My latest find - a vintage roof rack

I've spent a lot of time looking for a roof rack that would fit my Daihatsu. Seen a few that would have been almost what I wanted. Not the perfect style, size or price. I was just about to give up, thinking I would have to try and build it myself. Then I found it, the perfect roof rack. And it was orange - my fave color! One problem though, it was located way down south, in Kalmar and that's a 5 hour drive with a modern car. That means something like 6 hours for me.

So I hesitated for a couple of days. But it was quite obvious that this was it, the perfect roof rack! So I spent more than 11 hours in my little bumpy and noisy truck to bring it home.
Was it worth the trouble? OH YES!!! It's just perfect. Love it!

Interestingly it had never been used and the brackets where wrapped in newspaper dating from 1965!
It's quite possible that it was originally made for the national telephone agency here in Sweden - "Televerket". All their vehicles had that bright orange color.

Spacers - Getting a wider stance

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It's been way to quiet on this blog for a while now but here's something new.
My wheels have what you call a "high ET". That means that the center of the rim is not placed in the centerline of the wheel, it's placed a bit outward. This has caused some problems. The rear tires have been real close to the leaf springs and during hard turns it actually rubbed against them - not good.
Also, the front wheels has been rubbing the inside of the tires against the top mount of the shock absorbers.

Finally got me a Hi-Lift jack

In case you didn't know, a Hi-Lift is a super clever tool for lifting, tightening and pulling all sorts of things but it's mostly used to lift tall vehicles, like off road trucks and tractors and such.

The Hi-Lift's predecessor was invented as early as 1905 and it was called the Automatic Combination Tool. The original jack was commonly known as the Handyman or Sheepherder's Jack, and years later it was renamed the Hi-Lift Jack.
The design has pretty much remained the same since 1921 since there's no need to change it - now that's good engineering!
You can read all about it here: www.hi-lift.com/company/

I've been wanting a Hi-Lift jack for some time now since my standard hydraulic jack just doesn't match the height of my Daihatsu Taft. I used to build a stack of bricks and stumps of wood to get a proper reach - rather frustrating (and plain stupid).

I wasn't to keen on getting a brand new Hi-Lift since they're not cheap over here in Sweden and I didn't want it all new and shiny. I bought this second hand from a nice guy in Sigtuna. I got a good deal on it and he even threw in a restoration kit and a brand new mounting bracket - Thanks!

It's real tall so there's no way I can keep it inside the truck. One idea was to clamp it to my front bumper, horizontally. But the jack is taller than my truck is wide!
I decided to mount it on the rear left door instead.

I thought I would have to drill new holes but I soon found out that it would work just fine if I used the bolts on the hinges.