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My Birthday present from myself to myself showed up today.. IMG_1237 by postlematt, on Flickr Got a bunch of stuff off ebay, did a bulk buy and the seller was good enough to combine shipping rather than charging me crazy shipping costs. he sent them as a "gift" and although the combined cost including shipping was probably slightly ove the threshold he put the value on the box at $97 and also put a birthday card in the box incase customs got nosy.. but like i said its a birthday present from myself to myself.. IMG_1238 by postlematt, on Flickr The card cracked me up, the guy seems like a genuine GC haha IMG_1239 by postlematt, on Flickr its mainly small mechanical parts, bushes and a few other bits and pieces IMG_1246 by postlematt, on Flickr ill do another big buy an a month or two and get all my rubber seals, weather strips, badges and other stuff that will go on after panel and paint.. he sells a lot of old toyota reproduction parts so if anyone wants to check out his ebay store and make purchase when i do to save on shipping then give me a PM and can sus something out. Cheers

Engine + cooler took 5l of 10w30 Running, need timing light to time it a bit better now, this running straight of the stab. Oil pressure sweet as. Temp sitting over 100 n not going down so needa look into shitty old sender unit, timing, and thermo. But all in all good result, im stoked that engine runs as it was a bit of a gamble purchase. Gaz

Discussion thread here! I did a deal on the Corolla and got something much more my style, basically a car I have always dreamed of owning. The opportunity arose to accomplish this dream and I did it. This is it, a 91 VG45 Toyota Century (L Shape). Its the long wheelbase version, powered by a 5V "Toyota Hemi" 4Litre V8. Now I know its 1991 so probably not classified as Oldschool but this thing has kept almost the same shape since the late 60s so I may be forgiven. The car has done 110,000ks, is in very good condition. Hard to find a single fault with the interior, everything works except for 1 window which I have a replacement reg coming from Japan already. List of features is pretty ridiculous, too lazy to list now. Has 2 dings down one side that I will get fixed, apart from that everything is mint. Pricing up airbags at the moment, bag it on factory rims for a starter and then look into the horrors of adding wheels. Also going to get tints redone. Have some plans on replacing some of the older tech with modern tech and integrating it nicely. Like replacing the Tape player in the arm rest with a tablet. Wifi in the car, redoing the speakers and stereo etc. Need to do a photo shoot, here is a taster:

Cheers man, Danny sold the blue GS to a mate of ours called Black White Tony, It had some coil issues that are now sorted and running really good, He's resprayed in white and "aged" it back and is going to put some vintage looking Castrol oil decals on it, should look really good when its all done, and nice that its stayed in the same circle of mates. His GSX750 with the 1200 banbit motor was crached heaverly at manfeild a couple of months back, will up load some photos at some stage, guy riding it is all good stuffed his hands because of poor choose in gloves! but as a result, he now owns that bike. He's a good mate of our and is working on getting it rebuild, fixable but needs quite alot. Guess its good that that bike is still inthe circle aswell. just not the nicess way to go about it haha And Ive still got the bobber, not selling that anytime soon, this new build is just more of a daily, long/er haul bike. can never have too many ay. Anyways some more photos of mine from when i picked it up Sweet non personalised plate 4THE Cock! teh guy bare metaled the tank, but then covered it in some shit, then tryed to clean "the shit" off, now everything is covered in some sticky crap, and it on EVERYTHING!!! Grouse! Even with JUST removing that seat, its ten times better now to just get rid of those gross mags was having heaps of trouble trying to start the bloody thing, then noticed that evrything is covered in the "shit". you can see the build up of chain grease Starting taking the rear wheel off and noticed something abit odd Someone has lost the rear wheel spacer, so found what ever shit they had around, a big arse nut, and ran that. only problem is it fucks the rubber bearing seal......nice plus look at those spocket bolt lockers! It sat like this for a couple of weeks while i sorted the DX out with rust issues for its wof, Im back on it now and will up load some more of where im up to now Line up at work, boss loves this shit haha Cheers

1-1/4" seems to be about industry standard from what I've seen. I take your point but I don't think it looks overkill and it'll get me started. Just had my new mikuni carb kit turn up from the states. Took a week and it's lush. Came with manuals, extra jets, manifold, K&N filter, throttle cable and lowbrow customs catalogues. It even came in a lush box that looks like something Manu would send his christmas presents in

Ready for blaters, not the normal way to do a build, but the frame was covered in shit so just wanted to start fresh Started clean the motor and a few other parts while the frames away at the sand blasters sweet paint job bro Normally im all for black motors but this one i want silver, not polished tho That stuff he sprayed on the tank got on everything!! Ill get some photos of dannys bike tonight and update his build next week cheers

^ yeah im enjoying your build thread, will be good when we have all these bikes finished, will have to T-up a ride. Right so, Im not a fan of mag wheels, the bobber/ Kawasaki wheels im living with, there not toooo bad as far as mags go. But these Suzuki mags are yuck as fuck! Over the years weve become really good mates with the guys at Boyle Kawasaki in wellington, they have help us out a shit tonne, and are always will to help us out. So when i told the guys what i was wanting to build and said i needed some wire wheels, Regan at Boyles got real into the idea as he has a similar idea for a build of his as well, but instead of just doing a swap for wire wheels with disc he hooked me up with an early GN250 with drum brake front and rear. One crashed GN250 I did some measuring a realised that the plan of just swapping the fork lowers over wasnt going to work as the fork tubes were smaller on the 250 So as he said, whats better than one dragon?..............Two dragons! haha This one had straight forks and true rims, but misses a few bits that the other one had Some more messuring and it was looking good for a complete front end swap, forks streerer everything another good thing about the GN250 forks is they are already abit shorter, which will help with lowering as the 400 forks were so long i was worried they wouldnt lower nicely Fronts swapped, I didnt want the gn250s but they didnt want them not rolling hence the total swap BAM! Stoked!

A good local site is www.plenternz.com, some stuff is cheap some isn't ebay of course has lots of new old stock available The funny thing is the '76 RD400 (which is the model I have) was the first production motorcycle to have cast wheels so they should be cool but they aren't, also maybe due to Yamaha being overly cautious using cast wheels for the first time they are actually quite a lot heavier than the wire wheels, the later models finally got lighter ones but they still ugly. Here's my spendy rear wheel, could have gotten a cheaper drum brake one but this lets me keep the disc brake which was also fancy for the time, these wheels only appeared in the European market as an option which wasn't very popular from what I can tell.

Thought I might as well post up a build thread for my latest project. Building a hot rod push stroller for my daughter to cruise around in. Starting point was an Instep Hot Rod Pedal Car which is a reproduction of the 1950's Murray Dipside pedal car. Imported from the US and looks like this stock: And here is a sample of what I am aiming for: Wanting to add working headlights, tuck and roll seat, ghost flames, pin-striping, dashboard etc. A mate of mine is helping me with welding up the frame. Not 100% settled on final chassis layout, will just see how it all comes together as we go. There is also a body shop looking to run a 1 day course on prepping and painting motorcycle tanks including basic graphics and flames and they said I could bring the pedal car body along. Basic plan is for a simple box frame which will be powder coated. The rear wheels are smaller to get the back end nice and low while the front wheels will be held just off the ground by a swivel castor in the centre of the front end. When she gets a bit older I might try to remove the castor and change the front section to allow steering and run an electric motor to the rear wheels. Feel free to suggest improvements to the chassis design too Rough plans: Mockup: Hope to have the chassis finished off in the next few weekends and ready to cruise around by the time she can sit unsupported!

slow down there chip foose. who are you, mike finnegan?

Had 3 boxes to pick up at Mainfreight today. Much exite. Also, acquired some heat for the shed for those cool winter nights.

course.. pfft just practice its like a gluegun stick everything together

Now for the main part of the grille. I had a friend (Hi Shane) cut the main bars and tig weld them together at the correct angle. I hand filed the welds then finished the joins with various grades of emery tape and a quick session with a buffer. Partially assembled here with some of the plywood mounts to see if it was all going to work. I started the assembly with the shortest (middle) bar and some more mounting brackets Adding bars. The shaped brackets made it really easy to assemble straight. It would have been a real pain to get in alignment any other way. Once fully assembled I blocked the bars up in the grille opening and made some body mounts to span between the existing radiator support structure (or hood latch in this case) and the triangular brackets. This worked well, and made it easy to assemble the grille first. Remember to check at each stage that the grille can be removed from the car without too much dismantling, and that all the mounting bolts can be reached with a socket or spanner. Cutting out some more stainless for the body mounts. This shear made life easy! Once all together I painted all the bracketry (and welds on the backside of the tubes) with a spray bomb. Overspray on the tubing was removed with thinners before it dried. The finished product. I am really pleased how this turned out. It cleans up the front of the car no end. Since this pic we';ve been on a long drive to the Whangamata Beach Hop. No problems with the grille except a fair few bugs stuck on it! (this was done back in 2013)

So thought I'd put something up here. Bought this car about 8months ago with a friend with the intention to get into rallying a oldschool RWD car for cheap and having some fun (the way they used to with mo's a beer for lunch) as we both have circuit cars as well and came to the conclusion neither of us could handle ever selling our POS circuit cars to fund a rally car. We are planning to do the Daybreaker Rally in 2014, there is a clause in the rules that still state that the co-driver can drive some of the stages if they want. So we are doing stage-for-stage driving the car. Neither of us have any rally driving experience, only rally experience is servicing stupidly custom hayabusa starlets so doubt that'll be much use to us... so will be an interesting learning curve considering neither of us can read notes so will just do the rally blind at this stage. Got the car cheap from down south where it had been running for a number of years. Mechanically pretty sound few bits and pieces we have had to sort but all in all its pretty good. Car just needed a birthday really. A lot of things were done really hory and the interior was a sight to behold.. A bit of TLC is what it needed. It has a COD (certificate of description) which means we can run legitimately in the classic class and also gives the car a bit more value. As we got the car got rid of the racetech 100's that neither of us could fit our fat arses into and mounted the seats from my circuit car. only just fits in there theres a 10mm gap between the seats and each seat just clears the door on the outside of the car. This is what we are aiming for the car to look like by daybreaker; took it for a skid at the farm to test it all out. Goes bloody well! the 4K in it is grumpy as hell got a massive cam, dellortos and revs out over 8K so were pretty happy with that. Has a AE86 diff (TRD plate diff), gearbox and front struts with Bilstein shocks all round so handled it all really well. Was super tail happy so after this we put it on the alignment machine; turns out it was toeing out by 8mm.. nothing a angle grinder and welder can't solve! So the strip down begun, just to tidy up everything as there were bits of rust, birdshit welding and general horiness in quite a few places. our aim was to tidy up the inside and do everything right. As well as sort out the crunchy synchro's in the gearbox which hindered us while testing Some of the good bits.. grp 4 inserts in the front Some of the shit, starting to strip the whole interior of paint ready for a full respray (check out how dented the floor is - this has been a rally car for quite a while!) Tidying up the struts Jase (ekezetec) made me some new footplates New parcel tray to tidy it up So we had a bit of drama with this. We intended to use my paint I used ont he 101 and it just turned to shit. Apprentice painter painted it for us and did a shit job turned out rough and not glossy at all and was never going to cut it. So got some white CV and did it again with a mate Rob at the gun. Damn he's good at pretty much everything and only wanted a 24 box of export for it which we pretty much drank while he painted... what a GC! Had to spend a lot of extra time re-prepping it again which sucked but at least its done properly. All masked up and ready to go for round 2. Rob at work So much glossier than 1st time round. Main thing was it had to be glossy so dust can be cleaned out properly after every rally. Finished result - really happy with how it turned out! New battery mount welded in and nice straps made. Also ran new cables and put a nice sheath over the outer to keep it all looking tidy Toolbox has been restored taking it right back to bare metal and repainted/remounted using some tidy go-kart washers. Also painted the fuel tank while it was out to tidy it up Nick spent heaps of time cleaning up the rear trims. We used expanding foam up the pillars to try and seal the dust out of the cabin. hopefully this will work well along with our new door seals - got a full set of brand rubbers from thailand so that will make everything seal really well hopefully. Dash has been fully re-coed. Looks 10000x better than it did before. Just looking for a small black retro looking tacho to run now so we can get rid of the monster tacho it currently has.. Dash mostly back together now just need to replace the indicator-lamp-oil-light with a nice little LED unit and mount in the new carbon panel. Also had the top panels of the dash repainted and flocked, looks super tidy and definately worth the money to do it properly! Waiting for the foot plates, seat mounts and isolator switch bracket to return from anodising this week to finish off our nice shiny bits and pieces.. Will post more pics when they arrive. Got new Flywheel bolts for it and machined the flywheel properly so the new TRD close ratio box can go in this weekend hopefully. Also have decided to make a new driveshaft. The output of the TRD box has a ae86 spline which we had to change, Nick had a ae86 driveshaft sitting there so thought we may as well use that! just need to shorten by a few mm and weld back together.

So I was gonna fit the carb tonight but i'm in town and all my tools are in my workshop not at my flat so I was missing sockets to get the old carb off. Anyway I also fitted new (correct) plugs and a fuel filter then thought fuck it i'll take it for blat without the airfilter. HOLY SHIT it's a different bike. Front wheel was lifting in 1st. Not running 100% but so much better. Dunno if i'll use the mikuni now or stick with the Keihin and tune it with a new filter.

At noon this Sunday we are going to start a cruise from Caffeine & Classics. It will be a leisurely cruise to ensure all vehicles can attend. The route will be a loop that runs down the Northern motorway and over the Harbour Bridge, out along the North Western motorway to West Gate, then follow the signs to North Shore via the Upper Harbour Motorway and back down the Northern motorway coming off at Northcote Road and back to where we started at Smales Farm. All vehicles are welcome to come along, and can participate for as much of the cruise as you like. For those that come all the way around, we’ll try to get photos and video of the convoy as we go over the Harbour, and as we cruise by Greenhithe. We hope to have a photographer on the Tauhinu Road over bridge (just after the Greenhithe Bridge) so give him a wave as you go past. A few of us will also be grabbing a bite to eat at Columbus Café in Smales Farm afterwards, everyone is welcome to join us there too. The lead car will be a black and red ’73 Camaro, and we will start forming a queue to leave Smales Farm at 12:00 noon on the dot. If you’d like to come along, simply line up at noon and follow the convoy. It’s a cruise not a race, so if you get separated by traffic or lights, there will be plenty of time to catch up without breaking the law.

Tis true, I got in trouble as a youngin for opening cans of beer and putting dirt in them out the back of the bottle store I lived next to. This thread is relevant to me now, was thinking of doing a pedal car or something, at least I'd have a couple years before I had to finish it haha

Lol'd at nut spacer 400 is better than 250, torquey single will be good for hooning around on, I rode a GN250 once, got it as a loaner when my CB250RS was in the shop. It felt a bit gutless so I thought I was running out of gas, tank was nearly full, it was just gutless haha We should have a mini swapmeat in Welly for bike stuff, I've got stuff which is of no use to me that someone else might find useful, especially if we are all building non standard shit.

Fuck it! I was going to say the upside is that you can chuck a 289 in it, too slow.

I can't find a decent picture but to do it decent you want to end up with something like this IMO

Pump the tyres up to 40+ psi, do a skid, post skid vid on os, buy some new tyres.

If I had kids which I don't thankfully yet, I would rather build a radio flyer hot rod! Search it on google there's some dope as ones! It works well cos kids get to kick back and dad can use it as a parts trolly for swap meets/ pull a box of beers around!

Yea sounds healthy, gamble paid off. Good Jerb Gaz.

So after taking it for a big spin last night i found it definitely has some big flat spots in the tyres from sitting so long.... Serious question, Will a nice little skid even them out or am i better to buy new ones? Bear in mind it had been siting for around 3 years on these tyres and they were dead flat when i went to look at it....

Try this Jeff... http://www.performanceprobe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45912

I've got narrow whitewalls from the supremes, but keeping them white was such a pain, that the white part is going on the inside this time.

Two 4L packs should do the trick Gazz

Huge update. I replaced a front wheel bearing. Well just an outer because I'm cheap. See all you party animals at Palmy Swap Meet.

Took it for a celebratory dort up the hills

Tires sorted! Coming next week Had another early day today so I came home and pissed around with the car for a bit. Copied from another forum, here's what I did today: LOLSPAMSPAMSPAM Anyhoo, today was a good day. I fitted two new door seals, so I don't get wet when it's raining and so that if I accidentally a lake, I'll die later. Win-win really. Also decided I'd had enough of the tappet cover going dull and needing polished to remove fingerprints and general grubbiness all the time, so I painted it. Paint: Been a long time fan of this stuff, used it several times on my first Minis tappet cover, it was never the same colour for more than a couple of months but this red was by far my favourite Matches my water pump pulley and engine stay bar too. I wanted to leave the fins raw, so masking was required. Rather than piss around with tape, the quickest solution is to simply use this: Normal everyday grease, or anything similar that wipes off easily and doesn't allow paint to adhere to the surface. This is best applied by either fingertip, or preferably, a small modelling paintbrush for more intricate jobs, one of those days I wish I still had one... Anyway, I cracked on, and carefully applied a thin film of grease to each fin. After that, paint time: That was the first coat. I did my best beforehand to remove any contaminants, dirt and old oil, but unfortunately the prepsol didn't quite get it all, so there is some reaction in the finish, luckily, its on the reverse side, which you never see as the carb and filter is in the way, plus the PCV line and choke cable rub on it anyway, so no biggy. Three coats later, I had a nice blood red: I didn't have any clear on hand, which sucks, but that can always be done later, if I feel the need. The motor was still warm, so I sat the cover back on the head and shut the bonnet for half an hour to help cure the paint, after that, came down with a rag, and wiped the grease and paint off the fins, doesn't look bad at all, will clean out the the crusty paint once the finish has finally cured so I dont wipe off my hard work. Lush colour I reckon: Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest difference Mightn't be to everyones taste, but i'm more than happy with it.

also, hows my welding looking now?

Trying to keep motivation high for this. The great thing about these bikes is that they share a lot with other models like the R5's, RD250/350's, RZ250/350's and also the Banshee quads. Another good thing is that ever since they came out people have been tuning them for HP/top speed and flogging them mercilessly on the street, tracks and drag strips, as a result there is tons of info available. For example I now have a range of parts from different machines to stick in mine. -Clutch friction plates from an FZR1000 -Small end bearings from a Kawasaki H1 -Exhaust gaskets from a Suzuki GS1000 -Reeds from a YZ125 -Intakes and carbs from an RZ -TZR front caliper -FZR front disc -RZ350 rear master cylinder and caliper etc etc I also bit the bullet and have some spoked RD250 rims coming, the rear from the UK and the front from Japan haha Also have some new forks now, strangely just like my last bike the ones it came with were mismatched Cylinders are still away getting bored, just waiting on the last of the seals to arrive before splitting the cases. More cool pics

It's the finishing details that take the most amount of effort. Been a big week but making good progress Mounted new oldschool looking tachometer. Definitely going to be seeing 8k frequently!! Gear lever boot all sorted. Looks nice and tidy and keeps the wind on the outside! New catch can and breather hoses I slapped together tonight Spare tyre mounted - nick did a super nice job with this one Restored toolbox is a perfect place for the tow rope!

Shaz and KK stop spamming my thread or I'll fucking cut you

this is a picture of how my project Is going im using it as my daily at the moment. still need to do a few more things to it and needs to go a lot lower

Also found a 4.1 hilux diff, 4 spider that ill try find an lsd for but happy to run open at the moment.. IMG_1228 by postlematt, on Flickr scored these fendor mirrors for $60 too IMG_1230 by postlematt, on Flickr and last but not least, new leads $1.50 tardme special, cost more to ship them then it did to buy them hah! IMG_1232 by postlematt, on Flickr

Got my wheels back today, Im real stoked with them! Big shout out to fellow OS member XSVWGN for hooking me up some volk centres at a sweet price. Just spent 3hrs out in the garage fitting them up.. it was only -2 degrees out in the garage had to wait half an hour for my hands to thor out so i could type.. anyway pictures! IMG_1223 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1221 by postlematt, on Flickr Already had some 195/45r15 good years for the front (left) and managed to track down some 205/45r15 toyos for the rear (right) IMG_1226 by postlematt, on Flickr Fitted up, ill be running some 15mm spacers up front if anyone has a pair they want to part with? IMG_1208 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1216 by postlematt, on Flickr IMG_1219 by postlematt, on Flickr

Got the camera all sorted out, this was a bit of a mission - the icc screen had RGB input voa a factory loom, but cameras only feed out composite video signal. A company in aussie sell a kit which converts the signal and patches into the factory loom which was great - it has also given me a USB output for charging a phone / whatever and a second switchable video input for the screen. I'm thinking I'd like to use my tablet to feed info via the OBD2 output (which i have already figured out using the torque for android app) into the second video input. Not sure A: how if my tab can output video signal and B: finding what signal I can convert to composite output (assuming tablet will output HDMI if anything) Other than that just loving the lazy torque this thing smashes out, I just need my wife to calm down a bit on the throttle control to prevent the back end stepping out on her unintentionally. it won't do my tyre budget much good.

Postmans Leg's Sunday special is a roast for $18. Just saying.

So as per above, I'd been looking at changing the diff ratio and changing diff type. After doing the maths on the diff ratio, in order to keep the tire sizes I want (195/50/15 and 205/50/15) and get 3000rpm at 100kph I would need to drop right down to a 3.7 ratio from 4.3. Changing to 4.1 would make bugger all difference for the effort, so 4.3 it is! Regarding the diff, after doing some homework I found that the Cusco units are VERY adjustable, and from factory they are on the highest settings for everything. At the moment it has too much preload (how much the clutches are pushed together / locking the diff when nothing is happening) Too much locking under accelleration (Annoying trying to put power down on corner exit, acts like a locked diff) Too much lock under braking/decel (Makes the car understeer on corner entry, and partly responsible for doing 720 spins into turn 1 at Taupo a few trackdays back!) Some people would suggest just adding more front camber to the car, but that just means each end of the car is fighting each other and so you're scrubbing away grip for nothing. I'll be adding a small amount of camber over it's Necessary-to-pass-cert 0 degrees setting to negative 1-1.5ish. After pulling the diff back out it looks to be the Type RS model, which is the less aggressive compared to the MZ version and thankfully it's a lot easier to adjust the preload. The preload is set by a bunch of springs holding two halves of the unit apart internally, that you can see here: The MZ type has cone washers instead, which are even more aggressive and not very adjustable from what I understand. phew! There are slots for having up to 10 springs in, mine had 6. So took two out, respaced them evenly and used the reccomended minimum of four. There are also notches in the sides, which determine whether the diff is set to one way or two way: I've changed this from two way back to one way. So when I'm not on the throttle, the car should drive like it doesnt have an LSD at all, apart from the preload force which should hopefully be a lot lower now. aannnnndd the final thing that I can adjust, is the order of the clutch plates. Basically half of the clutch plates hold on to the shaft which the axles slot into, and the other half grab on to the outside of the housing. So they either have 'tabs' on the outside or inside circumference of the plates. They are normally one then the other, however if you stack two of the same type of plates back to back, in the order prescribed in the manual you can reduce the effective friction down to 60% of what it was to start with. As explained by this excellent diagram: With everything restacked, it just needs the housing plonked back on, and the two halves are only held together with 4 phillips head countersunk screws. The reason being that they are just there to hold the halves together until the crownwheel is on, they dont need to be done up super tight... Then add the crown wheel and torque it all back up to factory settings, and back in the housing. From here it's no different to the process for installing any other type of diff. It looked pretty intimidating seeing the exploded diagram, but they've done well to have the minimal amount of parts and super easy to adjust or service. Here's a Gif of how it stacks together: This is all yet another tick in the box towrads the idea of going to an easier to work on car than previous... I shudder at the thought of having to make the same changes to a diff buried inside a transaxle! There are a few other things to do while the the diff is out. I found that the brake discs were pinching on the outside circumference of the axles - so they werent sitting completely flush against the axle face. This pretty much busted the near new wheel bearings on the axles, so will need to replace those again. Bummer! Easy and not too expensive problem to solve though, I'm relieved it wasnt a bent axle instead causing the problem. When towing the car on the trailer I've had to be careful about throwing strops over the diff as well, as the brake hard lines are in the way. So I'll be redoing these in a more strop friendly location, then painting the diff housing finally, then mash it all back together. This should take a competent and motivated person maybe 3-5 nights after work and a weekend to complete. So, ETA is December Thankfully most of this work I can do on the bench in the garage instead of scrounging around under the car, which isnt particularly appealing at this time of year. Fred: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?showtopic=21625#p614135

So got a bit done today, didnt get to paint my door though as the weather wouldnt play ball. Got the NB Hubs in and put the MKIIIs on one side for fun. Also got the coilovers with new bushes in, what a difference the new bushes made! NB Hub NA Hub Hard to see in photos but left is NA and is wider but I think it may have reduced camber but Ill check that on the alignment machine. And If I had more MKIIIs

that. or............... CORVETTE SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More slam Pretty stiff in the rear now but I prefer that. I had the shocks preloaded right up before or it felt too floaty

Forgive my ignorance but if it does turn out to be a Savanna what does that mean, is it just a naming convention like Cedric/Gloria?

So awesome Missing a couple of features though

Another B body wags! So big block, standard front end and it's done?

Going to shoot for this low.

Update time. For the last couple of years I have been intending to make a new instrument layout. I love the look of the original Viva strip speedo but not having a rev counter in view is annoying. I have to look off down towards the tunnel to see what revsI'mdoing and this does not make for relaxed fast driving. I had nowhere else to mount a rev counter without touching the dash. The speedo also reads 15% too high and was not going to be super easy to fix. So for ages I have wanted to fix all these areas. Initially I was going to order some posh aftermarket gauges but they all seemed to expensive or not quite what I wanted. So I thought I'll make some. Sometime last year I went to the wreckers and bought a early 90's Toyota celica instrument cluster and the required electronic speedo pickup. These pickups have exactly the same thread size as the Mazda gearboxes. Which is nice. I took the lot home and stripped the cluster down till I had a speedo by itself sitting in front of me. I tried a few different combinations of wiring up with a spare battery until I had a setup that worked. The pickup only requires three wires- 12volt feed, earth and a signal wire. Same goes for the speedo head. For a 6 cylinder rev counter I still had the cluster left over from the Mazda Eunos we split ages ago when first embarking on the V6 route. I was not sure what sort of signal it would need- ie a simple pulse from one coil or a different signal from the ECU. I just had to try it. Luckily it was an older style and worked a treat. So I now had my required main gauges. I swapped the needle off the toyota rev counter onto the mazda one and the fonts almost look the same. All these bits then sat about in a shoe box till last week. So last week I though I best get it sorted before the oldschool nats [] There is a particular sort of look I wanted. A touch modern with an art deco/steam punk style. Sort of. So last week I bought some thick walled alloy stock and machined out some housings for speedo, revs, temp and fuel gauges. I set the gubbins/faces into these sandwiching some 2.5mm lexan spaced apart by thin strips of alloy. Then Saturday I made a new instrument binnacle out of thin steel. This was tricky as the Viva item is molded into a complex shape. Complex enough to make fabricating the steel item more time consuming than I thought it might be. I didnt want to vinyl cover it so it had to be a good neat fit to be just painted. Then over the last few nights I have been wiring and setting it all up. I cut a suitable multi pin plug from car the wreckers and cut the old viva plug off. I clambered under the car, disconnected the speedo cable and mounted the new sender. Ran some shielded wire, left over from the Eunos, and routed it into the cabin via the tunnel. Then assembly time. It all took a bit longer than I thought it might (doesn't it always..) and I had to stop and rethink a few things. There is not a lot of room in the Viva dash area and the Toyota speedo is quite big. Initially I was going to have seperatly mounted warning lights but then went a neater way (well I think) by using some cool little screw in 12v LEDs that Jaycar sell. These I mounted into the speedo face. I made the fuel and temp gauge faces from thin modellers plastic which I painted. But this went messy. In a panic I found an old excercise book that had a cover in thicker black plastic. Forgot to take photo though. The painter at work painted the back plate and binacle in Durapox black. Nice and hard wearing. I got up early and finished wiring it up this morning before work thinking it would all be plug and play. Sadly a few things played up. I ended up not getting it working till just before lunchtime today. First problem was it constantly blowing a fuse. I worked out that the problem was the temp gauge casing was live and shorting out when screwed into place. Traced it back and insulated the gauge face inside the housing.. Then the ignition light needed another bulb in the circuit as wattage drawn by the LED wasn't enough to excite the alternator into action.. I think... anyway I added another bulb in parallel and that started working. Eventually I got it all sorted and drove to work. But the speedo was not working!!!curse word But then about 2kms from work the speedo needle 'pinged' into life. Cool. So out with the GPS and I tested the speedo. It reads just under 10% too fast. So better than the old one and I can try to locate a particular Jaycar kit I can then calibrate it. Having the rev counter in place is great! Its so much better to see whats happening with the revs when fanging the car about. I am not 100% totally happy with the look yet. It works really well but the font on the gauges is just not quite right. Maybe its just me as Its quite a different thing to be staring at. I think I need to add some silver around the binnacle or do something to make it look a little more original/older/retro. Any ideas welcome. Otherwise I'm happy and it was fun building it.

Aiight. So red one, yellow one, and White hatchback are all cubes now. And theres still a silver one thats returning to the earth slowly at a different location with more sea air. Bought a green one last new years for reasons I'm not sure of... Potentially has some bits I don't/rust cuts donor. All three briefly around Jan 2012. Fast forward to now, too long with nothing happening has passed. So here is a car/tiny ute on a trailer. How bad can it be you ask? Link to the discussion I think. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/24145-waimakss-1981-rusty-brumby/