nzvohc Posted May 2, 2012 Share Posted May 2, 2012 Hello all, new on here after much needling by yoeddy, will try and post some pics of my Viva. Cheers. Discussion here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=33554 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzvohc Posted May 5, 2012 Author Share Posted May 5, 2012 Cool little car for sale here. Luvin the wheels, have plans for widened rostyles to the back of the GT when I can come up with a spare pair. Anybody hear whereabouts of any give me a shout. Cheers. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =469187923 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzvohc Posted May 25, 2013 Author Share Posted May 25, 2013 Came to realise that's it's been over a year since the last update on this car. Nothing major achieved, just a few mods here and there to catch up on. Up until I started work on the Firenza we had been out in it most weekends, bot WOF is run out now and needs a little TLC before next one so will be onto this again soon. A while back it developed a crack at the header flange and started sounded like a tractor, so that went in for repairs. The guys did a nice job, had to replace and he re-shape the spagetti so they look a bit more even and swept back but remain equal length. They are a 2 piece design for these slant motors as not much room to work with, so 2 pipes run around under the engine mount. and back in the car. Next up I removed my home made cold air intake, was just too big and made the engine difficult to work on. I cleaned up the trumpets and got some trumpet filters to go on them. Also spent some time dicking around with a replacement gearbox for the car, 4 spd as per the original, as you can see they have a interesting little setup with external linkages. When the pivot bolts and holes get worn they tend to get pretty sloppy, so I went through those and re-shimmed what I could to tighten things back up. Also added my own little mod and installed a nice strong spring between the linkages, what this does is help the gearstick return to central position, so instead of just flopping around it wants to return to the natural position between changing gears easier. You can see the new spring in the lower right of the pic. . I need to get the internals checked out by an an expert sometime before installing the box, hopefully it's better than the current one. Also swapped out the steering wheel for a wood (fake) rimmed one originally out of an Opel GT, has a nice dish which is what I was wanted, the previous wheel I could literally stretch my fingers out when holding the top of the wheel and touch the windscreen! My next mod is to change the rims from 13" Rostyles to 14" MG Rostyles. Been wanting to do this just to get a slightly bigger wheel/lower profile tyre look, but also open up a few more tyre choices. Been thinking on this for awhile, have had the rims sitting for ages, issue being that the Vauxhall PCD is 4" and the MG ones are 4.5". I had been researching suitable adaptors out of the states when some came up on TM randomly, so snatched them up. On the car. And MG rim on and checked for guard clearance. All looks good, still have room to widen the rims outwards by an inch, and inwards an inch to make them 7" overall, which is the next step, then repaint them to original silver/black. So that's about it for now, will add a couple of glamour shots taken after installing a chin spoiler late last year. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzvohc Posted August 24, 2014 Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 Another overdue but not terribly significant update on this car..it really needs to come off the road some stage soon for a body restore but having not long done my Firenza the memory of endless nights of bodywork again is still a little fresh...maybe next year.. Anyway, meantime I have had the MG rims widened to 7.5" for the rears and 6.5" for the fronts. Because the wheel stud adapter is about 20mm thick I couldn't give them the offset I would have liked for that extra wide rim look, but they still look good. Even as they are I will have to stretch the tyres to roll the walls a bit and give clearance to the guard lip. My guards aren't rolled and I really don't want to have to do that. Will likely need to try a few different tyre combos for best fit. Test fit pics. They now need to be sandblasted clean and re-painted, which will begin this week. I bought some paint masks some years back in anticipation of doing this conversion and for making the job of masking the silver/black easier, so should save my painter some time. Also need to decide whether to install chrome trims or not to these when all done. Thoughts? More pics when painted. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post nzvohc Posted October 27, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 27, 2014 So my wheels came back from the painter last week and I wasted no time getting new rubber put on them. The aim with these was always to maintain a similar rolling diameter as the original wheels (185/70/13's) so as not mess with the gearing or speedo accuracy, so a little research on my favourite wheel and tyre guide - www.The Wheel & Tyre Bible - told me my 3 main choices in 14" tyres would have to either 175/65's or 195/60's or 205/55's, so on advice my trye guys I went with the 175's for the front and 195's for the back, which gave both sizes the right amount of stretch to keep the walls inside the wheel arch. This is the 14" rear wheel with new rubber beside the 13" wheel. And test fit to car.. Bit snug, but I like it! And the front... Feeling rapt with the visual result I proceeded to fit all 4 adaptors and wheels securely and take for a careful spin down the road to see if anything rubs going over bumps. Straight away I noticed the tell-tale whir of rubber on metal at the back. Bugger. It is not bad enough to cut the tyre but definitely needs some massaging at the upper lip edge, so next goal is to work out the best way of doing this without rolling the edge noticeably...I figure if I can gain another 5mm clearance I'll be in the clear, so to speak. Anyway, took a few pics to show how it looks now. Another job to take care of very soon will be to drop the front 20-30mm to bring it in line with the rear, and add a heavy duty anti-sway bar to the rear. One unforseen win is how much lighter the steering is with these wheels, was so heavy before but this combo has made a huge difference, so yay. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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