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Archive Category: 300D
Advance bonus for wheels
Friday, 24 August 2007
Where was M last night? Oh, he was travelling interstate on an intrepid adventure. Supping oysters in Hobart in fact. Did we know, at the start of the week, that this would be the case? No we did not. We did not know this until Tuesday, when I booked him a $90 ticket to fly there to check out and hopefully snaffle a… A what?
A new catamaran?
An egglike caravan of wondrous dimensions?
Another black rabbit?
Or D, none of the above?
It was none of the above. The impending arrival of PartyPie on the scene had given us pause to think about whether we should resurrect our f@#king excellent $900 HiAce van that has done so well for us. It was going to cost more than $500 to try and fix its dead cylinder and although we had happily driven for years, shielded from the road by a thin veneer of paint held together by rust, we thought that PartyPie might be less than impressed with the arrangement. So.
While Vanee sits unused [sob] and still starting first go [sob sob] we have been using a combination of my mum’s car (she’s away for three months) and the Humber - which has a new carby, but really needs the good love of a Humber whisperer, as it’s running a bit fast. Vanee was really M’s set of wheels. A motorised mankfest of fibreglass dust, icecream wrappers, bits of dead safety glasses and the occasional stiff discarded sock. I thought this was just reserved for Vanee. I was wrong. It’s pretty much reserved for any car M drives. (Sorry mum. Can you feel him frowning as he reads this - everyone?) Mr H drove one of our current vehicles on the weekend and said, I quote, that it was ‘like driving an archaeological dig’.
This is going to change. (Well, actually, it already has. I cleaned out and vacuumed both cars yesterday as M was safely out of reach on the other side of Bass Strait. Lucky for HIM.) Because we have just got ourselves A BRAND NEW MOTOR!! I mean, in as far as it has never been ours before - because it’s not like we buy anything new!! Especially when old is better. M and I have both been musing on a Vanee replacement, and have been fixated on old diesel Mercedes’. We’ve watched them appear, and disappear, on ebay. We’ve spoken to a guy who was selling one in Queensland. We’ve ummed, and aaahed. The 300D was our model of choice.
Why? Because it’s known to be freakishly reliable, safe, simple to work on and best of all… it’s diesel! And we plan to run it on biofuel, with the eventual intention being to run it on SVO - straight vegie oil. But they are kind of hard to come by in Melbourne, and I wanted the older, more funky version. M, meanwhile, was starting to get so keen on the idea that he was starting not to care hugely about what it looked like, so LONG AS IT WAS DIESEL. I found the compromise in the trading post on Monday. It’s a station wagon (ideal for carrying surfboards, sleeping in the back of, rescuing Large Items from hard rubbish), it’s a Mercedes 300TD (the ‘t’ is for touring and the ‘d’ is for diesel) and… it cost marginally less than the baby bonus.
Ha! We didn’t care that it was in Tasmania. What’s the ferry for, after all, if not for bringing back things that won’t fit on a plane? We were lucky enough to have my dad give us an advance on the PartyPie Government Donation, and I booked all M’s travel arrangements on Tuesday with the power of t’internet. From all reports, the car is a winner. Somewhat short on ambience and cutting edge funkification, but it is going to be taking over from a HiAce van, so it’s not like we’re moving from a Humber to a Holden. It is, in fact, like we are moving from a HiAce to a longer, more German, lower roofed van… that looks like this:
It arrived!
Saturday, 25 August 2007
M arrived fresh off the boat in our new wheels this morning. A couple of people asked me if the car in the previous post was the one we bought - yes, they are one and the same. Here it is out the front of the trailer near our trusty HiAce. It sounds like a tractor, and drives like bubble with its lovely power steering. It seems to be in fantastic condition. From his travels so far, M has calculated that driving fast and furiously we get ten kilometres from a litre of diesel, and therefore roughly 700 kilometres from our 70 litre tank. Far more economical than the Datsun 280ZX we’ve been tooling around in. I’m not sure how it compares to the Humber.
Wheely excellent…
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Secondhand 300TD Mercedes - $3,800*
Roadworthy assessment - $66
Tools and parts required - $500
M learning to be a Mercedes mechanic? PRICELESS.
And, meet the favourite torque tool and the new brake rotor/disc he just fitted to the front right wheel:
M has repacked the wheelbearings, replaced the rotors (brake discs) and replaced the brake pads and sensors. All this took him only two hours - the main time involved was the three or so hours spent going in and out of Cranbourne for parts, tools and (M says) coffees. (He didn’t mention all the time he had to spend on t’internet learning how to and how not not to do all this stuff - so I think I’ll add a good six hours of study in there too.) This is all part of our evil plan to never own a car that is too complicated to work on ourselves (note how I include myself in this, even though I am only mildly Humber savvy and until this week had never owned a car with power steering.)
Oh! And the wrecker had the kickplates that were missing which go on the car interior wall to the right of the accelerator (same on the passenger side) and the other panel that was missing from underneath the steering wheel, which is just to hide all the wiring etc. nicely. They are brown; but we have some black vinyl paint to do them over with so they match the rest.
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*Note that I don’t add in the cost of travel to and from Tassie, which was actually about $350 purely because the Spirit of Tasmania spew boat is so goddamn EXORBITANT and only good for transferring your car or catering to your fear of flying.
Post-holiday malaise
Sunday, 28 October 2007
We got home after midnight and were somewhat comforted by returning to our own bed, but very little else. Waking up in TrailerTown was a rather large letdown from our last nine days of lushly subtropical holidayesque lives.
For one thing, it seems to have been very hot in our absence, with most of the grass a depressing shade of brown. The other thing was the extreme windiness. I know I often complain that I live in Kansas, but today was beyond a joke. It was impossible to go outside, and fairly difficult to even think. We went and picked up the cats from the cattery, returned home and decided to spend the rest of this blighted day watching dvds. Not something that has ever happened before.
Of course, withering sun and sailbusting winds weren’t enough to convey that our holiday was well and truly over. No. We had to go with some biblical hail. Serious hail. The kind of hail that had M shrieking for blankets to embalm the new car and protect it from the wrath of the skies. He turned into BUCKETHEAD-MAN! Defender of his true love. The German Vehicle!
Camping hot and cold.
Monday, 3 December 2007
Yesterday. Woke up in tent at 5am. Sound of the two-year-old son of a couple who had, for reasons only known to themselves, put up their tent about five metres away from ours. Five. Metres. When there were 170 acres at their disposal. So they were friends of our hosts. I don’t care. From 5am this kid started shrieking “Tent. OUT. Tent. OUT. Tent. OUT.” While I lay there wondering how we could have made such a mistake as to consider creating something that could obviously turn out so badly. I also wondered whether I could summon a dingo with the power of my mind.
“Tent. OUT. Tent. OUT. Tent. OUT.”
I was waiting for the sound of a tent zip, a scuffle and a small soft thudding sound as they hurled it to where it so obviously wanted to go. But no. They were the doting kind of parents. The ones that are disarmed, while everyone around them wants to slap. The ones that confide that little Igor is sensitive as you try and push your face into a understanding, receptive sort of shape while blindly fumbling behind oneself for another, stronger drink.
Anyway. This went on for a good 45 minutes. Through the battle of trying to get the kid to wear trousers in case it got bitten (I lay there silently hopeful), trying to get it to wear shoes… Finally it’s father took it elsewhere. But it was too late and too bright to recover any sleepiness. I felt worse for M, who had (so unusually) been the last one standing at 2am inwardly warmed with at least a bottle of red. (I heard later he’d branched off into champagne just before 1am - an hour after I’d disappeared into tentland.)
In between bed, and the child I wanted to meet a dingo, he would have had about three hours sleep. Of course, he seemed to have an unreasonable amount of bounce and we dragged ourselves to the circle around the dead campfire at about 8am. The whole place was littered in small children by then. Early rising freaks.
We ate museli out of cups and were later given amazing eggs by R, the high priestess chef of caravan cooking. And everything improved. By the time we decided to bail, we were the last ones remaining at the 40th birthday celebrations of Mung. Covered in dust and dirt, we left around 1pm as the day began to bake gently.
There was still no aircon in the car. In long moments of repressed anguish I realised that M has not been so gung ho about getting the aircon sorted because it is not something he can have fun looking up on the internet and then figuring out how to do it himself. Thus, it is something that holds little joy or interest.
Before we’d hit the highway we had had to pull over at a park. M filled a bucket with water that i put my feet in, and dampened a towel, which I put on my head. The day got hotter, and we had to pause in Yarraville, where I found it so hard to extract myself from the bucket, the towel and the car, that a passerby offered, embarrassingly, to help.
After a welcome diversion of pinapple juice and a cakey treat, we conquered the 90 minute drive to the trailer, where we were greeted with another small dead bunny. Sigh. (I know they are a feral pest. But they are so small!) We were sad to note that the landlord had not appeared in our absence and installed a reverse cycle air conditioner. But our hope remains unflagging.
And this morning? After potential relationship destabilisation when I emerged from my castle of pillows to state;
“Take the red car today. I’m getting the Merc aircon gassed.” (Instead of “Good morning darling. Didst thou slumber?”)
To which M did not respond well - as I obviously sounded like I posed a serious threat to his currently most loved piece of machinery. He got on the phone to a few places and then we drove to Hastings and Got It Done. I drove back to the trailer, an arctic whale. I have never been in possession of a car with aircon before. Ohhhhhh. I love it!!
A new set of wheels…
Saturday, 22 December 2007
I have long been pondering what to do about my car situation. M keeps telling me that Merky (the 300TD) is my car - but I have never really felt that it is. Mostly because we bought it to replace Vanee, which was always M’s baby - and also because of M’s violent love for Merky and the time he has spent working on it and protecting it from hailstones. Meanwhile, the Humber has sat stationery, it’s fate undecided.
I did get a second opinion from another Humber whisperer, who drove up to the Trailer, said “Hi, I’m Simon,” jumped into the Humber, revved it, and said “Yep. Dead.” and muttered something else about ‘big ends’. Sigh. Basically I had to decide whether to have further investigations undertaken - which could have meant a new bearing or a new engine and one of two outcomes - getting the Humber back to running order after spending, maybe, around $500 more or less - but still with its sad door constantly reminding me of my idiocy, the rust and the letting in of water. Or deciding it was all too much and that I should call it a day.
But I love my car, and it is supposed to pull my caravan. Eventually. However, in the meantime my dad has bought himself a Humber which boasts a fantastic paintjob (albeit, mushroom brown) and interior, which I suppose I can borrow to pull the caravan when such an ensemble is required. I also began being seduced by the my first experiences of car air conditioning. I know. I came late to the party - but WOW! I’m so fickle.
And then I saw this car on Ebay. Another Mercedes 300D - but this time a sedan, not a station wagon.
My reasoning was that if I could get a replacement car for not much money, then why not get one with air conditioning and also one that M has declared his passion and understanding for. So the new car would have to be another Humber (which I would understand) or a HiAce or an older Mercedes (both M’s areas).
So we went to Lilydale (a land far, far away) the other day and test drove the 300D. It was cool. It ran well. M went all over and under it. There is a bit of rust in the doors, which sucks, but doors are not hard to find. Last night I put in my maximum bid with about seven minutes to go. And seven minutes later I had bought it - for FAR less than I had been willing to pay. OMG!! Still can’t actually believe it! I am not kidding when I say that pretty much the exact same car (one year older) sold four days ago in Caroline Springs for $3464.00. Mine? $1275.00. And I’m pretty happy with that - it leaves some funds to cover the inevitable roadworthy, registration and transfer fees, as well as all the new filters M wants to put in it and some biodiesel fuel hoses.
And most importantly? We have a car each, and don’t have to rely on a borrowed set of wheels - as much as I like to zip around in Small Brother’s Datsun, I think it would much prefer to be back tucked undercover in Bay 4 of dad’s shed. I am wondering about driving something that is not from 1964. This new car is from 1981 and at that time sold new for $35,000!! I am such a Modern Girl!
The state of play / Chip smell
Thursday, 21 February 2008
I have come a realisation - my lack of posting here is as much to do with no sleep and small baby, as it is with wanting to keep my content from becoming baby-drenched. However, this appears to be impossible. I’m used to writing about everyday stuff, and Small Z has become pretty much the sum total of my every day - that’s what happens when you’re a milkbar with a 24/7 availability. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that I will just have to grin and bear it and listen to the band play on as [miaow] either never gets updated or the majority of postings involve Small Z - I’m going with the latter option. Read elsewhere if it bores you…
That said, I had a nice day today. M went driving in my new wheels to Vic Market, leaving me in sole charge of Small Z, who was a cherub and sat there gazing about while I did mundanities involving vacuuming and washing, and then slept in her bassinette (after some persuasion) while I stewed a bagful of plums and a bagful of peaches that have come off the trees at Loch. Tres excellente!
M arrived home in a fog of REd Rooster fumes. He’d filled up Manny (that’s my car - so named for the person we bought it from - and also for Bill Bailey’s character in Black Books) with BIODIESEL. Yes! He went to get a container of it to put in the other car, and decided not to wait to put the new hoses in Manny, but to just jump in and fill up regardless. Standing behind the car is like being in the drive-thru at Maccas. It’s very soothing to the conscience and the main reason we are a diesel driving household.
I am going to visit E and Smaller E tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see if I develop a huge craving for chips on the way there…
