Friday, Sep 19, 2014 at 17:03
The reasons engines on older vehicles only lasted 50,000
miles was because air cleaners were either non existent, or a piece of tin with spiral louvres like a precleaner - and very few roads were sealed.
The reason front ends were continually going out of alignment was because what passed for "main roads" in those days would be classed as "4WD only" today.
The potholes on the Eyre "highway" in the 1960's would swallow a car. Creek washouts and spoon drains on country roads were common because of a lack of culverts.
Starters and generators needed rebuilding more because of the sheer amounts of dust, dirt, and mud they had to cope with, on those old roads.
Radiators and water pumps needed replacing more often because high-tech coolants and inhibitors hadn't been invented.
Carbies last just as long as fuel injectors, if not longer - and a set of fuel injectors runs to more cost, than a carby rebuild kit ever used to.
I'd like to see todays cars used on the roads of the 40's & 50's and see how they'd perform.
Even in 1965 when I left the city to work in the bush, most of the few hundred
miles of bitumen outside the city was single lane - necessitating getting
well off the bitumen onto the shoulder to pass oncoming cars.
The shoulders were always a nightmare of loose gravel, ruts, rocks, and trash.
And we always drove the old Holdens and Fords and Chryslers at the same speed and higher speeds than we do today, because there were no speed limits.
I used to flog my EH Holden ute at 80-85mph regularly (128-137kmh) in the mid-1960's - and that old 179 did 170,000kms without being touched (apart from a fibre timing gear that sheared) before I traded it on a new HK Holden ute. It still burnt bugger-all oil at that mileage, and the head had never been off it.
The HK ute went up North, across to
Darwin, back to
Adelaide and then back to
Perth in July 1969 on "roads" that 90% of 4WD'ers wouldn't drive on today.
The NW Coastal Hwy was two wheeltracks across the plains - and every now and then you'd have to swerve like mad to avoid a hole in the road that was a metre deep - where a semi-trailer had sunk to the makers name, and been dragged out with a bulldozer - and they'd neglected to fill the hole in.
Bulldust hid potholes so deep that you couldn't see the road because the bulldust came over the bonnet like a wave.
Some of you blokes have short memories - or you've been born too late to experience what the old roads really were like.
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