My 4000th Post!!

I think shipping would be more expensive than visiting the IoW to pick them up. I'll try to find a pair of new ones that are sold for pick-ups. The websites around here don't seem to know about electric vehicles yet, they only give me the choice of diesel or petrol. Of course I want them as beefy as they get!

Doubt if you would find an Electric Porter breaking. To be honest the ONLY reason that I bought this 2008 Porter from Mid Wales (300 miles round trip) and two Ferry Crossings) was the fact that it had two new Headlights!!!
I paid £200 for it and it cost me as much again to go and collect it.
It was a Milk Delivery pickup - minus all the Electric Motor and drive and associated Electrics, so it was a rolling Chassis, and was left hand drive so the "Passenger" seat (our Drivers Seat) was perfect, which I sold for £75. I sold the 3 sides, and kept all the suspension for myself. The front Coil Springs have 9 coils rather than the usual 8. So it was meaty stuff all round.

The four Battery Storage boxes - each holding 4 batteries - - on their side - are being used for storage ofspare parts. There were loads of other useful parts so it wasn't so bad a deal.

With the pickup springs if you need them even stronger, dismantle your van springs and and use the second one down, leaf and put it UNDERNEATH the Second Leaf of the Pickup Spring - giving you 5 leafs. You will need a slightly longer bolt to hold the 5 leafs together.

But you WILL also need slightly longer U bolts made up. Having seen pictures of your ( I think) Workshop a couple of years ago with the Mitsubishi Van in it - you could cope with that I am sure.

Just some more Ideas for you to think about Lex.

Go on Lex you know you want to have a trip to the IOW, you would not be the first to go there to pick up bits.

I can weigh a Leaf Spring and measure its overall measurements and see how much it will cost to send to you.

If you are interested in this Lex let me know your delivery address so that I can get a quote for you.
thehijetmaniow@gmail.com

I would love to visit with the L300 (to do some off roading also), but you madmen all drive on the wrong side of the road. The workshop I built is gone. Just after finishing, the landlord decided to use it for himself. So 2 years of work down the drain. But life is too short to waste on hate.

Keep your pants on just a little longer Woody, I'm going to try to find them locally. If that doesn't work out I'll get back to you. We're going on a trip to Malta in a few days to escape the religious extremists, so there's not much time (and money) to spend this month.

Well you certainly aren't going to escape Religion out there my boy. I lived and worked there 1997to 1998. Then I was told that there were 365 Roman Catholic churches out there. One for each day of the year.

Now it is down 6 to 359 Churches.
No rush for an answer on the springs. You are certainly better buying new ones obviously - but if you can't find any Pick-Up ones and have to buy new van ones, you have 2 choices. Remove the second leaf from your old springs and insert it under the second leaf of the new Van springs. It will beef it up a little bit. But you won't be able to use the Isolation Rubbers and housing.
Second option a pair of used Pickup Springs and add an extra leaf from your old springs - but cut the bushed ends off the top leaf and put that underneath the top leaf. Even meatier than using the second leaf. I have done it several times and it works fine. But you are right on the thread limit of the U Bolts, so I have got my mate Graham at the local Forge to make me 4 new longer U Bolts.

What did he use to make those U bolts, what type of steel? Welding wouldn't be a good idea because they're under quite some stress, they would rip alongside the weld... Finding a pair of new ones isn't working out yet. Almost nowhere to be found. I need a vacation first.

And what are you doing on all those islands? Missionary work?

Rebuilding a couple of 1948 Allards with a Ford Pilot 3.0 V8 Flathead lump for David Arrigo to to rent out to take part in the London to Johannesburg Rally. David was the Maltese Times and Sunday Times Motoring Correspondant. He was very well known in Malta. He has the oldest car on Malta - a1904 Cadilac 5500cc SINGLE CYLINDER. I have photos of it today and his Peking Paris newspaper article. He had over 50 vehicles.

He wanted to enter 3 Allards in the race - his own one - in which when I originally met him in Genoa, he had just completed the Peking to Paris Rally. He wanted me to rebuild two others that he had found in Luton as Giant Meccano Kits. In February 1998 he flew me back to Luton and I had to go and look at the state of them and negotiate a price. He then arranged for them to be put in a 40ft Shipping Container and had them shipped to Malta - which once they came out of Customs I had the job of total ground up Rebuilds. The whole project was sponsored by Merit of Malta - an Electronics company, one of the largest employers in Malta.
I flew back to Malta and while waiting for the Allards to Arrive I rebuilt a 1955 MG TF. Full engine and gearbox rebuild and a lot of paint work.
In May 1998 they were still stuck in customs haggling over the Import Duties so I came back home to see my family and after loads of phone calls from him telling me the lack of progress with Customs I called it a day and never went back to to do the rebuilds.

The German owner of Merit Malta was a 39 year old Multi Millionaire who was a really genuinely nice chap. I can't remember his name now but he phoned me several times to come back to rebuild one of the Allards and he was offering me way more than the local employees were getting and to use the workshop facilities at his Factory. But it was approaching summer and I would not have been able to cope with the temperatures out there - outside of the Air Conditioned Factory.

So it never happened. They did get their own guys to rebuild one and enter it in the London to Johannesburg Rally - but it never made it. The back axle snapped. David Arrigo made the finish in his Allard. Two amazing achievements. You can find him on Google. I looked a couple of years ago anyway.

Is that 1955 MG TF still on the road? Might be a fun excursion to snap a few pics of it while I'm there.

-edit- That reminds me, I know this guy, he's now well in his sixties, he rebuilds these pre-WW2 MG's... every damn screw he uses is an original. Damn impressive work you guys do. Maybe you know the guy, he often goes to England to find new parts. I'd love to do that once in my life, but with the workshop gone it's not anytime soon.

You certainly don't know David Arrigo then. He wouldn't know on end of a spanner from the other end. He is mechanically inept. He will be in his 80's now. He is still alive and kicking and doing what he does best - WRITING. He is a Journalist after all.

Why do you think that he wanted me to work for him. The Maltese love English Mechanics and he had never met anyone at that time who had such a diverse knowledge of cars and the mechanical side of them or the loads of statistics that I had and still have in my head about cars.

I had a great time out there. I flew out there on the 17th of December 1997 and on the 21st I got caught up in an armed robbery of a Supermarket that went wrong. The two idiots stole a Mini as a getaway car and it ran out of petrol a couple of miles later. Typical Maltese would only stick a gallon or two in their cars. They ran off on foot down Davids Road and came into his Farmhouse yard and wanted me to drive them to the nearest village.
We can pay you - we can pay you.
But very fortunately I said that they weren't my cars and I had no keys. If they had looked any closer they would have seen the keys in the ignition of Davids wife's Mini Cooper.

So after a lot of shouting and gesticulating they ran off.
A few minutes later I heard a Police car in the distance so I ran out onto the unmade road outside David's house and flagged the Police Car down. I asked if they were looking for two men and they were. They had just pulled off this armed robbery with a gun and got away in the Mini. The Police caught up with them and arrested them. That afternoon I had to go to Valletta Police station to Identify the 2 men.
The Times Newspaper came and interviewed me and the Robbery was all over the Television with my picture at Davids House. I was scared stiff.. If they had been Mafia connected I could have been murdered or if I had driven them to the next village I could have ended up in a hostage siege.

I still have the newspapers today and the two articles. Certainly have had an interesting life Lex.

I didn't mean I know David, I meant that I know this man across the street from my father's house that is an MG nutter fixing pre-WW2 MGs.

You sure are the adventurous type! You must have nobbed tons of birds!

Any suggestions for my trip to Malta? Something I should check out? Where did you stash that million Maltese shillings you got from the robbery, I'll go grab it for you...

Hmmmm.!!!! Just accross the street is a bit different to Malta. It is THE PEOPLE that make Malta a GREAT place. It has a lot of people on two small Islands - technically three but Commino only has a Hotel on it. Gozo is the most beautiful part of it - very green and a lot of food is grown there.
Malta has a population of around 430,000 so it can get a bit crowded in the summer. The Islands are only 320km2 (about 125 Square miles). Add to that the huge number of visitors and you are talking a lot of people on a tiny Island especially so since it became part of the European Union.

Compare that to the Isle of Wight at 380km2 and a population of 140,000.
Malta has 3 times the population in an area around 20%
less than the Isle of Wight. Gets a bit friendly out there.
It is an Island of fantastic history. The Apostle Paul was shipwrecked there on his final journey to Rome and being put to death there around 65 (CE) (AD) St. Paul's Bay is named after him at the Town of Bugibba. The town really stinks in hot weather due to the Salt Pans nearby.

I first went to Malta to help my long time friend Jack Sears put up a Roller Coaster in Popeye Village and a lot of other amusements.

It was while we were waiting in the port of Genoa with a Luton Transit that I met David Arrigo. He parked alongside us in his red Allard and I asked him if it was one of Sidney Allards V8 Pilot engined models. YES came the enthusiastic response. You know about cars?? A little I replied. So we chatted for hours about cars and he invited me to come and see his collection of cars at home after we arrived in Malta. I did the second day there and and the following day went back to do a couple of jobs for him and everything snowballed from there onwards.

Prior to all this, I had been to Milton Keynes a with Jack and he bought the Roller Coaster and then we went down to Devon to DOBWALLS ( I have spelt that very carefully so you don't deliberately try to corrupt the name) and bought all sorts of fairground games - Radio Controlled cars and boats, Arcade games etc.
Jack had befriended the two Brothers who rented POPEYE VILLAGE from the Maltese government. It had been built especially for the filming of "POPEYE". The Filmmakers had to blast and cut a road down the cliffs to get to the bay where the filmset Village of 19 houses was built. The film starred Robin Williams and Shelley Duval.

After the film was finished the village was just abandoned and eventually these two brothers approached the Maltese Government about making it a tourist attraction. And oh boy was it. Over a quarter of a million people would visit it every year. With Jacks addition of the Roller Coaster there it became a great attraction for visitors and the locals alike particularly in the winter when the holiday trade quietened down.
Jack lived out there for 12 years and it made him a very wealthy man. He still lives here on the Isle of Wight in Shanklin. We have a catch up and a coffee regularly. He is still a workaholic. Some great memories and particularly of the very wealthy beautiful woman I was introduced to at a dinner party at Davids the night after the Robbery experience. I became quite a celebrity amongst David's friends. David told me that he had got a partner for the evening dinner and when I saw her walking down his car parking area I said " You have got to be joking. She is way out of my league". She was a TV Celebrity out there and of course everyone was in awe of her. But we got on like a house on fire and I got on great with her 4 children and the rest of the family too. To me she was just Marion Camilleri and not this very well known TV personality. Everywhere we went people would bow and scrape and grovel before her. To get away from the crowds every weekend we took her luxury boat over to Gozo to a fabulous flat she had there on the cliff overlooking Gozo Harbour. One weekend there was a huge Mediterranean Storm and 12 cars got washed off the Harbour road into the sea. I have never seen a storm like it. They were used to it.

Sometimes I regret having left the Malta and Marion and the lifestyle I could have had. But there is no way I could have coped with the Summer heat. Plus I had a first Granchild who was born while I was out there so family and the Island pulled me back here eventually. Oh those great memories of Malta !!!

I knew it! You old Casanova! I always liked going to Ireland because of the people, very friendly people these islanders. I guess it's the same sort of friendliness on Malta (and IoW). You should write your memories down so you won't forget them. We all know you're at an age where Alzheimers is coming into play... Doesn't have to be public, but just for the experience of writing and reliving. But I guess you are old enough to know all that already. Will my English be enough or should I learn Spanish? Or Arabic?

Fascinating stuff, Woodie.

Lex_Michdebus wrote:You should write your memories down so you won't forget them.

I agree, but so that you can share with others.

A lot of Maltese speak English Lex. Spanish will be no use. Maltese is a very difficult language to learn.

The Maltese Language is a corruption of four languages made up about half Italian about a third Arabic and a small proportion of French and English.

Fortunately Lex and PFM I have an amazing memory of the past from my childhood  aged 2and a half years breaking my finger with a brick and at 3 and a half being bitten on my right arm by a black Labrador and needing 21 stitches. I can recall every detail of the whole event in graphic detailing. My mum being 6 months pregnant, my younger sister taken to the next door neighbors. My Dad had one of his two 2 seater Austin  lorries at home  at Crowthorne in Berkshire - his car was at our our other Nursery in Isleworth just a stones throw away from Twickenham Rugby Ground which we could see from our Nursery.

We set off in the lorry with a nappy wrapped around my badly ripped arm and bleeding right arm. We got to Wokingham Hospital where I was born in 1950 and the A&E was closed. So on to Reading to Battle Hospital and that too was closed, so onto Reading General Hospital. That was open and dad reversed the lorry down the side of the Hospital and two people came out and put me on a trolley and into the Operating Theatre. I was moved onto a table and a board put under my shoulders to rest my right arm on. One nurse held my arm still the whole time they were cleaning the wounds and injecting it with painkiller from a glass syringe. Then the Doctor stitching me up and my arm being bandaged up and put in a sling and the painful bumpy ride back home to Crowthorne. I can even remember having the stitches out at the Doctors in Wokingham.

My memory is fortunately still like a computer so I have a collassal memory of stories and anecdotes to tell. I just haven't got the time to write it all down. It certainly would make for interesting and hilarious read with all the pranks I got up to - and still get up to.

Woodie,
Dobwalls on your travels did you come across the trucks called ROWE HILLMASTER - which was built in Dobwalls in the 1950s?
Jon

When we talked yesterday I couldn't recall the Rowe but in the back of my mind Hillmaster struck a chord though.
So this morning I looked them up on Google and instantly recognised the Lorrys.

They were similar in frontal design to the ERF with the two lovely wraparound Windscreens.

I first went to Dobwalls in the mid 70's in my Light Metallic Green, all original NSU RO80. My wife and I had a break away from the Island and went to my parents holiday caravan at Poughill behind Bude. We did a few nights B&B around Cornwall and went to DOBWALLS MODEL RAILWAY when it was still in it's infancy. I seem to remember that the owner just started it as a hobby in his own garden, that grew and grew and got out of hand.
It was rather ironic going back there in 1997 to actually buy amusements from there to be shipped out to Malta to a place that had been made famous by Robin Williams.

I don't know if it is still the case today but when I was living there 20 years ago the Film Studio's had the largest WATER TANK in world for filming any Sea Disaster Movies.
I believe that they considered it for Titanic which I first saw in Malta with Marion.
But from memory again I think that they built the whole Titanic structure from wood and plywood on a beach in India.

Dobwalls! Been past it may a time, had quite a few holidays in Looe just down the road, in fact it was early on this year we were down there.

Woodie wrote:When we talked yesterday I couldn't recall the Rowe but in the back of my mind Hillmaster struck a chord though.
So this morning I looked them up on Google and instantly recognised the Lorrys.

They were similar in frontal design to the ERF with the two lovely wraparound Windscreens.
.

I think all of them (ERF, FODEN, AEC and the ROWE and possibly the COMMER) bought in the cabs from the same body builder - later in the 70s and onward they all had the same GRP cabs. They were a bit like kit cars in that apart from the chassis everything else was off the shelf.
The old Gardiner of that time was a big old slow revving, fishing boat engine, what it did have was bags of torque.
The ROWE HILLMASTER was simply good because the engine, gearbox and twin ratio back axle, combination had been sorted for slow speed Cornish roads with steep hills.
Incidentally when I drove a truck in the late 60s our great fear was changing down, using the back axle splitter and the air failing to "bang the pinion in on the other crown wheel - if it did you were stuck in neutral going down hill - Brown Pants time!!! - Never happened to me but everyone heard about a driver who worked for Pearce Metals who it happened to on Telegraph Hill.
Jon

4000??!!! And them some now!
And then there's all the text messages and emails to us when we need help!
I'll be texting you at some point about some bits I'll be removing from the weenybago before scrapping.
Probably won't be doing anything till after Christmas now.

Shame it has got to be scrapped - but don't forget to remove my Exhaust Silencer. Its only just over a year old now.

My van would have bit the dust by now for sure if it wasn't for this forum and Woodie in particular. You all have my eternal gratitude.
I'll hopefully be a bit more active on here now as I've been away for a bit. Been caught up with changing job, moving house, and tinkering with my Mazda.
Finally have a garden now so I have a place to do messy jobs like refurbishing my wheels

Glad to hereyou are back, keep us posted on progress. Think we all are thank full for this forum for various reasons.