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I have owned my TR3 for about 21 years. It is a 1956 car, No.008 assembled in Australia. In that time it has undergone a part restoration (body off, new floors and spare wheel well) I drove it for about 12 years as a regular car and have used it regularly since. In 2001 I drove it from Brisbane (east coast Queensland) to Albany in Western Australia, a distance of about 2500 miles, in seven days accompanied only by my dog.

When the TR Register decided to have the 2000 national concours in Inverell, northern New South Wales, I decided it was time to dust off the old girl and make an appearance. I have owned my TR for twenty years but in the years leading up to Inverell she had not been used much. I had moved from one house in Grange, Brisbane where she had lost her own steel garage and was languishing in a car port squeezed in with my everyday car, covered by a car cover and I am sure, feeling unloved.

When I decided Inverell would be a great drive I ripped the cover off, did a lot of cleaning, replaced the suspension bushes and the original overdrive gearbox was dispatched to a repairer and duly refitted. Since I had owned the car she had never had a proper wide fan belt so I ordered one from a Melbourne supplier. This belt was described as 'new old stock'.

On the way to Inverell we almost got to Warwick and whilst stopped for some road works, a noise akin to a marble - a very large marble in a dry cement mixer, came from the forward regions. The belt had developed two cracks in the rubber inner section the effect of which was to break the pathetic bolt that holds the water pump pulley clean off allowing the pulley to flail around. We were rescued then by remembering that John Buck was coming along later and a quick phone call saw him drop off another pump on his way through. The old pulley was duly bolted on and we were away. When we got to the motel in Inverell and tried to restart the car she would not run on all four, so a committee was formed and it was decided it was the points. No it wasn't! So I was too annoyed to drive it down for the display on Saturday. She was never a concourse contender anyway and we missed the Motorkana on Sunday.

On the way home the problem persisted, she would start on what seemed two cylinders and after much banging and grunting would finally decide to use the whole four. When we reached the outskirts of Brisbane we were presented with the worst sub-tropical downpour I have ever experienced. The water was lapping the door sills in most places. Did I stop? No way, she was running on all four so we chugged on, slowly, until home. I never did discover the problem with the motor but suspect I had been sold some petrol of dubious quality. Well, given the most successful Inverell TR experience, when I decided to move to Western Australia the options were, truck her the 2500 miles across the continent - or drive. There was no decision to make - we drove.

For this trip I purchased new tyres. Twice in the past, just after getting new rubber, I found a broken spoke. I wonder has anyone else come across this phenomenon? I took the springs out of the seat and chucked them away, replacing them with high-density foam. They had begun to stick into my posterior in a most uncomfortable way. The leather covers were in fine shape however and this has proved to be a most successful modification. I fitted the stainless steel tank made twelve years ago but it turned out to be larger then the original one so I had to remake the back board and refit the upholstery cover to get the tank to fit.
All the vital fluids and oil filter were changed as well as changing the lift-a-dot windscreen hood fasteners to the tenax peg style. Reasoning that that would prevent the hood blowing up or off or water coming through the join between the hood and the screen. What a mistake this turned out to be!

The day got closer and with the packing of the house and arranging the mover to arrive on the day I wanted, there was one job I just never got around to getting done. We will revisit this shortly.

I packed many spares. In fact, everything that can fall off a TR motor - starter, generator, fuel pump, water pump, hoses, oil and lots more. It's amazing what you can fit in. The day arrived and the movers turned up about lunchtime and were finished by three pm. It was a Thursday and we had planned to stay with a friend on Thursday night and leave early on Friday making our first stop Moree in New South wales.

It was 3pm so my travelling companion, "Sapphire" the blue heeler dog, and I hopped in the car and headed for Warwick (Qld). This was an easy drive, and keeping to the legal limit, we were passed by every four-wheel drive and family sedan on the road. Until we got to Cunningham's Gap where we delighted in re-passing many of these cars up the steep hill, still not breaking the law mind you (well - maybe a bit!).

We spent a pleasant night in a Warwick Motel. Most Motels don't seem to mind the dog as long as you can assure them that it will stay in the car and not bark all night. There is however a guide published by the "Life Be In It" mob that lists the places you can stay with your dog. Next morning it was off to Moree to get back on schedule. I had planned to do an average of 550 km a day and take eight days to do the trip. Just about 40 miles out of Warwick the water pump pulley fell off, klang, klang. This time more than likely due to the fact that I had not changed the damaged pulley since the last incident the other side of Warwick. That was the job I didn't get around to doing!

We stopped on the side of the road and I was just about finished fitting the spare water pump complete with pulley when a young couple in a dark blue Commodore station wagon, loaded with kids and gear, stopped. "Need any help?" - "No she's OK just had a little problem with the water pump - only need to add the coolant and I'm off." The young woman in the passenger seat insisted "Are you sure? We have some water." - "No... she's right, thank you for stopping." and they were on their way.

The next town is Inglewood. Now there is not much at Inglewood (Qld) but whilst I was driving through I spotted an engineering works in a side street - "Dave's Welding Works". The light bulb went on above my head and I turned around and headed for Dave's. I presented the broken water pump and the loose pulley, explained that I had fitted a spare that I had had sitting around for the past 20 years and that I wasn't all that confident with it. In about 30 minutes Dave's right hand man had drilled out the old pulley, put a metal sleeve in it, re-cut the keyway with a little saw, drilled the front of the water pump shaft and fitted a bolt and washer to secure the pulley and replace the one that had previously broken off. It seems to me that this is an inherently poor design. Why is the securing bolt turned down to a smaller diameter than the shaft? Dave's charge was $20.00. I threw in another $20.00 for the worker as he had delayed his lunch to do it straight away. Thank God for country folk. Can anyone think of a place in the city where you would get that kind of service?

Next stop Moree (NSW) and the Gwydir Caravan Park where if you so desire you can soak in a hot spring. South of Moree on the Newell Highway we were beetling along at the legal limit when a very large truck came and sat too close for comfort on our tail. I thought this mug may have been driving non stop for the last fortnight and could be drugged to the eyeballs, either way he would have had to look down to see us where we were, so I did the sensible thing and pulled over. This happened about four times in a row but only on that stretch of road between Moree and Narrabri.

Nyngan (NSW) was the next stop and we arrived just before sunset. I was unloading the stuff into the cabin at the Riverside Caravan Park when I noticed that the ignition light on the dash was glowing red. The car was turned off, the key in my pocket and the light was glowing red. I fitted the key and turned the ignition on, the light went out, turned the ignition off, and the light glowed. Up with the bonnet, not a quick process on a TR, first find the 'T' key, you know. Off with the lid on the voltage regulator, to find the cut-out points stuck together and smouldering. I separated them with a finger, and got them to stay apart. I phoned the NRMA (motoring organization for road service) to see if they could get me some help. The young man who attended had never seen a voltage regulator for a generator. So the best he could do was to reset the thing using the instructions from the old manual I remembered to bring. We tested it and it seemed to be working OK. So he departed to his Saturday night whatever.

The next day, Sunday, dawned cold. The pig shooters in the nearby cabins started their four wheel drive Hi-Lux utes right on dawn and for some reason left them sitting at a high idle for about half an hour whilst they called and swore and spat and banged around.
We got an early start, not something I am particularly fond of. 9am is early for me as my brain doesn't really click into 'full awake' mode before 9.30am. It was 7am and I was getting no charge and the points were sticking again. I phoned the NRMA again to see if I could raise an Auto Electrician. By this time I had discovered that the local auto electrician was away on holidays. He had closed the shop and left town for a month two weeks ago. The NRMA didn't bother to come. Well I suppose it was Sunday morning and maybe he was at church.

At about 11am I was sitting under a tree on my fold-up camp chair near the park gate reconciling myself to a long stay in Nyngan, when a chap pulled up in a beat-up yellow Hi-Lux. "Havin' a problem mate?" he asked. I explained my plight to him. "Well there is an Auto Electrician in town who is retired…'emm, I think his name is Donohoe" - a small step in the right direction I thought to myself. We adjourned to the park office and scanned the phone book for a Donohoe. Now Nyngan is a small place and there are four Donohoe's listed. "I think it's Ken" my new guardian angel piped up. Within fifteen minutes Ken had his head in the TR's bonnet, mumbling things like "Gee I had a stack of these, meaning the generator, and dumped them last year" He explained that the problem with the regulator cut out points was caused from driving too fast with a loose fan belt. Remember the water pump!

"See" he said "When ya' stop, the genny keeps motoring and stuffs the points" We drove back to his house, where in a shed at the back, he had a workshop straight out of the fifties. He produced an ancient meter the size of a car battery to test the genny. We found that it was not charging so it was a simple matter to fit the spare. I busied myself doing the swap whilst he adjourned to the house for lunch. With the spare generator giving a good charge of 15 volts he re-adjusted the cut out points and we were away. Broken Hill here we come.

The Nyngan to Broken Hill road is not really the place to break down, so you may appreciate my anxiety when I stopped for a pee, about 120km along only to find the replacement generator smoking. It was still charging but was very hot. I pumped oil in the front and in the back, let it cool down and hit the road. By Barnato, about 65k along, the smell of burning paint was getting a might upsetting and there was now a disturbing rattle. As we pulled into a road house to inspect the situation it stopped charging. Not good! If I had to wait a week in Nyngan for parts it would be a month here. I resolved to remove the replacement generator and swap the brushes with the original one. Well this is where I learned to remove a generator from a TR without burning ones left thumb knuckle on a hot exhaust. Well, not burning it too much I should say.

Whilst I was there at a picnic table in the burning sun a group of four wheel drive enthusiasts pulled up. There were six vehicles. I think they thought they were the modern version of a wagon train out to conquer the west. They parked in a rough circle, like the wagons did, and the back of one was opened to reveal, dare I say it, a chuck wagon. They were all loud. One woman asked her husband, "Oh darling look at that man with that funny little car. What sort of car is that darling?" "That's an MG Love" he said with the confidence of Moses. Later the same lame-brain sauntered over to inspect the proceedings with the generator. "Gee I like ya MG mate" (mate should be read with a rising inflection) and "what a nice dog." He leaned over the side curtain to pat Sapphire the dog, patiently sitting on her seat. Sapphire lunged, fangs bare and just missed souveniring a couple of his fingers. I gave a rye smile and whispered "good dog."

About a half hour later another chap wanders over from the road house with his son in tow to show him the car. "I wouldn't expect to see a TR3 out here" he said "What a great car - look son this car was…" - well he gace the kid the whole spiel. I was impressed "Look I said to him why don't you pat my dog." "Oh OK" he said, a little perplexed. He leaned over the side screen and Sapphire offered a head to pat, a wag of the tail and a grateful lick. You see I not only have good taste in cars but my dog can tell the difference between an fool and a TR fancier.

I managed to just get enough charge to get me to Cobar but the regulator cut-out points were sticking again. Not a problem as long as I was getting a small charge and I didn't stop. We got to Cobar that night in the dark. The extra large battery I fitted came in handy as I ran out of natural light about 20km out of Cobar and was not far off running out of artificial light when we pulled in to the first Motel. What was wrong with the replacement generator? Well, you may well ask. It had been reconditioned so one would expect no trouble but it had been reassembled with a dry end bearing, the hot end, and fitted with an end float spacer that effectively blocked the oil hole. Mind you if the car had not been so loud with the hood down I may have heard the squeal the bearing must have been making at Nyngan.

I called into the Cobar Auto Pro Shop on Monday Morning to see if I could get a replacement regulator. I was not really confident but you never know. A very helpful young woman found a picture in their parts book. She was able to quote me a price and told me it would only be two days. Just then the boss arrived "Nar' ya not gonna get one of those here" he said. Then after what seemed an hour but was only a few seconds when we all looked at one another and the picture in the book in turn he said "But there's one outside on me fork lift that ya' can have if ya' wanna' take it off. I fitted an alternator long ago." Before I could react the lady handed me a screw-driver and a small shifter. The regulator was not the same as mine. It had the older screw terminals. But for $10.00 I recovered it, took it back to the motel and swapped the points from it to the one on the car. With the cut-out points problem solved, we headed for Broken Hill. After the delay in Cobar we had a night entry to Broken Hill but once again I was pleased I had fitted a battery specified for a large 4WD.

On Tuesday morning I called in at Western Auto Electrical in Broken Hill and explained the problem to Michael. The generator would actually charge at 15 volts but you needed to hold the small contact on the back to get it to do it. This is a hard to do when driving the car at the same time. He took the generator out the back reappearing in about 10 minutes with the diagnoses. "Its stuffed you won't get any thing out of this" "Look Michael, it will charge if you tighten the 'whatever is loose' on the small terminal and it is charging about 4 volts as it is because it got me from outside Nyngan to here. So please, please, just take it out the back, clean it up and tighten it up because I am on the way to Western Australia and that generator is the only one I've got," a big deep breath -"Please?" ... "OK." Michael did as I asked and while he was away I phoned the local wreckers. The first one I phoned had a Lucas generator. Then Michael came back with the cleaned and tightened genny still claiming, there was no way it would work, I fitted it and it the red light went out. It showed a shaky 15 volts on the dash gauge. 'Phew' thanks mate. The charge was $25.00 - a bargain!

We were off again. Just around the corner from the workshop the red light came on. "S…. @#$..." and then it went off again. On the way out of town I called at the wrecker just as we pulled up the red light came on - "S…. @#$..." and again it went off. The generator at the wreckers was not the right one. The wrecker wanting to be helpful and not at all peeved that he had lost a sale directed me to another wrecker a few blocks away in a back street.

"I'm lookin' for a Lucas genny?" - "Yeh… got a couple of old Austins out the back and they'll have one." I spotted the Austins from the end of the row. There were two 1800's side by side in surprisingly good condition, but I knew it was a waste of time lifting the bonnets. "To modern mate, they use alternators." We walked back through the shed and I had another look at a shelf of early Holden generators. But through the shelf on the next row amongst a collection of starter motors I spotted an old genny. It was cracked on the alloy brush end and quite a bit corroded and covered in dust but I could see the end of the armature was in good condition and it had what looked like a full set of brushes. The pulley was a narrow one of course. "How much?" " Well if gets ya' out of trouble mate ya' can have it for $5.00 bucks" - another bargain.

Back in the TR and return to Western Auto Electrical in Broken Hill. Michael changed the pulley for me and blew out some of the dust with an air hose. He then ran the genny up with a battery and declared it "a good'n." I decided to save time and not fit it but keep it in reserve for when the patched up one failed.

It was about 1pm and by this time I was two days behind so it was foot down for Port Augusta (South Australia). This is a 418k run. Add on another 30k because I missed the sign to off the Barrier Highway to Peterborough. I was expecting a sign to Port Augusta reasoning that as this was a trucking route from the east to the west there should be one. But no, I guess truckies know where they are going. That's the trouble with travelling with a dog - she can't read the map!

We got into Port Augusta about 7.30pm; I had cancelled the caravan park I had booked in advance the previous day so it was off to a motel and the comfort of a hot shower and clean sheets. By the way, the hood was up by this time as I had left it up after having to defrost my ears following the night drive into Broken Hill. It was just as well, as I had struck some heavy rain between Wilmington and Port Augusta.

Next day it was off to Ceduna (SA), my next scheduled stop. The car was going well with no sign of a red light on the dash, not much of a charge either but the genny must have been putting out just enough to keep the battery going. Mind you, I think I made a good decision in fitting the largest possible size/capacity battery I could fit in the hole. Thirty kms out of Ceduna I could see wind and rain squalls ahead on the road. I was not prepared for what happened when I hit the first storm. The hood lifted in the middle about four inches off the hood bows, rain started to blast in under the hood above the wind screen and I reckon I had to steer about 10 degrees into the wind to stay on the road. It was 'un-be-lei-vable'. I have driven in heavy rain before but nothing like this. I reckon the storms last stop was the Antarctic because the temperature dropped to freezing as well. Not long after it hit us it thankfully abated. The dog and I were soaked and freezing but now driving in bright sunshine. I stopped to re-secure the hood above the windscreen where two of the tenax peg clips had come loose. No sooner had we set off then we were hit with another quick blast of wind and ice straight off the Southern Ocean. We experienced four of these small but intense storms in the thirty kms to Ceduna.

It was about 1.30pm when we arrived so I purchased some duct tape from the Ampol Ceduna Road House and stuck it all along the join between the windscreen and hood. I had one of those gigantic meals you can only get at places frequented by the trucking fraternity and headed for Eucla - just inside the West Australian border. By not stopping at Ceduna I made up the day I had lost.
The rain stopped but the tape came loose and started to make the most indescribable noise as it flapped on the top of the hood. So I ripped most of it off, just leaving one strip that stuck to the glass and covered the front edge of the hood. Even though it would not actually stick to the hood it stopped the wind and rain blowing in.

It was late when I got into Eucla. This part of Australia has its own time zone and my brain had dropped out of gear after the long drive and was freewheeling so I didn't bother working out the timedifference and the mileage. The Border Village Motel is a great oasis on a long and boring road. It has a bar that is open 24 hours so I enjoyed a hot meal and a Tooheys Old beer. I think it was about 12.30am their time.

Eucla to Norseman is a reasonably boring drive of 712k. There is a section of road in this section, the 90 mile straight that is claimed to be the longest straight bit of road in Australia. The temptation was to go a little faster along this section but I behaved and kept the speed to 60 mph even though the limit is 110 km/h (that's about 70 mph). I won't say how long it took to get to Norseman in case you work out I am telling a porkey about the speed. These straight roads are a pretty boring drive so the mind wanders. Apart from redesigning the hood attachment to the windscreen and debating the pros and cons of the alternator narrow belt conversion, I was thinking what other car could you buy in 1956 that would go as fast and stop as well, with disc brakes, at 27mpg. Well, a few come to mind but all would have cost you a few pounds more.

It was early afternoon when I arrived in Norseman so I refuelled and headed for Esperance (WA). When I was in the service station paying for my petrol, I was accosted by a young woman. She expressed amazement to see me here. "We just can't believe it" she said. My mind raced - who is this woman? Am I supposed to know her? Outside on the forecourt the mystery was solved. There sat the car that had stopped and offered help way back outside Warwick in Queesland, the occupants smiling and waving. I think I 'made' their trip. They were turning north to Kalgoorlie and I was turning south to Esperance so this would be our last chance meeting.

Skipping the stay in Norseman made up another day. The roads in WA are all pretty good. From Salmon Gums to Esperance, the road travels through farm land with gentle curves right and left and generally was a more interesting drive than the alternative road across the Nullarbor. I was enjoying the road but found myself drifting across the centre line in one left hand corner and hearing the disconcerting sound of the wheels rumbling on the edge of the bitumen on a right-hander.

I was enjoying the road so much that I had neglected to check my speed. A quick glance shows the needle on 85mph - "S….@#$...." - I backed off. But then I thought 'damn it' so I started to drive the car with a little more intelligence. A little tap on the brake pedal and back onto the power set the car up for the bends. So it was back to 85/90 mph. Needless to say I was a bit frazzled when I arrived in Esperance. A drive of 916k in a car made in 1956 at those speeds is a tiring experience.

The next day was an easy drive through the wheat fields to the new home at Albany, a day ahead of schedule. Would I do it again? "You bet!" Would I take the dog next time? "Only if I can teach her to read a map." Will I be changing to an alternator? - I have since purchased a new generator from the Register for $75.00 so why bother? The car sat in its new shed for two weeks then started on the button. We used 5 litres of oil on the trip (must fix that front crank seal) and gave up adding up the petrol in Broken Hill but the consumption was around 27 mpg.