Break Down Story Number 6.

The Blown Welch Plug/Engine.

2005 National Meeting, Eastern Creek. My Father and I had originally planed to do the National Meeting, we had been saving up for it, but then we saw the program, we decided to buy a Falcon Ute (tow vehicle and only non Triumph in the house hold) instead. We were unsure wether we could compete in just the Eastern Creek Super Sprint as nothing had been said about it, but a short phone call discovered that we could enter the Super Sprint.
I would be driving the Dolly and the Old Man would be in his Blue MK I (Humphrey). The Dolly had been having a very busy motor sport year, as I had been competing in motorkhanas and khanacrosses with Westlakes Automobile Club. The Dolly had given very little trouble all year, but that was about to change.
Eastern Creek went well, the Dolly did not miss a beat, until the last run of the day, the Old Man had called it a day so I went out with an old Jag. I followed the Jag for most of the first lap when he let me past, on the next lap around I heard a “pop” noise and so I backed off for the rest of the run, I did not want to break the Dolly on the last run of the day. It sounded like a back fire through the carby’s so I was not that worried. On an inspection in the pits we could not see any thing out of place and the car was running perfectly alright, so we packed up and set of for home. (Wyong on the central coast).
About ten or twelve km’s from home the Dolly suddenly slowed, then, rattle, rattle and the engine stopped. I coasted into the break down lane, with the Old Man behind me. It was about 6 o’clock, just getting dark, we were in weekday peak hour traffic on the freeway. When we looked under the bonnet there was oil everywhere and the engine would not turn properly. We thought about going home to get the car trailer and the Ford, but there was no way we could load it on the trailer in this position, so we tied a tow rope to the Dolly and towed it with the Old Mans car.
The tow rope was only about 3mtr long and without the engine the brakes on the Dolly were going to be next to useless, so it was going to be an interesting trip. We took off keeping to the break down lane, which is not very wide and all the time being passed by the peak hour traffic of which there seemed to be a large number of semi trailers, which were coming very close. We were travelling at about 60 km/h but it felt like warp speed, as we came around a bend, there was another car in the break down lane and there was no way the Dolly was going to stop, so we had to go around it, luckily there was a break in the traffic.
We got home in one piece but with another star in the windscreen curtesy of a stone thrown from the Old Mans car. The next week end I decided to clean away all the oil, in doing that I took the sump guard off and sitting on the sump guard was a small Welch plug, now I wonder where that came from I thought to myself. Well I soon found where it come from, in the side of the block just near the water pump. That was the pop noise I had heard on the last run. A lot can be salvaged from the engine, but the block, crank and con rods are all scrap metal. So ended another Dolly Break Down Adventure.

Jim Pope