one of the kids hasn't stashed it.

 

i found the missing bits i am selling. in my fakie assistant... just in the first draw, not on top where i thought i might have left them. of late i have been seeing that a lot, mainly at work, but now at home... something moved just a little out of place and it vanishes. several times i was looking for a box in the warehouse at work and it was 2 - 3' from where i was expecting it to be. i spent several minutes each time walking up and down isles trying to find them. now these bits... i had spent about 1/2 an hour trying to find them and they were 6" from where i first looked. i guess this could be seen as i sign to open my mind a little and try to not be so preset in my ideas... (yeah man).

 

 

btw i wheeled the fakie assistant out to the shell instead of just grabbing the tools out and taking them out to it... i liked it, it worked for me. the only problem being, i ended up going inside and grabbing one of the ammo cases that i used to keep my tools in to sit on. i got so used to using them as a stool over the years... i will have to get a real assistant with the hole for the stool... and a real (or more likely a repro) hazet work stool.

 

 

i also noticed that the guard i bolted on is worse than i thought. it has had a hit at the bottom near the running board that has been roughly knocked out. i was hoping to do a little work on this area and eventually if i did good enough a job (though my ego said of course i would have) using it on my ragtop. when i fitted it up i realized it was rather tweeked. it looks like it has been shrunk along the mount lip as it curves too tightly, plus the damages bit is worse than it looked when not mounted. oh well, i guess i'll just add that to the want list for my ragtop... at the moment it stands at basically every bolt on panel plus HEAPS of small bits. hey its only money.

 

 

if the rough fitting of the wheel is anything to go by, i'll have to roll the lip of the guards on what ever car i fit them to. no they don't fit with my vision of my ragtop... i guess i'll just have to get another car for them. i'm still in two minds about using them on anything as they are SO heavy, quite a bit more than stock. aka they would fuck up the unsprung to sprung weight ratio. aka they would be run for thier looks not practicallity.  in some ways at least you'd have to say i follow the bauhaus tennent of "form follows function".

 

 

i had envisioned these wheels on a car where the tire is about an inch to an inch and a half from the guard. (remember these are 14"s so with 60? series tyres that is a lot lower than it is with a 165 on a stock rim) with such a tight fit of the rim to guard i'd need to fit a really strong sway bar to try and keep the wheels from rubbing when pushing through corners (i even have a corner in mind when i say this)(a double apex across the railway line near my place that drops right off camber just after the second apex, good vision too so you can see if there are other cars around. on my way to work...fun)

 

 

speeking of corners, i have noticed in my life that i have had various "favorate" corners, generally on a route i travel fairly often at the time. over the years they have changed and varied in style as my driving and personallity has changed.

 

 

i'd love to go back to some of my old favorate roads and know that there were no police of other cars about... also in a decent car. kur-ring-gai chase and the old hwy from cowan to mount white. when i was young and had time/money they were my fave roads. either in one of mine or a friends cars. we'd just go for a drive for the sake of it. windows down, chatting or by myself thinking. sometimes going fast, sometimes not, just enjoying the road. damn life is simple when you are young. i still like just driving, but the chance to do so doesn't come up anywhere near often enough.