The Radiator Cap March 2020 Newsletter

The
Radiator Cap
March 2020 Newsletter
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COMMITTEE MEMBERS
2020
Chairman Anne Richardson 09 425 6298 / 021 277 9010 ricanne@gmail.com
Secretary Peter Yarham 09 422 9685 pyarham@xtra.co.nz
Treasurer Dave Oliver 027 443 8046 ollie.d@gmail.com
Club Captain Paul Hodder 09 422 4067 / 027 473 4350 4hodders@gmail.com
CC’s Team Neil Cremer 09 425 4955 neilmtf@xtra.co.nz
CC’s Team Frances Ross 09 425 8737
Rep to ExCo Anne Richardson 09 425 6298 / 021 277 9010 ricanne@gmail.com
Hospitality Anne & Dennis A: 021 214 2267 annedenmac@gmail.com
Convenors McDonald D: 021 265 2466
Social Convenor Neil & Lucy Cremer 09 425 4955 neilmtf@xtra.co.nz
Property George Lloyd 09 425 7622 yorksandlancs@gmail.com
Supervisors Doug Hamilton 09 425 6139 doug.hamil@xtra.co.nz
Health & Safety Brian Payne 09 425 9262 banddpayne@xtra.co.nz
Vehicle ID James Lawrie 09 425 9928 gloria-james-lawrie@xtra.co.nz
Motorcycle Rep Dave Oliver 027 443 8046 ollie.d@gmail.com
Librarian Frances Ross 09 425 8737
Editor/Reporter Chris Harvey 09 422 2662 / 022 365 0171 chris.harvey@westnet.com.au
Badges Dave Oliver 027 443 8046 ollie.d@gmail.com
Add. Member Leon Salt 09 423 8122 / 027 423 8122 brendda@xtra.co.nz
Add. Member Brendda Salt 09 423 8122 brendda@xtra.co.nz
Branch address PO Box 547, Warkworth 0941
wellsfordwarkworth@vcc.org.nz
Bank a/c BNZ 02-0480-0047413-000 Visit our website at
VERO agency No. 0300159
www.vcc-wellswark.org.nz
VERO free phone 0800 658 411
The deadline for contributions to the Newsletter is the 23rd of the month.
The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the views of the Branch.
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Sat 29 Feb
Sat 29 Feb
Wed 4 Mar
Thu 12 Mar
Sat 14 Mar
Wed 18 Mar
Thu 19 Mar
Sat 21 Mar
Sat 28 Mar
Wed 1 Apr
Thu 9 Apr
Fri 10 Apr
Wed 15 Apr
Thu 16 Apr
07:00 Our Swap Meet in the morning and then go to …..
Waitemata Branch’s Sealed Hill Climb at Pakiri: see CC’s report
12:00 Midweek picnic at Sullivan’s Bay
17:30 Club Night BYO BBQ and salad to share
08:30 Are We There Yet? Rally starts from The Warehouse parking lot
10:00 Cleaning & Coffee
19:00 Club Committee
08:30 Warkworth A & P Show
VCC National Executive meeting in Wellington
12:00 Midweek picnic at Martin’s Bay
17.30 Club Night
North Island Easter Rally at Horowhenua
10:00 Cleaning & Coffee
19:00 Club Committee
24-26 Apr Highland Fling Rally at Taihape held by BOP Branch
Sun 26 Apr
Sat 9 May
Swap Meets at Whangarei and Hamilton
Waitemata’s Open Day at Kaipara Flats airfield: display your vehicle
Contact J C Brian Millett 09 425 5887 | 021 158 7065
Wednesday picnics on 4 Mar and 1 Apr.
Swap Meets on 29 Feb and 26 Apr
Cleaning & Coffee on Wed 18 Mar and 15 Apr
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CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
A
nne is away this month, touring with visiting family members. It’s been great
weather for touring, especially if you can put the top down.
Brendda and I took a run down to Thames for their ‘Wings and Wheels’ show on
Anniversary Weekend. It was an entertaining event. A good number of cars on display and
several aerial displays by various aircraft accompanied by various musical performances,
mainly country and rock ‘n roll, on stage. The car of the show was Kevin Morris’ 1934
Chrysler Airflow – quite a stunner.
We followed this with a three-day tour around the Coromandel Peninsula and a visit to
Mopar guru Trevor Gordon at Katikati which was helpful and informative. We also stopped
in on Kevin Morris in Waihi to learn that he had sadly run a bearing in the Chrysler on his
way home from Thames. After dropping in at Aegis Oil at the old Turua dairy factory for 20
litres of oil, it was home again, having spread around a few Swap Meet posters on the
journey. The Plymouth performed well despite the high temperatures and the long climbs
up the various hills around the Coromandel.
A couple of weeks ago, we joined Doug and Anne Hamilton in their 1904 Cadillac on the
Auckland Veteran Run which this year was based around Waiuku. It was an enjoyable day
on great roads with scenery that was new to some of us. See Anne’s report and pictures
elsewhere in this newsletter.
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CHAIRMAN’S REPORT—CONT.
The Swap Meet this coming weekend is our major fund-raiser of the year. I’ve received an
unprecedented number of phone enquiries this year so hopefully we’ll have a good crowd.
We can expect some stall holders to be set up and ready to go well before the official start
time so if you are rostered for an early slot please try to arrive in plenty of time. The final
version of the Swap Meet roster is included in this newsletter.
The format will be the same as for other years with stalls being set up on the northern side
of the road so as to make it easier for any Spark staff who may need to access the Satellite
Station and for the Graham family who may need to come and go. We are grateful to Kelly
Graham for continuing to allow us to use his paddocks for public parking and the car
display, and we need to be aware of the heightened fire danger at present – dry grass and
hot exhausts as well as those having a smoke. We have fire extinguishers in the clubroom
but they are some distance from the public parking area.
All members who are on the roster or who bring a vehicle for display will have free entry.
All others are expected to pay the $5 entry or the $10 stallholder fee because this is, after
all, an event to raise funds for our club.
Doug and Anne Hamilton have the Are We There Yet? rally in hand, ready for us all on
Saturday 14 March. This event has not always had the support it deserves from members.
It’s always a good day out and folk can opt to be competitive or just to tour. Paul will have
more on this in his report.
If anyone else is planning on heading to Levin at Easter for the National North Island Rally,
Tracey and Stephen Winterbottom of the Auckland Branch are planning a backroads tour.
At this stage they will be leaving Auckland on Wednesday 8 April and arriving in Levin on
Good Friday. Let me know if you are interested in joining them and I’ll provide their
contact details.
Happy motoring
Leon
5

CLUB CAPTAIN’S REPORT
W
ell…here we are in late February already, and what a hot summer it has turned
out to be! Anyone driving on one of our many wonderful gravel roads recently
could attest to just how dusty they have been. So, for those attending the Leigh
School Summer Festival on the 8 th of Feb the sight of SNOW on the ground was quite a
surprise! They had brought in a couple of truckloads of snow to make a ramp for the kids
to slide down on. Being as hot as it was that day, it is no surprise that this was the most
popular activity!
Wednesday 5 February was this month’s mid week picnic. This time it was at the awesome
location of Brick Bay with 14 members attending.
As to upcoming events:
Saturday 29 February is our annual Swap Meet. I am looking forward to seeing what
hidden treasures will turn up this year. This starts at 7:00am at the clubroom, so if you
are on the roster please check to make sure when you are scheduled and turn up in
good time to ensure that things run as smoothly as possible.
Also on 29 February, the Waitemata VCC is having their Hill Climb event. It is being held at
1085 Pakiri Rd. Although it is an all-day event, it sounds like the bulk of it will be in the
afternoon, finishing at about 4:00pm. I have been told that members of our club are
most welcome to attend. If you are interested in participating, call Rob Chapman, who is
organising the event, on 021-038-3281.
Wednesday 4 March is the mid-week picnic, at midday. It will be at Sullivan’s Bay, which is
down the end of Mahurangi West Rd.
Saturday 14 March we have the annual Are We There Yet? Rally. This year it will be starting
from the carpark in front of The Warehouse at Snell’s Beach. Please gather at 8:30am
for briefing and instructions before ‘cars away’ at 9:00am.
On Saturday 21 March our club has been invited to display our cars at the Warkworth A&P
Show. This is always a great, emotional event for the club. So, polish up those awesome
cars and bring them along to the A&P Showgrounds from 8:30am onwards. Badges or
membership cards will give you free entry into the grounds.
Until next time…keep up with the sunscreen and put a bit more effort into the rain dances,
please.
Cheers,
Paul
6

VETERAN CAR RALLY 8 FEB 2020
J
ohn Stokes plotted both the long and the short courses of the rally which was run
by the Auckland Veteran & Vintage Car Club. The rally covered a new district for us
as it started and finished in Waiuku. The run was well up to the excellent standard
we have come to expect from John and the 30 mile short course we did was a delight.
Brendda and Leon joined us in our 1904 Cadillac and we trailered down to the start point
at the Waiuku Cosmopolitan Club.
There were some 20 cars on the two runs, with a number of familiar faces. It took a lot of
huffing and puffing to get the Cadillac going but she finally coughed into life after a push
start. After that hiccup though, she didn't miss a beat and even with the four of us on
board we managed to cruise over the finish line without further trouble. The roads were
all tar sealed with enough of a shoulder in most places to allow modern vehicles to
pass. Lots of support round the rural area by locals waving and cheering.
Unfortunately the beautiful weather turned a bit black and gloomy and we even had a
light shower which thankfully didn't last long as none of us had taken raincoats. The
countryside was very brown and the elevation at times gave us great views over the
Waiuku/Glenbrook area. There is an Agriculture Museum at the start/finish point with a
great collection of farm machinery, which brought back a lot of memories for many of us.
Lunch was at the Club and everyone enjoyed the fish, chips and salad followed by
chocolate meringues
and brownies.
Prize winners were
decided by ‘whoever's
turn it happened to
be on the day.’
Anne Hamilton
7

CLUB CAR OF THE MONTH
JIM & MARILYN’S 1973 TRIUMPH TR6
T
o say that a work colleague ‘talked me into restoring a classic car’ probably
overlooks the fact that I had held a suppressed desire to tackle a restoration of
‘something’ for a good number of years. When my colleague went on to mention
that among many successful restorations he had tackled in his life (including a Sunbeam
Tiger and a Jensen Interceptor) there had been a Triumph TR6, I didn’t spend too much
longer thinking about what I should restore.
In fact I had come very close to purchasing a TR6 in 1975 when I emigrated to NZ from the
UK. However, as a mature student having just finished a degree, I wasn’t exactly flush with
cash at the time and so passed on the opportunity. Some 40 years later, and with retirement
beckoning, it seemed the natural achievement of a hitherto unfulfilled dream that I
should finally get my TR6.
As I couldn’t recall seeing many TRs ever offered for sale in NZ, and assuming they were
like hen’s teeth, I turned my gaze offshore for a likely project car. I had heard from a
reliable source that good cars were to be had from the southern states of the USA where
dry, warm conditions were conducive to the wellbeing of a body design normally reduced
to the status of lace curtains by the vagaries of northern hemisphere winters and the
dreaded salted roads.
In what seemed a positive act of fate, a promising car turned up almost immediately on my
search of the Internet. A ‘tired’ but complete 1973 TR6 was being offered for sale by a
Texan who had purchased it as a restoration project but had then received instructions
from his wife that, if he didn’t finish off the other two projects parked in the garage, he was
likely to find himself staring at a decree nisi. Thus it was in 2010, after receiving a good
number of photographs and reassurances on the general status of the car, that I committed
myself to a journey which would see not only my own marriage of 40 + years taken to the
limits but also a carefully and prudently established retirement fund reduced to small
change, and me to playing a Kazoo at the local shopping mall to make ends meet.
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JIM & MARILYN’S 1973 TRIUMPH TR6—CONT.
The car as described was complete, with a few extras thrown in for good measure,
however some aspects of the ‘tired’ part had been lost in translation and I’ve never really
mastered Texan as a second language. For example: ‘New floor on driver’s side’ I had taken
to mean: ‘Old floor removed, and new floor panel suitably installed’. As it turned out I was
confronted with a flat mild steel sheet tack welded over the original floor (complete with
rust holes) creating a sandwich containing a builder’s bog filling.
‘Sound chassis’ had failed to mention a poorly repaired cross member, access to which had
been via a hole cut in the floor and subsequently patched with duct tape and an aluminium
sheet which was one grade up from cooking foil in terms of thickness. When you add to
this the replacement of both the gear box (heavily pitted teeth) and the engine (block and
head both unusable) and a whole raft of other smaller but expensive and essential parts,
the need for my daily Kazoo concerts becomes increasingly apparent.
Furthermore, I’ve certainly questioned the value of some parts of the importation process.
For example, the MAF steam cleaning (which had to be done twice) was presumably
intended to prevent unwanted flora and fauna from entering the country. This all seemed a
bit pointless when I removed the front wings during disassembly and discovered half the
Utah desert stuck up behind the baffle plates.
Anyway, eight years later and after a full ‘body off’ restoration, an expensive paint job and
the vagaries of going through the registration process, my TR6 (by then affectionately
named ‘Esmeralda’) was street legal. Since then I have continued to tinker and discover
some of her idiosyncrasies, as only owners of classic cars can appreciate. Currently she is
running smoothly and we are enjoying the summer weather with the top down and the
wind blowing through my diminishing hair.
Jim Flewitt
9

TRIUMPH TALES (EDITOR)
R
iding in Jim’s pristine green car was a rare pleasure and the first time in 33 years
that I had been in such close contact with a TR6. When I lived in New York I
bought a one-year old 1971 LHD US-spec model from a friend and I ran it for 15
years before reluctantly selling it when I moved to NZ in 1987. If only I had known that it
was in fact possible to bring a LHD car into NZ... I took the car back to South Africa in 1973
and used it as my daily drive for many years. Johannesburg has the ideal climate for an
open car and it went for months at a time with the top down. As I was a keen windsurfer I
had a metal frame made to carry the equipment and the car could still crack 100 mph
despite all that windage. (The engine photo is of Jim’s car: both cars had twin Strombergs)
My moment of glory (?) came
in the late seventies while en
route to a squash match after
a too-good Sunday lunch. The
sports club was on the other
side of town so I took the ring
road around the north of
Johannesburg. A white Corolla
SR5 ahead of me was traveling
faster than the other traffic—
but not fast enough—so I
overtook it at over 100 mph. It
turned out to be an unmarked
police car which was in hot
pursuit of a Honda motorbike, so the cops nabbed me and radioed on ahead to catch the
Honda as well. They escorted us to the cop shop and wanted to lock us up right away. I was
fortunate to have a legal friend who got us released but we had to appear in court at 08:00
the next day. The Beak gave each of us a monster fine which had to be paid immediately in
cash, and it hurt for months.
10

MYSTERY MOTORS
W
hat car is this?
The answer will appear in next month’s newsletter.
S
omething trivial to ponder.
Have you seen the ‘Water Truck’
used on the motorway extension? I have
seen it down at the Puhoi end and also on
Woodcocks Road.
The thing is, though, it’s not just a simple
water cart anymore but it has become a
Mobile Dust Suppression Unit.
I wonder, does the Driver now need to have
a special ticket and become a Mobile Dust
Suppression Unit Operator?
Just sayin’,
James Lawrie
11

SWAP MEET ROSTER - 29 FEBRUARY 2020
Gate:
6.00 – 7.00 Dennis McDonald Nigel Hawkes Doug Hamilton
7.00 – 8.00 Dennis McDonald Nigel Hawkes Brian Mason
8.00 – 9.00 Dennis McDonald Karl Stachel Brian Mason
9.00 – 10.00 Dennis McDonald Karl Stachel Steve Paddison
10.00 – 11.00 Dennis McDonald Randolf Baxter Steve Paddison
11.00 – Volunteers as required
Parking:
6.00 – 7.00 Ray Spick Nigel Robinson George Lloyd
7.00 – 8.00 Len Miller Nigel Robinson Randolph Baxter
8.00 – 9.00 Lynn Jones Dave Wenzlick Len Miller
9.00 – 10.00 Lynn Jones Rex Thompson Dave Wenzlick
10.00 – 11.00 Brian Becroft Rex Thompson
11.00 – Volunteers as required
Display Car Parking:
7-00 – 8.00 Neil Cremer Murray Dingle
8.00 – 9.00 Murray Dingle John Garea
9.00 – 10.00 John Garea James Flewitt
Stall Site Allocation:
6.00 – 7.00 Leon Salt
7.00 – 8.00 Dave Coop
8.00 – 9.00 Colin Colburn Dave Coop
9.00 – 10.00 Colin Colburn
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SWAP MEET ROSTER—CONTINUED
BBQ: Sausages:
6.00 – 7.00 Anne Hamilton Phylippa Davy
7.00 – 8.00 Anne Hamilton Phylippa Davy
8.00 – 9.00 Sharon Stott Phylippa Davy
9.00 – 10.00 Anne Hamilton Brian Payne
10.00 – 11.00 Anne Hamilton Brian Payne
BBQ Bacon Butties:
6.00 – 7.00 Brendda Salt Graham Buchs
7.00 – 8.00 Brendda Salt Graham Buchs
8.00 – 9.00 Brendda Salt Neil Cremer
9.00 - 10.00 Brendda Salt Neil Cremer
10.00 – Brendda Salt Carrick Oliver
Roving Assistants/Back-up:
Megaphone:
People Mover:
Club Stall:
Cash Float:
Paul Hodder
Jason Morrison / Doug Hamilton / Leon Salt
James Lawrie / Chris Harvey
Dave Oliver
Record of Stall-Holders:
Reserves:
Leon Salt / Dave Oliver
Bruce Huchinson, Lee Middleton, Grahame Power, Maarten Bubbert,
Brett Houston, Alan Lupton, John Badham.
13

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14

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Sales.warkworth@guthriebowron,co.nz Tel 09 425 8187 Fax 09 425 8585
If undelivered return to PO Box 547 Warkworth 0941
ADDRESS
STAMP
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