Leroy and I arrived a little bit late at Charlie Frew’s premises on Sunday morning 10th November for the Shadow training by Andrew Gibson. All the folk present, which included David Hughes, Alastair Duke, Barry Murphy, Mike Eames, Andrew Gibson, Charlie Frew, Paul Thomas and Bruce Webster were already conversing and eating bacon and egg rolls and drinking coffees supplied by Charlie and Pam. Once we arrived, Andrew Gibson got his hands dirty in Charlie’s Corniche which was already on the hoist. He showed us all sorts of things including how, if neoprene padding was used in the subframe, that it could split the sub-frame because it was too hard. Also, up to six litres of water could collect in a free space at the front of the car behind the front bumper.

Next up was Alastair’s beautiful 1978 SSII. We learnt about how to adjust the height of the springs and how to add shims so that your wheel would have the proper spacing from the wheel arch. Andrew explained the Shadow II had a plastic rear bumper and that it sometimes may bubble up because there was piece of metal inside that

may be rusting. We heard about ensuring the foam in the front ventilation space on the bonnet was in good order otherwise leaves would accumulate in the space underneath and cause all sorts of problems. We discussed restoring the wood work on the car doors and how it needed padding, otherwise the car doors could rattle as you drive.

Quite interesting was the discussion on replacing the boot rubbers. Michael Eames had to make his own plastic rubber scraper device so it didn’t damage the paintwork and Andrew Gibson said you can get that sort of device at Bunnings now. It is a complex job. The most important thing is removing the rubber properly and then sticking it back with some special glue 30cm at a time.

While we were there, Andrew wanted to jack up Alastair’s car to look at something but Charlie’s jack wasn’t working. Charlie negotiated with David Hughes to fix the jack for $10 but David said he would buy the jack for $5. In the end the deal was that David would fix the jack for $2.50. Hope you got your money David!

The last car of the day for inspection was Barry Murphy’s stunning 1975 SS. Andrew was impressed by how clean Barry’s brake calipers were. However we were able to still get some dirt on Barry. Andrew stuck his fingers into all sorts of nooks and crannies and found his differential breather hole was full of dirt and blocked and that can cause all sort of issues. He managed to clean it and then with a small mirror and lighting he showed us how sparkling it was after the clean-up.

I think I can say we all had a splendid time. We spent about 4 hours with Andrew going through the ins and outs of Shadows. Thank you very much to Charlie Frew and his business, CODE for supplying the premises and breakfast. And a big thank you to Andrew Gibson for sharing his wealth of knowledge with us. Looking forward to the Spirit training day in February 2020! Anderson Leong

Photos and text: Anderson Leong