Dangers 66 Pontiac Parisienne hearse

[Mr.Mk1]

Painted my instrument surround, it was a scruffy black hole.

Also cut the tailpipe and clocked it around a bit as on big bumps it would squash the pipe between the diff and body. Seems to have cured it but I have a roady this weekend which will tell me wether I have succeeded or if it's gonna lay on it constantly.

The woodgrain has started to crack and go to shit already, not overly concerned!

[Mr.Mk1]

Coal burnt over 1600km on The open Road In The last month.

Been able to hold it around the 95 mark fairly happily. Terrifyingly happy.

Been getting doughy to start so gave it some new glow sticks

Gotta help really.

It was at a point where I was glowing it for long enough to drain enough juice to fail sufficient crankin. Cuntwhore.

While doing that tonight the starter loom fell apart so fixed that too.

While down south I swung by my bros engineering shop and found some long machine screws so added matching nylocs and attached the chrome headlight bezels.

Had to add as much fancy as possible for one of my best mates funerals. The mrs made some lace curtains, they came up sweet. Photos will emerge.

His brothers jumped in the front and we took him for a lap around rural Alexandra before the service, then again to the cemetery. Stoked the car functioned and was well received.

Things on the list are window channels and door rubbers as she's loud at speed, and as always carpets + underlay.

Casually fishing around for diff options

[Mr.Mk1]

Hard to see what's going on here but I decided since we had a long weekend I would attack the popcorn tailgate skin.

Needless to say it's rough as guts. Still tidier than the old valiant one but it's beaten.

Tried sandblasting it but that packed up so wire wheeled the life out if it. Again, bathed in CRC black zinc.

Pretty unimpressed with how it's turning out but I'm beyond caring. I've done the best I can with what minimal shit I have for a job like this.

It's still fits in the hole and it's much straighter!

With a fresh proper woodgrain vinyl over it she'll be jizzworthy.

[Mr.Mk1]

Average pics of the process because I was In a hurry.

Ran out of primer and barely got a coat of black on, typical.

Will probably gloss black it so the vinyl sticks on real well, and tidy up the very top of it as that stays satin with body.

The buckled bumper casts a receiving shadow, it's not really sunken in like it looks. I even wailed on it with a big hammer but it has a solid crease on the top middle so that's that. Will replace bumper in the future as it really is ham.

You can see all the rust scale that fell out while whacking!

[Mr.Mk1]

A picture just because.

Our house burnt down a few weeks ago, the wagon was so sweet for moving to the new place!

Been quite neglected since as just been to busy, too tired or can't find my stuff.

I did pull the rubber spring spacers out of the front to drop it a bit, was a wee bit high in the front and I haven't been hassled yet.

One of the nylon wheels that run in the channel for the rear window regulator has fallen apart so it's all jacked up on one side at the moment.

Needs some manual help some times.

[Mr.Mk1]

Long time no update.

Long time no progress too haha.

I fixed the rear window issue, made a new wheels out of washers and greased it up, ideal.

Due a warrant check on Monday so this evening I chucked the spring spacers back In the front and replaced the headlight that's had a blown low beam since, well, a week after last warrant?

Danger sold me a pretty nice rear bumper at Xmas time so I polished it up, cleaned and painted the inside and went to chuck it on to find the sedans have a point in the middle, wagon is pretty flat. So that made me wild. You can barely notice in pictures if seen and they are identical style. So on went the rusty old one after I chiseled all the flakey chrome and scale off, doused in zinc and pulled off the shitty rubber bump strips.

Painted it like the front, looks a lot tidier.

Had to cut the towball off to get bumper back on (so rusty there wasn't enough to get a socket on) so now have a shiney new one.

Chances of getting a mint wagon bumper are sliiiiim.

[Mr.Mk1]

Mean!

And those things are now tightened as I was under there taking the spring spacers out again.

[Mr.Mk1]

I finally got these bullet caps!

Been on the cards for a loooong time, but sorted now.

Cause I have no space between run and hub centres I have to have caps that nip up under the taper of the wheel nut.

Looks cool and breaks up the solid feild of red.

[Mr.Mk1]

What's all this then...

Mocking up the go-faster bits on a spare engine and going to plumb it all up, hopefully pretty seamlessly, in the corpse taxi over Anzac weekend.

I believe it's an L20ET or similar setup, but my engine was once turbo when certed 20yrs ago.

I've spent any spare time since Xmas converting to negative earth, cable clutch and putting an A12 and 4 speed into the mrs 65 Datsun 410. So with that finished I'm keen as to get some shit done on my car.

Also ordered a new carpet and underlay set. Been drumming around with bare steel floor for too long. It's a lot Of floor, on snow tyres and a noisey diesel.

[Mr.Mk1]

Spent day making oil feed, and return and lots more stuff to make life easier come swap time.

There were only two bits where the petrol exhaust manifold wouldn't pull up against diesel intake, indicated with black vivid. I just built these up with weld.

It's said that they need a bit of work to make them match up. I found this to be untrue, unless the previous person did all these things.. But no sign of it.

Pic shows how the castings differ where the big washers face up against the exhaust and intake. I dummied it all up with a new gasket to check it out and it's was perfectly fine. Not holding by a lot in this case but it's not going to fail.

Shot with it sitting together. What should the wee pipe at far right on the plenum-2-turbo pipe be connected to? Or should I block it?

Also where should I be plumbing in for boost gauge feeds?

[Mr.Mk1]

This shows how the diesel and petrol exhausts differ

This is my oil feed. The practice engine has a cool factory water fed oil cooler!

Not sure wether the oil feed from the oil pressure fitting on opposite side of engine is the best option..

I could take it from the vacuum pump oil feed at front of engine under manifolds but it's a large diameter pipe so might not push enough juice through, where as my current one is small bore, more pressure and longer route which gives it a chance to cool a bit.

The factory turbo feed heads off around the back of the engine where it has been snipped with sidecutters.

[Mr.Mk1]

She goes!

Sounds like a Scania and moves noticeable faster, call that a success?

I started on Friday night by battling to get the Sump off (big X-member made it ultra hard to get to a few bolts.

Then it got hung up on the pickup.

With some decisive jacking I got it out and beat it back into shape- it's always been pretty caved in.

Gave it a bead of sealer to form a gasket as it didn't survive the removal.

Saturday came and I put sump back in and sealed up, worked a treat.

Pulled off water pump since I was in there, 2 options I got from work. Also did injector pump belt since it's one rareweak point that could strand the mightily LD28!

Pulled off the standard manifolds. Broke all the flange bolts off. Broke the number 6 stud but had a lot of meat to weld to and it came out nice. Then broke the new one off while screwing in, leaving 3mm protrusion from head. WHAT THE FUCK!

I wasted a solid day trying to get it out. I gave up.

Bolted churbo stuff on, was awkward without that stud to hang it off while swinging inlet into place starting the shared bolts.

All pulled up sweet.

It took a realllly long time to put the oil pressure fitting, sender and screw my bundy tube fittings for oil feed. It's between the engine mount, oil cooler housing and a haze of injector pump lines? Being fine thread and the hard line being so point-n-shoot it drove me insane. Then it just took one time and hasn't leaked yet!

It was then onto exhaust, did the best I could to line it up , cut it and was way off. Made a sleeve to join and buzzed it up. Tailpipe now touches body so will have to mod the back mount this weekend.

Plumbed it all up, went to fire it and it chugged for ages and nothing.

I must have pulled out radiator,fan, pulley, front cover and injector pump assembly try a different timing and reassembled about 10 times.

Over it.

I set it as it said in the manual and nothing,tried it another revolution round, nope.

Ended up setting the same as spare engine, which was 'incorrect' and bam straight into it!

I expected oil to pour from everywhere but it was mint.

Took it for a test drive, pretty funny, came on like a petrol L turbo. Look under bonnet and I see oil seeping out of intake pipe.

Turns out they have no pcv valve so it was pressurising and forcing through the turbo seals.

It's old tech and the turbo unknown so not too phased.

The boost gauge didn't work either but I'm fairly sure that's because there was oil in the line haha.

Then the oil return from turbo and vacuum pump popped off. It was a bit rangy so fixed that better.

Did some reading, pulled the rocker cover pipe off, test drive and waaaayhey!

On boost straight away, very little smoke and sounds like hell breaking loose! More pickup too.

Went well to work this morning.

Went the long way home, all well, whooshing like a boss.

Timed it and turned it off and the oil started flowing out the turbo intake!

Oops.

I figure it's poked the seals being old and unused then pressurised.

Or the oil feed is too much, but doubtful as it's fairly small.

Sourcing another turbo for the weekend.

[Mr.Mk1]

Also, when I discovered the return pipes had popped, I was parked outside the dairy. Left a decent black sludge dump outside! Nursed it home and up the drive leaving a trail the whole way! Oops!

[Mr.Mk1]

Back on the road!

GC Scott lent me his spare turbo that came with his R30.

I also fixed the vacuum pump mount. It's always had a broken bolt in the front so I put decent one in rear and it snaps them.

Was making a horrid noise the other day after initial start up, stoked to find it was the broken bolts..

It seems the waste gate is stuck open in the new turbo, I noticed it before fitting but didn't think much of it.

I swapped back to my actuator after a lazy test drive and still lame..

Will try carefully free it from outside 2moro but this buys me time to fix or find a better turbo whilst still driving it.

Then it was on to fitting new carpet!

I pulled seat out, vacuumed the shit out and hit some bits with hammerite. Some random wee drilled holes filled at the same time.

Laid down the under felt and sliced in places to get it sitting nice, happy with how that went.

Then left the rear section of carpet in place with sandbags in the dips to help form it for finishing tomorrow.

On removing the seat one mount had been tacked so got mangled while yanking.

Then both front mounts fell off ( they were factory pop riveted to rails!)

I cleaned them up, welded properly, oiled the sliders and painted my favourite, black zinc.

Also the seat springs on drivers side are fucked to death so I made a lattice of cable ties to give it some support.

I do want to find another cheap seat to have repaired and covered cause that seat is so smoked.

Sorry about no pics, I'll do that tomorrow.

[Mr.Mk1]

Sorry about potato photos, it came out really well in the end.

Seats let it all down though.

Also pulled my stereo apart as it stopped turning off with the key.

Full of corrosion, seems watering my cactus on the dash and leaking through the speaker grate may have shorted it out.

I'm ok with popping the faceplate to turn off anyway

Also freed up the gate. See how tomorrow goes

[Mr.Mk1]

Got this XR6T intercooler for $40 delivered. The outlets pointing in the right direction for me non-cross flow is choice. Less piping, less clutter.

Started smoking when changing gears so I guess I have to sort the oil return before I damage things. I think when it gets hot it's collapsing the hose (not using trans hose as don't have any at work) hahaha.

EDIT

I just went and made a return piece to weld into sump, busy tomorrow nite but try for Wednesday.

Will put vacuum pump return as it was, lose the tee and seperate turbo drain

Like I should have to start with

[Mr.Mk1]

Here's a flash-only shot in the dark of night! Mint huh

Went quite well, ran out of mig gas instantly and had to flog the soda stream bottle. Then sealed it up with oil resistant RTV just in case of pinholes.

The third hose clamp is to assist in not collapsing the hose as still haven't got nice thick trans hose yet.

It drained the battery two nights in a row, emergency battery was shagged. Turns out I left the tailgate window switch on, on Monday night.

Skills!

At least it's an easy fix

[Mr.Mk1]

Intercooler arrived the other day, stoked on it. Nice size, inlet/outlet pointing same way, has rubber mounts attached.

Ordered a bunch of cheap straight and 90* joiners and 3m of plastic piping.

I'm almost done and still have heaps left damnit.

The radiator mounts on the alloy spacer, and there's a cavern of space between there and the grille.

For ease of piping I've just mounted it low Infront of radiator.

My bottom pipe runs alongside the bottom tank so hope it doesn't pick up too much heat, but probably not even worth factoring in. Lots of air moving around and it's a very basic setup.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of test fitting with and without radiator and adding joiners and pipes each time.

The two mounts I used lined up with steel but the thread wasn't long enough to straight bolt up, made some tabs, welded to rad support and bolted through them.

The piping was a bit bigger than the joiners so had to radius off the edges, little bit of grease, soapy water and heat and got them on. With hose clamps too, Quite an undertaking. I highly doubt there will be enough pressure to pop them off on this setup.

I still haven't had any life in the boost gauge, so have now drilled a hole through the bolt that is blocking off the plenum breather and sealed the vac tube into it. We shall see.

If nothing happens, I'll thread tape the gauge end as well and try again.

Dumped a holy shitload of oil on the way to work and throughout the car park the other day.

When I changed the turbo return pipe I grabbed the first standard vacuum pump return hose I saw and biffed it in. Turns out that was a spare one and it cracked instantly. Trimmed it and managed to get home fine, owned my arm on the top arm when I tried to pull the old shitty one off and it snapped.

Now have my original, supple one on again and a big bruised lump!

Also replaced the copper washers on the oil feed banjo, the old ones were old.

New carpets and rubber floor mats still make me happy every time I get into it.

[Mr.Mk1]

His was where I was at when I pulled the pin last nite.

This morning I had to face the fact that I had no reducer for the turbo I let as its 10mm smaller.

Walked to work to see if there was anything, na.

Saw a roadcone, looked a good plan B..

Ended up scrounging round behind the shed and found some exhaust, an old factory intercooler pipe.

Lopped the flanges off those and saw I was onto a winner, joining both bends had me where I needed to be to me the intercooler.

I used the original joiner off the first incarnation.

I then had to weld a bunch of pipes together to get it from the 50mm of inlet to the 62mm elbow. And finally Using the leftover pipe from the original cars air cleaner setup.

I welded all these together and die ground it so the flow wasn't so heinous.

Then cleaned it all up, painted and fitted it.

As you see I had to tape up the accessable joiners and paint the rest because blue silicone is the scourge of the earth.

I'm stoked with how it came up.

Car feels good with it but haven't had a decent run yet.

[Mr.Mk1]

Still truckin' along.

Mrs has been dailying it as her 65 bird isn't charging.

Lately I've added an oil pressure gauge, and brought a new turbo.

I sent the original one to Turbocare and they pronounced it dead. The cleaned the carcass really really well though!

Didn't want to upgrade or change much at the moment so managed to find another real good T3 from a guy who posted a pic of a sweet HR30 on Facebook. Cheekily asked if he had any spare and he bloody did! $200 for turb and down pipe was a fair price, I was stoked.

Have cleaned it up and painted it, few new gaskets and shit. Blocked off the temp sensor hole ( mine and Scott's never had this)

Bunged on the super clean inlet housing from RIP turbo and she's looking sharp.

Was going to cost over 1100 for a new core and rebuild. Charged me just under 60 for strip, clean and assess.

Also got talking to a piner who did some turbo LDs back in the day and he was schooling me on oil feed.

Reckons they had pressure drop taking it from same place as me but with bigger feed line. Messed round with bronzing and drilling the feed to restrict it and got decent pressures and solid feed.

I currently cheech a fair amount of oil smelling smoke between gears when driving it decently and couldn't attribute it to turbo seals, over oiling or just being the cost of boosting it.

So I had what I though to be my only ever stroke of genius and came up with this

Make a panel steel 'gasket' for between the turbo and feed banjo flange and that knocks down the size by a bit.

Plus with it being at the top and easily accessable I can make new ones either bigger or smaller to suit, and swap between while test driving it.

That hole is about 2.5mm.

We shall see, not sure when I'll swap the turbos over..need to get the bluebird fixed so I can have my damn car back!

I also re-re-redid the roof paint today. Where I did a rust hole from roof racks, I used zinc spray to prime it as I had nothing else, it softened the bog and peeled.

Then I took it back to bare and used can primer, and it peeled.

Last week I did it again but got some decent sandable etch and ran out of daylight so hit it again today and finished it.

I got a 2nd hand stereo, it's a few series above the one I had but identical looking.

Means I don't have to change wiring, know how it works. This one is lit blue so matches interior.

I fucked the last one by watering my cactus on the dash and overflow trickling down the speaker vent. First the display died, then it wouldn't turn off with the car, then It got to a point where it was functioning but only the subs worked, hahaha.

Mrs had an accident in it last week. The battery shucked the hold-down clamps on a bumpy street and bridged the terminals.

She said the clutch disappeared and she pulled over then much smoke.

A passer by jumped out, knew how to open the bonnet and extinguished it.

I always have extinguishers in my old heaps.

It burnt a mega hole in the side of the battery, melted very little wiring and the extinguisher blew acid and melted plastic all over the side of the engine/bay.

Didn't even blow a fuse, so fucking lucky.

So gutted, got another battery and clamps and back to where we started. Could have done without the expense, but that's life.

Dunno how or why clutch disappeared. Was fine when I drove it home.

Then I brought another bench seat! The one toddy mentioned in discussion, it should be here on Monday.

It's pretty ugly, but it's miles ahead of mine currently. Will buy me some time to get one re-upholstered.

After the wedding.