[SEL] Dragging Old Iron home, tis the season

[Russell Gilbert]

>It must be the time of year for draggin some iron home. Due to a 
>recent re-laps into engine mania I was over come by a weak moment 
>and also found myself; like Patrick and the boys; doing a deal on 
>another bit of old iron. After looking at buying and engine from 
>ebay (I didn't win it) I decided to chat to the person listing to 
>ask what if anything else could be for sale. Well after a few 
>e-amils and phone conversations I became the new owner of a realy 
>nice little 1904 3.5hp Portable Hornsby. It's the smallest that 
>Hornsby's made in the portable oil engines and rarely come up for 
>sale. I just couldn't resist and I weakend dramatically to the point 
>where life wouldn't be worth living unless it was home in my 
>shed!!  (well maybe not that dramatic but it's a hoot having in my 
>collection)  Anyway the engine is seized but vertualy complete. The 
>transport is all factory original with the Hornsby embossed 
>lettering on the hubs.


Well Haulin engines is what this is about and haulin we did. I asked 
Dad if he had been to Roma in Queensland and if he wanted to come for 
a little drive to pick it up. He asked how long we would be gone for 
and I mentioned; Up Thursday and back Friday; Sounded good......! 
Well we decided to leave home after tea on the Wednesday to allow a 
bit more time. Got back 3pm on the friday ..............  Now some 
think we are silly but it was only 1675 km each way! The total trip 
was 3341 km in just 43.5 hours.  It takes a trip like this to really 
appreciate how big our country is because when you look at a map it 
just doesn't seem that far. Well we had very little trouble, not much 
sleep and managed to not hit any kangaroos!  The roads were pretty 
crappy and at times our speed was some 30km per hour slower than we 
anticipated. Anyway all is good and the little engine is now home. I 
sleeped 11 hours straight that night. I have to thank dad for the 
company.  Pictures are up on my webshots; the link at the bottom in my sig.

cheers, Russ



Russell Gilbert
Sunny Sunraysia
russell at ncable.com.au
http://community.webshots.com/user/russellsrelics