Leaderboard

Because im lazy.. and havnt made any updates in 8 months or so.. its close but still got a bit left to do. ill fill in the blanks when i get time.. image by matt postle, on Flickr image[1] by matt postle, on Flickr image[2] by matt postle, on Flickr image[4] by matt postle, on Flickr image[3] by matt postle, on Flickr image[5] by matt postle, on Flickr

Weekend just gone took it out again. no drama's with tyres leaking or falling off. was a good day. mate took a few pictures. mate brought his suzuki beater along (previous owner rolled it) and tried to use it as a submarine the hiway maker

Hi all. I have just started a full restoration of my MK 1 GT 2 Door Cortina. Currently it is fully stripped and with Greg at Custom Metal Shapers. All the exterior paint has been stripped and it is very rust free for one of these. Unfortunately it was restored in the early 80's after I suspect it had a frontal and as a result the front rails and inner guards are a bit ugly. It would really annoy me every time I opened the bonnet knowing what was there so the front rails and inner guards are going to be replaced. The exterior will be finished as per the original Dragoon Red and all completely standard. Ditto the black interior apart from a Les Leston woodrim wheel. Running gear will be all standard precrossflow with period modifications. Engine is a Throbnozzle Racing pre crossflow running the standard 28/36 Webber with jetting to suit. Gearbox is fitted with a 2000E gear set and Ali bell housing, tailshaft and remote housing. Diff is 3.7 in an Ali Nose. Shocks all round are adjustable Spax. Wheels are going to be BRM 4 spokes from the 60/70's. Aiming to have it on the road October 2016

Have taken this out a few times. Got the front bead lockers on for the first day. the 2nd pair hadn't arrived. plus they wont fit over the rear brakes. Tyres seem to seat on the inner bead real easy. Turns out they also fell off real easy. only about 10mins in one went flat. put more air in this time. then later in the day the one on other side fell off the bead. Inner beads were too loose and burping air, then tyres just go flat of fall off. after some googling. it seemed to be a problem with some tyres rather than the rims. but my tyres in particular didnt get mentioned. after measuring the china steels. vs the beadlocks the china spec rims were at least a few mm bigger than the bead locks. so thinking the china wheels may have stretched the tyres if thats possible.. anyway, found all sorts of dodgy fixes. but ended up giving duct tape a jam. let them down to 4psi and tried to smash them off the rims in some ruts. seemed to hold fine?! parked up on side of rut, tyre folded up past rim lip, no leaks. seemed legit, so ready to take out again Grump. Also somewhere along the way cut the bottom off the gearbox x-member for more clearance doesn't hang down too bad now

A long overdue update. After many promises of the Holden will be next to be finished at the panel shop there has been big progress over the last couple of weeks. Trevor the owner of the shop has been doing most of the work and now 90% of the cutting and welding has been completed. Here is a couple of photos that really don't look that different from while ago. I guess the great thing is that when its finished I know that all the rust is gone and it will be fill with fish oil so it wont be coming back any time soon.

So I refitted the frost/drain plugs and filled the block with a radiator flush treatment to see if that made any difference. Left it in half an hr then drained it thru the sieve again, then popped plugs and hit it with the water blaster... Blasted every passage in as many directions as possible, and got quite a bit of gunk out. The white bits were stuff that accumulated in the old alloy intake manifold after it sat for years... Looked much better after that... I know they're not perfect and it should be properly cleaned, but I'm trying to just do the top end, and I have see far worse than these, so we'll see how it goes. Dried out passages with air and the crappy prelim stuff is done - should be ready to pull the heads off next... Just needed to order the wife and No 1 daughter to push the old girl away for the night... I did help by mowing the bit of shaggy lawn they had to push it over...

I've probably painted my nails more than you have yours, farm girl.

Wheels rebuilt, cheers NZmoped for the new rims!

So short story : Test driving after fresh wof Week before Leadfoot CHOICE Drove Palmy Tues night fine.... Back to Dvk she lets go all water via split in the Radiator I had been monitoring (below temp sensor so I assume nothing to measure = very little warning) STINK Take the Day off work Wednesday head over to see Graham Ekins (Avenger/Humber club spares Guru $25 for new Head & Intake/Exhaust Gaskets Drop Rad off at A & D Radiators on Cook Street as per recommendations quote for $300 Head off Wed Night Head back on Thurs night / new oil filter Radiator ready Fri morning Install 11am Leave for Leadfoot 1pm DVK via Vinegar Hill (not testing fresh setup over Napier : Taupo's its 3hrs to Taupo either way we go from here) 808 miles @ 3500 rpms / 1300km Back to Dvk 10pm Monday Night mostly trouble free motoring SO STOKED car literally turns heads, and gets comments wherever we stop they are like Belly Buttons, everyone has had one or knows someone with one! only issue was a sticking caliper, was grinding metal / changed pads in the carpark at Leadfoot, made the last half hour into Whitianga interesting Fri Night will do a massive post with a dump of pics from the weekends adventures & a list of people to thank & congratulate, now to count costs & see if there's any money left for my Nat's entry

So, time for an update. Canterbury Champs has been and gone, managed a respectable 8th equal from 29 cars. Reliability was the key there, although I wasn't without my own dramas. Have chewed through a clutch, broken a input shaft flange off the gearbox - snapped the dowel holding the throwout bearing, then the braided line and made one hell of a mess. Missed one meeting due to parts availability but managed some extra racing last weekend. Good to get some laps in - however I was battling a miss-fire all night which meant the car speed was down. - To be fair the car still had the same spark plugs, leads and coil pack from when I pulled it from the road car 3 years ago! I've also been struggling with the linkages on the shifter. Finally managed to track down a used Ford Prefect 100e shifter already modified to suit (this involves turning the gearbox on its side - which the Walford bellhousing has the capacity for this anyway. Instantly worked better, but I have had some problems with the throwout bearing from the prior disaster.. (O rings were destroyed, fittings were damaged) Missed one meeting due to parts availability but managed some extra racing last weekend. Good to get some laps in - however I was battling a miss-fire all night which meant the car speed was down. - To be fair the car still had the same spark plugs, leads and coil pack from when I pulled it from the road car 3 years ago! Anyway ; I had bought quite some time ago a MSD lead kit from Craig @ Pro Parts - so set to making them up - took me maybe 1.5 hours to do, however they're certainly a much nicer finish and fit! - As seen, I've modified the position of the lever so it sits forward and well to the left of the steering wheel. V-d out the join where I welded it, then also sleeved it. I've since drilled the base so it picks up more points on the gearbox, and welded some gaps that were causing gear oil leaks.. Thanks to Tim, Blaine, Matt & Troy helping on the car when they can - all hands make it easier getting the car on the track each race and far less stressful!

Been awhile... last year. Oops. Had thought I had knackered the drive line before Christmas while transporting a baby grand piano... went in for WOF when I came back for holiday and it's only universal joints. Winning right there. Still have the V8 and that plan is potentially still on the cards. Issue is these things are actually starting to get rare... I dare say probably worth more in original spec than being hacked up all for a bit more power... and grin factor... very much on the fence at this stage. Currently running in totally awesome surf mode. That's all for now...

Found our old BMX in my sister's garage this weekend. I have a wee niece now and have been looking for a new bike project so here goes. These wheels are so pooozed. Some sweet stickers I'd like to get re-done. Definitely going to re-do the two frame pads, maybe have one which has my niece's name on it. Undecided if I want to keep the same style/graphic or think of something else. Gave some of the bits a wee scrub - comes up okayish but will probably just get them re-done. I'll never forget the guys face when I got my first bike sandblasted and I gave him a whole bike's worth of nuts, washers and my chrome bits on a big wire to get dipped. Or the guys at EDL when I took in a bag of mixed nuts to get new ones... I have the majority of it now dismantled, except the pedals - that can be tomorrow's job. Will try have a go at sandblasting it this weekend all things going well.

Makara You say..... Cool! what car to take. IE not the VW

so i finished sanding the roof last night so i will drop it off this arvo. ive left a little bit on the pillar so he can match it up. dropping my old clutch off to get rebuilt today at waikato clutch and brake.

So in preparation for the changes to come, I removed the Inlet, CIS etc.. What surprised me however was the amount of Vacuum lines the car had, and then the amount that were broken, T'd off or rooted, certainly wouldn't have been helping when I was trying to get it running.. Rob has drawn a manifold up, and when time allows we'll do the first trial fit.. Amazing how much roomier it looks now! Discuss; http://oldschool.co....ith-added-moss/

So, I hacked the guards up as I wasn't happy with the fit.. Used my original TF left front guard and that is fitting really quite nicely indeed now. Chevette guard on the drivers side, also the side that bore the brunt of the impact took me awhile longer however.. Properly bolted on this time, rather than just sitting on like last time. Bolted the halfs in place then welded slowly.. Discussion: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15434

These are sweet! you need a jet engine

Looks great from 5m

It's only been 3 months of no progress, whoops. Oh well, back into it now. Decided against trying to make it out of round tubing so just used some 30x30x2mm RHS as it's much easier. More updates over the next couple of days hopefully.

Time for a bit of a update; Welded the head plate, fish plates for chassis rails. Got green sheeted, had to tweak & alter a few things, lengthened the driveshaft. Took it out to a local black track for a run in, stopped, turned and seemed to go well, so rather than pull in and check I just went for it, went really rather well indeed. Made a few alterations after the test day.. Changed the diff head, radiator hose setup & fuel hoses. Near complete chassis Carby, Breather Setup Roof plate welded, hot work welding 10mm plate! Went to Woodford Glen for my first meeting in the car, had a fantastic bunch of people helping with the car which made for a stress free night, didnt have to worry about a thing. Proud to display RO Jones on the car, fantastic Job Scott & the team did painting the body, bonnet & dash! Stands out supremely well!! 33 cars fronted for the the night, I started all of them off the rear of the grid as I wanted to stay out of the way, whilst I get to grips with the car without pin balling around. First race went well in the fact I finished the race, 21st (22 finished), but the gearing was all wrong. Race 2 we put the RR onto the LR and the largest tyre I had onto the RR (225/75r15), instantly shaving 1.5 second off my best lap time from the race prior. Finishing 13th Race 3 we made no changes however the track was very slick and lots of people were spinning up. No faster this race, but managed 10th from the rear. Have a few changes to make again, and will try something with the rear end, but overall it handled well. Driver just needs to get up to scratch a little - more consistent. Big thank you to all involved who have helped along the way, advice, parts, time or materials. Thanks to the crew that came and gave a helping hand; Tim, Caitlyn, Crystal & Matt. - All made for a stress free first night. A few tweaks to be done, but overall very happy with the car finishing 3 from 3 races. Started them all off the back and went forward so that's a bonus! Especially big thanks to the Read & Blyth family's for their generous support throughout building the car. RO Jones for the painting of the Body, bonnet, Dash. Fast Blast - sandblasting wheels, components, advice, help in time & materials also Mag & Turbo of course for being on board right from the start, wheels, tyres

Manufacturers plate had the chassis number. Never saw a car without one in all my years doing WOFs in the early 90s From memory VIN plates only came out in the early to mid 90s. When Jap Imports started getting really popular. Edit - I just re-read your question, re-reg was not a big deal as you just used the original chassis plate number and remember that continuous vehicle registration was not a thing. I think vehicles only fell off the system after 3 years or something and you didn't have to backpay reg if you forgot for a couple of years.

my first stockcar weighed in a 1499KG with 2l in the tank my second car was 1440KG. third car was 1485KG and I never got to weigh the one I built, but I know they had to add in some extra steel to up the KG.. im pretty stoked youve finished it.. the Reads are pretty helpful ae.. I had their 2nd chassis

Do you want to build a snowman race car? Also a while back I also had an exhaust leak where the manifold met the exhaust, leaky seal. It was a bitch to get off and even more off a bitch to get back on, with me using a seal that doesn't actually belong on the car.

Tell me how much of a fool i am. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/46071-mighty-joes-english-duo-cortina-67-triumph-74/

have been keeping an eye on this. Awesome work man! Can't wait to see it in paint

With the wof in hand I set out with a bunch of other Niva owners for a trip around Molesworth Station After 450km of mixed road and easy gravel I had chewed through almost 2 tanks of gas, not optimum and should have done that on a single tank! so today I pulled the carb and checked a few details Even thought the carb I got off Azzurro has the book jetting, its larger than the original single of the same dimensions. I've now swapped the original jets in and hope that improves the fuel consumption.

Inside , Outside and underneath blasted Almost ready to be epoxy primed

Roof party!

Big 3 day weekend. Netting, drip edge flashings, paper and corrugated iron all done. Pretty stoked with that.

So thanks to a lovely chap at the swap meet this weekend I got a free Cortina bootlock which is the same as an escort WINNNNN The lock had no key which was no problem for me as I want to use my escort key How to make your key fit other locks FIrst I pulled the tumbler out and then inserted my key, holding one side of the tumbler you should see prongs protruding, all you basically do is grind those flat so no prongs are protruding, the old key can still open the lock aswell as your key good to know =P. Simply put back together test with key until perfect sorted, this can be done with any barrel tumbler lock. If you want diagrams or more indepthh I can do so

Then while I had space in the shed, I thought I'd mount the engine on a stand and tackle the stuck drain plugs... First one was textbook, welded on a large nut, and the heat and something to grip let me twist it out no bother. Fuck I'm good (I thought)... The other one however was a right crunt. Welded nut after nut onto it, and the metal of the plug kept fracturing as I tried to take it out... Tried upping the current for more penetration but it seemed the plug metal was pretty brittle... When there was fuck-all to weld to I ended up grinding it flat and punching it to try to drill it out... Drilled it through (fuckin hard stuff, whatever it was) and upped the drill size till I could try an ezy-out. I've had mixed results with these, so hit it with more heat to try to avoid snapping the hardened tool... But still no go. Ended up drilling it right out and tapping it inwards with a centre punch to crack the thread... and finally got the fucker... So here's me at the puter now having a well deserved dram... and yes, that bottle's empty so just cracked an Ardmore single malt...

I have been spreading the 'good word' about the monthly meet. Hopefully we'll have a few cars/people who have not been there in a long while.

Great success. The Valiant wiper motor I picked up for $30 was a Lucas Australia job too, and the magnets were in tip top condition. Just slid them out of their retaining clips and into the casing of my unit. The Mopar job was similar to what I am doing, no pesky pump mechanism, just a pressed steel cover over the plastic driving gear... I wasn't sure how the magnets were aligned (north south) so just colour coded a small magnet and aligned them the same way round to the cracked remnants in my case... And a good cleanup and lick of aluminium engine paint tidied it up. Won't know it works till I get the battery back in but looks ok... You can get repo factory style washer bottles with pumps too so should have a better than new system...

20th march alexander road hillclimb by wellington car club keep an eye on seabright motorsport for when the regs come out to enter pls dolan tell me your taking the id racing

3.5 months? sit in drivers seat. turn key. seriously. it's not a 10 year hiatus. just don't give it revs until it has oil pressure.

Old springs are back on. Likely won't cut springs or try wheel spacers because cutting springs is dodgey and spacers need to be certed and that costs money. On another note, my dad has a Simca now too, he may or may not make a thread:

Il sign that pic of me if you want Horsey.

The chassis is now fully welded. It is so much stronger now, hardly twists at all. This is the design I've come up with so far. I was thinking of using 1.25 inch round tubing and getting it all cut out on the tube laser we have at work. It will be double layer like the last image, so there's room for the exhaust etc to go through. In-between will be hoops for the drive shaft as well. Does it sound like a good idea?

Cut up some plates to fit up to the front crossmember, drilled some holes for the bolts that the front end mounts with. Close-tacked all along the top and down the joins, just need to tack along the bottom. Then I can start the long process of tig welding it all together.

Not very much has happened recently, but now hopefully back into it. Most of that time was spent trying to figure out how to clamp the chassis down so it is all straight before welding on the boxing plates. Decided to make some trestle like things that are bolted to the floor, then put some spacers in between them and the chassis to get it all level. Chassis is then welded to the trestles to hold it in place. Managed to get most of it within 0.1 of a degree. So I'm hoping it comes out quite good. (Probably better than it was from factory anyway) Will bring the boxing right up to the front crossmember, just need to do some cutting to get the plates fitting. Thinking we might need to close-tack it all together, then fully weld the top and at least tack the new crossmembers in, so it can then be flipped to weld underneath of the boxing. That should then hold it all together without twisting too much, I hope.

Setting it to 4 didn't help, have ordered the white faced one I posted above. Talked to the seller and was assured it will work fine of a single cyl 2 stroke, fingers crossed! No tank as yet, but have made some little bits of progress. We drilled the stock master cylinder out from 19mm to 7/8" on the mill art work, is tons of meat to do it, but it was very tight to get the drill between the mount bolts! Made a little bracket and mounted the hall effect sensor for the speedo, new one takes the same sensor so figured I might as well get it mounted now. Discovered the steerer tube on the fork is hollow, so the hall effect wiring can be routed through the fork. Also brought a pair of clamp on mirror mounts, going to use them to mount the speedo and possibly brackets to hold the indicators, prototype (read quick hack) bracket makes me think it'll work nicely! Also been drawing up my idea for my loom in the ultimate design program that is MSPaint Using a bridge rectifier and a capacitor to convert the normally AC headlight power to DC for the light I've got coming.

Aliexpress lights seem all good! There only on loose to have a look at them, but should work nicely! And decided to try get the exhaust sorted finally, so took the pipe and engine down to Pit Stop (not that many places open on a Saturday). The chick there quoted "$100 to $150" for the 2 welds, I put my engine back in the car and bid her good day! Found a place in the subdivision where a guy was welding up a logging truck exhaust in the yard, so I stopped and asked him about it, 15 minutes later it was all tig'd up Asked him how much, "if you've got $10 in you wallet it's $10, otherwise free", as I didn't have any cash on me I went and got him a box of beer which he was rather happy with lol. Showed him my fuel tank when I dropped the beer off, reckons "it's fucked and not worth fucking with" But then said it'd take him 30min to draw up one on the computer and fuck all time to weld it and as he's got a pile of 1mm stainless sheet left over from a job, so I'm getting a computer designed, water jet cut, SS tank for next to nothing!!

Pulled the cab off the chassis today. Flipped the chassis upside down so I can finish welding the c-notch. Once that's done it can probably go to get sandblasted. Heaps of room under the bonnet for a supercharger

I understand it depends on the year of the vehicle? Mine's a '72 and it's cool with nothing*. *yet to be tested come compliance day but this is what I read from the WOF requirements.

Got the front end centred and straight (hopefully). Made some mounts for it and tacked them on. Unsure whether to TIG or MIG them on. Opinions? Also had some air bag mounting plates laser cut at work. Going to weld the 3mm plates to the front end and then just bolt the 5mm ones to the bag, which then bolts up to the front end. Then to try and figure out how to setup the rear suspension.

So the cars been coming along good, all the interior is back in and it passed a wof for the first time in a year and a half. I got all the lights fixed and working before it went in so it only failed for a front wheel bearing and the horn wasn't working. Just had to plug the horn in and grease up the wheel bearing. Easiest wof it's had and it's awesome being able to drive it fully legit. This was the light that caused the most problems I painted all the interior parts with this texture paint before after Carpet going in All the seats, original condition All of the windows are in now as well. They needed quite a bit of adjusting since its pillar less. There really good now as they close up nice and there's hardly no wind noise. Really happy with how it came up. Big thanks to our good mate Ben from Reel Flooring for installing the carpet and my dad for all the work he has put into it. Now that its back on the road i'll have to take some good pictures for the next update.

More progress! Got the top fully welded on now, chassis cut out and the bottom partially tacked. We are thinking of putting the airbags on the outside of the chassis, since they would be pretty close together if they're on the inside. Like the pic below, except the top bag mount will be about an inch or so lower.

Detroit Diesel 6V71 pls

Small update, bought a vw golf front chin spoiler from the uk and trimmed it up to fit the TA.. IMG_1701 by postlematt, on Flickr Had to mock it up multiple times to get it sitting right, plenty of trimming but the fact is plastic made it pretty east to cut and file etc.. IMG_1704 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1722 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1720 by postlematt, on Flickr got my dad to cnc up some new rear caliper brackets, a lot easier to machine up to suit the hilux diff compared to the original t series ta22 diff! IMG_1730 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1735 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1738 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1740 by postlematt, on Flickr //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38745-matt-spitfires-ta22-daily-driver-buildresto/page-4

More parts arrived today, some old some new.. New alloy radiator and inner/outer steering ball joints arrived from Aus, got them sent to my mate in Vic and she sent them on to me along with a set of bonnet hinges and bonnet stay. IMG_1609 by postlematt, on Flickr Also a twin side draft throttle linkage set up and some used uni filters that ill give a clean up, linkage was made for dellortos but should be pretty straight forward to make them fit my Mikuni Solex. IMG_1592 by postlematt, on Flickr Radiator has a couple of bent fins from shipping but checked it and holds water sweet. IMG_1613 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1612 by postlematt, on Flickr