igor

Why would anyone not tow in top gear? Sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

4.1 Falcon iron head crossflow.

Friends of ours only rego their camper when they want to use it. She's of Dutch extraction so tight as a fish's arse where money is concerned and has worked out all the angles.

Front wheel drive towing is always going to be less than ideal but we all knew that already.

My EN Civic with Hondamatic pulls fucktons but it's rusty and fucked so not too worried if I break it. If it was a good one I'd be inclined to limit it to a 6x4.

I'd consider those whitewalls on something like an XA, XB, or XC Falcon but not on my EA cos it's too new and I think they'd make it look silly.

^true but the concept is interesting.

Any advance on this insane project? Here's a completely out there idea no-one has mentioned yet. Is there any possible way to solidly connect two in-line six blocks and machine up a one piece crank to suit? Can already see potential issues with cam drives / timing and the cooling system. What am I missing?

The bolts'll be whitworth or some such weird arse thread.

Ladaspeed/Pog if that olive drab twin cam wagon went on to get Soviet military police graphics for the Undie 500 then I very nearly bid on it myself when they sold it after the event. Probably should have. 

In New Zealand, you don't need a licence to ride a bike.

...but it might be a good idea if you did.

Don't be tempted to go too wild or it'll be a bitch round town. What diff are you running? That'll make some difference to getting off the line fast. I'm guessing it's a Mk1 Cortina?

Makes it look a bit like Bob the Builder's tractor with the lights up there eh? The original owner did that to avoid conflict with the loader. I'm only the fourth owner. A neighbour bought it new in 1957. He turned up here one day when I was working on it and recognised it. Somewhere along the line he gave it to his brother who used it for many years to drive a pump. Then a young guy bought it as a project, realised he had too many projects, and sold it to me.

It has a few issues. The electric start has never worked since I got it and the brakes are dodgy. The diesel tank is about as clean as one would expect after over 50 years of hard use so there has been the odd problem with fuel blockages. I've used it a bit to tow things and move stuff around with pallet forks on the three point linkage, and done some minor earthworks with the loader, but mostly it has just sat there gathering even more rust. I'm not sure if it is two or three years since I had it going but it is well past time that I made an effort and at least fixed it enough to use it safely. I'll leave it at that for tonight and continue the story sometime when I'm awake.

Some years ago I bought this tractor to use on my small holding.

Used to always run second hand 6 ply light truck steel belts (155R12) on my Austin 1300 and my EN Civic back in the '90s. Hard as fuck compound and age hardened too so lasted well but spun up easily so probably not a real good idea safety wise but for the price I thought they were okay at the time.

Many of our back roads are unsealed, some are 1.5 lanes wide at best, and the country boys often take their half out of the middle. I don't think tyre choice would make much difference in those circumstances.

Do you think the general level of risk on lightly travelled sealed roads with a lower than optimum level of maintanence is actually greater than that caused on high traffic count motorways by the increased levels of rubber and oil deposits?

We don't have motorways round here. On many of our local roads the average daily traffic count is four sheep and a tractor.

Your diesel is a turbo? One of the work utes a few years ago was bad for that. Turbo would come in halfway through a corner resulting in sudden sideways action if the driver was not paying enough attention to snatch it back.

New 205/65/15s on my coon are Chinese made Hifly brand. My wof guy had them in stock for $102.61 + gst each. Had 215/65/15 Hiflys on the back and mis-matched 205/65/15s on the front previously. Those were on it when I got it two years ago. Ask me again in two years and I'll tell you if the new Hiflys are any good.

Wife's Laser has 2 Supercats and 2 something else cheaper but she just drives it and doesn't care. Pretty sure it had Supercats on when we got it. I have no complaints about them.

One of my earliest car related memories is riding in my grandfathers Mk3 Zodiac. I loved that car. So good to see an old Zed still looking sweet and being used. Keep up the good work.

Got 4 205/65/15s on my coon last month for cheap. Will check what they are and come back.

That thing almost looks like it's been raised. It's too high even for me and I don't do lowered cars.

Old tyres, really hard, more smoke faster eh?