Cranky Handle Event Report 2002

The 12hp R&V is finally home after having been on display and running pretty much every day since the Canberra Rally back in mid March. I picked the engine up from the Royal Easter Show and Friday afternoon, dropped it home, and went to work. Saturday I got up before dawn, gave the engine a quick clean (in the dark) and headed north to Morpeth. Thankfully it is only a two hour trip so I was soon there, unloaded and had the R&V running. It is nice to take a reliable engine to shows [:)] (OK, for the pedants out there, yes the R&V does not always start first try but that is because the fool owner pours too much fuel in when priming it and floods the poor engine).

Yesterday the R&V ran from around 8.30am to 6.00pm only stopping when I got bored and decided to start it again (practice makes perfect). Saturday had almost a perfect sunset with the only sound being the 12hp and a 2hp running. Both engines running nice and slow with the occasional sharp bark as the 2hp fired or the dull bang of the big R&V echoing around the countryside.

Anyhow, back to the rally. Quite a good roll up of list members (I am expecting their own reports any day now) and a large turn out of engines and tractors. Very few big engines this year (the largest there being the 12hp R&V), a couple of smaller portable Hornsbys, a nice gas Crossley, and a White (of about 5hp, which arrived on Sunday morning). The White is a very nice engine and had me mesmerised for a while. It took a little while to work out what was bugging me, it runs the wrong way. It also has all the workings on the opposite side to normal practice. The big R&V and the White were sitting together at the end of the row and it was good to see the two big 'Yankee' engines putting the unreliable 'Pommy' engines to shame [;)] Edd brought the tiny Alma Jr. and was amazing people who had seen it only a few weeks ago when he picked it up. No one could believe it was running let alone running as sweetly as it does. A tribute to Edd's workmanship and his sheer, bloody-minded, obsession with getting it going [:)]

While the big engines were thin on the ground (could you believe a rally with NO Austral Oil engines in this part of the country) there was an interesting variety of small engines. While there was no Australs there was an interesting variety of Ronaldson-Tippett engines. There was a nice variety of D's and G's which are a little rarer and a bit more interesting than the old reliable N's.

There was also a few Hercules, a Gilson, as ever Listers galore, a vertical IHC famous, a small Ruston Hornsby side-shaft, Farm Pumpers, a New Way, Buzacotts, Southern-Cross, Sundials, a rare Sunduo running (weird sounding engine but very nice), Massey-Harris Type2, various lawn mowers and boat motors.

I am not normally interested in tractors but you had to be impressed with the variety and the close proximity of the tractors to the engines meant that I actually did have a look at them (an even take a picture). Have you ever noticed that while the engine people are all with their engines and willing to talk about them, the tractor people are not to be found unless the tractor is on the move?

I packed up and headed home relatively early (2.30pm) to try and beat the lunatic traffic heading back into Sydney of a Sunday afternoon. It was starting to build as I approached Sydney but my timing was perfect to miss the worst of it.

The R&V is now safely home after an extended time away. It will now get a good clean up and some general TLC before going into semi-retirement (it is getting a little overexposed, people will soon be saying "Here comes Patrick and that bl**y R&V again") in preparation for its trip to the National next year.

Another good weekend spent with nice engines and great people (oh yes, and fantastic weather).

Patrick M Livingstone
Leichhardt NSW
pml@bigpond.com
http://www.oldengine.org/members/pml/Index.html
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pml/