A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of using my friend Justin Tan’s 1995 Toyota Comfort for a few days. This is the short-wheelbase version of what we know as the Crown Comfort. It is a commercial grade purpose-built fleet vehicle, and is unashamedly so. Justin’s car is an ex-driver-instructor car from Japan and has some subtle clues of its previous career such...
Today was the big annual British car show. For years, this show has been held at the Kings School. This year the show was at a new venue – Hawkesbury Showground. I’ve always regarded the annual British car show as the best car show on the Sydney calendar so I was curious how the new venue was going affect that. The Kings school had...
Earlier this month I went to the St Ives Auto Brunch Event. Unlike the August event, the weather was excellent and I didn’t make the mistake of getting there so early. I took my Jaguar E-Type this time. It was a lovely morning to drive a convertible. I spent more time talking to people I knew than taking photos, so I only snapped a...
Yesterday, I posted an update on my 240D showing how I had changed the petrol filters. A friend pointed out that my filter was full of algae. My 240D was from a deceased estate and it’s condition and mileage make me think it didn’t get a lot of use in recent years. Algae seems more prevalent in cars that have sat around for a...
Since I purchased my 240D, I had planned to use ‘Diesel Purge’ to clean the injectors and injection pump. The car runs well, but it is a bit rough at idle and I figured this would probably help. This was part of my plan to clean the fuel system for the entire car. I have a suspicion that the strainer in the bottom of...
Recently I had noticed the 560SEC running hotter than usual in traffic. This was during winter when it was quite cold outside. I suspected that the original viscous fan coupling was starting to fail. I was able to spin the fan quite easily just after I turned off the engine while it was hot. Back in 2020, I had a similar issue on...
The August night drive was a repeat of the southwest loop we did last year. On the night of the drive, the weather was pretty bad, so we only had a few people come on that drive. Since the route was really good, I put it on the schedule again for this year. After a cold winter, the day of the drive was unseasonably...
The show at Eastern Creek has long been a fixture in the classic car scene in Sydney. It is a great location for a big car event, with the track, grandstand and plenty of places to display the cars. I’ve been going for many years, and have always enjoyed the day. Displaying a car is worth it if you plan to go. Entry...
My 1981 Mercedes 240D still has the original Becker Europa 596 Radio. This is one of the last of the analogue radios before the cars moved to the digital radio with the Becker Grand prix 612. The main issue with the Becker is that it does not stay in tune. I’m constantly having to adjust it to stay on an FM station. In addition,...
I used to be a regular attendee at the St Ives Auto Brunch event. However, I had not been since September of last year. There are a few reasons for that. I’ve had quite a lot of work travel in the first half of this year, and due to the torrential rain in Sydney earlier this year, the event has been rained out quite...
Ever since we started the night drives in 2020, I’ve wanted to do a route going north from Wisemans Ferry. The issue was the poor road surface along Wisemans Ferry Road as it goes parallel with the Lower Hawkesbury. Some of the potholes were big enough to swallow up a W201. Given the lack of lighting it wasn’t really a suitable place for a...
Like all car clubs, MBCNSW has a lot of interesting cars that rarely get out to club events. The goal of the Chrome Bumper day was to try and entice a few of them out. The thinking was that an informal event that was fairly centrally located may be attractive for somebody who rarely takes out their older car. The event was held...
Recently the odometer stopped working on my 1987 560SEL, just before the car hit 340,000km. This is a pretty common problem on the W126. I had to repair both my old 300SE and my 560SEC. The issue is the small gears that turn the odometer. They are made of a very soft plastic and after 30+ years, the teeth break off. This repair is...
The June MBCNSW night drive brought back a route that we last used in October 2021. It was held one week later than normal since I was overseas last week. That was probably good from a weather point of view, as it apparently poured all week. Last night was somewhat better, with only scattered showers. The more inner city night drives can be...
For the last couple of days I have been driving the Chevy Malibu as my rental car. I last rented a Chevy Malibu back in 2018 and reviewed it. The car hasn’t fundamentally changed since 2018, but has gone through a facelift and some minor updates. It is scheduled to go out of production in November. The Malibu in its various generations has...
Last night was the MBCNSW May night drive. This drive was a little different to what we normally do. Instead of a longer drive on semi-rural twisty roads, this one was shorter and far closer to the city. The genesis of this drive came from remembering how peaceful it was up at North Head in the evening. The views back to the city and...
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