On the back of the truck after the trip to Sydney to pick it up.
I bought the Sizaire in February 2008, the car was in good nick however everyone I spoke to remembered how they had pushed this car or seen something major like the tail shaft fall off during a rally, so I determined to make it bulletproof and start easily. That’s something I’m still working on.
First thing was to get a club permit and that meant getting the foot brake to work which unfortunately meant pulling the back axle apart you may notice in the following photos that the diff centre is out of a Holden…not quite veteran.
By March I had it back together and permitted, so off to my first rally in Echuca unfortunately it’s previous ills were still prevalent so more people became acquainted with pushing the Sizaire, the 38° heat didn’t help…cooling system seems to work well though! Here is a video of us passing a steam wagon.
Next to the starting problem. The Siz. has two spark plugs and so could have two ignition systems. The existing magneto only rotates at camshaft speed so the spark is a bit pathetic at slow cranking speeds only matched by my efforts on the crank handle. My T Model Ford has trembler coils and they work a treat so I had Colin my machining guy knock up a “Timer” to go on the end of the cam, mounted a “T” coil under the seat, a couple of old brass light switches and I now have a car that starts very easily. Here are few pictures.
Next problem was the tail shaft that had been known to throw itself on the road for no apparent reason. I believe it had happened once while attempting to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The car had modern CV joints fitted to each end of the tail shaft, however the Siz tail shaft must change length the usual amount as the rear suspension works up and down plus the movement of the pinions in and out as they are swapped during gear changes. CV joints do not have enough longitudinal movement so John Wards a fellow Siz owner took photos and measurements of his original one and again Colin and metal magician came to the rescue. Pictures below.
If you were wondering what I was talking about regarding the gear change here is a short video.
Another video with a camera tucked under the car.
The Sizaire has now been driven from Perth to Sydney and from Adelaide to Darwin so maybe a little rest is in order.
