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Almost finished! Bores have cleaned up without any defects. Ports look a fraction off on some of the bores though so hopefully I can cut some valve seats that work! Not going to lie, its quite exciting!

Decided I didn't like it all jacked up in the bum, so got some 1.5" blocks to level it out. Much betterer

All sand blasted the new steel and ready for rear guards

Picked up rebuilt short block today, always get a bit depressed about my shed when I see a nice clean workshop... Will be wrapped for a while as I'm trying to sort out the piles of shit in my shed, working on knowing where my tools are and having clean working areas before I get back into it...

Is it wrong I want that engine for a weedeater of doom? /Nuts looking little scooter!

Just dumping a few of my projects from the last year on here. Most come under the category "pointless yet fun"... A mate I work with (civil engineer, genius who designs bridges) showed me this YouTube clip: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0 I couldn't help myself, so with a little bit of tinkering in the shed...3hrs later I whipped this bad boy up. I left it wrapped in gift wrap with a giant bow on his desk...he was blown away, which made me very happy. Yes, it is impossible to ride. Yes, guaranteed to make a total cock out of yourself, and yes pointless yet fun It got noticed and found its way onto TV3, which was cool. http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2016/03/riding-a-backwards-bike-should-be-easy-right.html Our next mission is to leave it in public places in the hope some shit bag tries to steel it...we'll be over the road in a pub watching the big fail - should be priceless! Kj

Probably great to have an officer of the law looking now that everyone's yarning about having no WOF and reg etc etc....

Hi all, New progress since last on here; I just bought a universal fuel pump to replace the mechanical Chrysler one she had as stock. Getting on with this build has been an interesting challenge; mostly due to my inexperience, the distance I have to drive out in the desert to where I store the car and the fact I work nights but I'm really keen to get her moving under her own power before I have to help my father move his stuff up to Oregon- once I get it sucking petrol from the tank like it's meant to I'm focusing on brakes next! Played with the electrics and half do work (Low beam lights, wipers, air con and the driver's side window) while the clock, radio antennae, radio, horn ring and turn signals are all taking a nap. Found that somebody disconnected the black ground wire on the L side horn *Has one hooter on each side of the engine bay behind the grille* so I wired it back up, put a little tape around it and... still no toot. Wish me luck haha >to be continued...

There are a few things in life that are never big enough...ummm yeah, well that too... But other than wishing I was hung like Dirk Digler, a mobile workbench was pretty high up on the list. Something to store tools in, be able to roll around, and assemble stuff on top of. But at around $4000 to buy one, it only left two options for someone like me...make one, or go without. So I'm making one: Collection of 3 draw filing cabinets. I cut about 60mm off the total height of each one. It would have been way to high otherwise. Some were also 4 draws, this didn't matter as I just cut them down to match the size of the others. Next was to mig weld all 5 cabinets together. I stich welded them around the edges. Then made up an angle iron base that it will sit in. 8 caster wheels were added to support the weight. Yes this is epic over engineering...but they are cheap, so I don't see any negatives in this. And paint time... Mounted on roller chassis. It wheels beautifully! All the casters are the type with brakes, so it can also be locked if you don't want it to move. Draws painted And assembled....Boom!!!! Pretty happy with it for the money. Basic cost breakdown: Filing cabinets off Trademe total $70 Caters x8 total $106 Steel $50 Paint $77 Grand total $303 Not bad considering the cost of anything remotely similar is $3000 - $4000. My brother makes kitchens, so the top is on order from his scrap pile. So it will be a freebie for me. But it's still very usable as it for now:-) Kj

I was 3rd car there, in the the Escort with no WOF, when the cops came straight over. Once I realised he was a car nut, I scraped the turd off the seat.

Some more photos Gemini Booster in place, note the not so deliberate mistake The mounting studs are not level. Bloody booster has to be rotated 18 degrees, yet another job that gets done twice. Here it is with the hinge down. During the shed raid Mr Vapour decided that he needed the VX commodore booster and master cylinder that I had got. I had the great plan of using an HQ PBR master. I thought they would be every where for not much money, not so. I'm going to have to go to Zebra parts to get another master cylinder, hopehully ther are still a couple of commodores there. Here is the diff with new mounts attached. Sorry Neal(threeonthetree), the yellow paint will be gone before this goes back under the car.

Shes a pretty big job. Been at the machine shop for a week. 1 more week to go! Casting is looking good. Yet to find any lumps of sand or porosity apparently!

Good evening Old Schoolers, I think it about time I posted this old thing on here. Firstly, some history. Last year I bid on this car on Trade Me. It was being disposed of by Turners along with a whole bunch of other stuff from a private car museum in Blenheim, some of you probably remember it. I have been pining for another Fiat 125 for many years now as my first car was a Teal green 1973 125 with high back seats. I copped a lot of flack from my high school peers at the time for driving a "Lada" Philistines... Anyhow, I did not win the auction, a Fiat collector from Hawkes Bay kept outgunning me and the Finance Minister was not happy for me to gun back. Wallowing in self pity for months after, I got a random phone call from said collector wondering if I was still keen on the car, as he already had several minter 125s and had just bought an Alfa he has been chasing for 20 years. A deal was done and he also offered to store it for me until I could arrange to get it back to to South Island because we were in the middle of moving South from Taranaki. I am very grateful to him for giving me first refusal and for being very helpful. Whilst being transported to my new home, about 25km short of the destination, this happened. The truck was involved in a fatal accident in Amberley. A local and well known businesswoman driving her Old School Civic crossed the centreline into the path of the truck and was unfortunately killed. I could scarcely believe it when the dispatcher told me. Discussion

Allegedly

I will probably attend the tour de oil leaks

Getting a bit of plaster on.. excitement.. My old boss/family friend/mate is doing most of it for me, he's fast and good. Gonna pick up the ply for the cladding tomorrow. Going with shadowclad textured seconds as its cheaper than normal ply and comes with ship lap edges for ease of installation. Yes it's not guaranteed by chi for residential cladding but by the time I clad or with mac you'll barely see the ply..

depends on the setup how much lift pump you need. if you return the fuel from the rail to the main tank it needs to flow more than the high pressure pump or the surge tank will go empty and the high pressure pump will be continuously cavitating as it only gets as much as the lift pump can pump in. not good. if you return from the rail to the surge tank then the lift pump only needs to flow as much as your max injector flow or you may get away with even less depending on the use of the car. if you are never doing sick 11s for minutes at a time the volume of the surge tank will keep you going for [tank volume/max combined injector flow]minutes. generally you can return to the surge tank if your lift pump has plenty of headroom above your normal fuel flow (which it should at idle/low load unless you have a total pinner lift pump), and your surge tank isn't enormous as it will exchange the volume of fuel in the surge tank with fuel from the tank surge tank volume/(lift pump flow - avg idle low load fuel flow) = time to exchange volume of surge tank

Looks good nice and level, surely you'll get some rake back with a heavier engine anyhow. Good being sensible safety clint. should probly look into getting seatbelts for the back of mine, used to be I'd try to catapult back seat passengers from one door to the other around corners on the slick vinyl bench, now i'd probably suggest they bring another car if we are going over 50km/h.

yea the pommy guy was next to me at the stop sign and asked if i was going to a show or a club meet in my car. i say yea and he asked me if there were going to be any Escorts to look at and i told him more than likely so they followed me up. nice enough fullahs.

Cool meet. Sharned some sharns. Here's a couple pictures: https://flic.kr/s/aHskRsDnrn Highlights here: Not up to the calibre of MJFox on prev page but still somthing^ Album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/45457939@N08/albums/72157678363759483

So time for Mk2. Managed to get my hands on a commercial under bench stainless steel fridge with a buggered compressor. Stripped all the shit out I didn’t need, designed a box up to take 2 heat bulbs and a fan to push air past the bulbs into the fridge. Managed to get the shape laser cut and folded by some good buggers at a sheet metal shop, Got a mate to weld it up, as my welds aren’t up for public consumption yet. Testing Wired up the new controller, cut a hole in to take the hot air delivery device and bingo she’s cranking away now. First batch is in now. Beers in a couple of days will be infinitely better.

I wasn't happy with my first attempt at making a drift trike...so I made version 2.0 There's well over 30hrs put into making this bad boy. I started with a kids drift trike, and there really isn't that much of it left untouched. I won't bore you with a step by step...but there were many. Its a tad underpowered, but in saying that...its got enough to get you into trouble Crazy fun for something so simple! Kj

I too love biltong One day I shall construct

^^ for sure in a track weapon run an 044 or two. My mate runs a pair on his 500+ kw supra. They are a good pump- if they were shithouse i wouldn't have one. But for a road car( even my turbocoon running 20+psi ) there are pumps that are easier to live with..

Jeah Man - looking Super cool ! love this car!

The thing with the old 044 is they are still one of the best when it comes to really high boost levels, pretty well most of the newer and cheaper pumps drop off flow a lot more as the 044 will keep chugging away without dropping much flow rate at 100psi which is great if you are running 58psi fuel pressure and 40psi of boost or using fuel supply lines of marginal sizes and having significant pressure drop from the pump outlet to the fuel rail. horses for courses etc. but the walbro should be totally fine in this case

I'll be at Nats and can bring it back for Ed.

Over a month between updates due to chasing my tail trying to find the source of the vibration coming through the driveline at anything above about 70KPH. Fortunately due to a couple of mates who have cortinas and lots of assistance from my tech post here on OS we managed to figure out the issue was that when I replaced the modded rear leaf springs with some factory springs in much better condition it raised the car around 15mm which was enough to pull the driveshaft out of the gearbox that much too far to allow it to wobble at speed. We eventually removed the shaft and towed the car up to 90kph and it was smooth which pointed us to either the gearbox output shaft or the driveshaft itself. Having already replaced the UJs in my shaft and trying a friends one I decided to try the old springs back in before spending money and it solved the issue!! Big thanks to everyone who assisted with that. 5 pages of good advice and the answer was actually on page one but it took me a while to try that. here's a pic of the testing rig I set up to check the run out of the rear wheel axle flanges Silver lining from this is I have now replaced every bush in the car (previously only the fronts had been done), brand new gearbox mount as the old one was soft and oil soaked, checked and replaced the rear axles to a pair with less wobble (wasn't the issue), replaced the universal joints in the driveshaft, spanner checked the entire car and found a few loose-ish bolts that needed a nip up and the long term fix for the driveshaft wobble is to lower the car at least an inch which was always my plan along with widened steelies. I picked up some second hand front king springs which have dropped the front end 55mm giving 150mm ground clearance to anything structural on the stock wheels. I have ordered some 2" blocks for the back to match it to the fronts height. The front shocks will need to be shortened to keep the springs captive but I'm going to do some driveway testing before I commit to the height as my driveway is a bit of a prick and as this will eventually be a daily driven car I don't want to be scraping! Massive difference between stock and king springs. I see why they state you need shortened shocks! Still got plenty of work ahead of me to get the Cortina where I want it. Few more interior touch ups, pillar trims and a stealth stereo install and then its time for an exhaust and a rejet to get the potential out of the engine!

Yea nothing came up with codes

Could be keen to jump in at caltex. Dflat. A child will be joining us soon so not only will mums front bum be a mess but i will be "allowed" out even less. Whats the date?

I thought this was LD - but might be a 3Litre Merc motor - still, you can make a diesel boogie

Pic 1 is a dampener to reduce pressure fluctuations as the injectors open. Pic 2 is fuel pressure regulator. Pic 3 is charcole canister. Dont just chuck a check valve in. You'll want to confirm what's going on with a fuel pressure gauge. Have you checked for codes yet? A dodgee cam position sensor can cause long cranking times.

Go on...only good things can come out of it

I don't think you're ready for wagon ownership with that type of attitude mayte.

As promised... look at that paint dry.... Battery box is all done. Forgot to take photo of wooden lid and a strap to hold it down, made from the nylon belt from some old endura bike shorts. I knew it would come in handy one day.. I couldn't resist..I had to cut open the filter for a look. Wow.. Ok.. so yeah.. that'll be a bit blocked then... I refitted the tank, added a new line so now the fuel rail return runs straight to the main tank and the overflow from the surge tank runs into the other new tank fitting. I ran the system through to clean it before connecting to main rail feed. Started car.. ooohhh. Much quieter and seems a bit smoother. Popped the car outside and plugged the laptop in. Watched it warm up and waited till it was off the warm up enrichment. Idle was tad out so a tweek here and there. Its better but more importantly it should remain consistant. I still have the lean out idle surge in the first half minute after starting the hot engine when its been sat a while. I have suspected for a while that this might be due to heatsoak from the hot bay/radiator area into the inlet pipe where the inlet temp sensor sits. Maybe it sees a much higher temp and alters the mixture? I dont know? The temp sensor is plastic bodied and insulated from the alloy by some foam. Hmmm. I need to work this out as its annoying. Some one suggested ages ago to turn off the 'use inlet temp at startup' feature.. but that would only affect the fist startup and few seconds after? Its starts fine as is, hot or cold, but just starts to stumble up and down for a half minute. Any ideas? You can tell me here... Anyway.. I decided that the car was a bit dirty and was due a wash. The evening was warm so Kevin the cat and I gave it a clean. Kevin actually only played in his bowl of water, chasing sticks. I cleaned the car. I might even apply some wax on it in the morning since its so clean...

This should last half a run - just hot glued on the wheels to see how far I need to cut the springs. A-Series for the win?

Managed to loosely assemble some bits while horribly hungover. That was it for the weekend...

Booked this in for a WoF today. Didnt quite make it all the way. (run out of gas) Lucky i had someone who thought it was flippin hilarious driving the support vehicle Looks pretty cool even busted on the side of the road, but "get the fuel sender working" is now at the top of the list! Ive put about 30l of gas in it since i put the tank back in, and ive driven it maybe 3km, so not sure where it all went! Cruising in traffic. Goes pretty good, but i think i will get the radiator swapped out for a newer one that doesnt leak and maybe a couple of pusher fans. Dash guage reads near the top of normal when its sitting, but the mechanical one reads normal (~90degC), but thats in the lower hose. Up on the hoist. Nice to see the underside from more than a foot away! Guys were pretty happy with it. !!!WOF AQUIRED!!! After that popped around to Mr and Mrs Grants to show off, and went to Burger Fuel for lunch in it, gets lots of looks and thumbs up, and 'what is its?' Swung by the beach for a surf check on the way home No surf, so then made a start on the post-WoF list of things to sort! - Fuel sender - wheel alignment - radiator + fans - door & boot locks (no key for any of them) - more driving!

Multi pass? Edit yay a new page So work was quite today, and had arranged to have this car at work for the weekend so i could do oil pump swap and try figure out what the fuck was going on. Anyway as said, work was quite, so got it on the hoist, dropped steering bits and got the sump off and oil pump out. After alot of diagnosing between us, we compared the old pressure relief valve spring to the new one. new one was deff longer and had more tension. Concluded that this was most likely the issue and that the relief spring had lost tension over time. Magic So the sump is back on now with a new gasket, just letting that seal up over the evening and will be back here tomorrow morning with new oil and see what the deal is. tho, was thinking while its on the hoist, it might be a bit rude NOT to remove a quarter of a coil off the front springs. So that might happen haha. I'm a little bit gutted my sedan isn't ready to drive yet, as Tomorrow would have been the perfect day for building the exhaust. oh Well

Today's effort. New (half finished) gearbox/transfer case cross member. Lower links don't agree with the old one. new one will have a tower for the upper link with some adjustment holes. +50mm shocks look pretty short.

I too would rather leave very early on Thursday to allow for max cruise spec and stops along the way.

Gone all Roman dave science with the link setup. plugged the numbers into a calculator Tricky to get all the numbers in the acceptable range while working around the chassis, engine and wheels that need to turn. main compromise is chassis mounts on the lower links will hang below the chassis rails a bit. but still will be a touch above the transfer case x member, so shouldn't be too much drama. had to do this to get enough up travel without the links hitting the chassis rails, and also to get the roll steer numbers down. The rear is pretty text book since there wasn't really anything to work around after cutting and modifying the chassis. Done it without using a calculator, just following a guide some geezer wrote. putting the numbers in the calc, looks like got lucky and nailed it. can dial the anti squat up to 100% with the adjustment holes. but this is how it's setup currently got some springs for the coil overs 175lb top 300lb bottom. both 14'" long. shocks should be at 50% travel with the weight of the truck on them.

meant to post this up a while ago. Rob kindly drove his mates Coupe DeVille for my wedding and all i can say is, if Rob ever offers this car for your wedding, take him up on his offer! the thing is downright cool in every way. Much appreciated Rob!

What an engine! I wish I could say this was my crankcase! Sadly its on loan (like most of the other bits!).

And once again, I've started a small job that has grown. Pulled the passenger side out, bit more difficult as it's against the wall in the shed and I've got to wriggle into position (usually forgetting the important tool). More shock bolts sheared off, plus much hammering to get ball joints/tie rods out, more piles of muck to scrape off and tricky rivets to drill out, but got to a stage where I've got two piles of parts roughly cleaned... and a whole lot of bits to toss... Have ordered new brake pads & wheel bearings as well, plus brake shield gaskets and new grease caps (a surprising $5 delivery from a Mercury speciallist in th' States). I probably should remove the calipers and clean them up/replace seals etc while I'm at it but I may replace all brake lines later on so will do it then. Thought I'd try my blast cabinet with the new compressor (last one was painfully asthmatic/slow) so wrapped all engine parts in gladwrap and sealed in box before making things dusty... And it worked ok, still slowish but much better air delivery. I can't see myself hunched over for hours doing the control arms etc tho, so will prob get these professionally blasted... So aiming to press old bushings out and get parts blasted this week, ready for painting over the weekend. Then it's the fun stage, assembly. Will finish with pic of my apprentice - he's bloody useless. Gets covered in oil, chews stuff, widdles in the shop, scatters tools and generally gets in the way. Still good company tho...

I assume this is when phones used to measure new engine fitment back in the day?

Left hand hanger done. Second time lucky to get this one.

I spent some time looking at these. I was thinking of ripping the T5 out of the Firebird, getting a Chevy S10 extension housing to move the gear leaver forward and having a manual box. Then the electric power steering would be an option. I've decided to stay with the auto box so a column shift is the only answer and making that work with an electric assist is making things way to difficult right now. If the steering is really heavy I might revisit it later. Heavy steering would keep the wife out of it, all her cars end up with a dent in every corner and most panels. Thanks for the input.

As Murphy's law would have it, just after I bought the Vantage, a tidy 348 came up for sale in Japan. It's quite rare to find a TB (solid roof). Most that come up are TS (Targa top). It's also quite rare to find one in such original condition out of Japan. Heaps of them have horrific aftermarket racing bucket seats, sports steering wheels, multicoloured dashboards, weird wheels etc. One thing that has been done is the sills and bottom of the bumpers has been painted red, which is how I prefer, rather than the original black of the early 348s and Testarossas. From what I can gather, it's a very early (1989) car, first registered in 1991. It also appears to be USDM spec with all the extra little rectangular reflectors. All the buyers guides say to buy as late a 348 as possible because they'd ironed out a lot of the issues by the later ones. I bought about as early as they come. Oh well. A familiar sight.