willedoo

Don't worry ome, you're not the first person on this forum to say ON has no policies without going on to their website to read them. A lot of assumptions get thrown about on this forum, it's just the nature of it and we all do it at times.

I don't think I'd like to make a prediction on what will happen in almost two years time. People lost a lot of faith in opinion polls when they got it completely wrong in the Shorten lost election. The party faithful at party election HQ were popping the champagne before the polls were closed, and an hour later they looked shell shocked. The thing is, that election was all about the two major parties and now something else entirely is happening. I don't live in a political monoculture as far as friends and people in general that I know. I've got close friends that vote Green and close friends who are paid up One Nation party members, so from one end of the spectrum to the other. But for the last few months it seems like everywhere I go I'm hearing stuff that looks good for One Nation and bad for Labor. The only prediction that I'd be game to make is that the coalition will preference One Nation, which is not good for Labor. In the past, the coalition has preferenced away from One Nation to try to extinct them as conservative competition. It's too late to do that now and if they did they'd just lose more base and wouldn't have enough support in the centre to survive.

It's no news to anyone that One Nation has led the last three major voting intention polls taken. But I wonder how many people who have expressed a dislike of our preferential system and support for a first past the post system are starting to have a rethink now that One Nation is polling at number one on primary vote intention. There's arguments for and against both systems. The way I see it, with a first past the post system you could end up with a government elected on a fairly small percentage if we had a few strong parties instead of the traditional two major party dominance. That might be our immediate future, ie: an end to the two party status quo. The preferential system can have a lot more unpredictable outcomes, that's for sure. I was reading some of the views of Dr. Shaun Ratcliff, principal of Accent Research regarding preferences. He was saying based on current polling, what happened in Farrer could replicate around the country at the next election. Here's a quote from him: "In seat after seat, the Coalition is predicted to fall to third place in seats it has traditionally held, either on primary votes or it is pushed to third by Labor on Greens preferences, with Labor then losing to One Nation – usually on Coalition preferences”. That would mean One Nation defeating Labor candidates with the unintentional help of the Greens. This is my interpretation of that if I'm correct - in a four cornered contest between Liberal, Labor, One Nation and Greens, the Greens get knocked out first and Labor gets most of their preferences, pushing the Liberals to third place. It's then a contest between Labor and One Nation, and if One Nation polls well on the primaries, they pick up the Liberal preferences to top Labor. I think either way, it would be Labor with Green preferences against either One nation with Liberal preferences or Liberal with One Nation preferences. Dr. Ratcliff said the effect can magnify a small change in primary vote into a large difference in outcome. He said: “A Coalition primary vote that was just a few points higher would win considerably more seats,”. Round about now, Albo might be checking his wardrobe to see if he's still got those brown cord pants. He'd certainly be hoping for a big turnaround in the next six months or time will be running out to do it. I think the government knows that momentum will be their enemy if they don't stop it, and stop it soon.

My dad was a Chev man in his day. His first vehicle was a Chev Maple Leaf truck he bought when he came back from the war. As well as doing farm work with it, he drove it to all the local dances and used it for personal transport. Then he got married and bought a Chev sedan which lasted until he changed to an FC, then a FB, then the rust prone HD, and his last Holden was a HT. He had an FJ ute on the farm as well. I had a few in my day. First car was an FE, others were EK, EJ, EH, HD, HQ, HJ and the current Rodeo which is as much Isuzu as Holden. The only one I miss is my dad's Canadian Chev truck. He traded it and an old Dodge truck we had on a AA-160 International. He still had the AA-160 when he passed at 89.

Bit of a coincidence we're discussing brakes. I've just got back from picking the ute up from the mechanics. New rotors and pads on the front, front wheel bearings serviced, new clutch master cylinder and a flush and fluid change for clutch and brakes. I brought the old rotors and pads home, they look a bit scary. One of the pads was down to about 1 mm. The rotors were well below legal.

Good old youtube. It looks like you hit that round piece (which has a leather cap) with a hammer. It doesn't drive the nail home but it starts it.

I didn't know they had nail guns at the turn of last century. This U.S. example was patented in 1892 and 1908. It doesn't look like much fun to use. I'm assuming the user pulls that spring loaded plunger up and then lets it go. Or do they hit it with a hammer?

The thing that concerns me about old cars on the open road is that lack of a collapsible steering column. It's like driving around with a crowbar aimed at your chest.

It's interesting seeing what comes up on marketplace around the district. All the desirable stuff gets snapped up fairly qiuckly. In that category is old Holdens, Falcons, Chevs and Fords. F trucks always sell quick for high prices. They are the sort of vehicles most people in the market for classics want. On the other side of the coin are old cars that are going for bargain prices but the sellers have trouble moving them. In that category I'd put things like Wolseleys. I can see someone like the Two Ronnies wanting one, but that's about it. As far as the rough stuff goes, anything American is highly desirable for the ratrod market, but the old pommie stuff is stuck in a narrow, less flexible niche.

1918 sounds a long time ago. A mate of mine had a father who served in the 5th.Light Horse Regiment in WW1 and served at Gallipoli in 1915. I couldn't work the mathematics of that out until he told me his dad was fifteen when he joined up and had put his age up. Then he didn't marry until a bit later in life so was about 50 when the mate was born.

The first time I ever went out to the far SW Qld. country was in the early 80's and some of the roads were horrible back then. I flew out to Durham Downs so didn't get to experience the roads until later that night when a mate conned me into sharing the driving to take an empty float down to the NSW border to pick up a D7G. The trip from Durham to Noccundra literally took hours; we hardly got out of second gear. Not so much corrugations, more just rough with bulldust holes and silcrete rocks sticking out of the road surface. We had a couple of hours sleep at Noccundra and headed south from there at first light. In some places there was no imported road surface, just the natural ground surface that had chopped up to bulldust. I remember one area where the road was about 200 metres wide consisting of bulldust tracks where vehicles had been driving out wider and wider to find a hard surface. When we got to the border, there on the NSW side was the clay topped, formed up and wide Silver City Highway that you could have landed a plane on. There wasn't many tourists in those days. The roads are much better now due a lot to the grey nomads contributing so much to local economies. Councils now do a lot more road maintenance and a lot of those roads on the Queensland side are now formed up proper roads. The other contribution to better roads is the development of the oil and gas industry out there. When I was first there in 1982, the Jackson oil field wasn't even a thing. My brother and I did a job there camped by a creek bed like swaggies, living on tinned food; there was nothing there execpt us and the dingos. 18 months later there was bitumen, an airport, all the usual oilfield facilities, contractor's yards and donkey pumps all over the place.

The big problem with corrugations is that sometimes you have no choice but to put up with them if you want to get where you have to go. Depending on the vehicle, sometimes it's better to travel a bit faster rather than real slow, or as Nev pointed out, drive on the other side where the wave shape is more in your favour. Which ever way you tackle it, eventually some part of the vehicle will complain.

That story reminds me a bit of my grandfather. He lived alone for a lot of years. My grandmother died in 1958 and my great uncle who lived with them died in a car accident in 1963, then the grandfather in 1972, so nine years on his own. A neighbour rang him one day and noticed he sounded a bit odd on the phone so went around to check on him. He found my grandad with a broken nose and a badly swollen face after pranging his '38 Oldsmobile into a tree stump hidden in the long grass in a paddock. He'd been that way for about a week. That set things in motion where he didn't really bounce back at 88 years of age and eventually pneumonia got him. My dad was the same. Rolled the quad bike and broke the bottom of his leg bone and just kept working on the farm for a week like that until my sister visited and saw him with a foot half the size of a football. I'm glad I didn't inherit that trait; I'm not shy about going to the doctor if I think it's needed.

Thanks Nev, you reminded me of the old trick of driving on the other side of the road to lessen the effect. I haven't been out there for a fair while so had forgotten that one.

I've figured out some positives. Life is good. We've had twenty seven inches of rain so far this year and the country is looking great. It's finally stopped raining and the beautiful clear and cool weather is here. I have a debt free roof over my head, lots of food, a motor car that works, I can walk, talk, breathe, hear and see and have plenty of fun stuff to do. The first photo is the front yard, the second is the back yard, and the third photo is my best mate outside the kitchen window trying to shame me into giving him some dog biscuits. I've known him since he was born, so he's known me his entire life. There's nowhere I'd rather be.

It would be hard to reject an offer like that.

I think it will be one or the other. If they are going to get anywhere they'll need more like him.

The problem looks to be more so with the twin cam example as given in the video, ie a hollow pressed crank pin with a welsh plug in the centre. I wouldn't think tack welding the pin would get much penetration and strength in the long term. Some people replace the welsh plug with a solid pressed pin in the centre of the crank pin, extending full width of the flywheel.

I'd never heard of David Farley before he ran for One Nation in the Farrer byelection. I read in a news article that he's an ex managing director and CEO of AACo. It was a fair while ago, he served in that role from 2009 to 2013. For those that dont't know the company, Australian Agricultural Company is Australia's biggest cattle and beef producer. been around since 1824.

It's funny hearing some journalists referring to the government's 94 seat majority. That's their number of seats in the house; their majority is 19 seats.

This bloke does some good video presentations. This one gives a good explanation of what happens when hoons ride Harleys:

To summarise all of the above post, basically I've got to spend less time fooling around on this computer and more time swinging a hammer.

I've estimated there won't be much ratbiking happening until later in the year. There's a lot of shed renovations to finish before that happens, but in the meantime a bit of parts sorting and sourcing is still happening. On the shed/workshop renovation side there's still a fair bit to do. Some steel diagonal braces need to be relocated for better workbench fitment. A couple of windows need to be finished off and a couple more timber wall purlins swapped out for steel. Where one diagonal brace set is to be removed, an existing timber wall frame in that quarter section will be converted to a bracing wall with rods and bracing ply, double braced and insulated. Then a six metre long wall section leading to another shed room will be walled in for bench and shelving space. The steps leading into the other room will be removed and alternate entry to that room sorted. That gets the walls done, so then it's on to positioning existing work benches and building a couple of new ones. After that, the shelving set up. That's all the hard part. The easier, fun part will be filling those shelves and sorting out tools and bits and pieces and setting up the workship equipment. The goal is for everything to have a fixed home instead of the mayhem the shed is now. I'll also lash out and get a sparky to run permanent wiring, lights and power points. I'm over plugging leads in and out all the time. This is a bucket list goal to get the workshop set up the way it's supposed to be. It's been a cluttered half workshop/half storage area for the last eighteen years or so since I built it, and it's been hard to do any major work in it due to all the junk in there which now has to go.

It's not just heavy trucks, anything with wheels will do it. You see corrugations on a lot of tracks that mainly only have Toyotas traversing them.