Alvin's news from Darwin - Terry Haughey's Javelin revealed
- Just an update after the Toowoomba Rally. You may recall that Sylvia and I were to spend some time with family at Warwick and then head back to South Aussie via Perth.
- We
have made it as far as Darwin so far, and have spent a couple of hours with Terry Haughey, a recently joined member of JCCA.
He
is currently putting his Javelin back on the road after 10 years of hibernation
with a view to selling it.
It
is a 1949 PB deluxe in very good condition. (It appears that the records say
that it is a PA but I have seen the chassis plate: E9 PB 6494). A cut and
polish would make it really nice. The engine is an E1 PC motor. He also has a
spare crankcase with no engine number on it. The spare is in very good
condition, and suffers none of the corrosion that we South Australians see a
lot of.
The
car is suffering from a lack of use and he currently has the radiator removed
for a thorough cleaning. The brakes have been refurbished, and condition of
motor will become more clear once the radiator is replaced and die car is run
on the road.
Terry
says that to his knowledge the car has always been shedded, and he is about to
sell his shed due to retirement and he has no place suitable to house it, and
for this reason he would like to sell to someone who will look after it (but
deep down he would like to keep it!)
We
were able to pass on some advice on running a Jowett (e.g. don't make the fan
belt too tight, and ensure that the cross pipes slide in each other, and the
master cylinder is free to move and not too rigid)
Sadly
he has lost the 'JAVELIN'
number plate. When he went
to re-register it he found that his rights had lapsed after 8 years and someone
else claimed it (possibly a Rambler Javelin owner), so the car is currently on
normal NT number plates.
Some
interesting things about the car:
The fan and horns have been chrome plated.
Indicators are incorporated in the rear
lights (red) and PC style front parking lights (clear) and the semaphores have
been removed and the holes filled.
There
have been seat belts at some stage but the bottom mounts have gone missing
The
seats have been re-upholstered and the picnic table holders on the rear of the
front seat have gone missing (but the picnic table is still on the back shelf)
As far as Terry knows there are two other Javelins in NT, both rotting away in a back yard in Katherine. He thinks his car has been in Darwin a very long time but I doubt if it was pre-Cyclone Tracey (1974). Barry Houston may know if it was, as he was working hard on his Jupiter in Darwin in 1980 when we were associated with him in our time in that capital.