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Showing posts with label Cranksters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cranksters. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

2013 Armadale Auto Parts Open Day

Armadale Auto Parts' annual open day is always a great opportunity to check out some of Perth's coolest cars and bikes. Here's a couple of my favourite shots from this years event.


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/500 @ f/6.3, 35 mm (ISO 400)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/400 @ f/6.3, 24 mm (ISO 400)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/2500 @ f/6.3, 24 mm (ISO 400)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1250 @ f/6.3, 24 mm (ISO 400)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1250 @ f/6.3, 24 mm (ISO 400)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1600 @ f/4, 50 mm (ISO 125)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/800 @ f/4, 32 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/4000 @ f/4, 24 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1600 @ f/4, 24 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 52 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1600 @ f/4, 24 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 42 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1000 @ f/4, 24 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/2500 @ f/4, 24 mm (ISO 250)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/800 @ f/4, 105 mm (ISO 640)
Approximate location: 25 Gillam Drive, Kelmscott, Western Australia

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Cranksters Winter Madness 2 - Blacky's 57 Chev

Over the Foundation Day long weekend, the Cranksters Hot Rod Club and members of the Goodfella's Hot Rod Club as well as a number of other interested and talented individuals gathered at Ferret Boilermaking in Maddington for the second Cranksters Winter Madness weekend.

Blacky's 57 Chevrolet, early on Saturday morning

The idea of these weekends is to attempt to build a hot rod or custom over the course of a weekend. Last year it was Ben "Flathead" Forster's Los Drogas Model T coupe, this year it was Geoff "Blacky" Black's turn with his 1957 2 door Chevrolet Bel Air, the Moonshine Express.

One of the first jobs was to separate the body from the chassis so that the work can begin

Prior to the weekend, Mick "Redbeard" Rumbold of Mick's Mods in Kalgoorlie (that's Mick on the left in the photo, if you haven't guessed from his nickname) had built a 505 cubic inch big Mick Rumbold, Darrell Horley and Dexter Taylor sort out the fuel line plumbing on the big block Chevblock Chev for the project, using a Dart block. Other prep work before the weekend included many hours of rust repair to the body by Blacky and Damo, who had been chosen to paint the car, and tack welding the HQ front end into the Chev chassis. Over the course of the weekend, the interior would be stripped out of the car, the body rubbed back, primered and painted. The doors were painted first, as they were to receive special treatment by signwriter Scully, who designed and painted the Moonshine Express signwriting. The body was removed from the chassis to enable the crew to split the jobs up over as many teams as possible, with separate teams taking car of the interior trim, wiring the body, preparing the chassis to be reunited with the body and polishing the multitude of chrome parts that make a 57 Bel Air complete.

Watto fitting the heat and sound absorbing floor lining

Meanwhile, Drew and Russ were busy preparing a new hood lining, fabricating and trimming new door trims and retrimming the Range Rover seats that Blacky had chosen to be his new front seats. Glenn "Watto" Watson was hard at work cutting and shaping the sound and heat absorbent matting that now covers the floor of the Bel Air and anyone who looked like they didn't have anything to do was busy polishing all the miscellaneous bits of chrome trim that would have to be fitted to the car when it was time to put it all back together.

Al Smart from Armadale Auto Parts returning from one of many parts runs over the course of the weekend

Late Saturday afternoon, the chassis team were happy with their progress and loaded the chassis onto the trailer so that Blacky could take it to the sand blasters. On it's return, it was set up for painting, as were the body and doors.

Scully took care of the signwriting duties on the doors of the 57

With all the major parts laid out waiting for paint, it was time for Damo and Scully to work their magic. Damo had already painted the doors in a makeshift paint booth outside, and before the rest of the paintwork commenced, Scully painted the Moonshine Express designs on the doors. Once the doors were painted, they were moved to another room and the workshop was cleared so that Damo could paint the chassis and body. The chassis was painted a standard underbody black, which the body received a coat of violet crumble purple paint with a satin finish. Both chassis and body were painted 'wet on wet', meaning the chassis was primered, then the body, then the chassis was painted black and the body in colour, with about 15 minutes between primer and colour.

Damo laying down the colour on the 57

Sunday would see teams fitting brakes, brake lines and fuel lines to the chassis, fitting the Turbo 400 to the back of the big block and continuing the fit out of the body, with the steering column getting fitted and a lot more wiring being run under the dash. The dash cluster was also painted and fitted with instrumentation, which Blacky would fit later on Sunday night.

Blacky fitting the instrument cluster to the Moonshine Express

Also on Sunday night, the team would attempt to fit the big Chev power plant. Unfortunately, the 'bolt on' headers would present a slight problem, as 2 of the pipes on each side of the motor fouled on the new front end. With time and resources at a premium, it was decided that this was one of those jobs that would have to be rectified after the weekend was over, and the pipes were cut back far enough to clear the chassis.

Doc Strangepork (John) gets to work removing the offending pipework

After the headers were modified and the engine mounts and front crossmember modified to Craig 'Flames' Clements spent most of the weekend buried under the dash wiring the big Chevsuit the motor, the remainder of the exhaust was pieced together and tied in place, the workshop was re-arranged to prepare for the mounting of the body on the chassis and tools were put down for the night.

When Monday morning rolled around, it was time to get serious about putting the body on the chassis, at which point the wiring harness could be connected to the engine and the fuel and brake lines could be finished, but before that could happen, the exaust was finished and mounted and the tailshaft loop, which doubles as an exhaust hanger, was fitted.

The glaziers were on hand shortly afterwards to fit the front and rear glass before the team gathered again to lift the body onto the chassis.

The team lifting the body onto the chassis while Blacky (right) gives valuable advise

Once the body was on the chassis, it was time to finish a couple of wiring and plumbing tasks and to fit up the doors, front sheet metal and radiator. Norm and Vicki from Aussie Desert Coolers were not only on hand to film the event for an upcoming DVD, they also supplied the radiator used in the build.

The big Aussie Desert Cooler supplied radiator filling the front of Moonshine Express

Now that everything was back together, it was time to fire up the car and drive it out of the workshop. After a few false starts, the big Chev fired and left two black stripes on the workshop floor as it left the building, coming to a stop surrounded by onlookers out the front of Ferret Boilermaking.

Mission complete - The Moonshine Express leaves the Ferret Boilermaking workshop under it's own power

There are a lot more photos over on LandBarge.com, 396 of them in the Winter Madness 2 gallery.

Most of the team (those left standing anyway) gathered for a group shot at the end of the weekend

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Busy Weekend For Car Lovers in WA

Well, it was a pretty busy weekend for me anyway, although it kicked into gear a little later on Saturday than normal with the running of the second Night Masters round for the WASCC's championship season.

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

I started the day off with one of the longest walks in Western Australian motorsport, down to Kolb Corner. This entails walking around 1.5km on the narrow wall that lines the circuit, interrupted by speaker poles and fences that have started to fall over. The walk to Track 6 at the Perth Motorplex is a breeze by comparison, plus you can often get a lift to Track 6 with a passing race team.

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

The Night Masters presents a number of challenges and opportunities for photographers, and one of those is catching the glowing brake rotors at the main braking points. This shot was taken at the entry to V8Race.com corner (formerly known as a number of things, but I still know it as Shell Corner).

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Looking from V8Race.com corner down through the Esses and showing Westrac Cat Corner, this is a 30 second exposure showing the light trails from the HQ Holdens as they round Cat Corner and climb the hill to V8Race.com corner.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

Sunday was definitely a day for those with an interest in classic iron, with two events catering to the hot rod and custom fraternity. The Cranksters Rod and Custom Club's annual Pipeline Picnic was held at Mundaring, with hundreds of hot rods, customs and street machines filling the grounds of the Mundaring Hotel and the neighbouring Mundaring Community Sculpture Park.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

Ben Forster's 'Las Drogas', shown below, was built by members of the Cranksters, Goodfellas and a number of other Perth clubs, while the paint on the doors was laid down by signwriter and auto artist Scully, owner of the white three window coupe shown above.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

After leaving Mundaring, I headed down to the Perth Motorplex for their Retro Drags event, these are a great relaxed event where owners of nostalgia type cars can race against similar cars or park up in the pits and check out some racing.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

Ron Crosby has been a long time supporter of nostalgia racing in Western Australia and was racing today in his Holden 6 powered Front Engined Dragster.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

Unfortunately, I know nothing more about this 68 Charger than that it was sitting in the pits and I just knew I had to get a photo of it as I was walking.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

This was the final Retro Drags event for the 2009/2010 season at the Perth Motorplex, so if you want to run at the next Retro Drags event, keep an eye on the Motorplex's website for their 2010/2011 season calendar when it's released. In the meantime, Nostalgia type vehicles have their own bracket at every Fast Friday event.

Over the next couple of days I'll be sorting through the rest of the photos from these three events to upload to High Octane Photos.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Armadale Auto Parts Open Day


AAP Open Day, originally uploaded by High Octane Photos.
Armadale Auto Parts held their annual open day today, and one vehicle that certainly grabbed my attention (and that of many others) was this Excelsior motorcycle. I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about this bike, but I'm certainly very impressed with the restoration on this example.

The full selection of photographs will be on High Octane Photos shortly.

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