So if you have been following along, you’ll know that a while ago I was driving home in Oscar my Pajero and one of the wheels fell off. 

That did a bit of damage but I was able to put him back together again. I had been planning to replace his wheels and tyres anyway, but this was a good encouragement.

So now Oscar is sporting new tyres and brilliant white sunraysia-style wheels.

White sunnies are a pretty retro look these days, which is probably why I like it so much.

   

This is Oscar with his original Pajero rims.

 

And again with his lovely new wheels.

Now I just need to fix some of the million other issues with him….

Ever have one of those days where everything seems to be going fine and then the wheels fall off?

 

Well, Oscar (the Pajero) and I had a bit of excitement on Saturday night. Coming back from Burnie doing 100kms, when one wheel decided it wanted to go on it’s own adventure.

I’d felt some shaking and thought it was a wheel bearing – but apparently it was actually just a loose wheel. In hindsight it was obvious, but that’s hindsight for you.

So suddenly with only 3 wheels attached, I had a bit of a wild ride. All things considered though, Oscar was very well behaved considering he was missing a wheel, and I was able to pull over without any major incident.

The guy behind me saw sparks go everywhere and pulled up behind me. I think he thought I was doing a runner, as soon as I’d stopped moving I jumped out and ran down the road to catch the runaway wheel before someone else ran into it.

I rang Turkey to come and pick me up (I wasn’t far out of Burnie) and waited for the RACT to come and collect poor Oscar. He wasn’t going anywhere on his own.

   

My RACT membership comes with 15kms of free towing, so Oscar was dragged back to Burnie and dumped in Turkey’s driveway.

Turkey then very kindly ran me home to Devonport and my other car.

 

Conveniently being a long weekend, I managed to get back to Burnie in the morning to check the damage in daylight.

 

The brake rotor has been flat-spotted, and the studs have been bent or entirely sheered off.

 

The bottom of the ball-joint should have a nut – but it’s all been entirely vaporised.

 

This is the other wheel, with the nut that should have been there.

So with some idea of what I’d destroyed, I headed to my mate’s place in Deloraine to steal a wheel off a donor car he was wrecking.

 

And then it was back to Burnie to set up a temporary shed to protect me from the rain. Turkey’s shed isn’t quite ready for occupation yet, but we could have used it – except with only three wheels there wasn’t a way to get Oscar from the driveway over the gravelpit into the shed.

It was miserable weather, but the gazebo kept most of it off while I got a replacement wheel assembly installed. It’s probably half an hour’s work for a competent mechanic – took me all day.

But Oscar has 4 wheels again. The replacement is not finished – I wouldn’t drive it any distance like it is, but he’s mobile enough that I can put him on a trailer to bring back to my place now.

So, that was my excitement for the long weekend.

So from there it progressed from the original idea of just messing with it - to actually doing some repairs on his much loved, but rather sad Pajero.

So we relocated the Pajero to my shed and got to work.

You'll note that Wes's first reaction is to look at the exhaust - it sounds soo much better now!

Also - to explain the random salad in the video. Tom and I did a Maccas run for desserts and the other guys texted us what they wanted. Jason just said to "grab him whatever" which is an especially dangerous thing to say to me - so he ended up with a Caesar Salad and Ice-cream.

Oh, and Jason edited the video together - so blame the music on him.

 

One of my mates was getting married in Sydney, so I was booking accomodation and a hire car, when I realised that the hire place had Mustangs available!

So of course, I took an extra couple of days leave and went to Sydney early to explore a bit behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang!

Oh, and to celebrate Wes and Lauren's wedding too...

 

 

So – my exhibit at Brickvention 2019 wasn’t quite at the level of my Stormtroopers from last year (which I just realised I didn't even blog about!), but there’s a reason (or at least and excuse).

Turns out that the application to exhibit were due months earlier this year, and somehow I’d missed the notifications. In fact, it was only because a friend happened to mention that the already extended deadline had just expired that I knew anything about it.

My application went in the day after it closed – and thanks to the unexpected rush, I didn’t have any of my ideas ready to go. 

When you exhibit at Brickvention you need to apply with details of your exhibit so they know how much space you’ll need, and if it will fit the show etc (and to make sure there aren’t too many duplicates etc).

So the only thing I had done any work on at that point was a Fabuland display. So that’s what I applied to exhibit – and it was accepted.

Now, Fabuland was a theme from the 80s that lasted about 10 years, and had animal characters instead of mnifigs, and was aimed at younger kids. The pieces were generally larger, so the builds were easy. It’s the same approach that Lego uses today in the Juniors/4+ range.

   

Anyway, a while back one of our local exhibitors decided to show some Fabuland at a show in Hobart. So I knocked up the above pub diorama to go with it. I enjoyed the mix of the extremely kid friendly figures with the more adult setting of a pub.

Edward the Elephant was the star of a TV series that accompanied the original Fabuland theme, so I made him a bar tender at Eddie’s Bar, which was a Hustle reference (which I think no one ever got).

I also had a group of dogs playing cards in homage to a famous paining (of dogs playing cards).

And the racoon happens to only have one arm – so he was playing the pokies.

That was the original build, it was just a small diorama but I enjoyed it, so had been toying with the idea of a bigger display.

The original idea was that this Fabuland city would be after the economy had collapsed. So I was going to have a Centrelink office with a queue going in, and a smaller queue going out into the pokies at the local pub.

The bank was going to be boarded up and closed, while next door a loan shark would be operating.

There was going to be more crime, depression, and I was going for the feeling of a town where the money has dried up.

That was the initial plan anyway – but once I started building, the character of the Fabuland minifigs ended up swaying me away from that. There are still quite a few elements, but it’s might lighter than I’d originally intended.

 

There’s still a queue waiting at the Centrelink office (the sticker on the window is hard to read). 

 

But the poor overworked bulldog inside is doing his best to help his clients.

 

Next door to Centrelink is Pork Chop’s butchery.

 

This was just my sense of humour with a pig running a butchery.

 

I’d always intended for there to be a bikie gang in town – and it ended up being populated by Fabuland birds. I thought of them as Hell’s Avians.

 

I also enjoyed mixing Fabuland figures with more recent animals.

 

A rabbit family. The joke here is pretty obvious.

 

Another hang-over from the earlier idea, this racoon is carryingn spray paints to tag buildings, while the police are driving around in a comical scooter with one riding in the tray. 

 

The loan shark still made it into this version – although the closed bank did not. In addition to his collection of wares to peddle, Max the rat also has a full sized mounted shark in his store.

 

Eddie’s Bar also returned – this time as a much expanded part of the display.

 

The bar is much more detailed, but basically the same as my original version.

 

And the dogs playing cards was basically lifted from one to the other.

 

There were a number of booths with people enjoying a drink, and I was quite happy with the way this small pool table came out.

 

And of course, the pub still has the pokies.

 

I had built the timber frame to transport it all and was expecting to just varnish it – but my awesome sister volunteered to paint it, which really transformed the model. Thanks heaps Em!

Compared to some of my other displays (particularly last year) this was a very basic and rather boring display – but it still got a decent amount of love from the visitors. Kids enjoyed the animals and the stories in the display (glad I toned it down) while some of the adults remembered them from their childhood.

It also turns out that 2019 is the 40th anniversary of the release of Fabuland – so it was rather appropriate.

Hopefully next year I’ll be a bit better prepared.