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In a rare moment of lucidity, I realised the poor old girl lanquishing in the shed under a pile of parts and gathering dust had just celebrated her 45th birthday. She has been parked after overheating a couple of years ago and being put in the 'too hard' basket and forgotten about - apart from my girls who love playing in the 'big car' in Dad's shed. Despite having umpteen other projects on the go (plus wife/kids/work/sports) I decided I needed something else to spend time/money and to skin my knuckles on. Shit pic but it reflects the loss of dignity of the old girl being parked up and used as a bench... It is a factory 302 Fairmont, C4 with column change and fold down seat between the buckets. Had her since I was 18, and despite the mistakes of youth, I still have original 2 barrel carb, manifolds etc tucked away. Now, I could just sort the overheating issue and drive her, OR I could take the chance to pull the engine, tidy up 40+ yrs of use, and add some fun bits while I'm at it - so she can gather her skirts and keep up with the brash young tarts of today. Seeing a 2T engine hoist on sale at The Toolshed with free delivery made my mind up, so I ripped into it last night...

Quick summary, it sat unused for several years while I was at uni (ta mum) and I got her going again when she turned 40 (cheap rego). I ran it for a while but it started randomly overheating - had radiator checked, new hoses, thermostats, water pump etc etc and with no evidence of a blown gasket/cracked head and with new kids I sort of just gave up... Bored .30 thou over Holley 600 vac sec Edelbrock RPM Air gap inlet Pacemaker headers MSD dizzy I'm thinking I'll pull the donk, remove the stuck coolant drain plugs and flush the block, and rather than dick around with the cast heads I'll chuck on some alloy heads and roller rockers. Will mean I'll lose the factory look under the bonnet but the MSD has already sort of done that. Will update when hoist arrives and I've made some progress...

so yeah, this thing got mentioned to me by a friend (seen88 on here) he told me its a kp starlet with full ae86 running gear for a vert reasonable price. I went and checked it out, and it happend to have everything that i was told, Blue top 4age, t50 box, t series rear end (unshortend sadly) adjustable front suspension, adjustable lca's adjustable caster arms, heaps of other random stuff. the story goes the guy that built it had a starlet rally car that he had but the shell was fucked, he brought this shell and slapped everything into it, then gave up? i guess... When i picked it up i was told it was running but it no longer does so i will hopefully sort that all out today! plans are -slam -paint -wheels -cert -do drifts all the bad stuff is annoying though. -yuck flared guards -Chinese fender mirrors -really bad bright yellow paint -genreal rally spec stuff that i have to rip out and redo to get legal -non matching seats (different bases to backs) I have already ripped out the monster tacho, installed my nardi and random little gear knob. I will modify my seat rails to suit my fixed back bride and i really want a tidyer interior with no screw holes in the dash.

After picking mjrstars brain and finding the parts needed I converted the 1ggte from distributor to CAS today so I tgjoight I would just pita quick how to on here. The distributor is way to big and in the way and iI waned to to run wasted spark any way. Big arse dizzy Difference between dizzy and 1ggze CAS And as you can see the CAS won't fit with the 1ggte thermostat housing. So you need the housing from a 1gge as they sit lower.here the differance between the 2 The new housing bolts up the same and the heater pipe bolts straight up as well the only thing is there went any coolant pipes for the factory turbos. Also the top 2 bolt holes need to be drilled out as the 1ggte bolts are thicker. The top edge all so needs to be ground down a wee bit so the cas fits. I used my milling machine. My milling machine Now plenty of room Job done

5w40 is too thin for that many kms. Change to some 15w40 and report back.

Chassis is coming together nicely: A bit to go, but the main framework should be finished next week. I got the Jag IRS this week And stripped out anything I didn't want, which left the good bits: I just need to narrow it around 450mm. The engine I'll be using is a Falcon XR8 5.4 litre DOHC like this one: Deal done this week! Very happy, I'll be converting it to carb/distributor which should do away with all of the wiring and the need for an ECU.

Chased a diesel leak for a while. Thought it was the hose clamp, tweaked it, got worse, new clamp and worse again, replaced rubbers off tank, leaked, turns out a steel line had chaffed through on the chassis. Also slogged out the bonnet hinge holes to try get one side sitting down better, gave all the rivets a beating and tightened it up great. Not nice but it's better! Front gaps are fairly large. Gave it a big degrease and clean under the hood. Had to whip out a front shock as the bottom bush had walked out and the shock was rubbing on arm. Easy fix. Then got a new decent Fram air-hog air cleaner and moved it out into the open with two 90 degree joiners and 10in of down pipe. I liked how tucked away and tidy it used to be but ultimately not ideal. Has made a noticeable difference in pickup and pull around town.

^ I totally understand where you are comming from and pretty much agree. I need to take my oil salesman hat off sometimes... I must say that i have found going to a mineral/semi does seem to fix some issues, and thats what i have recommended a number of times to people that arnt the usual retards when it come to engines etc. The other thing is changing oil brands and grades all the time. If you change to a diffferent grade or brand then the new oils additive package will strip the buildup from the other brand inside your engine and this can do all sorts of weird shit. Often will take 2 or 3 changes with the same brand etc for it to settle down.

When out to this today - a small selection of OS cars - some familiar faces as well! 427carguys fine Italian steed IMG_6199 IMG_6210 IMG_6208

Cut the rivets off with a cold chisel and seperated the two halves of the bonnet then removed the hinge pin with the use of lots of crc, vice grips, and a pipe spanner as well as a claw hammer and a big drift punch.

Man from Hinds garage ordered a new manifold from England for me. He had two 40' containers coming with some old trucks and other stuff so all seemed good. Free freight. Woohoo. The day his mate in England finished loading the containers the new manifold had not arrived at his depot so he stripped the manifold off his own tractor that he had been using that day to load the containers and sent that one instead. When I went to collect it the guy showed me where he thought it was but we couldn't see it. He was busy so I was given free rein to find it myself. After I had spent what seemed like a couple of hours searching through a four bedroom house jammed full of parts as well as two big garages I found the manifold under a stack of bumpers less than a foot from where he thought it had been. This whole process took over a year from ordering to collecting but I ended up getting a good second hand part for $80 instead of paying $150 for a new one so I'm claiming that as a win.

No hoist (thought it may have arrived) but got a bit done. Jacked her up and removed headers (sound but need painted) drained and removed radiator and hoses, starter motor and clips/pipes/wires etc. I cleaned up a few bits, 40-odd years of gunge washed off with petrol and a brush - I'll check bearings/brushes etc and paint these before returning them. I was going to leave the trans in, but there are a few drips underneath, might be just as easy to pull them out as a unit and separate to work on. The guts are pretty much ready to come out, we'll see how things go...

i got the extractors HPC coated so they would look alright. and now they do look alright. 2016-01-23_11-27-36 by sheepers, on Flickr 2016-01-23_12-16-20 by sheepers, on Flickr

It's not magic So basically its gotta be going out zorst or leaking out of block. Put ur face behind exhaust and see what it smells like at 6,000rpm

Shit if any cop gave you anything but a high 5 id be dissappointed

If you are using synthetic oil that hardly smokes at all, I just had the same problem with a ford mondau, do a compression test and all will be revealed. They say modern cars will use a bit more oil,

I'm gonna talk to Sparkle at next week's monthly meet and ask him to get in contact with Rodney and see if he can get it cheaper. I was thinking Saturday the 13th of Feb could be a good date, unless anyone is too superstitious?

c'mon on, its a child and a little jeep, what is the world coming to if some people want to hassle him driving that thing in some vally.. river or whatever.. tell those thug coppers to piss off..

I used this stuff on my Morrie to replace the dumdum http://completepaints.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=589 Seems equivalent, and is available in NZ

I was building a Ford Escort Mk1 gasser and documenting the build on here and on facebook, but a few things made me totally change direction. After spending a huge amount of time on the Escort chassis, I still wasn't happy with the compromise of it. That coupled with the amount of new (read bloody expensive) panels needed to make it as good as I wanted it made me lose a bit of interest. Total interest was lost when I started to build the engine and found a crack through one of the bores. So the shell/chassis and all of the engine parts were sold off (at quite a handsome profit I'd like to add), and I concentrated on my bike for a while. Then this popped up for sale. It's a 1938 Ford model 7Y (which is dimensionally and physically similar to a Ford Pop). It's very straight and solid and was bought complete. The nice stuff from the Escort build will find it's way to the 7Y, so it will still be 'Cheatin' The Reaper' - just a genetically modified version. It didn't take long to strip it down to just the body, leaving the chassis to be sold off along with the engine, gearbox, interior etc I designed a new chassis, made out of 75x40x3 steel box, which is at this stage at the moment: Front suspension is parallel leaf springs. I made the shackles & mounts: Then narrowed the drop-tube axle to suit: I found a nice and perfectly sized fuel tank on TradeMe and made the crossmember to suit. This is 75x40x3 box again, with 3mm gussets: I've bent up the hoops for the rollcage (no pics yet) and am just waiting for a nice full day to get the whole lot jigged up and welded together. Rear axle will hopefully be a Jag IRS. Engine will be Ford V8. Body will be chopped about 2.5" and front end will be fibreglass flip front. Keep checking either here or on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mk1gasser/

Love it! Bui​ld thread: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/51627-lord-gruntfuttocks-1971-xy-fairmont/ I had an xw falcon 3.6 when I was a kid. Was a good car, but a factory 302 Fairmont is in another league.​ Nice car, love all the chrome.

Thought I'd do a bit of the easy stuff so took the bonnet into the workshop to bash the lumps out of it and make it actually open and shut properly. Note the pop rivets where some rough bastard has broken it and joined it back together crooked.

Had a go at fixing the electric start a while back too. Put a battery in and tried to crank it over. No go. Knew it should at least crank over as we had previously had it cranking and trying to start with jumper leads off our real farmer mate's Ford 6610. Took the starter motor off and when I turned it over rusty brown water came out. Hmm. That's what I get for leaving the bonnet off. Stripped down starter motor and cleaned parts. Never done this before. Figured I couldn't fuck it up any more than it already was so being too tight and too broke to pay someone else I had a go anyway. Discovered one of the carbon brush springs had half dissolved in the aforementioned water. Sorry no pics. Dunno where the camera was that day. Looked only slightly better than the above pics of the horn. Reassembled and refitted starter motor complete with dodgy broken spring and put jumper leads across it. It cranked over but did not start. I'm guessing fuel starvation. It's had issues with that several times before. Most of the time cleaning the filter gauze on the fuel pump and bleeding the air bubbles out has made it go again. I've drained the tank and cleaned it out as much as I can and blown the filter cartridge out with air pressure even though it looked like a newish one but I'm still thinking there is a fuel supply problem. Will replace the filter cartridge when I can. I'm hoping it hasn't sucked some crap into the injector pump cos I'm not keen to fuck with that myself and getting a pro to check it sounds expensive.

I have been doing a bit of work on this again of late. I think I have found why the horn doesn't work.

Gx81 was well received I felt

I bought this loader which of course was different to the one that had previously been on the tractor so the subframes, rams, and hydraulic pipework were not the same. Changed them over, managed to make it work after a fashion and got a bit of earthworks done. The chain is so that the hydraulics can't leak down and drop the bucket on the ground. Loader ram had a conflict with the exhaust pipe resulting in the manifold looking like this.

Then this IMG_6211

Bmw v10. Eats oil. They carry oil around with them. Dafuq new engines?

Catch can mounted, thinking red hose or nice braided lines would look much better. If anyone has some spear cash and wants better head lights, buy one of these! Best score yet. Dash pad re done over xmas, much nicer with no bit cracks //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/48815-120whys-75-datsun-120y/#entry1646709

Cheers for starting the discussion thread mork, was gonna do it myself to ask for advice during the build, but been in the shed...

Hmmm. Never had any problems with either Valvoline or Penrite. Anyway, oil doesn't smell like fuel at all. I have been doing longer drives lately. 50km each way. Raizer, yes it is a 2.5 could be worn rings, but I can't believe at a litre per tank of fuel there is no smoke and the plugs are clean

Shit just read all the latest. Well done man. Bathroom is a+ gid jerb

Have you always used the same brand and grade of oil? Penrite, Valvoline are crap. All the second Tier oils are, anything thats from Ozzy is a re-refined oil. Ie, second hand. Eww. Put a 5w30 Castrol, Mobil, Total or somthing in it. See what happens. Does the oil smell like fuel at all? Does it seem to use oil after a longish drive and not so much on shorter drives?

Whatever else you change you absolutely must keep the column change and split bench seat. Fairmonts with that must be as rare as rocking horse shit now.

Sweet, just get a 1.4 and that's a quality cheap setup. Get some spare panels and learn how to dial it in now.

Have been visiting my folks in Nelson, and camping in the Sounds in January. Left in the rain onto the Interislander, hauling the camping gear and kayaks. Our camping setup at Momorangi, on Queen Charlotte Dr between Havelock and Picton At Anakiwa, across the sound from Momorangi. Anyone else been to Outward Bound? I went in the early 90s. Dazzling the tourists at Pelorus on the way back. If you look close you can see bathcollector's wheels on the trailer. Car went mostly OK. I locked my only set of keys in the trunk which was a hassle. A bit of hotwiring got us mobile for a day until the locksmith from Blenheim picked the lock while it was pissing down with rain (thanks AA and Gary Ching Locksmiths). I got some more keys cut after that. Also had some fuel starvation issues which seemed to get worse over the 3 weeks. By the end I was running the electric pump full time otherwise it would lean out and stumble up hills or cruising above 80kmh. Not sure what is going on - perhaps the mechanical pump doesn't like sucking through the Carter pump? I really need to address the fuel leak before using the Carter pump all the time. On fuel leaks, after we filled up at Havelock I notice a lot of gas leaking under the drivers door. There is an old fuel return line that I had cut and 'crimped' under there that is still connected at the tank end. Apparently with a full tank (and maybe the hot weather) there was enough pressure to leak quite a bit. I crimped it up more tightly with some vice grips to stop it leaking, but will fix that better now I'm home. Was quite nice as a camping wagon, but mileage means it's only feasible on trips near home, we will likely go back to the Holden next January.

Concur.. better job, costs less..

I would have cracked out a razor. #lifeontheedge

Acetone/nail polish remover.

Ahh, the Grandpa Special. Grandpa buys a car and keeps it in his garage out of the weather until he's too old to drive, then some irresponsible unappreciative type picks it up and runs it into the ground. Trouble is Grandpa doesn't always buy the top-of-the-line V8 sports model. Sometimes he only buys the straight 6, like this. Rover SD1 (for "Specialist Division, car number 1") 2600SE 2597cc belt-driven SOHC 12-valve crossflow inline 6 engine Twin SU carbs 136hp @ 5000rpm, 206Nm @ 3750rpm 5-speed manual, RWD Weighs about 1350kg Sports handling assured by solid discs up front, drum brakes at the back, a live rear axle and a giant steering wheel that isn't actually circular. My one has: vacuum gauge for "economy" trip computer (which conveniently doesn't measure fuel consumption any more) sunroof, electric mirrors, electric windows, power steering, colour-uncoordinated blue interior height-adjustable rear air suspension (Citroen wannabe fail!) with its own pressure gauge and inflate/deflate buttons air horns that sound like a train I had been back down to one car (my '88 Alfa 33) for a while, after I sold my backup Alfa and then was presented with an opportunity to give back my newschool company car. So I was in that same situation of knowing the Alfa needed work and trying to work towards not having to rely on it every day. A friend and I went to the Turners classic car auction, and I looked this SD1 over briefly and trundled it round the test loop. Before I knew it I'd bought it, and I drove it home that same day! All I can say is that I thought the bidding would go higher, cos some old fogies seemed to have their eye on it. I guess they knew something I didn't, but anyway... Discussion Thread; //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/26722-thousand-dollar-supercars-rover-sd1-2600e/

I had made a list of jobs that I needed to carry out on the Blue SD1, but I hadn't driven the car let alone worked on it for at least a month. I fired it up, fixed a fuel leak and drove it to the Oldschool Meet on Wednesday. I then spent a bit of time working on it yesterday and managed to complete a few jobs: - Cleaned the car properly (and then messed it up again by cutting wires, throwing tool around and eating my lunch and dinner in it) - Replaced the broken wiper stalk - Replaced the broken buttons on the instrument cluster - Sorted out the flickering oil pressure light (Pressure is fine, the sender was at fault) - Sorted out the red temperature light (used to illuminate at random, again a sender fault) - Fixed the buttons on the trip computer. They're pretty good now, I just push them at random for the hell of it because I'm an 80s Executive etc. Just need a car phone now. I'm putting some rear tyres on it today and possibly sorting out the horn. I removed the Air horn setup and am going back to twin electric shell horns for that low tone. Here's a shot from South Auckland Bristol with another English car: 603 by Neal OnTheTree IMG_3948 by Neal OnTheTree No more airhorns. They weighed an absolute tonne. It's a good thing I removed them though, as the car is such a lightweight performance vehicle where every kilogram helps... IMG_3951 by Neal OnTheTree Disconnected the alarm and associated wiring. I kicked the siren away in triumph but it speared off the side of my shoe and landed back in the car (sunroof was open). IMG_3953 by Neal OnTheTree IMG_3955 by Neal OnTheTree IMG_3956 by Neal OnTheTree All fixed: IMG_3958 by Neal OnTheTree

Figured out how I can crank the engine and see the timing marks at the same time.

Hey mate loving then build, sweet car and im a datsun man myself, as far as carb tuning goes i would say if you can get some cheap or free try a slightly richer emulsion tube even a .14 may solve your problem but if not try a.5 and see what works

Just smash a Walbro GSS341 or GSS342 in there, at least it will be brand new, hose clamp it in position and away you go. http://www.pro-wholesale.co.nz/walbro-500hp-255lph-intank-fuel-pump-gss341-gss342/

So I've been floating around these pages for a while now, Had a build thread on here of my 12a 323 wagon. Moved down to Wanaka, left the 323 in my home town of Ohakune. Long story short, the newly built 12a had a knocking rotor bearing so kinda lost all motivation with that old girl. While all this was going on i herd about a Mazda 1200 ute that was up for grabs in Queenstown. So went to check it out, turns out it came up from Stuart Island where an old fella had sitting in one of his sheds on the farm for many years, sold the farm and whatever was in the sheds came with the farm. I had to have it! So i cut a deal with the new owner of the farm and took it straight to work got it running better, cleaned out about 3 tons of dirt that was everywhere! Figured i was just going to get it going, wham a new wof on it and just use it. But time came to put on a new wof and rego had lapsed… Shit. Old owner said it was on hold but its not, Should have checked but was far too excited about this wee girl! Seeing as i need to revin the old girl now i figured id go the whole hog and go balls out full resto. Slow going but any who heres what we are all here for, Pic's!! Some of the dirt! Hard to tell but has had new floor sections put in at some stage. 323 engine and 5 speed, Will be ditching this in place of standard 1200 ASAP!! Stuart Island spec engine mounts NOS Combo switch $$$$ NOS Pillar vents Set of NOS hub caps, Not 100% on what they are off but they are badass!! Discuss://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/51587-barn-find-mazda-1200-ute/

bits painted. 2016-01-19_08-00-47 by sheepers, on Flickr 2016-01-19_08-00-19 by sheepers, on Flickr

My 2 cents: I don't like the black petrol flap. It stands out but not in a good way. The sunvisor is pretty cool but it really clashes with the current style of the rest of the car (chin spoiler, aggressive modern wheels etc). Maybe try painting the visor black? I say a 120Y in Australia with a black visor which actually looked pretty good. Otherwise this is an awesome car! Great job so far.

Wow. Crikey. Its been a while aint it. July was the last post. A few things have been done since then so I better get typing. First off. Come February we will have owned the land for two years and it will be 14 months since we moved out to it. Its settled in nicely and we are getting a good feel for the seasons and all the little things that happen out here when they change. Starting to get to know the locals quite well and have had lots of work coming into the workshop from just word of mouth which is awesome. Hannah is working a summer season job down at the beach front and when thats over we will be doing a flyer drop around the valley and surrounding areas to put out to people that they can get many sorts of engineering/repairs/bike repairs/advice on cats/great coffee from us* *my coffee aint that great.. In the start of spring I spent a morning going about the land taking photos. I tried to compose them as close as I could to the original photos we took as we cleared the land. Some are ever so slightly off. This was because things have changed so much that even I struggled to work out where the original photos were taken! I'm pretty happy with the resulting before and after collection so I'll put them right here. I have tried to list them from the drive way entrance and then heading down the drive to the north end of the property. The driveway entrance.. heading up the drive.. The highest point of the driveway.. I like this one.. looking down the driveway. Such a difference. Next up- one of the 5 old caravans that got taken away. This one was surrounded by lots of junk/scrap steel etc. Now just trees and some sweet old gates we saved. The mountain bike track I started heads in just around there. These next ones are looking out from about where the cabin veranda is.. Looking back towards where the cabin is now. Thats my brother duncan trying to locate where the Gravely mowers might be. We found them a few months later. and now.. Hannah wondering WTF... This next one is from the first night we stayed over to check the land out. We had pushed the driveway gorse down by throwing the van into 4wd and just driving over the top. Here down at the north end I was just laying back in the grass chilling and imagining what the area could be like. There is now a bit more parking area.. The following morning of the first night Hannah chilling in the morning sun with a coffee. We didnt really know what this area was going to be like in two years time.. This is it. you can see we kept the little Kanuka to the left. Its thriving now! The main yard was not much of a yard back then.. This is better !... Our first morning.. two years later.. I'm really glad I took so many photos before we cleared it all. Its great to look back at. Moving on to recent times. Not long before xmas this happened.. https://youtu.be/uaAHS96LGP4 We had been wanting rid of that 70 plus year old bugger for ages and its so good to see it gone. Shane (sideways sickness) and Greg (64Valiant) came round and got to see some of it heading to earth. Then we had a nice BBQ. Big thanks goes out to Shep for chopping it down. No way would I be doing that job. For starters I dont have chainsaw with a metre long bar! Nor the skill or experience. It was great fun just helping out and watching. We have many more big pine trees to come down over the next couple of years but this one was the one I wanted gone now. The view afterwards is heaps better!!!. Plus we now have a sweet as 8 metre high trunk to build a cool viewing platform on one day Before.. After.. Then for the end of the year we thought we had better crack on and finish the bathroom before my brother came over to stay. We needed the shower going for him so we got stuck in and finished it just before xmas eve. It still has some little finshing touches like light switches, extra lights, better prettier shower head, hand rail up the steps etc but its pretty much done. It works really well however I reckon we'll get a new califont for winter as the old Palomar is a bit small on heating capacity. We'll see. The compost toilet is working really well and still doesn't smell. Ive not yet even wired in the fan. Happy with that. Its taking about 3-4 months to fill a bin. Will put in a third bin soon and then start a secondary outside composting area away up under the eucalyptes just to be safe. The bathroom lights and shower pump are running off the cabin solar panel setup too and we have run wires to add a couple of outside lights to light up the pathway from the cabin to the bathroom. I just have to make some lights yet. Anyway.. some photos of the new bathroom ... We moved all the various piles of gorse and Kanuka into one place to chop too. Here you can get an idea of the amount of Gorse we cleared.. We have also started a vege garden and although a bit late its going well. Its certainly not a massive affair like our neighbours but we'll learn and it'll get bigger/better. The strawberries all going mental and its great to have 4 or 5 fresh strawberries on the cereal in the morning. Our fruit orchard trees are growing well and seem pretty happy. We'll plant heaps more this winter. The olive tree seems happy as so we'll plant more of them along the driveway. Finally Hannah spotted an old picnic table offered for free down at someones holiday home so we grabbed that. I told the owner we had been after one for ages so he was stoked it was going to be used. It looks the part and is an ideal little spot to chill. Thats it for now. I hope you enjoyed it. Im pretty damn happy with it all and now the rush is sort of over (for a bit) we have both finally been enjoying more of a summer recently of just swimming and cycling. Next big plan is the mezzanine floor in the workshop but that will be a winter thing. Then more cabins! Oh and bike tracks. Oh and spa pool. Damn...