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I removed my doors as the plan is to paint the door jambs as well as inside the doors. This will make for a decent paint job rather than a rough and ready closed door job. The doors will be stripped of everything but the glass/window winder mechanism, this means that I’ll be able to cover all the panel that’ll be visible once the door cards are on. Removing the doors is a manageable one man job if they are light/small enough. Don’t do this if you have a ute/luxobarge/van. First the harness is removed/made manageable enough so that when the door is removed it won’t get in the way. Interestingly enough my rear doors have two wires but use an eight pin connector. then the catch, it’s been a while since I’ve stripped doors so apologies if I get the wrong terminology. My brains full of other Barry info. These ones have a bolt which I believe is better, but yours may have a pin which requires a gentle hammer. I have a few stashed away for when I do my SW20 door catch conversion in 2028. Then with the door closed, remove all but one bolt from the hinges. The last one can be removed carefully but for the last few threads do it by hand while supporting the door with the other hand+a leg. It should come out easily enough without too much drama. take lots of pics of where things go before removing, label containers of fasteners etc, Here’s all my hinges that’ll be painted. I scraped off all the old Seam sealer. found some rust too on some brackets that’ll be dealt with shortly Got distracted by my strikers, After some time with a mini wire wheel and metal polish: Once the doors are stripped the last two I primed can be prepped, the other two can be checked, then the insides can be scuffed/cleaned then they’re done-ish.

Got the roof and bonnet fully prepped. It’s dusty dirty work. The vac I have came with a really short hose, unsuitable for body work, so sent dust all over. made it sludgy with some wet sanding It’s important to smooth out the edges too, any ugliness will show through in the final finish: Had a bit of fry up on the bonnet which is always a bit of a head scratcher. it’s commonly a reaction between the solvents and the old paint below it. I used to get a lot of it on sun-fucked ABS parts and fibreglass bumpers. The solution in the old paint shop was a) don’t cut through to the old shit, b) remove it all, or wipe with thinners and try again. But I found this funny video from the Gunman that’ll help. Worth a watch for the epic rage Removed both front guards, prepped and stripped all plastic fasteners. In this pic I’m cleaning the inside, as you don’t want loose dust/dirt getting in your paint and it only takes a min or two as an extra step all done, note it’s important to make sure the edges are smoothed out whether primed or not. Just to make sure it’s all nice. Priming guards off the car is definitely better, as you can cover all areas a bit better. uh oh more rust This area is a bit of a trap for rust as water must get trapped in those bits. The other side was worse: Admittedly I’ve seen worse on mid-00s cars, cut and shut jobs. I took a wire wheel to it, rust treated and painted black, looks funky. But once guards are on won’t be seen.

I needed studs for the turbo and the manifold flange for the turbo. I thought about some all thread but figured it'd probably fail or be shit. Saw some cheap stud kits but they were probably cheese too. The Nissan genuine turbo /exhaust studs caught my eye but at $7 per stud that's was a bit rich as I'm cheap. The Nissan studs are meant to be M8x40mm. Figured I'd look up the honda exhaust manifold studs. They are M8x38mm and only $2 each I figured 2mm wouldn't be the end of the world so ordered a bunch along with a new gasket Just finger tight for now but they fit pretty well The AliExpress cast v band adaptor needs some holes enlarged as they don't perfectly line up but a bit of careful drilling should sort that

Me and the wee man got the last couple engine bits, carbs and airbox done on Thursday, up and running again. I had forgotten how absolutely wonderful these twins sound Little bits and bobs to tidy up and a new rear tyre (has a horrible front tyre on the back) before I can take it for a ride and put it back in the shed for another 4 years

Thanks guys, I'll pass that on in case he doesn't check back here.

Back again with more worrys. When it went for the WOF he was struggling to read part if the VIN plate, i had a look and there was stain on it. Fuck, the battery has been overcharging and spraying acid about the front corner of the engine bay. Grand! More electrical gremlins. Got home and put the multimeter on it and was a bit shocked at what it was pumping out.. Our mate from american auto lent me a good alternator to test, went from all the charge to none of the charge. Waiting on a new Voltage Reg from Rockauto to see if that helps. Hopefully the battery isnt fisted cause its pretty new. Have cleaned up the acid burns and repainted things, added a battery breather. All cosmetic and nothing reached the outer bodywork thankfully. Not so long ago i discovered both field wires had broken off, this time my old solder repair had ejected entirely. I made a wee jumper wire and shit but its just too fragile, the brush holder started to crumble on install so ive binned this Alt. Onto positive news, i ordered a starter bendix and a set of rear shoe springs & hardware for bugger all. The starter used to rattle and sound like a belt sander winding down after use, now it sounds crisp! The one-way bearing was chooched and the outer sleeve had come loose. Theres lots of slop in these things.. if it gets noisey again ill add some more fibre washers and take up some slack

If the running in process wasn’t quite finished before, it is now! Fiat club track day! Thrashed mercilessly and made the brakes stink a lot! And realised my son is not a naturally gifted photographer… Nothing broke and many people told me my car sounds good. There were a couple of Ferraris, 3 Alfa 4C, and a Lotus Evora which was very nice. My car was one of the slowest but the only comparable OS cars out today were a V8 Fairlane, a MK2 Jaaaaag and briefly an Alfa spider. The Jag couldn’t catch me but I spent a fair bit of time being passed by modern turbo hatches. I’m very pleased with the way the Fiat handles for a fairly stock road car on chinesium tyres. Juuuust squeezed 100mph at the end of the pit straight which coincides with the red line on the tacho. If there’s a next time, I need better brake pads and I need to get the twin sideys on, she runs out of breath at 5k rpm. Son was fizzing as he got to go for a hoon in a Lancia Montecarlo race car (with added volumex).

Best to do nothing with the rust before inspection, it I’ll pro badly get referred to a repair certifier regardless. https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/entry-certification/i-and-c/vehicle-structure/threshold-for-requiring-repair-certification

I'll just jump in here for him - Currently needs some rust dealt to and brakes to be made operational. He's a competent welder/fabricator, so dealing to that shouldn't be an issue. I've suggested that if he tackles the rust in the rockers/sills, he document the process with photos for every little step - Correct?

Hi Browny. I have moved your question into this thread. I think compliance has to be done an a VTNZ or VINZ site. They don’t come to you. You will want to have the car roadworthy before you take it there. What state is it in currently?

@AllTorque @cletus Can someone please move this to the wof/cert/reg thread? The man has a 1955 yank tank that was imported roughly 20 years ago and has sat in barns and sheds for most of that time. It's never been inspected and assigned a VIN in that time, but appears to have a mountain of paperwork including the bill of sale from the States, right down to the ID of the container it was freighted here in. Is it a case of packing it up onto a trailer and wheeling it into VINZ in Hamilton and starting the process?

Custom sewn roof tent with pie dispenser and pumpkin minninchees

While the wheels were off I cleaned them up fully and ceramic coated them, am hoping this will prevent or greatly reduce the build up of brake dust and general road muck. Gave the rest of the car a bit of a much needed cleanup too.

bling bling

Has been a while - I've since gone to another trackday in West Virginia and then went down to Tail of the Dragon again last month. Ahead of those events I had the car tuned and picked up 120hp/160nm after almost doubling the boost - I've got some dyno vids I've been meaning to put together into a single clip, hopefully will do that soon. In the meantime, here's pics of the brake caliper refresh - old and crusty:

So stoked for you. Getting to use a car like this with the family are great memories to make!

Did you have any luck finding any? I have some 14x7 steel barrels from ford 12-slot rims, but would be mint to find some 8" or 9" barrels.

Bump. New date up... 19th June

Oh 100% it's down to owners. There was a point they were a dime a dozen in NZ and were thrashed with very little care, but who knows what they were treated like in Japan before import. Looking at my history, I've owned 8 Subarus; two had rebuilds before me, one had a rebuild after me, two were scrapped, two were all good and one I don't know.

Yeah I feel their reliability issues are worsened by past owners and bad modifications. Generally they’re reliable. Turbocharged ones have more to go wrong but that’s applicable for all makes and models typically. I had a friend who was the typical Subaru guy, he swore by removing the thermostat and shaking the rad panel up and down to help bleed the coolant. And there’s probably more who do things like run it on 91 pinging til it dies. Or slap on big turbos and crazy wastegate pressure springs til we get a leg out of bed. I’ve had pretty good experiences with my NA 2.5 BH Outback. I’ve towed three cars with it over really windy hilly roads. It handled it but very slowly. Arguably the best generation of Legacy as the build quality declined and technology got a bit too much from 03 on. And they handle well, much nicer than a newer soft roader.

@kws I can relate to that. A good Subaru goes forever if you don't rag on it too hard. A rubbish one is nothing but problems. I've had a pretty good run of experiences with them. Trick is determining what kind of owners have been before you... 2008 WRX - brother still has this one probably 240kms 2013 WRX - sold at 250kms, still going well was a great car 2006 Legacy - EZ30R developed some weird overheating issues around 230-240kms (cause I towed a 20ft boat with it) but wouldn't loose water. Replaced fans, radiator, thermostat etc. Never got to the bottom of it sold the car for bugger all to be done with it. 1996 STI type RA - 240kms engine unopened, gearset replaced with new @100k (probably from doing helis as it was based in Dunedin around this time)

I replaced all the small vacuum hoses last night and found i had two vacuum ports switched for the breather and carbon canister managed to get my 2000rpm idle down to 1200rpm. my IAC though is closed so I still have a leak somewhere. In drive it's a 900rpm so that's bearable for moving it around. Bugger though I think I need to try a smoke test or something before mucking around with much else. No point going further with the tune till that's sorted all in all though it runs fine AFR'S as is won't hurt anything quick drive yesterday with logging on to confirm the above it's just a tad rich on boost, but using the brakes to hold at 2600rpm you can can hear a squeaky fart type sound so that'll probably be the leak. Sorry no graphs I crashed tunerpro and lost the log..... I know how oldschool people love a good graph or data log. Pft

Easy as eh and keep sound so sweet too. Vid to confirm please.

I bet it'll do 8k.

That's applicable to a lot of cars these days tbh. I miss the days of the JDM 280hp gentlemen agreement, now it's a race to make faster and faster cars that you just can't use on the road. I have a real love/hate relationship with Subarus. Owned a few, love driving them, but owning them scares me due to the ever-looming unreliability. My STI Type R was a beast.