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Phew been a while!! I am happy to admit I've been too busy driving to post here!! (Stop skiting.. ) I decided to take the "easy" option to "reliably" daily my Levin. So sadly I removed the Twinscrew and wrapped it up nice for future use. Reasons: * Cost to complete * Too noisy for neighbours and Wife (sellout I know) * Dubious blower condition - play/gear lash, need to get my original blower back from Rob as this is just my spare Anyways I threw a pod filter at it, tweaked the Master Fuel trim up 15% so it's not too lean and viola! Had several dodgy moments (as you do with first drives of a longtime project) with main issue being cooling. Sorted this now with another fan and 71deg thermostat. Aaaaand wedding car! My wife even suggested doing some skids with me after the ceremony(!) Thanks to my Bro in Law Sam for the second wedding car, keeping it classy with an all Toyota affair... Barely made it up to Whangarei and fouling plugs like a SOB but all GOOD!!! I then celebrated by taking it to the 4 & Rotary Birthday Bash Holy crap twin plate clutches are hard to drive, especially when you have no power! makes me look like a hoon/amateur (not completely inaccurate)

Deja Vu! After many, many k's (around 20,000 of them) of trouble free motoring... The seven developed some.... Problems. Nothing too serious though. Turbos are very very leaky, causing lots of smoke, and a 1/2" puddle of oil in the bottom of my intercooler (no exaggeration). The sump leaks from the interface to the block, very common issue, and the rear suspension pillowballs are a bit clunky. I've settled into my new job pretty well now, and have a good routine going, so I can squeeze out a little time to get this thing sorted and running its best again. I had been commuting to work in it (around 1250k's a week) and it was surprising frugal! That is a complete lie. It was costing $300 a week in fuel... Not really a long term dooable thing. I got all boring and went and bought a B7 Audi A4 TDI sedan. Its got leather, good stereo, and cruise control, oh and does 1200k's to a tank easy on the open road, so I only have to fill it once a week. So with something reliable to daily (reliable-ish anyway, there is a story there, but is a good argument for purchasing from a dealer sometimes), I've put this in the garage, given it the clean of its lifetime (best to work on a clean car ) and torn into it. There will also be some light modification this time, so really get the best out of this car. I miss driving it already, so hopefully I can knock this out within a somewhat reasonable timeframe. Work Ahoy!

Went on another run with a few mates yesterday, truck went all good. Seems to have plenty of grip with low tyre pressures. Have been running roughly (need a low psi gauge) 4psi front and 3psi rear last few runs, with no drama. Fixing tune and changing turbo has made it a bit easier to drive, Poser shot by Stu, at top of the palace Some vids mate took. skip to 3:30ish if you're impatient and just want to see a skid

So I ordered some new OEM HT leads ex Japan, imagine my surprise when they finally turned up and this was printed on them: Mazda must have changed suppliers in the last ~25 years, hah. Mildly annoyed they are blue instead of factory orange (to match the turbo hat and radiator fan) but I guess beggars can't really be choosers. One odd paradigm I noticed when swapping over was that the trailing leads have switched back from stud-type to solid tip terminals (thereby rendering this previous post completely academic). I'd had the foresight to order some more BR9EQ-14 plugs from Rockauto while they were US$1.18 each on clearance, so installed a pair of these with the solid tips now attached. You can see the two new bright red coils at bottom left, hah. Now the car pulls to redline better and runs smoother than ever (probably the best it's ever been), and even started with no issues since it was last driven in January, so I'm somewhat happy. Discussion: http://oldschool.co....showtopic=27846

Tried to make the door work this afternoon. It's so handy being able to access so much of the door innards by taking off the strakes. Slightly alarming how little side-impact protection there is though.

I would not use that block

While the car is not going I figured it would be a good time to replace the heater core and redo the foam flaps in the heater box. Removed the heater box yesterday. Only took about 2 hours. Not sure why so many people make this out to be such a big deal. And I've never done it before on one of these. There's nothing I hate more than messy wiring, so that's all getting tidied up too. The inside of the heater box as it came out: New foam flaps and heater core: I put it all back together and back in the car this morning. No photo as I'm sure most of you know what a complete interior looks like. I've also removed the AC part of the heater box and sealed up the AC flap. Because who needs that? Just slows you down. All the rest of the AC system has already been removed. Look at the size of the thing:

the fella I am acquiring the mx5 engine from has sent me this photo of the motor pulled from the car just the wiring loom to come out and split the bellhousing from gearbox then its ready to go. got bit excited and brought some goodies to give the b6 a spruce up when it arrives, also thinking of rewiring the non engine side of the loom while I'm sorting out the mx5 loom to suit by putting in a new fuse box ect, give the lighting side of things some relays.

Richard came over and gave me a hand today so we got some stuff done. made the last part of the centre console so the gearstick boot is done and its got a gearstick. the other thing we did was give the front a jiggle to see what might need replacing in the front end and it could use a coupe of new ball joints so ill get them this week and chuck them in. after that we roughly set up the toe and it was out by heaps so now thats its got some toe it feels heaps better in the front end. oh and during the week i fitted two drive shaft loops to it for cert. 2016-05-14_03-54-13 by sheepers, on Flickr 2016-05-14_03-53-51 by sheepers, on Flickr

Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Although, I'm currently unemployed, and I just unwisely spent/invested a good chunk of house deposit money on a 27 year old car so I'm probably not a very good role model. Also, to put it in perspective, 348s and Vantages only cost about the same as a double cab SR5 Hilux with a few options so you definitely don't need to be a millionaire.

So a wee bit more has happened. Firstly I modded the head for the injectors to fit and then sent it back to be reassembled Bonnet all repaired and inside painted ready for the outside to be coated And finally put the car on the trailer and went for a ride to drop the engine in. Fitted the new heavy duty exedy sports clutch, bolted up the gearbox and boom in she goes.. And a look at the ride height...not bad, will leave like this for now and see where it settles Got the all important sign writing on too

Oh man, I feel like a moran. There's actually a switch in the centre console to open the fuel filler flap. This thing is just a back up. There's also a backup boot release pull cord in the fuel filler cavity.

Yep. Button on the dash is fine.

I do hope your work on this car will include fitting the tdi lump into the rx7. I did not say that.

well it is all legal after a few minor things like park lights and a indicator and getting horn to work but……. since then it has developed a massive oil leak from the back of the head and is now smoking! So as I'm not to fussed on pissing around much more with these old carby engines I have found a mx5 motor and bellhousing and am going to do the swap for fuel injection life. may as well as it was always the plan for reliability and economy just had hoped to at least use it for awhile as it is. if i get motivated i may try chuck a gasket at it and see if it comes right and use it for awhile until i have all the conversion worked out. here is a very technical drawing of the plan of attack

Hi All. I've been hanging around here for a while and I have a couple of poorly projects, but now I have one that works and is all legal I thought I might share. As per title I accidentally bought a Singer Vogue on the weekend. It was advertised on the down low and the old bloke who owned it let it go for a decent price. It seemed stupid to not buy it so here I am...I do in fact have another Rootes Arrow in my shed by way of a Sunbeam Sceptre, so it's not too weird I guess. Discuss //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/52739-sunbeams-1970-singer-vogue-discussion/

Nice. My one is VERY loud. It all does a bangin' key off about 5 secs after I kill the engine.

Nope, but I drove around Auckland in it yesterday. Went from home, to town, to Onehunga, to Glen Innes, to Mission Bay, back into town again, then out to Henderson and finally back home. I have a good mind to take it to this month's Burgerboes as well as Caffeine and Classics (as I need to pick up my expensive new rear spoiler)

Did you go for a hoon in this to Hamilton today?

if you ever sell this... PLEAAAAAASE tell the new owner that to open the boot he must use the cable in the fuel flap Which is opened via the engine bay

But it's 99% air.

I'll be on the North Shore most of the day tomorrow if they are available for collection during the day. Or if they can leave it outside for me to collect.

This thing is so lush.

You're on the money.

Perfect time to put a good motor in instead of a Z-series.

Got to spend some time in the shed today . Water blasted the bay once the motor was out. So so much cleaner. Next is strip out all the hardware and see how bad the rust in the firewall is

Yea have been saying ill do it for ages but now that I've actually put some thought into it, it doesn't sound to hard. Reckon I could just use the schrader valves that are used with the hand pump?

pete also loves rum so tell your child to start drinking rum. that is how it works

I had some free time so decided to adjust the odometer on the replacement manual instrument cluster to the same reading as my original odometer. Here is the replacement manual instrument cluster: And here is the Km's it reads: How many K's my car/cluster have done: Flipped over and starting to open it: This thing is the speed chime which making a sound when you exceed 100Km/h (roughly). Plastic cover removed: Interior cover removed: Some kind of really weird effect I noticed on the inside, like Lichtenberg figures: Speedo/odo removed: Odo separated from speedo: In order to adjust the reading the barrel/stack had to be removed: Cleaning it up: 178812Km: To remove the barrel two small plastic tabs? had to be broken, it fit back without any issues however to make sure it doesn't fall out over hard bumps I applied a little epoxy: Housing cleaned up: At this point I had everything back together except the speed chime. It had quite a bit of surface rust which I wanted to clean up: So I used electrolysis to clean it up a little: Bubbles are hydrogen and oxygen so don't leave this overnight in a confined space: All done: By the way, hes a short video I made of the speed chime in operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8TZjLPuE-s Finally reassembled and on the bench till testing: Oh and here is a slightly more artistic shot I took with my other camera, just because I thought it would look cool:

Petes career advice: Sportscars, not Auckland houses.

I'm gonna show this thread to my 12 year old. Can you add a few words of career advice for him too please.

Those ridiculously wide doors on the Fez are to mask some sort of cooling system gubbins from what I've read. You should go pick up that sheila from The Bachelor NZ in it. She's on the rebound and would probably swoon.

348 doesn't appear to have one. Oh wait, it's at the other end. The bootlid is so flimsy and weighs nearly nothing.

I bet poor Mick Freeman gets blamed for a lot of shit.

want me to print out the whole workshop manual peet? lol chuck it up on hoist at dave sentras, consume beers, 13b conversion

all new shirts arriving in time for the open day

Time to sort out the diff as one wheeling is getting old fast! A while ago i brought this F series Altezza torsen diff and now that a motorkahana is coming up i decided to do something about putting it in my car (4 days before hand) All looks pretty good and it all fits in nicely but to set the backlash etc the whole thing will need to come out of the car to get done properly. Now i don't have time for such endeavours as that so i did what any good car enthusiast would do and welded the current diff the fuck up. So with that back in it was time for some of this Car went really well and the only issues i had were chronic under steer due to almost positive camber in the front still. Need to chop/roll my front guards! it only got hot one time too because i forgot to turn the fan on...oops Here is a video of my least uncoordinated run.

It failed compliance on a broken door release cable. There's a surprising amount of DIY resources like workshop manuals, parts catalogues, and forum guides on these, thankfully. The wheels are directional - the thick side of the spoke is supposed to be towards the front. At some point, someone has mixed up the rear wheels. It came with this lush briefcase of Ferrari paint tin lid openers and some flat tyre wind with an F40 on the can. It's quite low. Doors are amusingly thick. Supermarket car parks might be tricky. It feels really strange sitting so inboard of the edge of the car.

Imagine if some time in the future, your grand kids say "Grandpa, what was it like back when there was petrol? Did you have a car like Mad Max?" And you're like "I owned a pathetic car and then drove like a jerk to save myself an immeasurably small amount of money" Seeing them frown dissaprovingly would be awesome

Drill some holes etc.

Hello darlings, I got the floor down, but it was under torch light so no photo of the finished product sorry Here's about half way done. It needs a good scrub! Now to dig. Lots and lots of dig

I have some cool friends. One of them is pretty good at taking photos. Thanks rotahoe for these photos. U da bes. Qcr dirtmasters has taken priority last couple of weeks, time to get back into this. Need to do a couple of things and then start it up. Not sure I said but the reason hardly any exterior trims are on is that it requires a respray.

Please install a Black pin strip to break up the red some more that is all The rest is sex

rear u joint buggered?

Ok sorry guys, have been really slack on updating this (and working on the car) I have painted the engine bay and refitted the engine and the car is now at home in my garage. The inside of the doors and been filled and painted and the outside ruffly filled but will probably require work once hung to make body lines match up. The outside of the tail gate has been filled twice as the first time the primer bubbled up, arguments over it being there was 1k etch used in spots where i sanded through when filling or humidity blisters, either way doesn't matter was striped back and redone without 1k primer and using the booth to prime, the inside seams were sealed up like the doors and the inside and outside of the tail gate have been painted. Did a little actual panel beating on the front guard and started to investigate why the wheels don't sit even;y in the rear guards but havn't sorted this yet. I have also finished my Bathroom which was a overlapping project and ate up a lot time, I have also started to clean up my garage so I can get some more solid work done on the escort. Hopefully I'll so some better updates with some more pictures soon! Every post needs a pic!

Bout a year and a half ago i managed to score a 89 gx81 prefacelift chaser 1g-fe, something id been looking for for a while. Was meant to start one of these ages ago but never got round to it... Here's what it looked like the day i got it: Managed to get it a wof and some rego and started looking through every facebook page about this chassis for things to buy Mate of mine hit me up seeing if i wanted to buy a w55 manual conversion, I obviously said yes and got it all switched over a couple weekends later. Best decision ever. What happens when your mates want a go... Next on an impulse buy i got some 17x10 mesh reps and cut the springs asap. Also around that time i stumbled across a facelift chaser at a local wreckers for $300. couldn't believe it, bought it, and towed it to work. Stoked to have a front bar that wasn't completely warped, i swapped the bar and lights over so nice not having the front end on the piss then scored some xyz adjusties I put some sounds in went for a drive with the girlfriend to rotorua a couple weekends later. Was a real nice roadtrip everything was mint. Came back sunday night and stayed at mums just for the night. then my car got stolen........... mean.... was watching tv then just heard it drive off into the night. Drove around for 2 or 3 hours, got pulled over in mums swift for speeding, so just started frantically showing the cop pictures of my car saying we were trying to find it and gave him my number in case. Was the most gc cop ever. found it at 5am in onehunga and called me straight away. ruined ignition, bunch of tools gone, wheels gone and sounds ripped out. could've been so much worse though. got it back from the cops a week later and the cunts had taken one ignition lead so had to drive it home on 5 cylinders.... Having that parts car was the best thing ever. Decided i didn't want big wheels any more so bought some 14x6.5 and 14x7 5 stud SSR Starsharks which i didn't think i would ever see for sale. so happy. so so happy Have since swapped the front guards to ones that haven't been pulled to africa. Progress is slow. very slow. but it's going the way i want. Next on the list is sending 2 of the starsharks to pine for a full rebuild with 4.5 or 5 inch lips. then when i get some coin send the other 2 down. I've been hunting for a 1gge for a while but whenever one comes up its been shit timing funds wise and location so thats still high on the list. Also panel and paint is very high on the list. Those are my realistic goals. My unrealistic goals are Mizuno Works itbs and extractors.

MY GUARDS ARE FIXED!!!! Suffice to say I'm pretty happy about it. Guards where repaired with just 1 day to spare before a group of us riverside gang members were due to leave for Toyota fest down in Cromwell. So in one day and two late nights i managed to get the car legal enough to get a warrant and then low enough again to be cool. I would have liked to get the front down a bit more but virgin guards and stupid tyre profile would not allow it. Also ran out of time and patience. P.S rear guards arent finished yet either, still need a bit of careful shaping to get perfect and a proper paint as they are currently just in a white primer. After about a 800km round trip the car was still in one piece, despite all the tyre rubbing and chassis encounters with the road surface. Here is a bunch of pictures.

Plans:

Love em or hate em thing I guess, I find louvres to be utterly horrid. Makes a shapely sports coupe look like Nanas bingo run about.