Leaderboard

Right, time to dirty up that nice clean engine bay by pulling out that poor excuse of a L200 radiator. But first, in lieu of having a proper engine flushing machine, let us chuck some snake oil into the cooling system and drive around for a bit. I'm expecting to cop a bit of flak for doing this, but to be fair I've heard nothing but good things about Philm-Off, and I guess every little bit helps when you're dealing with a 28 year old cooling system (and you're not entirely sure of its history). It's a bit unsettling that it has the consistency and appearance of iodine though. That's a brand new radiator cap, by the way. Fast forward a couple of weeks. ~800 miles of driving later the Philm-Off's done its thing, and the radiator is ready to be drained. Begone. With the L200 radiator out, the task of constructing the breakout loom for the standard radiator fan begins. What's happened here is that the standard loom's been chopped and unceremoniously crimped to fit an aftermarket plug. Fortunately the GSR-V radiator I bought came with the original plug and a bit of wire, so I'll be able to make it work and still maintain some semblance of "factory-ness". Apparently it's already been done, but I might as well replace the thermostat and coolant temp sender again, since it only takes 5 minutes to do on the RWD G63B. Now if only it was that simple on my other cars... I searched around Aliexpress for another male plug to make the breakout loom with, and mjrstar managed to point me in the right direction, but I really couldn't be bothered waiting six weeks for the part to turn up (not to mention there was still the chance it wouldn't have the correct keying). So I did the slightly ghetto thing, and chopped the plug off the existing wiring for the aftermarket fans. Breakout loom, done. Made easier by the fact the GSR-V plug wire colours matched the factory loom. With the old radiator gone, time to roll the car out and run the hose through the engine to get rid of all the old excess coolant and other gross things the Philm-Off may have reacted with, like bits of headgasket. Haha, only kidding. This was also the perfect opportunity to refit the original A/C condenser in its spot just in front of the radiator, because I'll eventually have the air conditioning overhauled and re-gassed. All of the factory bits were supplied with the purchase of the car, which was nice. But I can sense you all thinking, "you've already got cooling issues, you silly sausage... why the fuck would you block the passage of airflow to the radiator even more?" Because I'm a grumpy old bugger who appreciates crisp, cool air on a humid summer's day, that's why. Right, everything's back in place, there's fresh coolant in the system, and all the hose clamps are tightened back up... let's see if the factory cooling fan engages. This is where I hope my calculations were correct in that the Japanese GSR-V has the same wiring as the NZ-new EX. Bravo. Went for a drive, the system seems to have bled up alright, the needle sits at a sensible point on the gauge, and the amount of fan hysteresis is much smaller, meaning that temperature is being regulated a lot better now (and dropping out of the "hot" zone quickly once it gets there). Whereas the aftermarket fans would previously flick on, then remain on indefinitely while the temperature continued to climb. The real test will be driving it to work tomorrow in rush hour traffic. If everything comes up Milhouse, then I can proceed to the next challenge of getting the secondary A/C fan to work. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54171-ted-huangs-starorion-0r10ns-1988-mitsuhishi-starion/

Drive to work day

horsepower? no,no. not 400 horsepower. 400 killerwasps.

Some good quality stainless steel mufflers and a 2.5" stainless exhaust is now on the car. Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 (1285) by Richard Opie, on Flickr Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1300 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Will put some more up later, Brendan did a great job.

Pretty excited to get these on the car!!!! tyre choice is gonna be interesting

So has been a busy month for the Impala. Had been meaning to take the ITB's off and balance them on the bench as well as service the injectors. Whipped them off and did that, found the idle screws and been locktighted shut so might explain a bit of a funny idle, Also got injectors serviced which turned out to have 3 a bit chocked up which may explain a couple of things also! While i had the intake off we thought we would do the valve stem seals as i had a set and some new head gaskets lying around, Whipped the heads off got them faced, got some LS7 lifters and new head bolts and put back together. Went to start and it was smoking out one bank, turns out one of the injectors got stuck wide open and was pissing fuel out the exhaust, Got another set of injectors which turned out to be off a later LS1 and 240cc instead off 300cc -.- cant bloody win. Anyways have chucked them back in and car is running and best it ever has. Mates wiring in a Link ECU this weekend and its off for a dyno tune at DTech next Monday so that should cross off all the motor work and have her 100% for summer!! Couple of pics below: Weekend just gone went hard with Mr Midnight Upholstery and finally got around to doing my boot upholstery how i always intended. Real happy with the result, just got some polished hard lines for the airbags to go in and its complete! Sharn down here //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/34313-the-westpala/page-10

Friday took the day off and painted it... prob should have posted this before the last post but meh!

Hako makes it's first official public outing. I was asked by one of the organisers of a car show if I could bring the Skyline out to have on a Nissan stand. So I agreed. It's crazy to see the size difference between old and new.. everything has just become so much bigger.

Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1317 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Flare from header to 2.5" pipe Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1315 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Braced to gearbox after join to header. Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1289 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Then it doorts off down the middle of the car. Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1307 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Resonator all snugged up beneath the factory heatshield. Project_KP61_4AGE_2016 -1318 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Looking down the guts (yes the driveshaft is going to fit!).

done about 650ks in it now and its going really well. I've got a dyno day booked for this friday, keen.

So the vw broke again.... lol Nah the inner clutch cable tube I dodgy welded on about a year ago snapped the weld and made the clutch a prick to deal with so I jacked it up and realised the cable. Took the bendy hose out and put the inner Rod back into its correct location and welded it all up again. With a gasles welder again. Hoping it will hold another year. Also the rear is way to high now so will get around to lowering it another inch before the weekend which is stragglers. Kinda brought another body again... so I gotta hide that some how. Mr West was kind enough to bring back a Rotary adapter plate back from ozz for me so I think il just build another bug out of the spare parts I have.

Took car for a wof.. clean sheet !! Although I did fix what it had failed for back in April when I took it for a wof.. which it failed and sat in the garage for 6 months. Anyway gave it good clean n polish and brought some rego so pretty much all set for drag day ! Need to sort a throttle cable issue out. Install my eletric ignition and eletric tacho. but no big deal and take it back to carb specialist as since I've removed all the emission stuff it seems to be running rich. Bring it on ! I picked up my 18rg exhaust manifold from autobend today. You can see how close it is to the sr20det. It's out 4/5mm per port over 278mm Didn't really like the old plastic gearstick/sterio surround so got another rubber and mounted it direct to carpet looks alot tidier in my opinion going to run a Bluetooth amp so don't need a sterio. Gave her a good polish too. How she currently sits. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/42444-matteybeans-1978-rt104-corona/page-3#entry1783849 Cheers

Got it back Friday arvo. Took it for a run around the Bombays and then Hamilton during the weekend. Aint no slug now. A quick wash & chrome polish today. Decided to throw on the tridents to see what they look like. Needs lowing, but atleast the rear sticks to the road now with the 245s.

New collector. No change from the steep angle merge. I done a run open header and come away with about 50% hearing loss. Also interestingly it made it worse almost everywhere, compared with the exhaust on Might try smaller diameter collector or "choke" point after the merge. but the 38mm extractors have the same 2.5" collector an they work. So thinking the 44.5mm primary's are just too big even with the stepped runners. Still looking like going back to the 38mm's is going to be best. the massive loss below 6000rpm, isn't really worth the small gains up top. (i need to swap back to the 38's to confirm this)

Bog, lots and lots of bog. most of which ended up here. and then I hung the bonnet up so I could paint both sides at once, great plan! made painting the nose of the hood interesting wit it only inches off the ground.

Just bought a factory thermostat myself, ain't got time for the Tridon shuffle you put the tridon part in, you take the tridon part out you put the tridon part in and shake your fist all about

Picked up the diff and front disc brakes out of a ms112 crown ready to go in to the ms51

The world's worst kept secret is out: After years of pining, I finally went full retard and bought a Starion. To be honest, it wasn't even supposed to be this way. Only last weekend I'd lined up a nice, modern, comfortable, and fiendishly fast 2008 Mazdaspeed Axela to purchase as my new daily driver, having owned one before and knowing exactly what to expect in terms of ownership, tractability and reliability. Sunday was supposed to be the day of the full and final transaction, and I wasn't looking back in any great hurry. THEN... over dinner with friends on Saturday night, while idly browsing Trademe, one of them came across a fresh listing for this here thing. They showed me the ad, I rolled my eyes and chuckled, and told them in no uncertain terms that I'd already decided on the Axela and I didn't really have space, nor the extra folding, to also buy a Starion, and a NZ new one at that (not even a lush Japanese imported one). "But the price!" they exclaimed. "You'd be stupid not to at least take a look!" As with most pressing matters, I slept on it. The next morning, because I wasn't realistically able to get hold of Phil, I called my other Mitsubishi foamer friend Ant (but not without first posting it on OS Trademe finds... ) as I'd decided that taking a look would be the wisest thing to do after watching the price of Starions climb and climb in Japan over the last 5 years. Secretly I hoped that by tagging along with a person who knew '80s Mitsis somewhat well, he could point out all of the bad stuff wrong with the car, and steer me away from buying it. Trouble is, there wasn't actually all that much bad stuff for Ant to point out. In fact the good stuff outweighed the bad by about 20 to 1... and it didn't even blow any blue smoke! So as you can tell by the mere fact you're reading this post, I let gut instinct take over, and purchased the Starion. It's a 1988 NZ new, Euro spec narrowbody EX model. From what I can tell that means it's got the 175ps intercooled 8-valve G63B and super tall 3.5:1 LSD diff, and has a full black leather interior (more on that below). Speedo is in miles and it's only done 52,000 of them, which was one thing that swayed me towards buying it. The key differences between this and the Jap model 8-valve GSRs are the interior (leather didn't seem to make an appearance except in the very early GSR-X models, and never in black, only in blue/tan/maroon), the large TC06 turbo, and the 3.5:1 rear diff, which is obviously geared - no pun intended - towards top-speed Autobahn cruising. Jap ones have a more usable 3.9:1 diff and smaller TC05 which I can only guess makes them more responsive down low. The previous owners have definitely taken great care of the car, and I hope to continue that tradition as well as they have. The last owner, Mike, replaced the clutch and cambelt, and rebuilt the turbo. What can I say about that interior? It's totally ribbed for her pleasure, smells like the 1980s, and wouldn't look out of place in the cockpit of a starfighter spaceship. It's a shame there's no digital dash to top it all off, though! Full photo album here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskEhDhXk Time will tell whether I eventually flick this Starion on to try and fund the importation of a proper Japanese DASH-powered GSR-V narrowbody, or just hang on to it and continue blocking out of my mind the fact it's NZ new, which wreaks havoc with my OCD something chronic. But to be honest, that's the irrational side of me talking... because in hindsight if I'd ignored this one locally, I don't think I would have another opportunity to buy one at a realistic price ever again. Especially when you consider that genuine GSR-Vs are now fetching upwards of $25k in Japan. The car yard wasn't fazed when I called them to cancel the deal on the Axela - luckily I hadn't decided to pay a deposit on it. On the flip side I'm still annoyed at myself because I said I wouldn't buy any more garbage '80s cars and I'm still left with the glaringly obvious conundrum of not actually owning a suitable daily driver! Guess I'm dailying the Starion then. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54171-ted-huangs-starorion-0r10ns-1988-mitsuhishi-starion/

man I always wondered what these were. thought they were just like a vac damper type setup

maybe check the tree tops and high up in the lamp posts for crumpled blue celicas.

Looked at pipe clearances before bolting things up properly and header is touching the bash plate bar... Surprisingly a 4lb club adjuster didn't fix it, so trimmed a little off the end, angling it for better clearance of side cover. Got a few mm clearance now... And I was trying not to paint anything, but the donor battery box was a bit scody so decided to clean the rust off and chuck some epoxy on it. And since I was doing that thought I'd try painting the spare red plastics, mainly cos 70's orange & grey looks sweet. Just reshaped the melted airbox with a heat gun and scuffed them up... Really rough colour match as just mixed grey and black durepox to an approximate shade. Hopefully the pox will stick to the different plastics ok... and... probably the worst paint job in the world. I'm a shit painter anyway, but (excuses) the gun blocked, a gasket blew on compressor half way thru, I ran out of reducer, was pressed for time and it was raining. I'm telling myself it won't matter as this is a cheap shitta, but I'm thinking of rubbing it down and redoing it properly, cos embarrassing... Hope the first coat sticks.

I'm shocked (shocked I tell you!) that you are putting Tridon parts in - no source for genuine JDM versions?

Looking sharp man! Forgot I had this pic, spotted out cruising last summer

im more interested in making torque and making it early tbh. the turbo is to small for this motor now but i can't afford to do anything about that at the moment, down the track it'll get a more suitable hairdryer, but for now i have to use the one i have. i think the turbo will limit it to below 400 but we'll see on friday.

I found a few hours for this over the weekend and tacked the rear end together. I'm very pleased with it. I do however want to move the chain stays out a little to give me more room for a wider tyre, it has plenty of room before it is too close to the chain wheel.

Had a sand and clean up then sprayed etch primer around the traps. Including the valence and the front crossmember parts Welded those bits into place And the sill panel. Still need to finish the new bit of guard, but its nearly there. Next thing is to fill the gaps here, should be fairly easy as it's a flat area with flanges. Also need to replace the end bits that connect to the inner guards. I need to get some top coat paint for these bits, will probably get the Resene Lucite LC 400 as I don't fancy breathing isocyanates.

I am quite happy to say that I have managed to get quite a bit of work finished on this little wagon. With the evenings being brighter and warmer and having a new dose of enthusiasm I have spent more time on it and its been fun. So where was I last update. Lets start with the doors. I knew they had rust but not too bad and in places that’s easy to get to. I have been putting off repairing them so now is the time after having just finished the last few bits on the tailgate (hatch..) Luckily the rust was mainly on the outer skin wrapping over the inner strengthening panels that the hinges are welded to. I cut it away and let in some nice new thick sheet. I actually ground back the welds afterwards because it it made sense to have it all finished properly in a place that is hard to get to once the doors are back on. Plus the seals, speaking of which I will need to get some decent second hand ones with the originals having fallen apart, will need a good smooth surface to squash against. There was minimal rust along the inner bottom of one door and they fixed up well. Really glad they are in good condition otherwise with minimal dents on the outside (just dented enough I say..) While I was working on them I also had one of those ‘expecting it to be a arse but it was actually easy’ moments when I had to remove a broken screw from a window winder stub. The screw was small, broken unevenly and I sure that Id not be able to drill it central enough. But I did, it worked and I was happy.. With the doors repaired and the repairs painted over I put them aside and started on the wiring. I enjoy wiring and have always planned to tidy all the original stuff up. I got carried away and its now pretty well hidden from view. I added some extra wires for the fan etc and decided to run the main loom out of sight via a hole I added in the tunnel. The original bulkhead grommet worked perfectly. Once I started hiding things I got even more carried away. I disliked the look of the fan wires running externally along the top of the bulkhead so they were carefully re-routed then back through the heater box and through another added hole. The main loom sorted back through inside the car and I was happy with it all. So onto the heater hoses. First I fitted them as per original. Oh dear. No, no ,no.. this will not suffice !… Damn they are ugly hoses, just running over the engine like an afterthought, looking like a scaled up version of a badly designed Lego tecnics kit with poorly scaled pneumatics. Nup. No sir..I don’t like it! So I rummaged through my always handy supply of random hoses and found a few Mazda items that will help in my quest for neatness, a Toyota bottom hose and a ideal tee piece. I also found a heater pipe from the Crysler Northstar quadcam V8 I have been gifted (another story…). Still not enough pieces to complete my puzzle. Back to the wreckers then… I love going to wreckers, especially when they let you roam about by yourself and get your own bits, a rare thing these days with so many OSH rules. Luckily Hannah enjoys it too because she was along for this sortee. We found a variety of hoses from a Datsun something, a Mitsubishi Mirage, a Honda Shuttle and also scored an ideal inline heater valve from said Honda. A few hose clips and other handy bits. All this for $10 free image uploading Back home and I assembled my scavenged findings together and came up with a design. I cut that steel pipe down, welded on a bracket so it mounts onto the carb support bracket beneath the carb. Chopped the excess bits off the heater valve and mounted that in the original place using various bends from my even more awesome stash of bends. Added the Tee into the Toyota bottom pipe. It worked out fine except for one thing.. the heater valve works backwards. Hot is cold and vice versa. Luckily my other Viva, with its Chevette sourced heater valve is exactly the same. So no confusion for us.. just everyone else.. After finishing them I noticed my exhaust was not yet connected to the manifold. Then I discovered holes. Bugger! So old towels out to protect things and I carefully welded in some repairs. I am a bit upset in that the blobby welds might well restrict things and lose me a pony or two. However I shall learn to deal with this. Then on to the breather and brake servo hoses. I have decent PCV valve to use and some pipe now. But nothing matches. Out with my stock of alloy bits and I worked out a plan using my 1/8th bsp taps. I machined up an adaptor and it worked a treat. Finished and mounted.. With that lot finished and looking a lot neater it was now it was time to sort out the throttle pedal to carb interface system. I am using a HC Viva floor mounted pedal like in Viva one. The original top mounted pedal system uses rods and is..ugly. I copied the design of cable clamp and pedal mount from Viva one. Noted how much cable pull was offered by the pedal. Did some maths and worked out the diameter of pully needed. Then I machined up a pulley from a lump of alloy on the trusty old, leaky, English lathe. Made a new cable bracket and used some old bike barrel adjuster. It was an easy enough job but just time and I’m glad its done. Cable clamp so the nipple will go at pulley end for neatness... Measure cable pull.. Pedal mounts here on new base... A leaky (because English made) old but trustworthy lathe and a lump of alloy.. A new pulley.. I wont mount it yet as some wiring to do for the starter solenoid yet to be done. But I’m not far from firing the little 1159cc block of fury up and I’m quite excited. Here's a photo of the new hose layout. I'm much happier with it and it was worth the hassle... Back soon

Bit of CAD on a T57 front spring hanger.

Opened the bonnet for the first time in close to a fortnight to begin the unenviable task of pulling the L200 radiator out in order to fit the legit Starion one. Then I noticed this... A small puddle of coolant, perfectly in line with the bottom radiator hose. Could the three hose clamps around the electric fan sensor housing be loose? "Nah, no bloody way could it be that simple," I found myself muttering. But then discovered that the pipe was indeed also covered in coolant. As it turns out, I ended up spending the next 20 minutes tightening every single hose clamp on the car. Intake piping, radiator, oil return feeds, vacuum lines... they were all loose. In light of this new finding, I'm going to fit all these fresh new service-related parts instead. I'll give the L200 radiator a short stay of execution until after I've taken the car for another drive to see where the temperature sits with all the hose clamps now tightened up. The engine bay is meticulously tidy, but a typical 1980s nightmare of piping, wiring, vacuum lines and other strange gubbins. At least the radiator is well isolated and easy to get to! Discuss: http://oldschool.co....uhishi-starion/

Does anyone else think this logo looks uncomfortably similar to a certain famous movie franchise set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"? Picked up the spare Starion radiator from the shop yesterday morning ready to go. It was 70% sludged up, and had a bunch of badly bent cooling fins, but cleaned up quite well and the guys even re-attached the mounting bracket running down the middle. Here it is all shiny with the OEM fans. This will help greatly when I get around to re-fitting the factory air conditioning - the smaller fan on the left is controlled by the HVAC system and engages with the A/C compressor. Trevor French Radiators - look them up, they do a good jerb. I failed to get a photo of the Skyline one but it was even more impressively clean. I should probably throw these fucked tyres in the garbage, and refurbish the standard 5-stud narrowbody wheels. As if I didn't already have a thousand other things to do Also, if people paid more attention to the caution label back in the day, we probably wouldn't have all the old barrys today still whinging "mayte, those turbo Jappas mayte, they're god damn unreliable pieces of junk, mayte. Get a FORD/HOLDEN mayte," before jumping into their Great Wall utes and peeling off in a plume of oil smoke. Finally, to round out this blabbering update of not much usefulness, here's a neat little time capsule of NZDM goodness that the previous owner generously included with the purchase of the car: the factory MMNZ first aid kit. I showed it to Ant and he reckons it's from 1989, as the logo on the top post-dates the Todd era. The kit comes complete with these glorious late '80s versions of Pamol and "Curity" brand bandage tape, along with a bunch of bandages, plasters and other triage-related items, all similarly decades-old and a bit dog-eared. One of the previous owners must have had the lurgy (or a hangover) at some point, because one of the capsules is gone The rest of the packet is still there, but given the expiry date on the side it's most likely all turned toxic by now, so I doubt anyone will want some to cure their headache in any great hurry! I'll inventorize the contents of the kit and pop down to St. John to have it all updated. If we assume a five-year expiry on all the items in the kit then the 1989 production date makes sense. Wow, this newfangled phone of mine actually takes a decent shot. Too used to shitty budget phones with potato quality output! (compare the photo in the second post above) Now that I've got the radiator back, and daylight savings has kicked in, the plan for this coming week is to spend time in the shed after work doing some investigation on the cooling system. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54171-ted-huangs-starorion-0r10ns-1988-mitsuhishi-starion/

Dropped the second half on with no drama. So its all bolted up now and ready to go to the foundry at the end of the week. Nailed it Thats like 1000hrs work right there!

For those not on FB heres tonights post, Proper photos and engine bay/interior to come but for now: Talk some shit! //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/34313-the-westpala/page-7

Right now? It's languishing in the garage a bit, next step is to sort the gearbox crossmember to meet cert requirements, and get the driveshaft shortened, new UJ's and balanced.

Hope it goes well, I will inspect the local intersections for tell tail 11's on Friday evening as proof of your success.

yea use escort rustle, or cage ze german

could you stack them in series to make 4x 5 seconds = 20 second delay?

that would be up to the CoC at each event, tho I would say you might get away with it at a couple as 'perceived risk' is low click on the link to go to the Engine Room Automotive Sprint Series and ask there, Pete will have a better idea than me https://www.facebook.com/groups/709848852487437/permalink/785183428287312/

man you dont muck about do ya bro! Shitty situation with the destruction of the motor, but ka pai on the new motor being ready to go so soon!

Fuck yeah Grinta! Good shit man super happy for ya!

jolly good show old chap, looks lovely.

So yesterday i tacked the rear mudguard mount on that id bent up during the week. To bend the round bar i just used my cheap pipe bender. I was surprised at how good it came out. When i was at work i bent each side to get the right distance to the bungs that I'd drilled and tapped to the dropouts. when i got home to mount it it looked like shit, it looked too bulky. When i bent the legs at work i bent them too far down. so to straighten them i put one leg in the vice and it seemed to do a decent, tried the other one and.... I didnt really expect much else from it to be honest. So I went out to my shed at Tuahiwi and used my shop press which did a better job. I shouldve waited to use that but i got a little impatient. Here it is just tacked together. I'll fully weld it up at work or when i have some spare time at home. I also made a little brake rod thing to attach it to the brake pedal. Before I'd just threaded the end and bent it and kept tit on with a couple of nuts and washers. It was just temporary until i could figure another way of doing it, So i made this.

Right, so this happened then this Even managed to get it insured...... So yeah all done, well not really still needs an interior and some paint touchups but that can wait, its now time to put some kms on it, this has been a pretty long project so now all I am going to do is enjoy driving it. Pretty funny car to drive gets a fair few looks some good some not so good and mostly surprised, gas mileage is so bad, like next level bad, I took it out today and my average was about 4.4kms per liter but it is running really rich (yeah that'll be it, not the rotary under the bonnet ha ha), anyway combine that with the 30l Anglia tank and I am going to be spending some time at the gas station for sure! The biggest problem that I will have now is keeping it under 5000RPM (so hard to do when all it wants to do is rev....) for the next 1000kms which is what the engine builder recommended, work is about a 30km round trip so I only have to do that 34 times and at current gas milage it will only cost me about $500 ha ha ha Anyway it's all good And I will leave this as the last shot, and in my opinion the best angle of the car

Yeah well. I made these stays and had them all ready to weld on, they looked great. Until I realized I'd completely fucked up and put the bend too far forward and it wasn't going to clear the crank or chain wheel. I sulked about it for a few weeks, ordered some more tube, made a couple of changes to the bender I'd made, and started again. Here's what I have now. This time! I also managed to borrow a pair of original Assassin handle bars to make a copy of. Mint!

Progress, not far off kicking it over... Looks like a shitta but has good bits like new bearings, tyres, brakes, cables, stainless bolts... And cheap zorst looks like it'll work, have to check clearances of plastic bits... And seat cover finished, plus new grips, levers, blinkers etc, pretty much hard work is done... Sort electrics, set carb, clutch etc and fill with fluids should be good for a ride...

Since I paid $400 for the bike I didn't want to spend $200 on an exhaust system, so considered a thumpstar header pipe from tardme worth a punt ($27 delivered)... It had a different flange mounting system so I scribed around it 10mm from the welded end... Cut around it with a teeny dremel cutoff disc, and levered it off... And (after redrilling the wonky flange clamp holes) it fits. Fitted some stainless studs with brass nuts while I was at it... And spun a couple of brass plumbing fittings into an adapter to the 38mm Aliexpress muffler ($36 delivered). Left some thread grooves on just for effect... And looks like it'll work. Just need to mount muffler clamp on a standoff... Less than $70 all up, great success...

So Friday was a pretty massive day in the life of the 64! Took her back to Hamilton, Neal fitted my Cert plate, took it back to the VIN inspector and got the minor items ticked off and a WOF issued! 4 Years and 2 months after buying shes legal to be on the road! First job after this was to head in to town and meet up with Kenny in his latest acquisition (Thunderbird) and Nick (In his freshly juiced Buick) for a beer at Little George. Shot of us parked up on Hood St Friday Afternoon. Still a few little bits and pieces to do and what not but we were able to spend the weekend cruising to the mount and clocking up some miles! Shot off the deck having a beer on Sat night! Yarns down here http://oldschool.co....westpala/page-9

Been talking a bit with the guy that owns the Hamilton car museum. He bought the T57 from the Baillon collection in France. His engine is essentially the same as what im building. Hes given me access to any parts I want when hes got it in bits. To copy and 3D scan etc. So Ive got some pretty cool parts sitting around the living room now. The sump is a beast First ali bit cast! Right hand cam gear cover. Using a David 3D light scanner. Sort of useful to help with drawing in CAD More 3D printed moulds. Perfect for part this big with this detail. Would of taken me days to machine it. Still have to do a lot of sanding and paint to get a good finish. Playing with different filter runner designs. Think im getting a better idea of how to do it. 2016 on the left and 1938 on the right! 70hours from start to finish. But only bout 3 hours to make another one. So I plan to make atleast 3 of each part.

Decided to start with making the cylinder block first. These are photos from a guy in Germany with a genuine engine and also an old sectioned one. He needs a new block himself so he is doing everything he can to help. The Bugatti way of doing things was a bit different when it comes to the engine. The block is also the cylinder head so there is no headgasket!

Had a go at some of the easier dents, with only a claw hammer and lumps of metal for a dolly I've surprised myself with my first efforts, a mate has offered his hammer and dolly set so can't wait to get my hands on that! Before: After: I managed to use a strip of ply to pop the worse out, my bits of scrap metal don't quite fit in there! The plan will be once I have the dolly set to then shape it further, also has a small hole from the kink at the top, will have to weld that up. And another spot I should have got a before shot of, but was pretty bad. Check the gap between the gaurd and the rear panel, all over the car seams are pretty dodge, the lack of precision is a crack up, but its all part of the charm! Introducing Lilu, she enjoys helping me out, mostly by lazing in the sun on my spare niva rims If any panel beaters out there are keen for a beer or two, feel free to pop over, youtube isn't quite interactive enough!

yeah the 5 speeds came out in datsun b310 sunnys so are behind a14's and a15's. $300-500 is still the going price of box and engine (seperately) as mentioned above. A15's came out in c20 and some c22 nissan vanettes as well but the 5 speeds in these are different to the car gearboxes