34 replies to this topic

[Yowzer]

Finally got meself an oldschool car, a '72 MS65, and so far don't have much to report on it haha.

At the moment I'm just doin the basics, suspension, exaust, soundsystem and whatnot. Woulda just stayed with the cutties, however I'm not too keen on gettin pink stickered for it...

Also just purchased a 7m-ge and all the bits to go with it, which I'll swap into the crown sometime in the near future. Probably wack a blower to the side too .

Pics of everything soon, most of you woulda seen the car before anyway.

Discuss stuff: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=10407

[Yowzer]

Photos!!





Mean as eyelids!!

[Yowzer]

Had some trouble starting the bugger today (Read; Would Not Fucking Start!), so checked the sparkplugs, dizzy cap and HT leads, and discoverd that they all sucked. Chucked in some new sparkies and she fired up right away.

Got the suspension sorted last week so it's a tad more legal, and alot more comfortable. Tis only slightly higher in the back, but that should sink down a bit. Tomorrow, exaust work!

I'm also gonna rock up to aucks later this week I think, to pick up a new engine/box (7M-GE) and all the EFI crap from a cresida, so if anyone feels like comin on a roadtrip n givin me a hand with that, that would be awesome.

[Yowzer]

Done a ton of work on soundsystem install, however one of the fucks I'm related to lost the camera so I havent got any progress photos. Ghey.

Soundsystem consists of Infinity 5-1/4" and 6-1/2" Kappa componant speakers (Front & Rear), Alpine PDX-4.150 and MRD-M1005 amps, Soundstream 0-guage wiring kit, and whatever the fuck Flippy's flash Pioneer headunit is.

= $5,200
Sounds fucking mean.

Problems however, the speaker pods need a bit of trimming down to stop interfeering with the doors as the drivers side door can't close properly. Bigger problem is the alternator can't keep up with the power draw of the amps, so the whole fucking car dies when the volume's cranked up and sucks the last drops of juice from the battery while cruisin through town...

Got a few things to complete before nats, such as carpet the pods, stick in new parcel tray for rear speakers, find better alternator and battery and chuck them in, fix the boot leak, bolt the subs down, fix the trans fluid leak, tune the engine up a tad, and maybe try n fix the clock...
May wack an alarm in there too.

Photos to come if I ever find the camera

[Yowzer]

Wooo nats ruled!!
Didn't manage to fix the trans fluid leak in time, but meh, nothing broke. Finally got the camera back, but as I've pretty much finished the soundsystem there aint many interesting photos.

Drivers side speaker pod with red vinyl (Fucking hard to put on and get it looking good)


Passenger pod, not covered


Ratty as sub/amp install




Speakers that will go in the back



Random pic of dash guages. Reset the odo in Cambridge on the convoy to nats on thursday night. Cranked out 512 miles (824km) and spent over $250 on gas in 3 days


Water in the boot. Not cool boes


RUST!!!


Broke fuel cap cover


7M-GE that will one day reside in the car for a while


SC14 supercharger that will soon reside on the side of the 4M


Random pro shot


Thats shit for now, will update when I've done something significant.

Cheers boes

[Yowzer]

This post has no relevance anymore. It was once about a steering wheel. I need a new steering wheel.

[Yowzer]

[Yowzer]

Ripped the back window out. Don't like what I found.

At least 3 different types of gunk holding it in




Silicone & Rust. A tasty snack for any time of day



WTF is this shit?




Screwdriver holsters come factory standard?




Used to be metal here once apon a time. Water got trapped under all the silicone/gunk and ate it all away.


Some things you're much happier not knowing about.

[Yowzer]

Well the crown completely shat itself, so progress on the avenger is gonna speed up 10 fold till I figure what I'm gonna do engine-wise. Will post a damage report at some stage after I get the bastard back home.

Brief details are BANG, oil slick, not go.

[Yowzer]

Well anyway, after forever and a day, I finally got the car back together and running. On 4 of the 6 cylinders anyway.

So now I have to rip the engine apart again and replace the fucking head gasket

Shits never easy.

[Yowzer]

Haha ok, 3 months later and I finally took the head off. Fuck motivation. Fuck it hard.

Anyway heres some pics of todays efforts.

Epically blow'd up gasket



My decapitated underwater 4M



And some other crap in my garage





Yep, so gonna get the head checked out before I chuck it back on. The head off my old 4M had a big crack discovered in it when I got it pressure tested, so I now have a hefty alloy paperweight. An expensive, alloy paperweight. Pressure testing ain't cheap.

[Yowzer]

Finally got my head back today, its all nice and clean and unbent now.


And now, a few hard out hours later it's back on the engine. IT WORKS!!! WOOOO!! It only took me, uh, 9 months? Fuck I'm useless, but it finally runs again!


I haven't slept in 24 hours and I feel like complete crap, but at least the car goes. Tomorrow I gotta stick the bonnet back on and then take it in to get another muffler installed (stupid fucking volume restrictions ). And then hopefully it'll pass a wof. It also needs a hell of a good clean.

[Yowzer]

Yeap, well, the head gasket ain't sealing properly and she's losing compression from cyl. 4 into the water gallery. Fucksake. At least she made the Napier trip without too much problem (aside from drinking millions of water). So when I can be bothered the head will come off again so I can sus the problem. I've also gotta modify the new carbie and throttle linkage to fit as well.
I really need to clear the shit out of my garage so I can start on the 5m-ge

[Yowzer]

Ripped the head off, put head back on, filled with chemiweld, cars running sweet.

Anyhoo I decided to give it a polish up. Found that at some stage in the past someone had given it a touchup in a slightly different shade of.. uh.. whatever colour it is.
Polish cut though the thin areas nice and quick, leaving a big line where the paint got thicker.



Pretty gay, and I can't afford a paint job anytime soon. Also now that it's a bit shinier, ya can really see how warpy the panels are. Oh well.

On the plus side, I have some brand new carpets
Got this too

[Yowzer]

Engine conversion is currently under way. No pics due to no camera.

[Yowzer]

Mmmkay... Bit of an update on what I have(n't) been doing over the last few weeks.

The 4m = not good due to the head problem, so that is now out and contaminating my driveway. In its place is now a 5mge that I found in a spare MX73.
The initial goal was to have the car running by new years (a time frame of 3 days), and we actually got a fair bit done. Started removing the engine from the cressy at 10pm, had it out by 4am. up at 8am to remove the engine and everything from the crown. Worked till around 2am getting everything we needed ready. Up again at 8 the next day to swap everything over from the 4m to the 5m (sump, oil pump etc). After day 2 however we ran into a kickdown cable problem and gave up, knowing we wouldn't complete it in time and the car remained sitting for ages with no engine collecting dust.
This week I finally sorted the cable and got the engine in, so heres some pics for your enjoyment.


Donor Waka


Frontless Crown



5MGE hanging from a rope


My rangi kickdown link made from the ecu mount


And the engine finally in the car.

Soooo... Still gotta plug everything in on it, sort the wiring, sort the fuel system, sort the cooling, replace the cam belt, and most likely something else I've overlooked. Yay.

[Yowzer]

Progress is progressing. I've been saying this every week for the past month, but the car should be up and running by the end of the week.

Various bits I've had to do is modify the alternator pulley to fit my Bosch alternator on, hunt down a longer fan belt to fit it (why the the fuck does it need a 7 ribbed belt???), sus out the shitload of wires and narrow it down to the ones I need, find places to mount all the electrics and so on and so forth (too hot to type, get off my back!)

Got a new accelerator cable made up, ideally it could have been a few cm longer but too bad


Surge tank and fuel pump (yet to be installed)



And I got this...


Yep, a 6 pack of Brakleen and 8 cokes. Hows that for a wacked out pack?


Back to the car
The heater hose was a bit of a bastard to pipe up, so I had to find some elbow bends (took me ages to find a place that sold them). This is the result.


8 more places to leak from! Woohoo!


My rangitastic electrics mounted to the guard. I'm pretty confident I did it correctly, I'm just hoping the ECU agrees and doesn't mind that it's missing a few things.




The remains of my battery stand. It's kinda fucked, but it still supports the battery. For now anyway








So there it is so far. The engine and all its components are all together and wired / piped up. All that is needed now is a mount of the firewall for the accelerator cable and the rest of the fuel system piped up. The tank is in getting a return pipe welded in so hopefully I get that back soon.

As I said, she should be running by the weekend. Heres hoping nothing fucks up at the last minute

[Yowzer]

It's so close to completed I can smell it!

The fuel system is done, the tank is back in, headlights are on, the last of the electrics are sorted and the car is 99.6% complete.

Unfortunally, the last 0.4 % consists of a cracked thermostat housing and a cable mount. Oh well, there's still tomorrow. Still a few bits of trim / bumper that needs attaching too.




Cheap surge tank.


Yep, it's screwed to wood. Lushtastic MDF.


There it is, all piped up and ready to go. Just need fuel.

I decided to upgrade the lights as well, so got some Narva high/low beam semi sealed jobbies. 100W of light up in yo grill!!
Still need to upgrade the wiring for the lights though, as the factory shit was never designed for that wattage.


And the shitty tstat house. It took me ages to figure out why the fucker was leaking. Coulda had the car fired up tonight otherwise. (Except it still had no fuel)


Tomorrow is the day. Hope Repco has a housing in stock, and I need to find someone with a welder that I can borrow for 5 seconds to weld up my cable mount.
Then I can go for an exhaustless blat!

[Yowzer]

My rangi accelerator cable mount (made from an old boot lid)


ECU





So yeah, had an oil problem, the pump was leaking but that is now fixed. Car is complete. I epoxied the thermostat housing back together so it's all good as.

[Yowzer]

List of things to do, in no particular order.


[*:20lgpb93]half done - Quieten down the exhaust
[*:20lgpb93]Wheel alignment
[*:20lgpb93]Install power steering box
[*:20lgpb93]Improve front carpet.
[*:20lgpb93]Reupholster the rear seats
[*:20lgpb93]Panel work on all the minor dents / scrapes / rust patches
[*:20lgpb93]Replace missing side trim
[*:20lgpb93]Improve fuel system installation
[*:20lgpb93]Improve audio installation
[*:20lgpb93]Buff out all the scratches on the bootlid
[*:20lgpb93]Install a 4 speed transmission
[*:20lgpb93]Dynamat the interior
[*:20lgpb93]Respray
[*:20lgpb93]Replace shitty bushers with something better
[*:20lgpb93]Repair/replace/relocate battery mount
[*:20lgpb93]Make radiator shroud
[*:20lgpb93]Done - Repair dodgy battery earth terminal
[*:20lgpb93]Done - Install relay for highbeams (Installed HID High/lows)
[*:20lgpb93]Done - Repair/replace buggered fender mirror
[*:20lgpb93]Improve security on engine wiring
[*:20lgpb93]Upgrade central locking
[*:20lgpb93]Install alarm
Hmm.. gonna be busy over winter. Better get another car running in the meantime.