The trip down was pretty cruisy, we hummed along at 90 - 100 km/hour and made it from home to Napier in about 3.5 hours from memory. Beautiful day with the sun shining on us all the way down
Got to Brendan's house about lunchtime and chatted for a while before hooking up the 610 and going on our way.
The trip was going really well until we got to the massive hills just outside of Napier on the way to Taupo. Coming down one of the hills the brakes on the Holden got pretty hot and things got a little scary for a few seconds but we managed to pull up on the side and let them cool down.
Once we got moving again we got as far as the next really big set of hills before another thing went wrong: We were a fair way up the hill when the Holden backfired and then cut out...no engine running
Luckily we were in a passing lane so we could sit in the left lane and cars could get past us. Thought that the engine might have overheated but the gauge seemed fine. She wouldn't start again so now we were stuck on the road in the damn hot sun.
A cop turned up pretty soon and said that since we were parked there if we couldn't move it in the next half-hour he would have to call a tow-truck at our expense. Fair call. He left to come check on us later.
Decided to try move the Holden using the Datsun
The A-Frame was still all connected so decided to push the Holden up the hill; Fired up the 180B and rode the shit out of the clutch to get the big Holden moving. Managed to push a Holden Commodore 500 m up a steep as hill to a rest area
Once there we arranged to have Mum come and rescue the Holden with the car trailer. At this stage after the Datsun's champion effort I decided to try driving it all the way home
While waiting for the tow to arrive we tried to get the Holden going but nothing worked.
Got on the road again as it was getting dark with another 4 hours at least of driving to go (since we couldn't go fast with car trailer). Turns out there were no number plate lights on the 610 but oh well, she'll be right
Sure it had a miss under load and no fluid in the rear brake line at all, but the car just wanted too make it. Made it all the way to Taupo without too much trouble (almost stopped on a hill but managed to ride 1st gear all the way to the top
).Ripped the top off the air filer and that seemed to help
From Taupo back to Kawerau it was a long trip in the dark following the car trailer but the Datsun seemed to drive better with every passing kilometer
What a legend.Made it back home at 12.30 PM. Not a bad effort for a car that had sat in a barn for something like 13 years and had only been started a couple of times in the last year
Subsequently I've really grown to like the little blue beast
Just goes to show how reliable and awesome a Datsun really is.
