Red Dog - 1970 Austin 1800 MkII.

Post pictures and stories about your cars both present and past. Also post up "blogs" on your restoration projects - the more pictures the better! Note: blog-type threads often get few replies, but are often read by many members, and provide interest and motivation to other enthusiasts so don't be disappointed if you don't get many replies.
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Penguin45
Posts: 174
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:39 pm

Red Dog - 1970 Austin 1800 MkII.

#1 Post by Penguin45 » Sat May 20, 2017 7:48 pm

Seeing as Mr Barge asked so nicely.....

You may recall on the old forum I (aided and abetted by my chum Theo) restored a Wolseley 18/85. Sadly that thread was lost and as a consequence I was slightly reluctant to do it all again on here; just in case......

Anyway, the edited highlights are that the car was free but in a bush in Coventry. We chopped it free and lugged it back to Gods Own County. It was rotten. Oh my goodness, was it rotten..... Got started on it and three months later had a heart attack, which slowed things down a bit. I'm self employed and had also enroled on the Classic Vehicle Restoration Course at Leeds City Colleges (highly recommended) which was three days a week, plus trying to have some sort of social life, so I might have been pushing it a bit.

The full story is over on the Landcrab Forum - HERE if you can stomach graffic scenes of rust removal, metal butchery and welding. Page 10 is particulaly gruesome :twisted: .

Or you can have just the pictures - PHOTOBUCKET.

Or video - ENGINE START and FIRST DRIVE.

It even made Car of the Month on ARONLINE - HERE - which was nice.

So have a picture.

Image

Two years later, she still looks like that and that's what the painting is all about.

Cheers,

Chris.

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JPB
Posts: 10319
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: Red Dog - 1970 Austin 1800 MkII.

#2 Post by JPB » Sat May 20, 2017 8:15 pm

One of my favourite films ever! Funny and sad in equal parts and whoever trained the globe trotting canine of the title is a feathermuckin' genius.

Oh, it's about a car... :(


;)

That's a very level looking old thing, Chris, well done on the save and may she provide much smooth riding pleasure for many years to come.
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

Penguin45
Posts: 174
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:39 pm

Re: Red Dog - 1970 Austin 1800 MkII.

#3 Post by Penguin45 » Sun May 21, 2017 12:00 am

Eyup, John.

I wrote it up on the WOLSELEY FORUM as well (bit of a c+p job really). We have a large number of Antipodean members there and they decided that she should be the Red Dog. Never seen it myself, but the synopsis was pretty moral and good.

P45.

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JPB
Posts: 10319
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: Red Dog - 1970 Austin 1800 MkII.

#4 Post by JPB » Sun May 21, 2017 10:56 am

Imagine a sort of more grown-up (but without overtly adult themes) version of the sort of animal acting seen in that other recent Australian masterpiece "Oddball" about the island whose penguin population was saved by having a Maremma Sheepdog staying on the island to guard the threatened birds from the bad guys.
Red dog was more about helping out humans but Australian cinema is very good at that sort of thing as it tends to be devoid of the sugary sweet crap that comes out of Hollywood more often than not!

Anyway, the ADO17 has more in common with dogs - from Australia or elsewhere - than the colour of one red labrador-type animal, they, like dogs, have a face 8-) and it's very difficult not to warm to a car with a face, especially when that face fronts up something so uniquely comfortable, strongly built and just generally competent as the likes of that 1800.
It's at times like this that I wish I could have obtained permission to post the tale of the beige Morris 1800 and its recommissioning & fitting of PAS (via original parts in the end as that's what she decided had to be used, so I approached the son of my old gaffer from the mid eighties and he allowed me to have a wratch in his personal stash of BMC parts on the understanding that I would broker the sale of anything that I didn't want to a local jumbler who'll be at Newby Hall this year with that stock) 8-) , but the owner's widow has her reasons and the main thing is that the 1800 flew through its test with the n/o/s dynamo-cum-PAS pump, the associated rack and a handful of similarly straightforward jobs attended to before we ran it down to the test station, whose proprietor loves a bit of BMC or in fact anything that's not run of the mill. Sensible fella!

Anyway, enough of that, how's about more on Red Dog please, seeing as this is your thread & all? :oops:
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

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