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Found a supplier for cylindrical rollers for the hubs. Got a sample to do one of the fronts. The original design doesnt have a ball bearing or angular bearing like normal hubs. The outer/inner race are the hub and stub axle. So you can imagine you have to have a perfectly sized hub/stub and roller diameter combo to get the right clearance and stackup. Theres no adjustment other than picking a set of slightly larger/smaller rollers. The axle is interesting. They look like a solid/fixed axle but they are split and move in the middle to work independently. Cross-section of the hub. Test fitting rollers and hub. Made a stand. Will be good later to have on wheels when assembling brakes and steering parts etc.

Inspired by the efforts from @Thousand Dollar Supercar with his pursuit for exceptional sound staging and quality from his jags sound system I have decided I to put some serious time and effort into my own setup. I started with some alloy I cut and bent to shape. Drilled some holes. Welded bits together and sifted through my collection of large O-rings (often saved from customers oil filter changes - very useful strong O-rings) The alloy was shaped to suit a cylinder which is held tight by an O-ring at each end. This cylinder was nothing less than a mighty Ultimate Ears UE Boom 3 Bluetooth speaker system !!! The mount is bolted via a rivnut to the dash support and tucks away neatly. Barely visible but within easy reach. It actually sounds really good. The bass is better than you might expect and this is a fine stepping stone until I sort out a bigger system in the future. Most of the time I have the window down listening to the exhaust notes anyway. Finally - this photo makes me giggle. Two classic Honda powered machines. The Honda Big Red would not even be considered a large quad bike these days.

Did a bit more disassemble. All the bolts for the fuel tank broke but everything else seems happy. The car really is in good shape, there's a little bit of rust in the passenger sill but fuck all else.

I got shunned at the last gtr owners club meeting because my cam belt didn't match my cam wheels so of course I fixed that straight away. Don't want to be persona non regatta (it means you don't have a yacht) at the next meeting.

Here it is last week before taking it home to the implement shed 103" wheelbase

I picked up a complete vn commodore diff for $100 Rear suspension will be 4 bar with watts link using 4 nissan GQ safari rear lower control arms and the watts link is EL falcon.

I have a confession to make: For the last two years, I've been living in an echo chamber. This is all too easy to do in current year, what with the affordability crisis of handmade fibreglass replacement headliners. The echo chamber is due to the Jag having no roof lining, after I removed the original when it got too crumbly. For the last two years I've just had the visors etc screwed directly onto the roof framing. The bare roof causes a not-very-luxurious 'clong' when you close the doors, it has no heat insulation for sunny days, and most importantly it's detrimental to my sound system experience. Only a fool would spend days on car audio while that exposed roof is resonating and reflecting and generally not helping things... Initially I tried to make a papier mache headliner using the crumbly original as a mould, but it wasn't looking promising. I scrapped it and bought the cheaper aftermarket headliner option from the other side of the world: The headliner is made of GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic - "composed of a resin matrix and a fibreglass reinforcing material", smells funky), and it's pre-covered with fabric. The kit includes some extra fabric for you to re-cover the other roof sections, such as these c-pillar trim pieces: I've gone with a change to 'limestone' beige fabric, to match the sun visors and the a- and b-pillars. Here it is all done, and not looking beige because the photo was taken in the evening: Yay for the return of the central interior light at last. Also, in my imagination, the stereo sounds better than ever. Discussion link:

Finished another block this week. The setup is working quite well now. I need to figure out a quicker way to cast them though. Dad did a set of cam box retaining studs.

Some folks here on OldSchool do beautiful engineering, and gorgeous woodwork of custom electric basses etc ... and some don't.

Super hyped.

I have been toying with the idea of a 1NZ swap, somewhat for the @Roman spec doorts, but mostly because i really want a gearbox less graunchy. The X boxes have a porsche designed syncro that is basically shit and even if you spent real money on a box rebuild it would still be pretty average. However I am such a luddite that I struggle to bring myself to actually wanting an ECU and injectors and maps and such, to the point I wondered whether bike carbing a 1NZ would bring me the simple mechanical joy i so desire. But of course I would need something to fire the coil packs etc etc... So as it is mostly about the gearbox (because IRL that shitty old SOHC engine goes hard) I thought that I would see how realistic it would be to fit a C series toyota box. I sourced a C52 for comparison and on the face of it they are incredibly similar in size and layout. Naughty Mr Toyota must have used a Fiat box as inspiration, never mind the improvements in quality and power handling and longevity etc etc. And as I have the technology to compare geometry in a rather more precise manner, I did so. The red arrow points to the most likely issue as the end of the Fiat box tucks kindof tight under the chassis rail, and the Toy box has a wee lump there. I can probably just smash that in with a hammer right? Anyway I shall measure some things and ponder it a bit more, we shall see what the future holds...

At first i thought about using a Later model chassis and running gear(nissan Safari) and just bolting the cab to it, But that evolved into making my own chassis.

Flicked some paint around, managed to get primer and colour in the engine bay and interior. Colour felt a bit dark going on, but really happy after a few coats. (Must resist the urge to respray everything) Finished off the day with first coat on the suspension using the same paint as the Datsun, asking the supplier why it took so long to harden and that I wanted something more fuel/oil resistant they told me a few drops of fancy hardener could be added for exactly that. Ah, cool, best I grab a bottle of that too... \ Pretty happy with the Bunnings spraybooth, using the CNC extractor to maintain negative pressure is keeping the fumes down and outside the environment, if not for 30+deg outside, this would almost be enjoyable.

Another year passes and it just keeps doing what it always does Sometimes I think about selling it but it's like part of the family

Do you need a sticker sent over?

Ethrottle fix I bought some different ethrottle motors that have a higher ratio gearbox on the front. So it can only move slower, but has better holding torque. So far so good, still really snappy on throttle. But now it only needs between 10-20% duty cycle to hold the throttle at any position. Previously at some points was near 50%. I changed the bracket design so rather than being single piece. They're two separate ones which slide onto a carbon fiber shaft. So there are no issues with the centers being off. Works well, I have had it on a test mode all afternoon spamming throttle open and closed a whole bunch. I've also got the Toyota TPSs mounted on properly now, and its much much much better. I've now got super aggressive PID settings and it's all working great. Exhaust stuff For the exhaust revisions, first thing was cutting off the extension part of my manifolds, and putting a V band on. So they're easier to get in and out of the car, and also a lot easier to get test sections off and on. A lot of people warned me about warping the flanges, so did it with the other half bolted on and slowly stitched around it while letting it cool a bit. Seems good so far. The next step was to do some open header limmy bashing to make sure the neighbors horses are awake. Will be interesting to do the same test once the 2-1 section is on there. For science, of course. I am just going straight to making a 2-1 section instead of the chatgpt suggested dual 3-1 scheme. Like it would be interesting to see if it works but my patience is wearing thin for exhaust stuff at the moment. Watching the video of the Stratos with the discrete 3-1 pipes vs the 6-1 and its absolutely no contest. The 6-1 sounds wild by comparison. I will still be taking onboard its suggestions about muffler type/length/etc. I started making a shallower angle 2-1 section. With about a 12 deg angle this time instead of about 45 deg. I've not had much luck trying to do cuts like this on the right angle and line, so printed a template that showed where to cut but also the angle to hold the grinder up against. Worked pretty good. It was a real bastard trying to weld up the gap in the middle though. It will probably still leak right at the top. haha. Then my next problem is trying to get the 2-1 section equal. So one bank is further back than the other, adding to this is that my manifold design is different each side. So the collectors are at different distances back. The Vband on each of these bolts on to the collector, then I marked where the pipes line up with the gearbox crossmember. So I can get an idea of the difference. So I need to squeeze about 140mm into one side prior to the 2-1 merge. Will take a bit of stuffing around. But hopefully worth it. Injector issues Something else that is annoying after reviewing things from the drags. My injectors are at 96% duty at 9750rpm. So absolutely completely out of injector. "They say" you should aim to not exceed 85% duty cycle. I'm now getting to 85% at only 7500rpm. So definitely need new injectors now. With my old intake, I was only getting to 80% duty right at the limiter. Only 68% duty cycle at 7500. So a big difference. These are around 330cc at the fuel pressure I'm running, and so its chugging down about 1.7 litres per minute at full steam. Annoyingly the BMW V10 uses a non standard injector length, and has a longer than usual pintle on the front. So it might be a bit of a pain finding some bigger injectors. But need to figure it out. Not the worst problem in the world to have? As it means the engine should actually be making some alright power now. Gearbox issues I pulled my other gearbox out as it wasnt shifting properly, and the problem would happen even when the motor was off. When putting the factory 3S bellhousing back on, the old gearbox now works fine. So I'm thinking there are a few possible issues... 1. When using a rubberband to hold the reverse fork thing on, this could be causing the issue. Maybe. 2. The weight of motor and gearbox is flexing the bellhousing because I've got no bolts around the bottom. Will test this by jacking it up by the center and see if anything changes. 3. The bellhousing welding warped the front casing slightly. apparently it takes hardly anything, to pull the shift forks or front bearings out of alignment and cause issues. 4. Something else. Will pull the motor and gearbox back out once I've finished with exhaust stuff, and do some more testing. Hopefully there's an easy-ish fix, but it was interesting to see that the factory bellhousing back on, fixed the problem.

While propping the car up with the nearest length of timber to work on the underside is a traditional practice, this was a first for me. If not for the last half cup of fuel spilling out it would have been uneventful and productive evening, note to future me, don't tip to the drivers side. Thats the underbody coating done and with 45kg of bits and pieces due to turn up in the coming weeks, reassembly is sneaking that much closer.

Why steering box? Because I needed to know what room i had available to make these. Obvs for the other engine/car but this is the best jig there is for making these. Shit is tight. Probably could have used smaller pipes. But I didn't. Anyway it fits and i can get them in and out, not easily but it can be done.

As you can see the chassis and under floor is really dirty and had lots of surface rust that you would expect from a 53 year old car. I have really, really pushed the boat out and i took the body off the chassis. I stripped all the rust, dirt and crud of the chassis and bottom of the car then I painted it all with an epoxy primer. I've been working late into the early hours every day for two weeks to get this done. In a completely unrelated story my neighbour owns a blasting company that does underside blasting and painting of cars and trucks, and I highly recommend him. The company is Blast All LTD. Toby is a fucking gc and I've seen his work and is top spec.

Used the ol farm truck as my wedding car a couple weeks back. It will probabaly never look as tidy as that day again haha

I ended up giving it a dull finish with the scotchbrite. Looks much better. Anyway it's all finished now and I'm very happy with the result.

I found a real cheap bumper but i have to take the lot. How could i say no. It actually has quite a few parts i need Just got move it and to tell wife

New owner speaking. Picked her up in Rotorua from the owner who bought from Mr.Mk1. Car was running pretty rough, had been out in the weather so rust was seeping back. Will be updating as we go. Going to get the a15 running strong, rework the suspension, wheels and tyres and otherwise get the car back into good daily condition. We can then make an assessment on the rust and next steps.

Slow progress on the exhaust, but I've manage to cobble together a 2-1 section that is nearly equal (Still needs about 75mm more, on the wiggly side) After the 2-1 join it'll revert back to a single 3" pipe and a single barrel muffler for now. Here's a neighbor's horses awakeness test with the 2-1 mostly finished. I think I've cured the 3 cyl sound at least. So its a good starting point, can hopefully fine tune it from there without having to stuff around with that part anymore. Will just have a single 3" pipe from there back, and a single barrel shaped muffler. Theennnnnnnnn I need to get some air filters on at some point. Now that I know what the runner length is going to be, more or less. can plan an airbox. After an extensive amount of fucking around with test prints and so on, have got an airbox shape sorted. I'm thinking the red backing plate bits will be alloy plate (less the radius shown) then can hopefully get a nice hidden detail with cap screws coming in from the back (rather than studs) It took 30 something hours to print the two parts, not including the 2x failed attempts due to powercuts. I was initially planning to just print PLA and then wrap in carbon. But, I think I'll try make some proper molds this time and try get a nice surface finish. Then maybe just wet layup on the inside. not sure yet. Just get this bit finished first. Sanding sucks. Please ignore the fact that I say this is about fitting air filters, yet have no obvious way to fit an air filter to this so far.

5 years on, I brought this beutiful cars from Kirk back in 2023 after he imported it back to NZ. Sadly it required some rust repairs to the drivers door and both A pillars to get it compliant for NZ roads. No biggie. Much like Kirks painter my guys were also amazed at how little rust the old girl had. During my owner ship ive lowered it and put some classic 80s jap mags on it. Ive also stripped and rebuilt the engine with a very mild cam just to let it breath a little more. Sadly the engine just died on me one day and lost compression on cylinder 4. My plans in the future are to get the rear drop down window working. Find and replace all the door seals. Get the interior tidied up with maybe some new carpet and new pillar covers made. Get the AC working as Sadly the compressor failed. Hopefully ill find a more efficient setup that doesnt cause as much load on the engine. Get a new carb setup, twin, triples or even go fuel injection. Im not sure in this area but I do have a set of twin SU carb sitting on the shelf suited to this engine. Im also building a 3.1ltr stroker motor. Im not sure if ill put it in this old girl or sell it to fund other ideas. Decisions Decisions. Finally im looking into transmission options. Although there is nothing mechanically wrong with the original 3 speed auto it would be nice to have a 4th cruising gear to drop the rpm down. Im considering these options, VL commy 4 speed auto(which i did to my last 280c), 5 speed manual conversion or a BMW 8 speed auto conversion, a slight overkill but a common swap done to Datsun Z cars. Watch this space.......

Farm shed is third world Leveled the chassis up on stands so i can finish mounting the cab and setting up the rear suspension . Still need to fabricate the tube X member and a hundred other things. The front Suspension is Jag XJ12 IFS unit . I cut its original rubber mounts off and made new mounts that bolt straight to the new chassis rails. also picked up a pair of cheap QA1 shocks and made top mounts for them Needed to cut the inner guards to clear the jag IFS, will need to do something about that I also discovered that i needed to move the cab back to get acceptable uni angles for the steering column

Well the people have spoken. I think it looks good. Eagle eye viewers may have noticed i also finished off the wee under skirts on the wellside . Not overly happy with one side and will re address it at some point but have a looming deadline so it will do for biw

Stop being lazy and do some mechanical stuff, Thousand Dollar Supercar. When I had a go at changing the front wheel bearings three years back , I noticed that the front stub axles / spindles were worn. I'm hoping this wear is the only remaining cause of vibrations at motorway speeds. Time to find out. You can see the stub axles have a taper which kinda presses into the hubs. The proper way to remove them would probably be to take the hubs off the car and get a mechanic to press the axles out. No thanks. Alternatively, the Jaguar forums said to just loosen the Jesus nut (the one on the back side of the hub holding the stub axle in) and crank up the tension on the wheel bearings - the axle will dutifully pop out. I did this as much as I dared, including bashing the axle from the back with a hammer, no luck. Jaguar Barry's second suggestion was to drive around a bit with the Jesus nut loose, but I tried that for a week, still no luck. Back to the drawing board. Barry's third suggestion was to slip a piece of pipe over the axle, put a big washer on, then put the nut back on and crank the hell out of it. OK, but since the nut was a half-width type, I was worried that the thread would fail. Better get some full-width nuts for this puller jig plan. Big surprise, the threaded ends of the axles of this silly British car are 66 poofteenths of an inch, Worcestershire Imperial thread pitch, and nobody sells nuts for them. Nobody except The Bolt Shop, where I was able to buy individual 5/8" UNF nuts in full width, half width and nyloc, all off the shelf. Here's Barry's jig ready to go: It took a lot of force. The washer started to bend. I tried hitting the axle from behind again, but I just ended up mangling the end of it and making it very difficult to remove the Jesus nut. Barry's final suggestion was a "blue-nosed wrench", but I don't have one of those. Fortunately, with enough scary force applied, victory! This old axle has less wear than the one on the other side of the car, but it's done now anyway. For my own records, I opted to grease the axle rather than loctite the bearings onto it (Barry opinions differ on this). Alas, I still have the other side of the car to do. This wrestling with mechanical stuff isn't my thing - I'm a lover, not a fighter.* Results better be worth it. *I'm neither a lover nor a fighter

/update .

Brake hoses for rear finally showed up, so could finish the diff. It runs fwd corolla rear brakes. so looking at my daily junker 20v. looked like the lines on that would do the trick It had that janky setup on it before. since they are slider style calipers really should have flexi hose at end. made these little brackets on the mill lathe, to hold the end of hoses with a factory clip bit more trimming and tig to diff. which was a super fun time to do in place. not the prettiest thing, but stuck. TOYODA cut the stock hard lines down, some bending and new flair on the end. While no fluid in the system. Threw a new seal kit in the front calipers. pistons were amazingly mint and they would have been fine without a rebuild. I probably got them off @GARDRB back in the day, guess he done better back then. Put some fluid in and bled. No leaks and have brakes again.

Panel work has been completed! - Wheel arches fixed (can see what they used to look like earlier in this thread) - Rust work done on the underside of the car - Car's been blocked and is now all straight, unfortunately the media blasting warped the doors a bit so took a bit of work to get them nice again - Panel gap is perfect for all panels Absolutely stoked to see it get to this point, patience has paid off Will be off to get new headers and an exhaust made up before it heads to paint - but not long to go now. Once the car is ready for assembly i'll probably quit my job and return back to New Zealand f652f316-1bf5-4608-9f91-4394a955e3d6 by phillipbaines, on Flickr 399cae71-5195-477d-b2b6-6044bcc73827 by phillipbaines, on Flickr 7ef1e3ef-9257-4302-95fc-7d3b7dde901b by phillipbaines, on Flickr 72e60622-ce5d-4745-a04c-2f9f83033420 by phillipbaines, on Flickr ab4a15dc-925e-4dbd-b310-e38cf15523e4 by phillipbaines, on Flickr 051ec4ee-d61c-494f-bcaa-35533b2014da by phillipbaines, on Flickr f89ff754-eebc-4beb-b9bf-1a3d5ae75b5f by phillipbaines, on Flickr 9f8f888c-e891-4999-92f5-1f055e5b2c55 by phillipbaines, on Flickr e0b695b8-1016-482a-8bfd-5f6caada88bc by phillipbaines, on Flickr 073fc634-6ccb-48bb-84f7-d52be3e11b3d by phillipbaines, on Flickr 5cc62865-0b2e-469c-b58d-c8ad30178ee8 by phillipbaines, on Flickr

Close to two years ago i bought this paddock fresh cab with the crazy idea of getting it back on the road. The chassis had been made into a farm trailer many years ago and the cab was pushed to the side . Its got damage from being moved around with a tractor and used as target practice. Here is a photo of what it looked like for the next two years of me owning it Discussion Thread

Hi. My lathe is broken, has been for some time. The 40 year old VSD shit itself. It's been 4 months trying to fix it. It's been fixed, allegedly, but lathe still no go. Who gives a shit I hear you ask? Well, ordinarily I would have turned a new end for the water neck and welded that on instead of trying to fix it with weld. But when you don't have a lathe you can't do that. OK cool. Anywho i made dis

I got one of them wintec bikes a while back, but it was a bit jankey and no one in the family used it as it was loud, vibratey and the chain fell off every five minutes, so I used parts from the crackhead electric skateboard I got ages ago, along with a few AliExpress items and converted it to be an EV. 800w motor, power tool batteries, belt drive for smooth silent operation, and gold wheels for that John Player Special vibe. Goes really well and much more child/wife friendly.

Still alive I am. I epoxy primered the front panel. Stripping off all the paint and derusting it was really tedious. Brush/roller painted, so plenty of runs. I made sure I got plenty on the top bit cause it acts like a, hard to get to, shelf for debris and typically rusts there due to lack of paint. A trial fit, mainly to check fitment where the front of the wing was straightened. AND that the chrome trim still fit over the seams. I still needed to trim the sides of the ...apron as there is an overlap. I also painted epoxy primer as far back into the wings as I could reach using a small roller on a stick. And cut some inspection holes in the ...kick panels so I could see in the wing behind the wheel arch and see the end of the sill. The later cars already have a hole there. Here is the passenger side, the driver side looks about the same but were out of focus. This is looking at the end of the sill from above just some surface rust. Surprisingly good. They can fill with debris that gets wet because the rain gutters empty in here. And this is looking up at the underside of the box section from the a-pillar to the strut tower. Above it you can see the end of the rain gutter that. I'll be drenching this area with something like cavity wax. I also sprayed the interior with epoxy. Then went on a side mission to find an existing car colour so I could quote the code and order some paint. But no one had any of those pre-made duplicolor cans. I was then made aware that Wairarapa autopaint was "It's just around the corner". So I went and met Reese. He gave me some colour cards, I picked something that looked close to my sample (that was too crazed to use on the scanner). He mixed me a test pot. I tried it out, then came back next day for a 4L tin. So now the interior is a colour of 'old timey white'. It was so hard to tell what had and had not been painted yet. Especially for the 2nd/3rd coats. Boot was a real bitch with so many corners and things in the way. Other than the boot, almost all of this is covered by trim and carpet, I considered just painting the boot, but where do you draw the line. Back to the front panel. I used many vicegrips to make sure it was in the right place. I pre-drilled the spot weld holes and removed the paint from around them. All the spot welds on the seam are done and ground flat (chrome trim still fits!). Got one of the joins in the apron done, still got the passenger side to do.

Alternative acceptable stickers 'surf syndicate' 'Off road mafia' 'Cancer sucks' 'Dirty diesel' 'Soot gets the moot' Also, rear bumper delete, zero droop travel, some sort of yellow shock absorber, Chinese-44 offset steel wheels, equally unbalanced Chinese mud tyres, torn cv boots, a 4 inch stainless snorkel with something kustomz logo welded in the inlet that makes the actual intake diameter the same as a garden hose, a straight pipe exhaust with no muffler, and a roof tent Then you will have a true nz style 4wd

Got the block water gallery’s cleaned out, decent pic of my bad bore crater

Its fixed! Bens chap changed out the vac pump, and Ben won the battle against the laptop and updated the ECU to the latest firmware, and its now boosting how it should and going MUCH better. VG happy. I must of had a senior moment, and was convinced the new one I drove was getting 5 segments of boost, but Ben took a brand new one from his lot out and it was getting 4 segments, so I had a look online and it turns out that 4 is the correct amount of boost segments for a standard car, which is around 16psi. Ben has also recommended to run a carbon cleaner through it, one you hook up to a vac line and spray in, so if anyone has any recommendations on that, please let me know. Huge thanks to Ben for his help! Now that its running properly, time to start ruining it! I think my first waste of money mod might be an intake. Theres a few available in NZ, but they either look like they will eat a ton of hot air (gets real hot under bonnet, I think due to the cat being right in the front of the motor) or are crazy expensive. HKS does a hot air eater and a super spendy one: One I've found that looks like it should get cooler air, and isn't rapishly expensive is from MST, Thats the current front runner. Regards, V "full boost" G. P.S. my wife keeps referring to me as a swifty, and it's upsetting me.

I made a new oil catch can because I didn't like the one i had. I polished the top but I'm not sure i like it like that, might go for a more matt finish. Really stoked with the welds too, my new welder is definitely helping.

Righto, so the final piece of the puzzle was getting centrecaps on the front wheels which you may have noticed are missing in the above pics. Nobody seems to use centrecaps on these Watanabes for S30's and I think I figured out why - they don't fit. Pics below for context but essentially the wheel hubs stick through the central holes too far for the standard caps. Fits fine at the rear. I got the caps in from Japan, so wanted to use them rather than just leave them off the front. I asked @Ned and @Evan about 3d printing some sleeves to extend the depth of the caps and they thought it could be done, so off I went modelling in Sketchup. Found Bryn at Tech 3D Print in chch who was very helpful with material choices for the print to resist UV and heat effects and sent him the design files with a brief and he make up the MK1 with the teeth as below. In hindsight, it should have been obvious the teeth would snap but we live and learn. MK2 removed the teeth in favour of the double cylinders and reduced the wall thickness to 2.5mm and depth to 13mm rather than 20 on the bottom portion. The tolerances were ideal and I needed to use a rubber hammer to get them into the wheel centre, so bloody happy with that. Colour of the print ended up amazingly close to the wheel colour, so saves needing to paint which is nice.

Took her for a burn today finally.. Could also go lower I think but looks way better than it did. Had a list of stuff to finish, mainly tightening things and bending up lock washers etc. Did a tape measure toe in job and a leveling tool castor job, seems to track ok but it's been so long I can't remember how it drives, covid was the last time I drove it. $1600 drive shaft seems to have done the trick with no vibrations at 80km anymore (thank fuck) But tbh still feels like I'm diving an old clunker even with all new suspension bits. Also saftey wire on the strut bolts was a total ball ache, next time I'll think about that while things are being put together rather than after the fact.. Now that I've finally tested it out and all seems fine next on the list is a trip over the hill for a new exhaust care of @yoeddynz... And then wof time. Edit*.. Oh, and should prob bleed the brakes again as they feel a bit spongy.

Motor out. Makes cleaning and painting it easier. But also mainly because of our old friend Mr water pipe. shockingly the one in the motor is rusty and fucked. it did have a screw holding one of the holes closed so that's good. I'll make a new one out of stainless. Aldo does anyone want a W40? Because I don't.

Finally brought an ecu. wanted to try one of the new g5 links. but couldn't justify the price, and no real need for it. So got a g4x xtreme, as is lowest model that can run e throttle without and external box Speaking of external boxes. not a fan of any extra gauges, dashes, keypads etc. and for the most part they just tell you when your engine is already blown up. So made some brackets that tuck the ecu and fuse box out of sight. yo dawg i heard you like brackets, so i put a bracket on your bracket paired up with the $40 dollar aliexpress fuse/relay box. which is actually pretty choice, unless it catches fire. It come with a lid but doesnt fit behind kick panel. so can stay open

Once again, no big news, however... Last Friday I decided to take the Jag to work. Just like a normal car, ballsy I know. Again, no incident. We're getting close to a modern day miracle here team....🤣

I've not owned a bike for 17 years. I had done my CBT in the UK, owned a minty fresh 70's Honda SL125 and commuted on a Honda Citi-fly 125. Then I moved back to NZ and didn't really think about bikes again. But since starting the Imp GW conversion I've fancied a Goldwing to ride. I love the engineering and the absurdness of it all. Plus if the Imp feels quick at 800kg what would it be like to ride something half the weight with the same torque. But they are always way more than I want to pay (says the bloke who spends lots of money on bikes with no motors) This one popped up on my saved search again. The listing stated the owner as having been diagnosed with Alzheimers and lost his licences. He'd had it listed previously for loads more, way more than I could afford to pay for an unknown bike in the wrong island. But now the price had dropped to a $1000. It had developed a clutch issue and was out of wof and he just wanted it gone so he could build the model railway he'd always dreamed of. True story. Was stated in the listing. I phoned him. His name was Rob and he was super cool on the phone. He told me that no one had bothered to call him. Just texts or emails which he wasn't fond of. I was the first to actually chat to him. I told him about the Imp, that I'd been looking for a gl1500 to ride and we just got on well. I paid him straight away, sight unseen. It was only just out of wof in October and even as a spare engine if the bike was in a state it was worth it. But it looked good. It had a bloody cup holder and air horns!!! Just look at it! Its beautiful. Such presence. I was very excited.

Took the whaler out for a scoot up and down the river and found a boat very similar to Calliope. He said it was a Glen L Zip. A quick google suggests the plans were released for the home builder in 1954. The owner had a 40hp yammy 4 stroke on the back.

I found a water neck that has the "pipe round the back of the head" style heater feed. Only problem is that is fucked. The pitting on the outlet was pretty next level. I figured i had nothing to loose by trying to weld it up. So I gave it a go. It was not easy. But I fixed it. Now I'll make a new water feed pipe out of stainless steel for the 4M.

thats how you ended up with kids in the first place

A new year and a new box of tricks arrived this morning. I had to wait a while, but I was pleased they sent them in the new year rather than the end of last year in the silly season. Now I have to nervously work my way through it. I will start with the instructions as always (not).