SA run to York Peninsula April 2010

[royalv8]

I am going to post a few messages about this event that was organised by David May of Cararest and the Chrysler Restorers Club here in SA.

I will start with the announcement for the event:

16 - 19 April 2010
Friday 16th April - Meet at Bolivar at 9.30 for 10 am departure (parking bay just past service station), travel to Pt Wakefield to regroup (maybe a cuppa) and then on to Ardrossan for lunch. Then to our destination at Fore Shore Caravan Park Stansbury.
Saturday 17th April - Extensive Foreshore and on water events at Pt Vincent club has been asked for a stationary display 10 am - 2 pm
Sunday 18th April - Wooden Boat Regatta from Pt Vincent to Stansbury held in association with Stansbury seaside markets.
Stationary display 10 am - 2 pm
(optional)
Monday 19th April - Homeward bound.
All accommodation (booked by us) has been taken. Anyone wishing to attend can call Stansbury Foreshore Caravan Park on [phone].
Come and enjoy great company and a fantastic weekend.
David May

[royalv8]

This is a report about the event that appeared in the May June issue of the Chrysler Restorers Club SA magazine.

On the morning of Friday 16th April, with the sun shining, was a perfect start for our weekend on Yorke Peninsula for the Salt Water Classic at Stansbury and Port Vincent.

We met at Bolivar around 9.30 for a 10.00 departure. Richard who must have had a leave pass from work was on hand with his camera to get a few shots of our cars prior to us departing. With a good attendance of about 12 cars and caravans we headed to our arranged morning tea stop in Port Wakefield.

Bob and Judy Freak only travelled a couple of kilometres before deciding that a steering box problem was probably not worth the risk with the distance involved so Bob unhooked the van and returned home to pick up his modern car to do the trip. All arrived at Port Wakefield and after a cup of coffee and a re-gathering at the local park ventured on to Ardrossan for lunch at one of our favourite bakeries.

We spent a little bit of time there and enjoyed the break at the cliff- top park. A stop at Ardrossan was not complete without a visit to the local op shop to catch up on some not to be missed nick-nacks. From there we travelled at our leisure to Stansbury with most arriving by mid-afternoon. After being allocated our respective sites we set up camp ready for the happy hour which proved to be quite popular each day. The meal was your own choice with most looking for a quiet night.

Saturday we met at Port Vincent at around 9.30 complete with caravans for a street display and the official opening of the weekends events. A good crowd of visitors appeared to enjoy the display of our classic cars and caravans while waiting for the arrival of the wooden boats. These were quite an interesting selection of craft with an amazing amount of restoration involved no doubt.

The official opening was performed by the local council member Mr Ray Agnew followed by a terrific display from the Metropolitan Fire Service fire boat which showed the firefighting capabilities of this state of the art vessel with the water jets from three high pressure monitors. By around 3.30 in the afternoon people were beginning to disperse so we decided to pack up and returned to Stansbury.

On returning to the park we found Richard Tapp had arrived after a quite eventful start to his day, this needs to be explained by Richard time permitting. The Saturday evening happy hour went into tea time where everyone supplying their own food joined in for a community barbecue. An enjoyable time where a few stories were told well into the night.

Sunday’s venue was a street closure allocated for our cars and caravans as well as any visitors who wished to display their classic and unique vehicles. Stansbury turned on a good variety of markets along the beach front which attracted a lot of interest. The wooden boats were displayed along the esplanade as well as a good display of stationary engines with a large number from the Adelaide Hills Club. Members from the Restorers Club met at the hotel and enjoyed a beautiful lunch.

Our display of vehicles created a lot of interest and was well attended by the public. The Highway Palace as usual the centre of attraction. We returned to the Park at around 3.30 after a most successful day. A get together before tea as usual but an early night for most in preparation for the return trip home next morning.

Monday morning with breakfast out of the way we were on our way after a well organised and enjoyable weekend. Many thanks to David and Julie May for their time and organising for a weekend on the Peninsula.

Bob and Ellen Haywood

[royalv8]

Here is a link to a gallery of 97 photos of the event:

picasaweb.google.com/crcasa.web/YorkPeninsulaSaltwaterClassic#

[royalv8]

This then is the story of my York Peninsula run:

Saturday 17 April 2010 started like any work day – up at six. Too bad it was a Saturday not a work day. But there was lots to do if I was to get to the club display at Port Vincent as planned.
First job was to get the caravan out of the garage and out into the back lane, without hitting the shed or the fence opposite. This was achieved without too much difficulty with the EasyMover. Move 6 inches, check the clearances, another 6 inches etc. There was a moment of excitement when the wheels went down off my concrete onto the bitumen of the lane but the van didn’t “run away” and never threatened the opposite fence.

I loosened the nuts on my garaging wheels, then placed my (baby) trolley jack under the chassis, behind the rear spring shackle and in front of the leveller; these pivot up from the back of the chassis to lay flat against it for travel. Being only an 11’ van, there is not much free chassis there – maybe 150 mm.

Jacked the van up and was immediately dejected. It did not look like there would be enough ground clearance to fit the road wheels. And there wasn’t. I got the bottle jack from the Plymouth and squeezed that in just in front of the trolley jack. But it did not raise the chassis any higher. I let the trolley jack down so that the chassis rested on the bottle jack and placed a large thick (48 mm) piece of wood under the trolley jack, with a view to getting a bit more height. However the bottle jack had moved slightly when it took the weight and there was no longer room to get the trolley jack back onto that short length of clear chassis.

At the rear of the chassis there is a bump wheel, on the pivot axis of the leveller. But this was too low to the ground for me to get the trolley jack under it. Seeing no alternative I jacked against the levelling foot, which lifted the van and didn’t break the leveller – fortunately. This got me sufficient height to fit the first road wheel.

For the other side I used the bottle jack to lift the chassis high enough that I could get the trolley jack under the bump wheel, jacked that side up and the wheel change over proceeded relatively quickly – but between them it had taken an hour or more.

Next I got the Chrysler Royal out into the back lane and hooked it up to the van. No problem there – although I had a miserable time earlier in the week change the 50 mm ball for a 2” one.

Now to fit the towing mirrors I had been given. These are highly adjustable and clamp to the edge of the bonnet, going up and down with it. The only problem was that that the adjustment for the bonnet thickness was constrained by a second fitting – which had negligible adjustment. There was no way this would fit to the Royal without alterations that were beyond the scope of the morning.

At that stage David May rang from Port Vincent to see how I was going. Of course the answer was “badly”. So the next step was to disconnect the van and drive out to CaraRest and buy a couple of towing mirrors that WOULD fit the Royal. Then back home, assemble and fit the mirrors, reconnect the van and plug in the lights. Which didn’t work.

Graham had told me the lights worked fine when he retrieved the van from Queensland – but I had never used the light socket on the Royal before. The only happy outcome was going to be if the car was wired as 5 pin and the van as 7 pin ....

I was more than frustrated by now; the air was blue. I grabbed some clothes, threw them in the car and just before driving off, looked inside the van to make sure all was as expected.

Well it wasn’t. There were front seat cushions everywhere. As I started putting these back in place, I noticed that there were access hatches into the spaces under the front seats. On the right hand side there were 2 towing mirrors!! On the left hand side a 2 stage jack that may have had enough lift to make the original wheel changing exercise less troublesome. The air became bluer.

With a steely glare I set off, with van but no lights, for Repco or SuperCheap on Main North Road to get a 5 pin to 7 pin adaptor, hoping that would solve my light problem and resigned to failure if it did not. I had only gone half a block when I started to think of things that were still in the garage, neatly stacked up waiting to be loaded. But to go back would require two right turns without working turning indicators. Eff it. I continued on.

My run through the city to Prospect was trouble free (the Police did not stop me) with the only problem being that I could not get back into the left lane to stop at Repco. So I became a SuperCheap customer. They had an adaptor and it worked. Well at least it gave me indicators. On my own I could not test brake lights. I hope they worked.

At this stage I was feeling a lot happier. Who would have thought that turning indicators could give such pleasure. I was even able to ignore the fact that when checking to see that the caravan indicator lights worked, I discovered that one of the car indicators did not.

But I could not yet head for Port Vincent. I had a new caravan mattress waiting to be collected at Makin Mattresses. Since they are too big to fit in even a Land Cruiser, the arrangement was for me to pick it up with the van on the way to York Peninsula. I did not know what their trading hours were and all morning I had been fretting about their closing before I got there. By contrast, the night before, I had been fretting about my planned early departure being delayed waiting for them to open ...

At Makin Mattress there was a good car plus van sized parking spot by their rear loading door. Things were looking up. The staff member confirmed the mattress was ready and carried it to the van. Things started to get tricky again. We knew the mattress would have to be bent fairly severely to negotiate the corner through the door way and around the wardrobe – but I had not thought beyond this.

The greater problem was in fact that the length of the mattress matched the full width of the van, but was currently aligned down the length of the van. It needed to rotate to be across the van, but the diagonal dimension far exceeded the width of the van. This was further complicated by the fact that the wardrobe (full height of van) and kitchen bench top and kitchen ceiling cupboards prevented the mattress from being tilted significantly to help make the necessary rotation.

After some failed attempts, the Makin employee correctly identified that what was required was for me to lay on the bed base so that I could poke, prod and squeeze in the corner behind the wardrobe. In this way we were able to get the mattress in place – with me underneath it. After wriggling out, another goal had been achieved and I was in a relatively good humour. I sent David May the following text at 12:04 pm “All currently identified disasters overcome for the time being. Leaving Makin Mattresses.”

The journey north was uneventful, although the temperature gauge provided some interest. The Royal gauge is unusual in that it is usually on the left stop and only moves off that when elevated temperatures are reached. It started out on the left stop, then started cycling between 40% and the left stop. Then 50% and the left stop. Then 60% and the left stop. Then about 25 km out of Port Wakefield it stayed at 60% without cycling at all. But that was the worst of it. After Port Wakefield it stayed on the left stop.

I filled up at Port Wakefield, and after a comment at the last meeting that the police Royal had nearly caught fire because of a binding brake, I checked all the wheels for heat. Nothing was untoward, although one of the van tyres was warm. In fact that tyre looked relatively flat.

Hmmm. A leak? Then I remembered that we had let the air out of the road tyres to get the van into the garage in the first place. The garaging wheels had come later. So whilst I had put air into the garaging wheels, I had neglected the actual road wheels. I put 26 psi in them, but they still looked relatively flat. I increased that to 30 psi without them looking any better – but with the van weighing only 500kg, they cannot have needed more than that.

The next stop was Port Vincent. I arrived just after 3 pm, but the club display had departed a short time before and members were arriving back at the Foreshore Caravan Park at Stansbury at that time. 20 minutes later, that’s where I was also.

Before long Happy Hour had commenced and continued for 5 or 6 hours, as Chrysler Restorers Happy Hours are want to do.

On Sunday there was a display on the foreshore at Stansbury. This was well organised and uneventful. I left at 2:15 to give myself time to get home and try to deal with any issues that may arrise with reversing the process of getting the caravan out of the garage.

The journey was uneventful. It was still light although there was not a lot to spare. Certainly not enough to risk taking the van to the car wash and getting any remnants of the grit blasting (refer earlier story) washed off. So it was straight to the back lane. I left the van on the car for stability, took the trolley jack to the rear bump wheels and as expected there was not enough room to get the jack under it. So I used the bottle jack behind the rear spring shackle to lift the chassis far enough to get the trolley jack in place. Then I jacked up the rear (which was harder than I remembered) but I got wheel clearance and swapped back to the garaging wheels. Repeated for other side. So far so good.

Some of you may have noted that I left the van attached to the car. As I wrote this (1/5/10) I have concluded that made an unintended interaction between the two vehicles and I was in effect jacking the back of the Royal down as well as the back of the van up - which may be why the trolley jack seemed "hard".

Then I disconnected the van and car and with huge difficulty attached the EasyMover again. This was difficult because the EasyMover is really too high for this small van. The front of the van has to be lifted quite high to get the the bottom detent ridge of the mounting tube under the jockey wheel clamp. I needed 3 hands and to be somewhat stronger. Eventually and after much swearing this was achieved.

I thought I would back the van in so that the door was in the centre of the (double) garage. I started the back and fill process that was required to achieve a 90 degree rotation. This was not as easy as may be expected because the Easymover requires two controls to be altered for each change of direction. One ratchet on the wheel and one one ratchet on the drive arm. Not the end of the world except that the small lever that effects the change of direction on the drive arm is broken and so I have to use a 5 mm socket to change the setting. Which is fine except that the small lever restricted the rotation of the ratchet to the two relevant positions whereas with the socket drive the the rotation can stop anywhere, so that trial and error is required to located the position where the correct ratcheting action is achieved ...

Eventually got the van lined up to back it into the garage and the bump wheels promptly grounded. With the concavity of the rear lane and the elevation of the garage floor above the lane, this was a "no go". I tried forcing it but the Easymover did not have enough traction to achieve that. So I had another painful caravan rotation, this time 180 degrees. The co-ordination of ratchet reversals (with the trial and error process resulting from the broken lever) became all too much and I just lifted the front of the van to swing it around. But even that was not as easy as it should have been because with the large Easymover wheel and the small garaging wheels there was minimal rear clearance for the bump wheels, which promptly grounded as soon as the front of the van was high enough to swing ...

In due course and by now in the dark the van was lined up to go into the garage forwards. However as the Easymover wheel started to rise up onto the concrete of the garage, the rear bump wheels grounded on the bitumen of the rear lane. Tells someone who cares!! I just kept operating the EasyMover drive arm and let the bump wheels scrape - until the Easymover didn't have enough traction to keep things progressing. So then I stood on the draw bar to give it more traction and forced the van forward far enough that the bump wheels were nearer the centre of the lane where there was more clearance.

Things got easier for a while and I was able to start worring about alignment with the doors - which proved to be "off". So I had to back it out far enough to improve the alignment. What a happy chappy I was.

Forwards again - until the van wheels got to the edge of the concrete up into the garage. And that was as far as they went. The EasyMover drive wheel turned but it just slipped on the concrete. Naturally, this location, where maximum traction was required, corresponded with where the Plymouth used to drip oil. Tried degreaser but of course that was all to no avail. I could not see any way to get around this and admitted defeat. I put the van back out in the rear lane and resolved to deal with it on Monday.

Monday I bought a boat winch and bolted that into the floor of the garage. I opened the garage doors to "winch the bastard in" and a tyre was flat! I wondered about whether this was malicious - an objection to the van being left in the lane - although I now suspect not. So I had to jack the van up, take the wheel off and take it to a tyre place for repair. They were busy but when I went back they were not happy with the sidewalls of the second hand tyre and refused to put a tube in it.

As I fumed, I remembered that I still had a pair of garaging wheels that david may had leant me to make sure the stud pattern was correct. So I used one of those and put the small original jockey wheel on the front, which levelled out the van and gave more rear clearance. The van was so easy to move without the Easymover! I lined it up, attached the winch and in a few minutes was safely inside.

There were some sphincter tightening moments as the load came on to drag the wheels "up the bump". Obviously it would not be nice if the winch strap broke, but it is all rated at 900kg and the van only weighs 500 kg, so the winch could lift it vertically off the ground. Dragging it forward on its wheels can't really have been a significant load.

So that is the story of MY York Peninsula Saltwater Classic.

Richard Tapp

[JBJ]

Hi Richard,

Looks like you guys down there have fun days the same as the rest of us. Somedays you think you should have stayed in bed.

The photo link is great. You have a lot of nice SA vans we dont see often in Qld.

Also as owner of a 56 Aussie Dodge & 77 Valiant, I appreciate the Chryslers on the pix. I'll forward the link to Damien Veness, I guess you probably know him from the Chrysler events. He lives near me, & is a bit of a Chrysler nut.

JBJ

[royalv8]

Thanks JBJ

My van has only just relocated FROM Queensland. :-)

vintagecaravans.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=photo&thread=5373&page=1#43979

Richard