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After a few months of fucking around to get a satisfactory method of wood fire heating my hot tub this is the 3rd and most satisfactory arrangement. Still needs a wee bit of loving but I can get about 600 liters of water from 19 to 42 degrees in 2.5 - 3 hours.

Heres some pics from a recent photoshoot. I will upload them as i get them

Also, I previously mentioned that an original 'Air Chief' GMH radio is something that I will fit to this car. Well, a package arrived from Australia last week and this was in it:

GX Ferrari. https://instagram.com/p/115XLnCgeD/?taken-by=gxofauckland https://instagram.com/p/1130buigbg/?taken-by=gxofauckland

Here is some stuff that I have made at work. I'm lucky as am given freedom to design and make things myself using any methods necessary. Proud of these projects for different reasons. Speaker stands, stainless boat trailer, radio mast and a flange with machined hole at very precise angle and location (made fixture on lathe to hold flange in correct position and angle for boring, then made a number of them using fixture in CNC) and ladder repair.

Disinfect. Thoroughly.

I'm a big fan of 1/2 race cam. means it's good for the 50% round town driving i do

The poor Brougham has been languishing at the back of the shed for some time now. Last night I threw a battery in her (actually placed it in very gently and lovingly) and it fired up after about ten minutes Zebra Dude was there too and we used it to tow another vehicle out. It drove well and left two black marks on the concrete. The old Banjo LSD still works. So now I have finally decided to get onto this project. It's my favourite car by far, followed by the Panelvan/Triumph Half PI. The HQ Holden has been a good old shitter to drive around in but I am ging to sell it and put the money towards the Brougham. Driving it last night made me realise just how much I love this car and parking it at the back of the shed is no way to show that. Felt a bit ashamed. So now the car is at the front of the shed and once I've serviced the transmission and replaced the leaking rocker cover gaskets it will be ready to drive to the panelbeaters for roof repairs.

Almost forgot the most important feature:

Decided the low life wasn't for me, would rather drive my car hard. So I raised it and got some decent sized tyres. Found an Mtech 1 steering wheel and got offered a full set of Mtech vinyl seats and door cards at a price I couldn't refuse, so got those and put them in. Now it's like this: Plans for now are to just drive it. Using it at the moment while I do yet another engine swap on my mk2 Golf (with make a thread shortly). Eventually I want to do either an m30 or m50 turbo with manual gearbox of course, but that will be long term. If I'm fortunate enough I might be able to do an S motor or M88, we'll see what life has in store. Right now I need to fix the fact that it's using way too much fuel, around 15-16 liters per 100km. I've checked everything and reset the throttle cable, tps, idle mixture screw etc as someone had messed with all that but it hasn't improved it. Need to see what's going on there. But it's been going reliably for the 2 years I've owned it and for how much I paid for it, it's far outlived it's cost so I hope I can do something cool with it.

One of the riversides decided to go all leaky on me, am hoping its just the valve and not the seal. So chucked some Mk3s on and took it to Kieran (Furai) for an alignment. Can happily say it steers a shit load better now. Will hopefully be able to take it to the skid pad this coming Monday for a bit of a play.

Just get some wheel chocks and strap it to the roof standing up. Mind the drive through tho actually i remeber a blog by a guy who cycled around the world on one, with a plinth helmet. Came to nz and the first thing we did was knock him off as he rode out of auckland he went to a ordinary race in tasmania. His host took him and both their bicycles to the track in an mg roadster

Hi Guys, Here is my 1970 series 1 Datsun 240z. Vin#: HLS30-10681 Build Date: 9/70 I will attempt to do a basic rundown timeline of how I ended up with it... 1970 - My grandfather purchased the car from his local dealer in San Diego 'Economy Car Center' 2005ish - The car got parked up under some carpet in his garage as he was too old and sick to get into it 2011 - My granddad passed away 2012 - My grandmother told me the car was mine as long as I got it out of her garage ASAP - I had the car picked up from their home in San Diego and all fluids replaced and the engine turned over - I flew to San Diego and drove the car 600 miles to SF, left it in a secure warehouse and flew home 2013 - I spent 4 months living in SF working using the on occasion - In December I sent the car to Auckland 2014 - I finally got the car registered in NZ after having to replace a chassis rail from battery acid rust. Here are some images of the Z in the states, before its rough trip home... Discussion click here

That picture might be what i aim for in the time being given what i have. VIN then lower it and get a cert' for lowering. Problem is i spent all day beating a sheet of metal with a '25 roadster in my mind and wondered why it wasn't fitting the '26 very well. Damn that one looks cool.

Here's a pic of the POS sitting with its current weight on the front forks mocked up at 4" over. Man I need a camera. Here's how far the motor is offset to the LHS, not sure if I should be worried by this? I staged the mounts as per the offset on the original frame.

Now you're qualified to guffaw and say "only milk and juice comes in 2 litres mate."

It's a 2008 TRX420FM, 420cc fuel injected 5 speed manual 4WD. I was going to use it at the beach to tow the jet ski but summer came and went with everything that was going on this year, so as winter rolls in and less daylight to work on the caravan I'll need a workshop project to keep me busy. But of panelbeating to do to the rear diff guard, a bead blaster makes fine prep, probably boring as batsh*t for some but it keeps me entertained. Before Half Done Bead Blasting done.

This Mk2 was my first car and I've owned it for close to 5 years now. Bought it as a standard 1.8L 8v Digifant Mk2 that hadn't been messed with, so the perfect base. And then I messed with it. All work on this car was done by me with the help of a couple of good friends. Link to discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/48069-m-ms-1989-vw-golf-mk2/ How I got it: Then I did many things, so I will just post photos. Sorry but I can't be bothered typing it all. More to come later/tomorrow (the best bits are yet to come).

Sooo Ive had this bike since September last year. Only really got stuck into it mid November. Started off like this.. Found it on a local buy sell page, had been in the grandparents basement since the 90s apparently. Started after a few kicks but it wasnt happy, at all.

Looks like the rear half of the body is coming along well For some resin 4 cylinder T hotrods are called gow jobs

I thought she was hot, and the model was ok too

Chris, you have to make it like the Nacho truck... ...or let me know when you want to sell it and I'll make my own Nacho Truck *Note the badass '61 @ 3:09*

Evening all, A brief update. Car was meant to be coming home today but due to several factors- (me being Nigel no mates at the moment) meant I couldn't tow the car home on a rope, and the starter didn't come back from the sparky in time. Such is life. Anyway it will be coming home Tuesday with a functioning clutch, throttle and brakes. Anyone know the legalities of driving a car home with a reg on hold but no wof? I am technically pursuing compliance and the car is safe and road worthy bar a windscreen, wipers and speedo cable among other little bits and pieces, only issue is that if I get rolled I'm unsure about getting the car up to scratch within the 28 days notice I will more than likely receive...hard to pinky a car without a windscreen to stick it to. Anyway, bit gutted as today was meant to be the first drive ever. Guess i've waited 4 years, another 3 days won't hurt. Advice on the driving home legalities/ any other comments welcomed: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/46798-hkm400s-1969-lotus-7-series-3/

Sweet. I think it's similar/same as what I'm thinking of then. Never seen such thorough repairs done on a quad. Keep up the good work. I like quads

Yes please let me know. I need some decent tapes. I know that there's a place locally selling cheap maxell tapes.

Just put a nice smaller cam in it like a BCF2 it will go fine and be a nice driver they where never built to be super fast as much as we try

Almost expect to see stink lines off some of those shots. Cripes. Not exactly a glamorous photo-shoot. Looks like she's pretty enough though, just poor direction/awareness. Car looks good!

I had the frame sandblasted as it had surface rust covering the bottom parts, I wanted to leave the stickers intact and the top was in mint condition so masked that area off. Using POR-15 on the frame awesome stuff, sets as hard as glass but lacks UV stability so I'll overcoat the exposed parts with chassis black. Have coated the front/bottom so far, went to turn it over and some sand blasting grit came out of a parallel universe i think, I blew out every nook and crannie with compressed air so many times.

Thought I might have a go at this for some motorbike bits like screws levers etc.. The idea is to set up a couple of small baths for small bits and pieces using 20l containers so I can put the lids back on them and store them safely and use them as I need them. Just starting to get some bits together, have a small omron controller, power supply, small tanks and some anodes for both so far, a mate might be able to lend me a polisher and wheels/consumables for a nice finish. Did anyone else end up having a crack at this?

This is what you need to do http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/fiat/auction-877931262.htm

Mexican stance for the win Seriously tho, put all of your car back together first. Amazing what a tank of gas and all that other stuff will do to your ride height

hopefully it gets me sex as well. but more or less hopefully judges like it at future car shows. have to figure out how to make it view-able for spectators and judges as headlinings aren't something people tend to take much notice of (unless your weird like me and only look at upholstery in cars)

Woodheads auto in Auckland did amazing work replacing the right hand-side chassis rail, as well as a new clutch. At this time I was working a lot and the car was stored at my parents place up north, So it only really got driven every now and then. Took it for a nice gravel road drive after spending 4 hours cleaning it... I replaced the door seals and a bunch other seals around the place, was hoping to help with the fumes, it helped a little but still more work to be done... Cleaned off the stickers on the front bumper, and order a new badge. Found some sweet leather driving gloves in a leather market on a recent trip to Italy. Ive never worn them, but they look sweet sitting in the car!

GAME OVER. This is now someone else's problem, much relief. Regards, VG.

Took car in this morning for recheck, passed! So just got to wait for the paperwork to be approved and the plate to be made (he said about a week), so will be back on the road in no time! Was so sweet driving it properly again (drove to levin and back).

7hp then. Sweet.

Ahhhh yes the long drop. Fantastic place to contemplate life or read a magazine. So update - or more just an excuse to post up some funky photos of a very cool machine our neighbour has. Today we picked up the Colchester lathe we bought. To get it off the truck at our end Mike brought around his funky home made forklift... Now we have a lathe! Its a lovely old thing and will be very useful. I need to make a splashback, fit a single phase coolant pump and give the whole thing a once over. Also- this morning the council inspector came through and checked the building. Big thumbs up and our code of compliance is in the mail! Sweeeet!

The Gumboot part 3. Chipmunk containment effort #1 was not successful, but did not stop us enjoying some truly Epic roads. A stop at an virtually abandoned town somewhere in the back blocks between Te Kuiti and Taumarunui was a chance for try #2. Who would have thought it would be that hard to put an intercooler pipe back on. After getting laughed at in Taumarunui for trying to buy a longer pipe to replace the slightly short intercooler with I managed to get some basic hose camps. Then noticed a fellow competitor had a minor indiscretion on an optional gravel stage. Pretty sure that wheel was more centred earlier in the day… Then we headed out to the Forgotten Highway and started to run out of words to describe how Awesome the driving was. Only on getting home did I notice how few photos my co driver took while on the move. Maybe his attention was elsewhere on self-preservation, anyway, quite a dereliction of duties. Arriving at the overnight service park on Ohura we were buzzing. This was a mostly converted prison in an almost abandoned town literally in the middle of nowhere. Attempt #3 was followed finally by successful attempt #4 to keep boost blow off chipmunks contained. Thankfully my service was in the shadow of the orange wheeled golf surgery. Andy arrived in Bumblebee with an engine running poorly so we all gathered round and helped out, but made worse until it gave up all together, got sulky and refused to start… (Sorry Andy) The count got to 6 tool boxes and 26 people trying to help out. I blame the engine sulk on the dark and alcohol… This is one of the few publishable photos from after sunset. In the weak light of the early foggy dawn Bumblee was brought back to life! Cunning artist to the right timed his run to fix her to perfection with maximum appreciation from Andy. Bumblbee escaped the low loader and lived to drive home again. Unlike Mikeys Starlet that had popped a valve spring and collected at the unusual hour of 2.15am. And it got better! My boost was Back! Oh God Yeah! And 500kms of spanking roads to go! But first a slightly creepy spot for the morning briefing at an abandoned Ford garage after a hearty truckers hangover cure breakfast. Cue photo opportunity. (Nice shot by Elliot above) Briefing time. More people and cars than Ohura sees in a week. Minor traffic jam on the way out of town. I am sure the farmer moving his sheep was a bit surprised to see a car, let alone this many. The only shot I have of the gravel section before my navigator went quiet and just held on… Such fun once past some slow cars. Climbing into the morning mist One of my favourite iconic shots of the trip. But where re all the people…? Ah, there they are. Spot the Aucklanders crowding the coffee machine after the instant brew from the overnight services. Next edition, pressing on.

Found this, screwed up and neglected in a box of parts that came with the bike. IMO this pic is better than any of the spares I got!

So the engine dilemma has been solved by buying this little forged and forced beastie And it came bolted to this…

Present day (or close to)

*time fasts forwards* Engine going back in Old VS New Suspension bushes

After getting the scoop off and refilling the bonnet

Got my copper flanges cut on thursday night by Jackson Electrical so i went ahead and glued them together this morning. Quite happy i decided to go with copper Now all i need to do to finish them off is to put some mesh between the ITBs and trumpets and ill buy some copper washers and some new bolts to bolt them on

Ok it's been way too long since I've updated this thread. Got too busy before trackday... So I wanted to do a bit've a write up on the zinc plating process because it's pretty sweet. Tony Lynch has a really nice little electroplating setup at his workshop that's perfect for doing nuts and bolts and other small items. The process you see here is exactly the same in a fully commercial setup, just on a smaller scale. As you all know when you leave steel uncoated it corrodes like a bitch and soon you're part has turned into a pile of rust if it's not protected in some way. There's a heap of different ways to protect the metal like painting, powder coaring and galvanising. Galvanising is the process of coating a metal (generally steel) in zinc which is less prone to corrosion. The zinc acts as a sacrifical anode and protects the steel underneath. The zinc is normally applied via an electroplating process however it can also be applied by dipping the part in a bath of molten zinc (hot dip galvanising) but this is generally used for larger parts such as trailers. In this writeup I'm just talking about zinc plating steel via electroplating. Even though zinc corrodes more slowly than steel it will eventually wear through and after 25 years a lot of the nuts and bolts in the engine bay of my racecar were looking pretty rough. They were still useable but re plating them it gives the car a much more professional look to it. I took the oppourtunity to plate as many fasteners as possible while I had the head off but beware, it's not a quick process. Cleaning and wiring up all of the fasteners takes quite a lot of time and like anything, the better the prep, the better the end result. The process starts with dipping your nuts/bolts/whatever into a heated caustic soda bath which acts as a grease/oil remover. You need to string the fasteners to thin copper wire so you can retrieve them from the bath. Then rinse in water and dip into the muratic acid (hydrochloric acid) bath to remove any zinc plating which is still on the steel. You leave them in here until the fizzing stops which signals the chemical reaction has stopped. This generally only takes about 10 minutes. After these two steps you end up with something like this. You can see how I have wired them up in short strings. There is still some zinc remaining - this will be stripped in the next step. Your parts then need to be bead blasted to remove any remaining zinc or corrosion. This will also remove any remaining grease or oil but it's not ideal for that job. Then it's a quick rinse in water to remove any bead blasting media and then back into the caustic to remove any grease from handling them. Another rinse and then into the galvanic cell. This is where the zinc plating takes place. I'm going to do a shit job of explaining this but basically the solution that the fasteners are submerged in allows zinc ions to travel from the zinc electrodes to the steel parts when an electrical voltage is applied to the system. In the photo you can see the zinc elecrodes attached to the outside of the bath and the steel parts hanging from the bar in the middle. This process takes about half an hour to build up enough zinc on the parts. Then another rinse and a VERY quick dip (only a second or so) in the brightener solution which is just nitruc acid. This removes the 'fluff' from the surface of the parts and makes the final product more shiny. Then a rinse and the final step is to dip them in the gold passivate. This is a very important step as it provides another level of protection and it also makes the final product look good. Brightener on the right, passivate on the left: A final rinse and then the parts must be left to set overnight. The final result looks awesome and while the process is time consuming it's not very difficult. For the batch I photographed above it took about 3 hours from start to finish. Hopefully someone finds this at least midly interesting. Ask questions here if you want!

So, not really an update, but, got off the phone to the previous owner. Thought I better ring him incase he was gutted that he lost the car, and really wanted it back. I don't want to let it go, but knew if the shoe was on the other foot, I'd be trying everything I could do get a car back that I owned for over 20 years! He brought it out from Germany after buying it second hand in Germany. The BBS wheels and the province sticker were already on it when he got it. Said it was quite emotional for him when was written off, and the car had sentimental value to him, but didn't want to spend the money to get it back on the road! Had a lol with him bout LHD, and seems he was quite gutted about losing the alarm mostly, so said eventually will rip it out and drop it round to him, which he was over the moon about.