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  • 338
    replied
    Originally posted by TampIt View Post
    then into a full blown (in both senses of the word, probably circa 330Kmh top speed) competitive rally car.
    TampIt
    Tamp it, just reading this thread after looking to see if there was any news yet from Andy on Speed Week - http://coffeesnobs.com.au/general-ne...-gairdner.html - and read your post. Your rally car sounds pretty impressive! You really should have offered advice or consulting to Andy, he was tantalizing close to both 200mph and 320kmh (198mph and 319km) and you would be just the person to help him get there. If you could get a rally car way back when to 330kmh with their notoriously low gearing not to mention non aerodynamic addenda like lights etc it should be a breeze to help Andy squeeze another 2mph out on a bike set up for high speed.

    On a separate not it must be amazing to go 300kmh on a bike, having never been over about 200kmh on a bike I know I don't have big enough balls for what Andy is doing. On that note must have been amazing to do 330kmh in a rally car.

    Leave a comment:


  • Rocky
    replied
    I am 65 and have never owned an automatic transmission vehicle although I drove many automatic work vehicles.
    I could never tolerate an automatic in a 'sporty car' but a short time driving in the big cities is enough to convince me that it is no place for manuals.
    Like my sports car, my family car is also a manual and I notice that there is a tendency for some drivers of automatics to 'floor it' when the lights change and almost end up in my boot.
    I think automatic transmissions are responsible for the tendency to accelerate off the mark like a Grand Prix whereas I was taught to accelerate steadily and build up to the speed limit.
    I really don't understand the drivers who jump on the gas when the light changes, accelerate hard and then jump on the brakes when they get to the next set of lights. Must use a lot more petrol and brake pads than I do.

    Leave a comment:


  • TampIt
    replied
    A different start to driving

    I went from an old Massey Ferguson (what else if in the Riverina, NSW?) to a Scammel @ Pt Hedland (21 "semi auto" gears & 3 bogies hauling manganese for 141 miles of private gravel road at "way over current speed limits") to a stock Holden ute and then into a full blown (in both senses of the word, probably circa 330Kmh top speed) competitive rally car. The Scammel to rally car odyssey took about 3 months. About two years later I was old enough to get my car licence in a gutless (very, very old & tired) EK Holden and started racing motorcycles. Probably not a process for the faint hearted!

    Trickiest encounters: Reversing an Austin Champ (actually the FV1801A, complete with air compressor for underwater use) at speed for nearly 400Kms because the forward gears (it had 5 forwards + 5 reverses) were stuffed and walking out of the Simpson was not a good "plan B" in the early 70's. Alternatively any of the numerous tyre (or one memorable "air suspension diaphram" deflation) failures on and off a motorcycle track.

    I still wonder why people ever bought automatic cars at about 15% loss of power combined with a 15(++)% fuel economy hit - current "double clutch manuals" and CVT's excepted. Manuals are not that difficult to drive dudes... Also, I have never had a manual try to change gears when I am pushing it to the limits and power sliding.

    These days I am torn between a diesel hybrid or a fully electric. Pity so far none of the ones I have driven have worked out how to go around a corner properly... maybe next year. As long as the bloody thing doesn't nag.

    TampIt

    Leave a comment:


  • boblinder
    replied
    I learnt to drive on an old Chamerlaine tractor.

    No Syncros, double clutch and a dam beast to find gears. 70kph flat bikky though.

    I learnt road skills in a 4-Speed on the tree column shift. It was a old Mazda ute from memory.
    Attached Files

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  • Jackster
    replied
    I learnt with a '3 on the tree' kingswood.
    Had fun with a heavy vehicle that was reverse patterned 6sp (1st is towards driver and back)
    Did my truck license in a 60s dodge truck with a crash box. At least that made a roadranger easier...

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Originally posted by bigdaddy View Post
    I wonder how many people here know how to drive a car with three on the tree?

    Cheers.
    MorninG BD,

    I imagine there are those who have never driven anything other than an Automatic, not me, our motor home is built is on a Ford Transit, 5 on the floor, reverse requires that you lift a collar on the gear stick, move to the left and back, catches a lot of people out.

    My car is an auto.

    Leave a comment:


  • bigdaddy
    replied
    I love using new technology, when I can get my head around using it and if it appeals to me...

    A couple of funny stories

    I have a car with a reversing camera built in, along with a heap of other useful technology. I'm so used to using that thing that when I hop into a car with out it and I go to reverse I automatically look at the radio first and try to figure out why there is no picture there ...

    At work we turn over new cars, in particular utes regularly. My chief and I went to start a new procedure which involves borrowing someone else's ute. This new ute was a manual...The chief with decades of driving experience couldn't even start it...He had to ring up and find that you had to put your foot on the clutch to start it He also couldn't quickly put the ute into reverse....

    I learned to drive in a Automatic, although from the age of twelve I knew how to ride motor bikes, so the manual concept was not foreign to me. I learned to drive a brand new manual Valiant on the road for my work at the time and eventually figured out how to put the thing in reverse..You had to push down the gear lever bring it all the way towards you and down...Well when it came time for me to reverse this new ute, it had the same configuration in it's gearbox, I had no problems reversing it...My manager came over to do my job, because I was needed elsewhere and he couldn't get the ute into reverse either so he yelled out to me how do you get this so and so to go backwards? Of course, I told him how to do it ...It's amazing how you do get used to new technology (in this case automatic cars) and take it for granted....Just on that...I wonder how many people here know how to drive a car with three on the tree?

    Cheers.

    Leave a comment:


  • TampIt
    replied
    Originally posted by Rocky View Post
    The disruption caused by a Cyclone (or similar) is a really effective experience to bring it home to you just how dependent we are on our modern "services" and also on each other.
    During a recent Cyclone we were without water for 4 days and power for a week. Didn't have a generator at that time, and even if I had, petrol was pretty well unobtainable after the first couple of days.
    Lots of implications - can you get gas for your BBQ (not after the first couple of days)
    What happens to the perishables in your fridge/freezer - can you eat/cook them?
    Can you charge your Mobile? Do you have batteries for a Transistor radio? How do you keep tabs on what's happening Re recovery efforts.
    How well do neighbourhoods cooperate.
    G'day Rocky

    Good follow up to your last post.

    Like you I will willingly pick up any bit of technology that is actually useful to me. So much new stuff is actually time negative due to crappy design and poor interfacing.

    Possibly the greatest new oxymoron is "smartphone" - I am sure a team of 6 to 9 year olds designed the interface. As long as you don't want to actually do a voice call or send an SMS it is probably fantastic (I don't know - I only need those two functions plus the occasional use of a camera). The phone reception is so poor it verges on unusable, and god help you if you accidentally hit a button whilst talking... you may never work out how to get back to a screen where you can hang up. Currently on special at $39, I am thinking of "regressing" to the Nokia 3300 clone.

    A new car? After a friend's Mazda6 had so many disastrous "talking features" we all nicknamed it "Mrs Nag" I would have to resort to ordering a customised one with most crap absent. Another friend recently ordered a "one off" Subaru with virtually all "helpful technologies" removed - it cost nearly $5,000 more, weighs about 250Kg less and is a special piece of magic behind the wheel. Oh, did I mention it is a lot quicker (and even more economical) than it siblings, even though it is using the same engine? Mind you, you have to wind up the windows and lock the doors yourself... his only concessions were air con (an essential for me) and a rear "reversing camera" (ditto).

    I have had a 6.9Kva generator for years now - big enough to power the house for the long term, and one of my 4 full jerrycans runs it for 48+ hours. I am about to add batteries to my rooftop solar PV and we are blessed with fantastic neighbours (90% of them - there is always one idiot in a crowd). After living in NW WA then mid Qld for a while I guess I have lived with most tech / climate snafus and have them covered.

    To me tech is just a tool to do a job - for better or worse. I choose better

    TampIt
    PS: and that coffee machine Yelta alluded to (DE1) will probably do more to advance the cause of coffee in the community than any number of manual machines like my old Electra lever. Understanding what is actually going in instead of running of faith and tradition is critical to progress (e.g. Genesis vs Darwin).

    Leave a comment:


  • Lootee
    replied
    Instagram in just a short version of facebook, a picture with a comment, twitter is even shorter, not really a lot to get. I am not on any of those platforms as I have little interest in other peoples pictures, memes or lives, if thats your thing no problem, but I prefer to spend my time on other things.

    Not sure on the u-tube hate, u-tube I do use, for podcasts, for a learning tool and for entertainment, I do not own a tv, only monitors.

    Leave a comment:


  • bigdaddy
    replied
    Yes, It's funny how technology changes the meanings of words. I can understand youTube and I do use facebook, I'm OK with that but when it comes to Instagram, Twitter and the like I just don't get it.

    I can see the way youTube have changed their "monetization policy" can hurt the small players but I wonder if it's youTube trying to edge them out or youTube really trying to clean up it's act.

    Cheers.

    Leave a comment:


  • pamount
    replied
    The rarest word in IT in terms of it actually being used to it’s true meaning is “usability”. A lot of things like Facebook and YouTube still have the look and feel of having been made as a student’s homework assignment.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Natural disasters whilst catastrophic can be overcome and eventually peoples lives return to a state of normality.

    What I'm suggesting is some form of invasion, don't write the idea off as fruit loops, Australia is vulnerable and the world is looking pretty shaky at the moment, South China Sea, Korea, middle East, Russia, United States, Indonesia.

    The world is running out of room and we are seen to have space and resources in abundance.

    If it did hit the fan the first casualties would be communications and infrastructure, the prospects are grim.
    Are we sleepwalking to World War III? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
    Last edited by Yelta; 21 January 2018, 07:30 PM. Reason: spelling

    Leave a comment:


  • Rocky
    replied
    The disruption caused by a Cyclone (or similar) is a really effective experience to bring it home to you just how dependent we are on our modern "services" and also on each other.
    During a recent Cyclone we were without water for 4 days and power for a week. Didn't have a generator at that time, and even if I had, petrol was pretty well unobtainable after the first couple of days.
    Lots of implications - can you get gas for your BBQ (not after the first couple of days)
    What happens to the perishables in your fridge/freezer - can you eat/cook them?
    Can you charge your Mobile? Do you have batteries for a Transistor radio? How do you keep tabs on what's happening Re recovery efforts.
    How well do neighbourhoods cooperate.

    Leave a comment:


  • bigdaddy
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    Often wonder what would happen in the event of a major disaster if we lost all power and communications, not talking about an hour or two, but days/weeks.

    I imagine the more resourceful would get by but the sheeple would be stuffed, frightening prospect but not beyond the bounds of possibility.
    Yeah, I reckon it could happen...

    It's happened recently in Australia, but only for a few days and even a week or two...Think the Queensland floods or a major cyclone.... Although maybe not as cathorstaphic as you are suggesting Yelta, I know that people were inconvenienced but did get around it. Oh and we had it here recently for a just few hours when the main interconnector power lines got blown down by several twisters. I remember going to the shopping mall to buy some candles and no one was in the car park....It didn't click until I got to the doors and saw all the shops shut because their cash registers and recording systems did not work lol....

    Cheers.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Often wonder what would happen in the event of a major disaster if we lost all power and communications, not talking about an hour or two, but days/weeks.

    I imagine the more resourceful would get by but the sheeple would be stuffed, frightening prospect but not beyond the bounds of possibility.

    Leave a comment:

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