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Head and sump on. waiting on shimless bucks x japan. then can put cams and rest together actual abortion. needs to go back into the swamp

Still going great. Nothing really to report, which is pretty good news in of itself All I've done is replace a blown fog light with a $10 one from trademe.

And current state of things as of start of the week. As these things go, found more rust than expected, along with some, shall we say, interesting things previous owners had done that need rectifying. Blowing the budget out a bit with the unforeseen things but worth getting it sorted now while its with him.

Did some stuff. Finished bolting on the Levin stuff and found a nicer (but still kinda shit) bumper. Bought more wheels cause I have a problem. Bought other go fast (look cool) bits. Then got a message from the guy who originally quoted on getting the rust fixed. He had some free time after a big job was finished so off it went to him after I pulled all the interior out.

Rock hard reading this

Epic build thread dredge. Good man.

Gonna drag this from its death. Grabbed this Soarer off Kurt and sent it back south. Pretty rare car in NZ. MZ12 GT 6MGE Manual converted F SERIES 7.5" IRS Short diff out of Ma61 Trust Header Resprayed at some point BC coilovers and some Focus Spoke wheels. hasn't ran in YEARS. We tried about 4 years ago and could never get it to fire. It would crank and misfire with ether but that was it. Also the car has sat for over 14+ years. Car came with a full 1JZ-GE / W57 swap, but it felt wrong to not have an honest attempt at getting the 6M running before i give up on it. So when the car arrived I started pulling 6M down. After the head was rebuilt the car never ran, so I'm guessing water worked its way in here. Cleaned up everything best I could, Went through the fuel system, tank got rebuilt and resealed by Kurt, new pump, filters. I got the injectors cleaned as I was sure they were the non-starter culprit, turns out they didn't even move during their initial reconditioning test. Threw those in and reassembled it best i could. And thats where I'm at with it. Basically need to time it up, new battery and hope it runs.

Okay so first up I've had a massive win on the Gross Vehicle Mass situation. Last night while I was sitting in front of the gogglebox and fretting about the Moke weight situation I had a sudden epiphany. Headed through to the home office and grabbed the Moke binder that contains all of its paperwork. Sure enough there in the bundle was a Registration Certificate issued by Queensland Transport when we transferred ownership back in November 2017. Lo and behold the certificate confirms that the Moke is currently registered as a 4 seater and has an updated GVM of 1080 kg. I can only assume that old mate must have taken the Moke over a weighbridge when he certed it for 4 seats and the canny bastard must have given QLD Transport a copy of the weighbridge certificate to update their records. This is bloody brilliant and I can now stop fretting about gross weight. All I need to concentrate on now is getting the new weight balance across front and rear wheels as close to original as possible. Today was an epic day in the shed. Started off by disconnecting the brake lines and speedo cable. Then removed both the brake and clutch master cylinders and associated pipework. Next up I thought I would unhook the drive shafts and front wheel assemblies whilst the subframe was still attached to the car thus giving me heaps of stability during the exercise. As they tend to do the drive shaft hub nuts fought me all the way but a bit of heat and a liberal dose of rattle gun and they both gave up the fight. With that all done I concentrated on getting the subframe loose and ready for extraction. Off came the bull bar: Then it was time to blow the dust off my engine crane which has been languishing in the storage shed and apply it to the problem at hand: Nek minnit: And then a bit of divide and conquer: The subframe is gonna need a really good degrease before anything else happens, but that will have to wait as tomorrow is all about preparing everything for pickup by the new owner. Thanks for reading.

cough cough Any takers? I don't know what I can offer to sweeten a raw deal

Thanks heaps for the suggestions @dmulally. There is some good news in the weight department Damo. Last night I was sitting in front of the gogglebox fretting in the back of my mind as you do when all of a suddenly I had an epihany. Grabbed out my Moke folder and sure enough there was a copy of the official Registration Certificate issued by Queensland Transport when we did the ownership transfer back in November 2017. The certificate lists seating capacity as 4, Tare as 780 kg and GVM as 1080 kg. So old mate must have got QLD Transport to update the vehicle details after he got cert for the back seat. What a win as that gives me way more GVM than I need to cover the extra battery weight.

Saw this beast close-up at CHCH swopmeet. Great!

Shocks and footpegs sorted.

Ai fo sho

This is a awesome idea and I'm keen to see progress! Agreed with dmulally, are you able to get a lighter gearbag or even connect directly to a smaller diff (rear off rav4 or similar ?

Original plan was to start with a stock head. But in my junk pile is a big port from the swamp / @Dudley or the OG smallport head that was in this car in 2009 Decided on the OG head, and make it good as i can be without spending money on it. Has a bit of an interesting valve seat grind going on. some of the port work the 17 year ago me done on the intake side, was kinda junk also. Exhaust side pretty decent Done what i could to make to it better, some more porting on intake side and blended the seats into chambers Looks bit ugly, the black parts in the bowl below the seat are a bit of a low spot where i originally took too much out Over all it should still work pretty decent This head was in the hilux for awhile, hence the baked in mud, thats now part of the head. I put some fresh springs in the kp head when i changed to high port. so chucked the old ones in here. kelford beehive springs. Clearanced the head, so its ready to drop in big boi cams at a later date. Will run it on stock cams to start with I want to test some of the stuff on the weak stock cams and again on big cams. Think its going to be pretty interesting how it comes on in the low end with manifold design.

so because we are actually inching closer to turn-the-key day, I decided I should probably fill up all the fluids, which turned out to be my last sensible decision of the day pouring anything into a recently installed engine is generally fairly comical for me and sure enough my ears were soon met with the playful splash and burble of a cheerful little stream of coolant making it's way down the back of the engine, from the base of my relocated thermostat. "aha, I bet the gasket just needs a tweak up", I said, to nobody at all. So I tightened up the bolts and sure enough eventually there was an audible "crack" and the lower bolt went loose, and then tight again. "aha" I said, this time slightly louder, and with a twinge of wistfulness. "that would be the crack of success, I'd recognize that sound anywhere". Having satisfied myself with a Job Well Done, I elected to not continue working on the car that day, and went into my office instead

Now that it has been revealed why the weight loss stuff is so vital, are there carbon fibre panels you can get that could help? Also I reckon it might be worth looking at ditching that gearbag. Shirley the torque of the Hyper 9 and the low weight of a moke can be overcome by final drive ratio selection. No idea how you'd get the wheels to actually turn but perhaps a small diff with the engine either in front (doubt there is space) or behind (doubt there is space unless you cut out the tunnel), or maybe mounted on top with a chain drive to a diff.

Picked up my MFR airbox yesterday from painter. then had to sort out cutting the baseplate to fit the IDA, these don’t come predrilled or anything. i ended up having to leave the previous filter base on it to raise it above the fuel intake on the carb. I will relocate the filter one day once I can get some bead rolling done on some panels.

We are going to need a date stamp on that photo

Again, feels like it has been too long between updates. But a lot has happened in the last few months. Personally. I got made redundant and luckily found another awesome new role before my notice period. Am now working two jobs (extra job in the weekends and a few evenings) for a month or two to try get some extra cash to pay for a few holidays next year and finishing this Moke thing. With this Moke thing. Dad and I went pretty hard as I knew I was entering a busy period where I wouldn't have time to go out to his shed and work on it. So wanted to square away the last of the rust repair misery. A huge thanks to Dad for the effort over the last few months as well. While I won't bore you with too many pictures as I feel that is all the last few posts have been. Here is one side almost done. This was tricky as the back of the wheel well the arch and some of the floor all meet up with each other. The other side is also done. We also finished the floor trimming the hump that GP made up for us and the underneath part I got off my Moke friend locally. Almost as good as new and probably almost stronger. The last section of rust to repair was underneath where the windscreen was. As you can see, I was happy to cut the last rusty piece of metal out. That resulted in a call to the Repair Certifier to come out and take another look, which he did on Tuesday and was very happy with everything. He just wants to see it all sealed up and painted before it all goes back together. So now we can press on with making it resemble a car again as there are a few things I want to mock up before I paint it. I uncovered all the suspension and brake bits I'd been collecting over the past year or so. Painted the calipers, rear backing plates and front hubs. Under the watchful eye of the old man he showed me how to rebuild the calipers and while I've been flat out, he's been on long service leave and threw my new wheel bearings at the front hubs. I then started to gather the bits and had to remember how to build a Mini subframe again. Interestingly I've never done one with rubber cones, since My Mini has springs. So took a bit of faff. Obviously, there are a few things adjustable there (for max turn in settings) and those eagle-eyed will see a factory mini disc brake hub. So, we will need a cert down the track. But the goal is to just get it rolling for now, So I can roll it out of the way, its not taking up the hoist anymore and we can trailer places if need be (The first will be off to get a roll bar made). I've also been slowly chipping away at other things. I scored an MG Metro manifold off ebay UK. Cost a fortune and the water heated bit needs a tidy up. But they are fairly rare. Becuase the Moke has a steeper firewall than a Mini. It should sit the carb at a better angle for a bit more clearance. A tidy later model Mini pedal box, that puts the pedals at a better angle according to a good mate. There is a plan here that will be revealed in good time. And, my Mate Brook @Piperworks tidied up my Speedo. Might need sunglasses to drive it now..... Anyway, we are still trucking along. Hopefully have it rolling in the next few weeks and we can go from there.

Baby progress report, Have assembled the rear fulcrum bearings / seals etc admittedly there wasn't a Huge amount left to do but progress is progress., currently have a blown out disc in my back (am officially an old man) making doing literally everything difficult. Everyone's favourite job, greasing bearings Here you can see the newer style rubber seal. The original one is a donut looking bit of felt. There are shims in there too to set the appropriate clearance, but I'll need to try mounting it to measure that. The whole tube the bearing / seal / shaft sits in is also now full of grease, seems excessive as this will only pivot a couple of degrees during the suspension arc. But I'm sure the Barry who designed it in the 50s knew what he was doing.

hold the phone, there's a Jazz/Fit project?

while you were busy keyboard warrioring I was busy crimping, cunt

Bumping this in anticipation of Summer... Any Ideas? or cool historical spots? I'm thinking of a run from Dunners up to Danseys Hotel, or the Vulcan, maybe down to Qtown and loop around the bottom thru Lumsden and back, would be a full day cruise, wondering if there are any interesting spots to check, I always want to do the old car museum near Wanaka?

Cant make it this time team, GLHF.... headded south an wondering when the next dunners on is on?