Ford blitz ambo project

[lynx42]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

; third pic passing through Yarra Junction;

Notice the cost of petrol! .52.8 cents per gallon. That equates to 0.117 cents per litre. Today I paid $1.46 c/l on special which is $6.57 per gallon.

Great thread Tony, Thanks for all the wonderful photos and the facinating story to go with them. Keep them coming.

Regards Rick.

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

Arrangements were made to park it in a sawmill in Wesburn belonging to a fellow blitz enthusiast, who owned a C15A at the time. Second pic shows preparations for towing; third pic passing through Yarra Junction; fourth pic at the sawmill in Wesburn; final pic on first test drive in nearby mountains.

That was the F15A Wayne owned... he was an avid Ford man! Remember he fitted a winch and then managed to severely bend the chassis?

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by lynx42

Notice the cost of petrol! .52.8 cents per gallon. That equates to 0.117 cents per litre. Today I paid $1.46 c/l on special which is $6.57 per gallon.
Regards Rick.

Yes I thought that sign might bring tears to a few eyes here Rick! Oh for the good old days, when you didn't need a bank overdraft to fill your tank.

Believe it or not though, that price was outrageously expensive for the time. It was a few months after the 1973 oil crisis which sent petrol prices soaring. I worked in a servo back then and I remember the outrage at the pump when customers saw the price go up almost daily during that period. As I recall it went from around from around 35 cents per gallon to around 50 cents in a matter of weeks. People started panicking and selling their V8 cars dirt cheap or trading them in on minis and VWs etc., anything with 4 cylinders! That was when we really started to see Jap cars in this country in numbers. This photo shows how things looked before in Australia - nothing but 6's and V8's.

Of course, as you'd expect, the price never came back down after the crisis was over. Your calcs tie in with my recollection Rick. Metrication was underway when this photo was taken, and when I got my licence about 6 months later I recall paying 12 cents a litre. I could top up the 9 gal tank in my Wolseley 1500 with a 2 dollar note, or fill it up from dry and get change from a fiver!

I remember too when Fraser got in and introduced "world parity pricing" for petrol in 1978. It went up overnight from 12 to 16 cents a litre, and hasn't stopped going up since!

When you consider we're virtually self-sufficient in oil and yet pay double US petrol price and 50% more than Canada, you'd have to conclude we're getting ripped off somewhere along the line. Not that we can expect any sympathy from our UK/EU friends!

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

That was the F15A Wayne owned... he was an avid Ford man! Remember he fitted a winch and then managed to severely bend the chassis?

Yes I remember it well Keith, here's one of your pics with Wayne driving and me on the step. I think this was before he bent the chassis.

I don't know why I called it a Chev earlier. Possibly a Freudian slip - Wayne dropped in recently after spotting a blitz in the driveway and it seems he's become a Chev convert since I knew him 40 years ago. I may have to work on the poor fellow and guide him back to the true and righteous path!

Sounds like he's had a few more CMPs over the years including a C60X which he now regrets letting go. I can certainly understand how he may have been swayed by one of these magnificent vehicles, but that's because it's not a true Chev!

[Tony Wheeler]

Wayne mentioned that his "old Ford" had been converted into a forklift which was now resident at a nearby construction yard. I checked it out and as you can see from the pics it's pretty well disguised! You'd need a keen eye to recognize it as a blitz from the road - I never drive down this road but even if I did I'm not sure I'd give it a second glance.

However I don't think it's Wayne's old F15A. It has the original type chassis reinforcement plates which indicate shortened F60S or F60L. Presumably he was referring to a different Ford he owned at some stage. Unless perhaps he rebuilt his F15A on a stronger chassis after bending the original one. But it has heavy steering ends which I don't recall Wayne's F15A having - I think he just put the late type hubs on because he liked the look of them.

Anyway I didn't spend much time looking at it for obvious reasons. I'll find out from Wayne eventually.

[Tony Wheeler]

For those patient souls who've managed to follow the story thus far I shall present the final chapter in the next few posts, then move on to present day projects in waiting.

It's April 1974, and with my resto project now driveable and resident at Wesburn, the temptation to take to the hills and explore the maze of FWD tracks therein was irresistible - notwithstanding my complete lack of driving experience, let alone a driver's licence! So we set out one fine morning from Wayne's sawmill, and within a few minutes drive found ourselves winding through pleasant mountain scenery on one of the better secondary roads, as seen in pic 1.

With the benefit now of half an hour's experience driving a blitz on good flat road, it was time to get a bit more adventurous and put her through her paces on one of the many sidetracks which beckoned invitingly. Selecting what appeared to be one of the less challenging tracks, which from its name one might assume to be suitable for ladies out walking, we duly turned onto it. Proceeding along comfortably up a gentle slope whilst enjoying the wonderful gear whine in 3rd low, with the canvas top rolled up for better viewing, this pleasant leafy track at first lived up to its name - as can be seen in pic 2.

Pretty soon however the track began to steepen dramatically (estimated by Keith at 40 degrees in pic 3) and became distinctly more narrow and overgrown (pic 4) which quickly put paid to the flimsy wooden frame I'd built to hold the canvas roof up!

In addition we started to encounter obstacles in the form of fallen tree branches (pic 5) and in several places, fallen tree trunks lying across the track. In the absence of a chainsaw, the largest of these tree trunks presented considerable difficulties, for we soon discovered that even with 12.00 x 20 tyres, a blitz will not clamber over an 18" log whilst climbing a 40 degree slope! We found however, that with a little encouragement, in the form of a run up, she can be made to crash over! Provided you're still in the cab after this manoeuver, you can continue on your merry way!

That's pretty much how I remember our first "test drive" - merrily exploring fire tracks, having not a clue what I was doing, with Keith hopping in and out to photograph the occasion!

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

That's pretty much how I remember our first "test drive" - merrily exploring fire tracks, having not a clue what I was doing, with Keith hopping in and out to photograph the occasion!

I may have been a bit ambitious at estimating 40 degrees, but it was very steep. I can recall being very impressed at Tony's clutchless change from second to first low on a particularly steep bit. But the story became more perilous on the descent... pray continue, Tony...

[Mike K]

Did anyone spot the Monaro in the Yarra Junction pic ?

You guys should have been collecting those , not old junk army trucks .

A decent early model Monaro is worth big $$$$ nowadays

Mike

[Howard]

Bit it's still just a monaro
H

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

Did anyone spot the Monaro in the Yarra Junction pic ?
You guys should have been collecting those , not old junk army trucks .
A decent early model Monaro is worth big $$$$ nowadays
Mike

[lynx42]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

Did anyone spot the Monaro in the Yarra Junction pic ?

You guys should have been collecting those , not old junk army trucks .

A decent early model Monaro is worth big $$$$ nowadays

Mike

Mike, there are 2 Monaros in that photo. The one you refer to is, I think, an HK Monaro but in front of it is a HQ LS Monaro as well.

Looks like Holden had the market share in those days.

Left to Right (I think):-
'67 Falcon ute, '65 Holden HD, '50's Holden 215, '63 Ford Compact, Some old green machine getting towed (obviously a Ford), ???, '70 Holden HT with trailer, '67 Falcon ute, '69 Holden HK Monaro, '72 Holden LS Monaro.

So Holden ruled the day.

The wrecker towing the Ford Blitz is either a Dodge or International with Holmes wrecking gear on the back.

Regards Rick

[Keith Webb]

On the previous page is a pic of the engine purring back in 1974:



Here's what it looked like in 2007:



The years had taken their toll and I think it has had water in it and it had seized. It had been put into my old FGT project which languished and at one stage went to the tip, only to be rescued at the last moment.

The new owner has been putting a lot of work into the project but I'm not sure of the current status of that engine.

Oh, whoops... I forgot to warn you not to look at the pic, Tony!

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

Oh, whoops... I forgot to warn you not to look at the pic, Tony!

Yes it's a bit of waste after all the work I put into it! As well as being fully reco it had some nice ancillary bits like brand new cleaner and oil filter with stickers intact - all from Hughes in Camberwell as I recall. Would be worth a few bucks in that condition on ebay today!

I remember it being a very zippy motor and pulled like a train in that lightweight cab & chassis F60S. Top speed was impressive too with the 12.00 tyres, I seem to recall we clocked it at 60 mph on Tarango Road one day with your Singer following.

All in all it was a lovely blitz to drive, heaps of power and light to steer with low ratio steering box and very little weight on board. I don't recall any wheel shimmy or wandering at high speed.

I'd be very happy if my future restos are anywhere near as good as that job - except of course for that clevis pin in the brake pedal! More on that later....





Thinking back now

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

But the story became more perilous on the descent... pray continue, Tony...

As Keith suggests we had a rather perilous incident on the way down the mountain, which was entirely my own fault I'm afraid. Having done an obsessively thorough job on the resto it seems I had overlooked a simple task during final assembly, and of course, as Murphy's Law dictates, I chose perhaps the most critical part on a blitz, from a safety viewpoint at least, for this single momentarily lapse of thoroughness in the entire project!

The offending article was the clevis pin which connects the brake pedal to the actuating rod, to which I had either failed to fit a split pin (unlikely) or failed to spread the split pin after fitting - perhaps in a tryout assembly, intending to disassemble/reassemble at a later stage.

Whatever the case, the clevis pin worked its way out over the course of several hours driving, and once again, as Murphy's Law dictates, it chose perhaps the most critical moment of the day to fall out - a long steep descent!

Events unfolded rapidly thereafter - all I remember is the brake pedal falling limply to the floor under my foot and remaining there (very disconcerting!) whereupon I instinctively swung off the track and went bush, in the hope that the heavy undergrowth would retard our progress and bring us to a safe halt, or perhaps allow us to swing back uphill somehow. None of this was thought out, it was just a split second reaction out of dumb instinct, and in a state of considerable fright!

With a little more driving experience I would have reached instinctively for the handbrake, which I discovered later was very effective in 4WD. However this was my very first drive and it never occurred to me in the heat of the moment.

Certainly I had no thoughts of staying on the track - the idea of being in a runaway blitz was too horrendous to even cross my mind! That suggests to me now that we should have been in a lower gear, with less reliance on the brakes. Pic 1 shows the type of track as I recall it, taken on the way up.

Another option would have been to jump out, but again, the idea of watching my beautiful new blitz go careering down the hill out of control and crash into a tree was too horrendous to even cross my mind. Besides, it would have been a little unfair to Keith in the passenger seat!

Poor old Keith had no warning at all – one minute we were quietly driving down a pleasant leafy track, and the next instant we were crashing through the undergrowth as we charged off downhill through the bush – saplings crashing down like ninepins in front of us! Of course, in a blitz pointing steeply downhill, with the occupants braced for impact, the action up front is very much in your face. It can be a little unnerving to watch trees rushing up towards you, and see them give way only at the very last moment! Add to that the jolting and bouncing around in your seat as you hang on grimly to the steering wheel, or in Keith's case the cab frame, plus the tremendous racket going on all around you, what with saplings cracking and splitting and snapping off at the base or getting violently uprooted, with their branches and foliage thrashing down from above you to crash down in front and get run over and dragged along underneath – it all amounts to quite an assault on the senses!

Nevertheless, the plan, if it can be called that, seemed to work, with each impact wiping off our speed, and no real damage being done. Except at the very end of our wild ride, where we bumped into a rather more solid tree, which instead of cooperating by allowing itself to be snapped off or torn out of the ground like the others, stood firm and brought us to a somewhat less gentle halt than we would have preferred. Whilst we weren't flung forward enough to be injured, the impact was sufficient to collapse the RH bumper mount slightly, due to one half of the two-piece assembly being absent. In addition, owing to the steep downhill grade, the vertical tree trunk kissed the top of the front shell, leaving a small dent and producing a ripple in the top panel.

Thus we found ourselves stuck on a thickly wooded mountainside, pointing steeply downhill, nosed up hard against a tree! The only way out was to reverse back uphill over the carnage we had just caused – a little of which can be seen in pic 2. Finally, after some preparatory clearing of said carnage, and much throwing of it under spinning wheels by Keith, we emerged backwards onto the track again.

I don't recall how we got home with no brakes – presumably I learned to use the handbrake, like I should have in the first place. After all, it's not called the emergency handbrake for nothing!

Anyway we arrived back at Wayne's sawmill none the worse for wear, after what by any standards was quite an eventful first outing! Apart from my split-pin oversight the blitz had performed marvellously, and if I'd had a complete RH bumper mount there would have been no damage at all. As it was, the bumper moved back far enough for the tree trunk to kiss the front shell, and to rub on the RH wheel during LH turns, necessitating its removal temporarily. These effects of our altercation with the tree can be seen in pic 2, taken on our next outing.

[Keith Webb]

Tony has covered it pretty well... my recollection was there was no washer behind the split pin which caused it to wear through, in any case I remember it as one of those defining moments where time expands and you just have to wait for whatever is about to befall you.
I do remember once we stopped the engine was happily idling away to itself. We were too stunned to speak for a moment or two.
The next task was to somehow extricate the vehicle which was spinning one front and two back wheels. As I recall the solution was for me to push the back around as it spun just enough so there was a spot where we had traction with the help of branches under the wheels to back away from the tree and continue back to the track, bush bashing through a pre-surveyed route after jury rigging the brakes back together. From memory the clevis pin hadn't disappeared and we had some wire to use instead of the split pin, but I can't be sure.
The other thing I remembered, either from this trip or another was arriving at the bottom of the hill after coasting down in a low gear to find choke was needed as the engine had cooled to that point, not having been fitted with thermostats.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

Tony has covered it pretty well... my recollection was there was no washer behind the split pin which caused it to wear through From memory the clevis pin hadn't disappeared and we had some wire to use instead of the split pin, but I can't be sure.

Yes Keith, a lot of what you say fits with my own recollection, but I wasn't sure so I didn't elaborate. To expand a bit:

1. clevis pin - I'm not sure either, it may have disappeared or it may have stuck in the clevis. I don't recall reassembling it, but I don't recall driving all the way home on the handbrake either.

2. wire - I doubt we would have had any wire up on the mountain, but I remember the use of wire instead of a split-pin being involved in the story somehow.

3. washer - like you I recall a washer being central to the story, and in fact I have a picture in my mind of a shiny new silver washer.

It's interesting that we both recall a washer being involved, because the blitz doesn't appear to use washers on these clevises. There are none on any of my blitzes, and none appears in the exploded diagram or parts list. Also, the clevis pin itself appears to be too short to allow a washer - the split pin sits hard up against the clevis on my blitzes.

Here's what I think may have happened:

I don't believe I would have fitted a clevis pin without securing it somehow, and if I'd used a split pin to secure it, I find it hard to believe I wouldn't have spread it. It's something you do in one motion - you put in the split pin and you spread it. Otherwise there's no point putting it in! It would have to be a conscious decision not to spread it, and I can't think of a good reason.

BUT....if I didn't have a split pin at the time, which is not unlikely, I may have used wire instead, intending to replace it later, then either forgotten or never got around to it. Once the cab went on it would be out of sight and out of mind.

Wire is generally quite soft, so it's not entirely inconceivable that it could have worn through in several hours of driving with lots of brake usage, as there would have been on those tracks. But I doubt that a split pin could wear through so quickly, and clearly they've lasted for years on my other blitzes without washers.

However, having discovered that whatever was in there had worn through so quickly, and nearly killed us, we would definitely have wanted to fit a washer before our next outing! That may account for my recollection of a shiny new washer, ie. it was at Wayne's place, after the incident. If it had been before the incident it would have been painted DBG, like every other nut, bolt, screw, flat washer, lock washer, etc. etc. that I had obsessively painted during the resto!

But in order to fit that shiny new washer, we would have needed a slightly longer clevis pin (judging by my present blitzes) and I certainly don't recall seeking one out. So maybe we were satisfied that a split pin would be safe where wire hadn't been.

It's all speculation of course, but it does raise this question - will you be using a washer on your FGT?!!

[Keith Webb]

The main thing is we didn't kill ourselves thank goodness and damage was fairly minimal. Before going to Yarra Junction the truck had an occasional workout around the night streets of North Box Hill upsetting all the neighbour's TV reception, what a hoot that was!

When it went to Peter Growse after my brief ownership (it had to go when I went overseas for 18 months). I steered it while we flat towed it with Peter's F15A to Heathmont. It was a slow trip.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

it went to Peter Growse after my brief ownership (it had to go when I went overseas for 18 months)

It's a shame you couldn't hang on to it and keep your FGT body too, which wasn't too badly rusted at that stage. You could have shortened the chassis (again) and had a FGT on the road in no time. From there you could finish it off at your leisure.

There would have been a nice synergy in merging our two teenage projects! If only we'd had somewhere to store them....

[Keith Webb]

Yes; but at least body and it's correct chassis have been reunited and Peter's brother Alan is restoring it.

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

It's a shame you couldn't hang on to it and keep your FGT body too, which wasn't too badly rusted at that stage. You could have shortened the chassis (again) and had a FGT on the road in no time. From there you could finish it off at your leisure.

There would have been a nice synergy in merging our two teenage projects! If only we'd had somewhere to store them....

[Tony Wheeler]

Here's a few pics from our next outing, with me looking a picture of concentration at the wheel!

Lots of mud in evidence here - this may have been the "mudslide" outing. We found a freshly cleared logging coup on top of a mountain - several acres of flat muddy ground, completely devoid of vegetation. Here we had great fun slithering around and spinning out in the mud, by building up speed in a straight line, then chucking on full lock and slamming on the brakes. These antics would have made an excellent U-tube clip today - the sight of a blitz spinning like a top while sliding along in a 4 wheel lock up would be quite entertaining I reckon.

[Tony Wheeler]

Here endeth the story of my first blitz resto, with a few pics from the final outings. By this time we were taking guest passengers - seen here are Keith's mate from school, and his girlfriend at the time. You'll note the bumper is back on now.

For some reason the thermostats were missing, which caused it to run too cold in winter, often needing choke as Keith mentioned earlier.

[Euan McDonald]

Hi Tony,
A couple of weeks ago I was in at Power train as its being closed down and the propety sold and on the wall is still the pic of your truck and the sig van.
Who would have thought after 35+ years that pic would still be on the notice board.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Euan McDonald

Hi Tony, A couple of weeks ago I was in at Power train and on the wall is still the pic of your truck and the sig van.
Who would have thought after 35+ years that pic would still be on the notice board.

Blimey Euan...if I'd known it was going to grace the halls of commerce for the next 3 decades I would have posed for the camera!

It's quite a good pic though, and I'm very glad Keith kept all his negs from those days, otherwise there'd be no record of this blitz at all. My own stuff went west long ago, when my folks cleared out the house prior to sale when I was gone - although they did hang to Keith's resto album, which surfaced a couple of years ago when my mother died.

Prior to these pics we took a phenomenal amount of B&W photos in our blitz hunting days as kids. We had very little money of course, so we used to ride our pushbikes almost 10 miles to Ringwood camera store to purchase bulk film, in the form of 10 metre rolls of expired stock which was incredibly cheap as I recall. Then we'd retire to the darkroom at home and roll it by hand onto film canisters which we recycled over and over! On top of doing our own processing, this brought the net cost down to perhaps one tenth of commercial price, enabling us to snap away at blitzes with gay abandon! We more or less took the same shots, so the loss of my stuff is no big deal.

Of course, the film rolling was rather tricky - unlike processing where you could use a safelight, it had to be done in absolute darkness - wielding scissors to cut the film into 1 metre strips, which inevitably sprung into tight coils, and little pieces of sticky tape to attach the end to the roll, which inevitably stuck to your fingers instead, then carefully winding it onto the roll without getting fingerprints on the emulsion, and fumbling around in the blackness to find the metal shroud and some caps to press on the ends. As you can imagine, the entire process was accompanied by much cursing and swearing in the dark!

It was a wonderful hobby though, and strange to think it's been completely wiped out by digital cameras. Not that I'd ever want to back to the old way!

[Tony Wheeler]

Having subjected the forum to my childhood reminiscing long enough, I shall fast-forward to the present day which finds me attempting to resume my teenage Ford blitz ambo project after a 38 year interruption.

Here's a few pics to show where I'm at currently. The plan is to mate this ambo body purchased on ebay to the F60S from recent Coolamon clearing sale. Apologies to Ganmain Tony who also had his eye on it - yet another border raid from those dirty Mexicans!

In the short term I'll get it on the road as a cab and chassis and work on the body later.

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

Here's a few pics to show where I'm at currently. The plan is to mate this ambo body purchased on ebay to the F60S from recent Coolamon clearing sale. Apologies to Ganmain Tony who also had his eye on it - yet another border raid from those dirty Mexicans!

Perhaps you could tell us what you did to the F60S once you got it home... And show us what she looks like with 20" wheels!

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

Perhaps you could tell us what you did to the F60S once you got it home... And show us what she looks like with 20" wheels!

OK...having gotten the F60S safely back across the border, the first job was to get it running. I've had a bit of practice lately, this being the 4th blitz I've coaxed back into life in 2 months!

Following my usual procedure I filled up the pots with oil/petrol mix and let it seep down the bores overnight, then with great anticipation applied the crank handle next morning. My patience was rewarded when the motor spun over freely.

Next precautionary task was to confirm oil flow by removing the oil gallery plug on the bellhousing - I've found this can take quite a bit of cranking sometimes and I'd prefer to get the bearings nicely oiled before firing up.

Next I checked for stuck valves, which I'd encountered on all 3 previous motors. These can be very tedious to unstick, so I was greatly relieved when the compression gauge registered on all 8 pots.

All that remained was to stick in a set of plugs and a proven coil, squirt some juice down the carby and hit the starter - which teased me for a while by whirring away quietly to itself without engaging. My first thoughts were dodgy starter or sticky throwout pinion, or maybe corroded solenoid contacts. However I'd been fooled before into such diagnoses, and had wasted much time pulling out starter motors and swapping solenoids, all to no avail. So this time I was awake up and went looking for earthing problems, and finding no earth strap to the motor anywhere, I tried running the battery lead straight to the gearbox. Hitting the starter again I was rewarded with the sweet sound of a Ford Blitz cranking over on 6 volts.

Jumping back in the cab and giving the carby another squirt, I hit the starter with great anticipation. Alas, she fired only fitfully on one or two pots occasionally, giving no indication of wanting to start. Checking for spark I found it to be present, but very weak and intermittent. Damn! I was hoping to avoid pulling the radiator out to get at that blasted crab thing on the front!

With a sigh of resignation I set about pulling off the grille, hacksawing through the rock hard radiator hoses, and manhandling the radiator out to get at the offending article. Removing the dizzy cap I proceeded to clean up and re-gap the badly corroded points and try again.

Jumping back in the cab I hit the starter again, and lo and behold the long silent flathead burst into life for a few seconds, emitting a great cloud of smoke out the tailpipe from all the oil I'd poured down the pots.

With my efforts finally rewarded, it was now time to get some juice flowing, so after cleaning out the crud in the fuel pump sightglass, I hooked up some plastic tubing to the inlet, and ran it back to the fuel tank - which at this early stage is a plastic 5 litre oil container sitting next to me in the cab. Aside from being free of rust, an advantage of this system is the priming feature - with the tubing fitted snugly through a hole drilled in the plastic screwtop lid, a long hard squeeze on the plastic container will send fuel bubbling into the sightglass, and onwards through the fuel pump to fill the carby.

Having thus primed the carby and given it some choke, I hit the starter again, whereupon my ears were immediately rewarded with the incomparable roar of a flathead V8 echoing around inside a blitz cab. Bathing in the moment for a while, I pumped the pedal several times to hear the distinctive V8 exhaust bark, followed by the comforting sound as she settled back to tick over sweetly on all cylinders.

With no water of course my enjoyment had to be curtailed, so I switched off and prepared for the next stage - test drive! Impatient as I was to go for a spin around the back yard, I thought it best to first get the handbrake working, and swap the gearshift lever to permit reverse gear selection - the reverse lock actuating rod being rusted solid in its channel.

Having completed these tedious tasks, but unwilling to wait until the radiator was back in, I filled the water jackets to the brim, with the water pump inlets fitted with suitably sized plugs, selected from my lemon tree.

All was in readiness now for the first test drive, so I ejected my neighbour's horse from the back yard, where I allow it to cut the grass for me, and proceeded through the gate in my newly mobile F60S. The lemon plugs allow for perhaps 3-5 minutes driving from cold, which I spent slithering around on the wet grass in 2WD, the front drive shaft being missing, doing circuits around the windmill, and running through the gears on the "strait", occasionally hitting top.

All too soon my fun had to be terminated, for reasons of water temperature, as indicated by a finger dipped in the RH cylinder head outlet. However I had done enough to satisfy myself that the motor was a good runner, and once cleared of all the oil poured through the plugholes, it was no longer blowing smoke.

I also learned for myself just how useless road tyres are on wet grass - something I'd heard from truckies before. As well as being almost impossible to get going, I found when I used the handbrake even gently, the tailshaft would lock up, and the road tyre would spin backwards - driven through the diff by the forward rolling bar tread on the other side. The braking effect is negligible and the vehicle just keeps going - as can be seen in one of these pics. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't slowing down, and when I looked out the back window I was amazed to see one wheel spinning backwards!

[Tony Wheeler]

Next job was to get rid of those silly little wheels, which IMO are only presentable with 10.50 x 16 chevrons, at least on a medium wheelbase at any rate. I'll need them for the ambo eventually but in the meantime it will be an F60S cab and chassis, which means 20" wheels.

With the backyard being rather soggy I drove around the front and parked on the driveway so as to use the jack (pic 1).

I think you'll agree the 20" wheels are a big improvement. Radiator went back in to allow for extended driving and I set off into the backyard again. Ran out of time to fit a front drive shaft as I wanted to get some laps in before dark.

Handling greatly improved with proper tyres all round. Good traction allowed me to charge round and round the windmill in 3rd gear with full lock on without cutting up the ground much. Got a bit dizzy though so had to go back the other way round for a while!

Had a ball for half an hour or so doing donuts and spinning out on the boggy ground down the back. Made quite a mess down there but I couldn't help going back for more. It's so much fun to hit the gas half way through a tight turn and promptly find yourself pointing back the other way, to take off again in one motion with the back wheels spinning furiously as you fishtail back up the yard, then swing back around the windmill and do it all over again! I fear for the state of my back yard in the coming wet months!

The fun was interrupted when I ran out of petrol, and by the time I'd raided the lawnmower supply it was pretty much dark, so I called it a day and parked next to my F60L. This one I bought from Ian Styles in Temora nearly 2 years ago, but it only came home in March this year. It was the first one I got running. On the back is Keith's SWB GS body, also bought from Ian, which hitched a ride down. It will be coming off shortly to make way for the crane off my F60S. I'll be needing a crane truck here as the shed is too flimsy to hang a block and tackle.

That pretty much brings you up to date with my blitz ambo project so far. I also have a FGT project planned, which I'll present in a separate thread.

[Keith Webb]

Nice work, Tony - she looks so much better with chevron 20" tyres.

Thanks also for sharing your story so well. I can see I'll have to film a segment for the current 'Year of' DVD at your place.

[Ganmain Tony]

No hard feelings Tony - you wanted it - you got it. Thats how it works at a clearing sale.

I am pleased to see you have done something with it already and hope the project continues to completion...

Happily willing to give any advice from my experience of restoring one to you as well.

Have fun and look forward to more posts showing your progress..

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Ganmain Tony

Happily willing to give any advice from my experience of restoring one to you as well.

Thanks very much Tony, I'd definitely like to pick your brains on the resto process and get the benefit of your experience. It's been 40 years since I had a crack at this so I can see myself asking plenty of dumb questions!

[Tony Wheeler]

My Ford blitz ambo project took a major step forward yesterday with the acquisition of a rather essential component....a body! Having lusted after one of these as a 15 year old, I can hardly believe there's one sitting in my driveway as I type!

Strange as it seems to me now, this priceless object of my adolescent desire cost only $140 on ebay - I could probably have scraped that up at age 15 from my paper round! Of course, I would have had trouble recovering it from Tumut on my bicycle.

Here's a few pics of this auspicious (to me!) occasion. First one sees her in idyllic surroundings near Tumut, where she served for many years as a children's cubby house; next in the car park of the pub where I stayed overnight; then an unsheduled stop next morning when the car broke down temporarily, and finally a late evening arrival at home in Yarra Junction. Then, by way of self-motivation, a pic from Keith's website showing just how gorgeous she can be made to look!