For my birthday this year, Kristen bought me a mini wood lathe as I had out grown my previous $50 marketplace lathe and I wanted to try do more wood work. Since getting it, ive made a few different shifters from figured timbers and skateboard decks. Ive managed to make a friend locally who I buy my timber from, but im always happy to find others to see what they have, and to see their sheds haha. I found a seller not too far from me, so I left work early and set out to Panania.
Brendan’s shed was so cool, he was preparing a large slab to be used for a table top/
Two pieces I bought, Gidgee (left) Red Mallee (right)
I also scored a freebie from him, two pieces of red oak which was very nice of him. Glad I could make a new friend today and have another contact for rare timbers!
South circuit nights at SMSP dont happen very often, but when they do its not hard to get the group excited to go drive. It was the perfect opportunity to have a steer of the car in the dry, since getting it back from Harry.
It was great to have a drive of the car in the dry, to see how it feels since all the changes. I had little to no prep for the night other than putting a set of new tyres on some wheels, and changing to a smaller boss kit mainly to be able to have a horn again, but it did feel way nicer to drive.
Harry spent a lot of time working on my heap, fixing stuff Ive touched over the years, to changing bits that were tired or worn out to make it better, and that was evident on the night with how confident I felt in the car, it felt like a brand new car. I left the night smiling from ear to ear, windows down, music up in the car driving home after a successful night. I am forever grateful for Harry, and everything he has ever done for me, and for his friendship.
Finally, but its nothing major haha, but I have started to do some work on the rs56. Mums lights in her garage where the crown is, sorted it out and got to work. So the front end is pretty much taken apart, I found out that I didnt need to take everything off, but it’ll be nice to give it all a nice clean. I havent started swearing yet but I feel it coming on soon haha
This time next week, Kristen and I will be in America, in the big state of Texas, this last week has been nice as I havent had much on seeing as we’re going away. Even though I enjoy going to work, it’ll be nice to leave the place for a few weeks. Ill try my best to update this with photos during the trip. Its a long atm in Sydney, and I started it nicely with doing my last job before vacation. This was my first job at our new place, so it was exciting.
Overall, it was a pretty simple job, but it felt like it took forever with how many outlines there are, this was a design ive wanted to do on a landcruiser for a while now so im happy i was finally able to do one.
I spent the saturday organizing the garage and giving it a clean up, after a few weeks it starts to get a bit messy and being in a smallish garage, having everything organised makes it feel less like a small garage haha.
Was a good little long weekend spending it at home before being away from it for 3 weeks.
I treated myself to a long weekend, its been a while since I took a day off for myself. Ever since I started to do the hours that I do, I just forget about using them since im home pretty early in the day. A few weeks back Kev had found me a 5me for pretty cheap and it was exactly what I wanted to put in it. The only issue was that it was a 2 hour drive, so I took the friday off this week to have to myself before I set off early Saturday.
This is a pretty decent milestone for the car, as its pretty well the last piece of the puzzle that was missing. I guess thats why this hasnt been so overwhelming, well not yet at least… Wont be much progress for atleast a month now, as Kristen and I are on holidays to the states in 2 weeks, but im pretty happy where im at now, so I guess some of the fun stuff can start.
There’s nothing quite like a sunny Sunday spent at the park, and USO cc have that down pat, every year they host a sunday bbq to celebrate the club’s anniversary since it started in Australia, ive been attending for about 4 years now, and each year its become bigger and bigger, I have no doubt its due to how inviting the club is and the hospitality they provide as markers of how much this scene is developing and growing in Australia.
Im fortunate enough that the Corolla for the most part is done, its more or less a tyres and fuel drift car, and for the most part its been that way its whole life, in saying that the car is pretty much done. All I want to do for it now is continue to clean it up and make it drive a bit nicer on the street, that’s the part of the car i’ve neglected as it never bothered me. Most friday nights, especially during summer I love to go for a drive to get either ice cream or just cruise to oldies and enjoy the sunshine and doing that in the hilux is great, its comfy, drives nice and for some reason turns some heads, it’s pretty cool getting 1 or 2 thumbs up from people but its still a pretty new car.
So for the last year i’ve been tossing up whether or not I buy something to build, I a few cars would pop up online but I couldnt commit or they wouldn’t pull me in. A few months back a crown ute, in Adelaide came up for sale, from memory it was a 64, it was a clean body car, and was all there for a great price, Unfortunately the owner sold it on me, even with a holding deposit but that’s ok as I wasnt a fan of that front end and it paved the way for this.
A 1968 RS56 Toyota Crown. This will be my new long term project that will be funded mainly from my Sign painting and pinstriping. I would never have thought that I would own a Crown, I was definitely influenced by Jake and his Crown sedan. So it was only fitting to combine the love for old toyotas and utes into one, and this is what I have now. So i’m hoping to turn this into a reliable turn key head tuner haha…
Im a big fan of when people think outside the box, ive come to terms that I might not ever own an American car to a lowrider/kustom but I think this is my chance to think outside the box and produce my ideas, well that’s the pipe dream anyway haha. Since it arrived about two weeks ago, ive started to clean it, so I have a clean base to start working on it, as well as getting my Mums garage sorted as its full of our family things and my spares.
I havent spent long working on it, im planning to spend a few hours each week, hopefully sneak in an hour during work on my lunch break, but its coming up a treat with just de greaser. It’ll be pretty boring for a while but im keen to document this as much as I can, aswell as take better photos haha. A huge thank you to Jake and Daniel for going to pick up the car for me, means a lot !
It seems like I only post about two things in here, halfway hangs prep and the event itself. So here’s both of those two posts combined into one haha. After each halfway, I get a sigh of relief its over aswell as sadness, its weird butin saying that each year rolls over pretty quickly and before you know it the car is at Bens shop again getting a new flex bend welded in because ive destroyed the previous one he welded in, almost like ground hog day. Prior to this a few of us headed out to eastern creek to the peanut track to an all day driving sports peanut/wet pan day, I figured id give the car a quick and easy shake down, its also not a bad way to spend a saturday.
Overall the day went well, I had to battle the rear end of this car all day, as its hella bouncy, i really am not sure why but either way its time to change to something else, before CorollaPalooza. The worst thing to happen on the day was hitting my sump on the bottom section of the track where they tell you not to cut through…
Fast forward a few weeks later and I find myself at twin servos Wyong waiting for the guys to arrive.
Once again stopping at the artisan farmer in Taree, there is nothing better than having a proper coffee and food instead of rubbish macdonalds or hungry jacks.
Sweet set up in the car park !
We arrived around 330, everything went well on the drive up, besides the heat towards the end of the trip but we just plowed on through.
Ive taken my brushes to halfway for the last 3 years now, I was lucky enough this year to have a tonne of interest from people wanting some stripes on their car, it definitely makes it very exciting, but it can also be a lot on the weekend so I dont take a whole lot on, as I am on holidays haha, this however was one job i was hella excited to do. Noah had messaged me a few months before halfway asking if I could paint the winter edition logo on his landcruiser but re design it my own way, ive seen a lot of artists from the states do this type of work from the 80s onwards so being able to do it on something finally is a milestone.
I didnt take too many photos on the weekend I kick myself after each halfway for not doing so, I guess thats just from always being around people, being in the moment and not needing social media to fill the void? I dont know either way its kinda nice.
Once again back at raleigh, for another year of the get down. There is just something about grassroots events that you cant beat, and its not to take away from other events, they all have their purpose, serve their purpose and without that diversity it drifting wouldnt be as good as it is. Ive been lucky with this car over the years, its never really broken anything but my luck ran out this event which sucked because I was starting to get in the groove of things with Luke, when I started to feel the front end of the car feel very unpredictable, which turned out to be the front left wheel bearing. With that I packed the car up and just enjoyed the rest of the weekend!
All in all, it was once again a great holiday, one that I looked forward to each year, and have been now for 11 years. Unfortunately arriving home I got news that we had to find somewhere else to live, bit of a kick in the dick but more on that later !
GoWithAL 