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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/14/17 in all areas

  1. So cool! I never knew any made it over here. have worked with them a bunch in Europe, just the ticket for snow at odd angles. It was pretty much the secret allowing us to build this thing
    10 points
  2. So the water pump packed up and started poozing water out from where the bearing was. Ordered a new one from Witors, fitted that, a new thermostat, new coolant and radiator hoses, new cap and gave the rad a damn good flush. Car runs cooler than ever (just below half on the open road on a hot summer day) so I'm happy. Cleaned the bay up a little bit more and fitted the rocker cover with a new gasket as the old one was leaking. Waxed it then parked it in the rain. But wait! What is going on with the bumpers etc? Neal and I went down the line to dismantle a PI he purchased, and haul the parts back. It was super rusty and beyond salvage. Anyway long story short, I grabbed the bumpers off it as it had the early bumpers. Polished them up after their 20 year plus stint in a paddock and they came up totally presentable. Needed to enlist the magical metal stylings of sheepers to repair the brackets but once that was done, they fitted up pretty easily. I've also slapped an early grille on the car, and topped it off with a pair of Wipac 5 1/2" driving lights, which aren't yet functional but they look shit hot. Finally, I have a set of polished 14x7 -7 offset tridies (Enkei versions) which will be on the car real soon like as part of a "stage 2" aesthetic. Next step is replacing all the front bushes, I've got all that junk and new balljoints sitting at home and just need to source a round tuit so I can get the job done. Oh I also fanged it Leadfoot, and it ran super sweetly without drama. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/53732-snoozins-79-two-point-five-s-its-for-sporty/ <------ yarn link
    6 points
  3. Installed a control box for fuel pump and mounted it under car this weekend. Running much better now. Also had it in a wedding with Kitches and Luke's coupes.
    6 points
  4. Picked up the new car and threw some of my bits in. Just need to find time to pull all the running gear out, hopefully this week sometime. Also dropped my FCRs off to get a manifold made up, which shouldnt take too long.
    6 points
  5. So last Wof I was told the angry box needed new seat belts, gearbox mount and a leak in gearbox fixed.. Also alternator shat itself. By eND of Feb I will have all the bits I need. How does a Saturday morning working bee with a BBQ lunch sound? I can put on some chops snags salad and bread. As well as a couple of boxes of dobros? Possibly 1st or 3rd weekend in March?
    4 points
  6. So this happened, nothing too major, and the smaller parts of the list should be done by the end of the week, leaving only sorting the rear airbags fouling on the diff/ brake line, and reworking the front shock mounts should sort 3 of the issues on the list, Guess there is a few more late nights and weekends in the garage,
    3 points
  7. Finally decided to do the coilover setup in the front, after forgetting how much work the rear was. But yeh the front is going to even more work, mostly because there is so much stuff that needs to be moved and shuffled around. Unless i was to do it half assed. Had to get in and chop a few things up before i could even order the coilovers, to make sure everything was going to fit, with the coilover length i want. Turbo was the first thing in the way. cut up manifold to relocate turbo closer to engine. Manifold is done. still need to finish sorting out the airbox and exhaust. After thinking the drivers side was going to be easy, turns out the brake master was going to be in the way. Had a wilwood reverse mount pedal box hanging around, i had brought for the trueno that didn't really fit. Looks like it will solve the problem in the hilux though. should fix the brake bias issue also. Still gotta make another bracket to mount to fire wall but this is where it will sit Ends for the link setup.
    3 points
  8. Left hand hanger done. Second time lucky to get this one.
    2 points
  9. Must remember not to hoon to work tomorrow...
    2 points
  10. The last point doesn't need to be remedied right.. video of hopping please!! Also, bloody good work!
    2 points
  11. 2 points
  12. this reminds me, i should get onto organising another meat... lingling
    2 points
  13. Mr Vapor, you need to move the typing finger a little to the right, its an EJ not an EH.
    2 points
  14. I'll have six MkII 2000, 2500 and 2500S models coming into my yard soon to be dismantled for parts so just sing out if you need bits.
    2 points
  15. Chapter 3 - Winter After solving the majority of the oil consumption I continued to use the rebel daily, took it on a few day trip, and competed in the end of season drags at Ruapuna. The more I used the bike the more things broke and needed fixing. It was a constant battle. Due to kms I was doing I was doing oil changes every month, the 15 year old rear tyre and chain were fast wearing out and the suspension bushes had disintegrated. The tyre and bushes were replaced but I have yet to touch the chain. I used the bike on and off during winter when the weather was clear. When the Ashburton lake got a large dumping of snow I decided to go for a day trip out there. The scenery was epic, the hills were silent, and it was a little chilly but I enjoyed myself. When the rego ran out at the start of spring I put it on hold and focused on my Golf as the bike needed work doing to it.
    2 points
  16. Chapter 2 - Queenstown I may have lied a bit about not missing a beat. The Banks Peninsula trip showed up a couple problems the main one being the tune. It got further and further out and kept dropping off onto one cylinder at 100k. The wrap on the exhaust looked cool but was hiding a terrible. The exhaust had rotted out and required a new section to be added in. After fixing the exhaust and re jetting the carbs it was time for another roadie. I wanted to go over the crown range so a trip to Queenstown was organised. The problem was I had to be at a riding cause in a few days and the weather for the rest of my Christmas leave period looked a bit rubbish so we only had 2 days to do it in, no problem. Pack racks were hastily knocked up out of bunnings alloy box section and steel bar lying around the farm. I also stripped off the last of the pipe wrap and painted the exhaust black. My poorly designed pack rack proceeded to break during the trip and by the time we returned to Christchurch it was held together with string and duct tape. No joke, that's literally what happened. Also what became apparent is the engine seals didn't enjoy doing more kms in 3 weeks than it had done in the last 10 years. The valve stem seals were leaking so much I burnt all my oil during the trip. Top end rebuild time
    2 points
  17. What does that knob near the clock do? Need another brake master cylinder. Mine has been sleeved before, in brass which makes it harder to sleeve again. Also, I damaged the piston trying to remove a circlip, so that would also have to be sleeved. Woops. Removed the front calipers. Needs new pads, they are super crusty and very worn. Needs new caliper pistons, they are rusting on the exposed bits and the chrome is coming off. Needs new brake hoses, they are not cracked, but look real old. I ordered a fuel pump repair kit and a new speedo cable from Chris Witor. I got some new rear wheel cylinders, need to take the drums off to see if they are oversize before ordering new shoes.
    2 points
  18. Thanks pete. I will swap you pepes for it? And I put my hand up for help as you've seen me hammer in tek screws
    2 points
  19. Then I bought another NZ New 200sx! WTF AM I DOING? 7hr road trip to get it, get home and an hour later I get a phone call to saying I might need to take my trailer to fckn Taihape to pick up a damn Triumph with no brakes.... wife gave me the worst look ever.
    2 points
  20. Looked at the ring gap at lunchtime - took the top ring off, levelled it down bore with a vernier, and measured, just looks too big... Bloody hell, kept sliding more feelers in... So it's over 50 thou. I think at 4.030" bore diameter the top ring should be around 0.016 - 0.018" - so that may be where the problem lies. Prob been like that for years, I just never picked up as never had a catch can telling me how misty the crankcase was. I'll try to get block into machine shop this week and get it inspected, hopefully a hone, ring and bearing job will sort her out...
    2 points
  21. Made things a bit more cruise worthy over the course of the last week. Trump 2500S-5 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Slapped a lush JVC mechless head unit in, this bitch has 4V preouts and a reasonable EQ. It's also super compact depthwise so I can fit it in the limited space behind the sumptuous veneer of the Triumph center console. Trump 2500S-1 by Richard Opie, on Flickr A swag of cables run under the carpet and through holes I mangled in the sheetmetal to the boot, to this primo Image Dynamics 4 ch amp, which I am running with 2 channels bridged into this: Trump 2500S-7 by Richard Opie, on Flickr A dual 2ohm voice coil 10" Image Dynamics sub, in a box cut for me by Dave Jackson, and trimmed by Greg at Midnight Upholstery in a sweet shade of Triumph tan. Trump 2500S-6 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Trump 2500S-4 by Richard Opie, on Flickr The front 2 channels run these old Pioneer TS-X11 I've had for years, they sound incredible for their size and vintage. I have them running through a high pass filter, so nothing under 100hz makes it to them so hopefully it prolongs their life a bit. Trump 2500S-3 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Trump 2500S-2 by Richard Opie, on Flickr After Raizer posted the Krusty Seal of Approval in the discussion thread, I went on an e-search looking for someone who surely, made these as a sticker. I found these on a tumblr style site thing and sent an email then boom all of a sudden a couple of them ended up at my place, all the way from Ireland of all places. Then George went to Goodwood, and I requested a Goodwood sticker so I could apply as so to the rear screen of my British automobile. TL;DR? Doof and stickers. I also got a new 2" exhaust (the guy stuck a 2" on it of his own accord) but I didn't take any pics. It sounds fruity.
    2 points
  22. I don't know if you peeps know about thermettes, but basically they are the most awesome bit of OS camping kit there has ever been. Shit has been around since the 1900's; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Kettle You can still buy them new; http://www.wilsonandco.co.nz/thermette/ They are so sweet to use, you just need some twigs and you can boil 2 liters of water in 7 - 8 mins, plus cook on them as well. We used our neighbors one for the first couple of trips away in the bus, but we really needed one that lived in the bus. I was going to buy one but it really needed to be a bit bigger (hot water for the morning dishes) and I also thought it would be good to have a tap so you could siphon off water for cups of tea. So being the sort of boy I am, and just happening to have some copper sheet lying around the workshop I thought I would make one... The is the second one I have made, the first was a tiny 700ml one so you can boil up two cups of tea - I learned a lot of stuff building this one so No2 went a bit easier. Firstly I drew it up in Solidworks so I could get all the correct pattern sizes etc, then I cut all these out of the sheet. The copper is 0.5mm thick so you can do it with a decent set of scissors if need be. The outer sheet cut; Used the fingerbender to get a bend on each end; Roll it and hook them together; Gently hammer the seam together; Same for the inner cone; Then solder them up; I used lead free plumbers solder - lead poisoning does not appeal. For heat I used the oxy/lpg plant with a small tip. Then I made the cap; I actually sized the thermette around that bit of steel pipe so that it would be easy to make the cap etc. Now unfortunately, I did the rest the next day and was under serious time constraints before going away in the bus, so I forgot to take any more pics. So pretend you have just watched one of those time lapse thingies of me crashing about the workshop doing things at stupid speeds.... As you can see I soldered it all together, added a pouring orifice, made a firebox on a stand, made a handle out of a broomstick handle, added a wee brass tap, made a top mounted cooking frame and then rushed to Marahau to use it. I brought it back to the workshop for a few wee mods after the trip - it needed a lip at the opening of the firebox to stop shit falling out, and I did not get a chance to put the pipe on the tap that you can see. This made for amusing dances when filling up cups of tea as you would get boiling water dropping into your safety crocs. I also made a wooden handle for the tap handle as the brass would get very hot as well. It is pretty much perfect now, here it is heating 3 litres of water plus boiling some spuds for tea.. And next to the camping brazier and a human for scale (she is a midget so it looks quite tall, the pot base is about a meter off the ground - perfect height for me to work at);
    1 point
  23. Dont think this car is old enough for the main forum, 1989??? So I decided to get another project to muck around with to stop me pulling things apart on the 280Z plus Craig is building lots of cool shit and I am jealous. Requirements were it had to be Nissan, be cheap, have 4 seats (the 280Z is not overly family friendly) and be cheap. I have always liked the old Z32 300zx's so decided to go down that path, they are a love it or hate it car but Im cool with that. Upsides of the Z32 are obviously you can pick them up for next to nothing these days, there are lots of spare parts available for them and they are quite a lot of car for the money. The downside is they are are a bitch to work on due to engine layout/space restrictions, you have to pull the engine to change the washer fluid. Plan for this thing is just a fun budget build, use cheap or second hand parts where possible, take to the odd track day and drive it. So knowing it was probably a stupid idea i started looking around and found cheap semi tidy 2+2 NA manual in Christchurch. So site unseen, Craig and I jumped on a plane flew down, met the guy at the airport, dropped some cash on the thing and road tripped it back to Aucks which was mint. When we picked it up Mean trip home The car has over 200K Kms on it and leaked oil from every seal imaginable, interior was filthy and it had an horrific pitstop special exhaust system that was stupidly loud and totally shit. Good points were body was fairly tidy, came on some rough 18x9.5s, gearbox felt ok and car drove pretty sweet. At home with the 280 When i got it home the first thing that needed attention was the bio-hazard of an interior. It was disgusting, the drivers seat was torn and the dash was lifting around the windscreen air vent which I believe is fairly common. Every old 300zx has a torn drivers seat which looks crap, i wanted to keep the seats as they are cool 90s retro with motors in them so decided to re skin the drivers seat. I found a tidy passenger seat online then proceeded to strip it down and swap the skin over to the original drivers seat. This was a mission that took forever, I dont recommend. Spare passenger seat I found after ripping it to pieces lots of scrubbing out years of filth, ended up with two fairly tidy seats with no rips etc. They are still wet in this pic One non torn drivers seat back in the car Rest of the interior got a full on scrub down, it was unreal how much crud came out of everything. I also pulled out the dash and glued down the area that was lifting around the air vent. Another job I did was to tidy up the vinyl trim on the rear quarter panel interior trims that were torn. Next job was address the ride height. The car was rocking full on 4x4 spec stock suspension which had to go. Cheapest option I found was some dodgy ebay style coil overs, yep they are probably made from recycled watties baked bean cans but they were cheap so they were in. Threw them in and adjusted height to something that looked more respectable There is still scope to go lower but looks better for now The car came on a set of 18x9.5 +15ET china spec Cosmis wheels. They were were in a pretty sad state with some curbing and stone chips etc. In an ideal world I should replace them with something decent but thats not happening so decided to tidy them up as best I could. You have to be a mogul when you are racing modern...WTF Spent a fair but of time sanding down all the chips and marks. Then sprayed gloss black to hide the evidence. They look 100 times better than they did so they are staying for now. Need to change the wheel nuts to something non chrome Old mate Craig had a super legit set of Defi gauges gathering dust on his shelf so i stole them, hacked up the center console and made them fit. Gauges are worth more than the whole car, cheers bro! Next thing to address is the engine. The tired VG30DE had to go, it was leaking oil real bad and is slow. I had initially thought of throwing in a RB25 for something different but by chance ended up getting hold of a supposedly low km VG30DETT twin turbo motor for super cheap from the Mrs uncle who randomly had it sitting around in his shed. Fitting a VG30DETT into a NA Z32 is meant to be relatively straight forward, you can use the NA loom etc. My car is factory manual, the NA and TT gearbox internals are identical but the TT version has a slightly larger bell housing, the internet told me it should all fit somehow... The turbo engine had been sitting in his shed for years so was looking a little worse for wear. It turned over freely so figured I would take a chance on it. This was how it looked when i got it home. I also tracked down a complete stock intercooler plumbing kit I gave it a good de-grease and waterblast then started stripping things off to tidy it up a bit. I didnt know anything about VGs so was going to be interesting. I ordered a timing belt kit, water pump and rocker cover gasket kit from the states. Then proceeded to pull things off, clean, sand, prime, paint, refit, repeat... Fitted new timing belt, idlers, water pump, thermostat etc Painted up the timing covers so they look a but different, every VG i have seen has the stock black covers. The stock T25 turbos looked in fairly good condition, no large amounts of shaft play and rotated nice and freely I ordered a set of dump pipes from ebay in the states, they were ridiculously cheap and seem OK. Painted the water inlet and outlet pipes black just to mix things up from the normal alloy finish most are Pulled the injectors and replaced the o-rings and pintle caps Painted the fuel rail gloss black Nissan engineers were on acid back in the 90s and decided to try and include lots of crazy technology into the VG engine. The engine has an exhaust recycling system to reduce emissions on startup. It is known to fail over time so I deleted it and welded up the pipe on the manifold. I also removed the PCV plumbing and welded up the ports on the rocker cover. I will be using an external oil breather tank. I also deleted all the additional water cooling lines that run under the plenum. Again these apparently begin to leak over time and arent needed. I stripped down and painted the plenum exoxy gloss black to match the rest of the engine colors. Also painted up the heat shields and other small bits, waste of time really as you will never see any of it. The factory NA engine mounts from my old engine were shot, they had cracked right through. I found some cheap nolathane ones online, I made some alloy heat shields for them as some threads online said the nolathane mounts can fail due to heat. Also replaced the rear main seal while everything was apart I reused the flywheel from the old NA engine, it is smaller than the one that comes with the TT motor but it fits with my gearbox so had no option there. NA VGs use the same clutch layout as RBs so I fitted a heavy duty Clutch Industries RB25DET clutch. Out came the tired old DE, getting at some of the plugs was a real bitch. You really need to be the size of a leprechaun to work on these engines. removed the gearbox and its 20+ years of grime Used degreaser and oven cleaner to clean it up as best I could Engine and gearbox mated up, ready to go in car In goes the DETT Boom Factory twin turbo cars have a stock external oil cooler, NA versions dont so raided Craigs parts bin again. Added a few AN fittings and sorted. I was going to used the stock intecoolers that I scored but ended up buying a dirt cheap ebay split front mount cooler for some stupid reason. I think it is a copy of the Greddy version? It is a tight fit, had to cut away some of the plastic bumper support to make room Then I made up a set of cooler pipes to fit by cutting up the stock ones I had, combined with some silicone joiners it worked out pretty sweet My car came with a china spec Greddy copy twin mushroom intake pipe I needed to fit an oil breather tank somewhere in the engine bay so decided to run with a small batter setup and combine that with a breather. Knocked up with this disaster Painted up and installed Will do the job Next job was to make up an exhaust. The dump pipes i bought off ebay included mid pipes so i was one third of the way there. Picked up a bunch of 2.5 inch bends and mufflers etc Started piecing it all together, just tacked in place to suss out the layout Went with a crossover section and two small mid resonators Once i had the layout sorted welded it all up and painted. Fitted the NA loom up to the motor. Some of the old coil plugs were broken so replaced them with new ones. I had to relocate the lower radiator mounts as the TT radiator is narrower and thicker than the NA version. I had one small issue with one of the loom grounds resulting in no power to the coils but once I sorted that the engine fired up nicely which was awesome. Used a consult cable to make sure everything was working as it should. Adjusted CAS to match engine timing to ecu timing. Oil pressure seems good, temp OK and idles nice and smooth so fingers crossed. I am waiting on a few small parts to arrive, alloy radiator as the factory one I have is a bit sketchy, factory fan shroud and radiator top mounting brackets. I have taken for a few drives up and down the road an everything seems OK so far. Car is only on wastegate boost at this stage (7psi) but I have a profec boost controller installed so will have a play with that and turn it up a bit. Washed it for the first time in forever, was such a mint weekend 280 got a clean also Next step is tidy a few small things and get a new warrant for it. Then I will fit a wide band to it and may have a play with the ECU using Nistune software or romulator. I will need to upgrade the injectors at some stage and it will need a bigger fuel pump also. Fun times
    1 point
  24. Hey guys has anyone got any info on a way to change something like my stock revcounter in the MX41 to read off the V12? Pretty broad question but where would I start? Chur
    1 point
  25. been a bit slack posting removed sound deadening, all gone now, one side just needs cleaning up, will get recent pics this weekend. Some interesting factory patch panels/panel beating too lol During after tbc cut some rust out for patchs. about 4 holes in total, this is the biggest Cleaned one up and cut a patch from my old mr2 engine bay lid. Tried to weld one of the smaller ones up. did a fair bit of practice on some offcuts. Stitch welded the piece up, cleaned the welds then went to fill in the gaps and kept getting blow-through, getting a die grinder so I can square the holes up nicely and make it easier to clean welds up. Also going to buy some fresh steel rather than use scrap from old mr2 engine bay lid. hope that helps. If anyone has tips they would be appreciated! Picked up parts car from auckland. mint doors, quite a few bagdes and trim in good nick and almost new carpet! woo. Only parts im after now are front guards, might get a panel shop to fix these ones up when I have a bit of cash. reg still live and almost rust free so tempting to use this instead but I will persevere and make this body rust free and might do the parts car up after. First time it saw rain in 20+ years.. bloody summer. Guy I got it from has a mint yellow one with red interior as well.
    1 point
  26. Bam.. Now I just need a power point.. Got 95% of the battens finished on the weekend, had a bit of a fuckaround Sunday tho with my head not working and making a couple of mistakes, easily rectified but just time consuming. Also started nogging/packing out for the bottom batten and closer, for anyone wanting to do a 45mm structural cavity I used Herman Pacific V5 cavity battens and redway 45mm PC cavity closers. HP specified 12g stainless screws which turns out not many stock, the only ones blacks had were 100mm.. won't be coming off in a hurry, but they also snap if you give them to much guts with the driver. Shot of the cavity closer on.. Another 42m to go.. also need to level the section a bit more, there's a bloke on the corner two houses down that has a couple of old tractors he burns around the streets on (and in the Santa parade) he leveled another neighbours section so I might hit him up and see if he wants to do mine.. need to plant grass, the dust/and blowing around the place is killing me..
    1 point
  27. I'm on a short leash since I spent her birthday in the shed pulling an engine out... We'll see.
    1 point
  28. You left out my shed/ nobody wants to see rusty mitsis and shelves of hoarded junk
    1 point
  29. ^^ Top bloke. Quick to reply that he probably wasn't the most economic choice, and recommended another outfit. Still keen on suggestions for painting etc!
    1 point
  30. Front/rear shock absorbers OK? At higher speeds the smallest of imbalance in the wheels/tyres and stuffed shocks will make the wheels almost jump up/down causing vibration. Get someone to drive behind/beside you and observe the wheels/tyres(both sides) at the speeds the vibrations happen to eliminate this.
    1 point
  31. Have a read of this for inspiration / a look at what someone else is doing. http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/175837/building-fast-16v-allegro
    1 point
  32. So the plan is Sunday 12th March. Start at 9.30. Allowing 1.5 hours between sheds. 9.30 Kiwi birdman Birkenhead check out his Ej Holden restoration. 11.00 tumeke paoatoetoe back yard Barry engineering shed. It's an estate sale so lots of good things up for grabs. Bring cash. 12.30 Vapour Shed also in papatoetoe to have a play with the blaster and a couple of sausages and bread for lunch. 1.30 Richards group 5 race car build. Alfreston. 3.00 Neals triumph cave for a bbq. Should be a good day.
    1 point
  33. The knob you're asking about is for dimming the instrument lights
    1 point
  34. Here is some of the footage I got, on my new 4K camera
    1 point
  35. So, around a year after I started, I've pulled the guts out of her again. It was going ok, been using it a bit, but the puffs of smoke and red puddles were embarrassing, so I'm gonna hopefully fix those properly. Since I've got most of the gear and done all the painting etc it shouldn't be too much of a mission. (I was sooo close to putting a 5-speed box in though, just can't justify the hassle/expense). Plan is to strip engine and get block checked, and put her back together all tight and perky... Also gonna fit lowered springs and have ordered a set of rubber suspension bushes and larger sway bar to tidy up the wallowy front end. Bit of a bugger redoing a lot of this work, but I took the gamble last time, and at least I've got a garage buddy to keep me company... meet Jagger, the 9 wk old Border Collie, great wee bloke - already knows to sit there out of the way while I cock things up, bleed and swear...
    1 point
  36. I will now rummage through all my fading memories the happenings of the last few weeks since the wagon became legal, weeks of holidays, drinks, sunshine, fettling of various old car things. Hopefully as I type it will become clearer.. Since getting the car back into life I have just kept using it for all sorts of trips and its been fun. I love the looks it gets. Often I get thumbs up, usually from young folk who might not even know what it is but certainly like the fact its shabby. Older people often smile too. Many comments But it was never 'right'. I felt it had better potential and didn't believe that the engine was knackered. It was not using much oil but enough to make me look further than just the patches it left here and there. Every time I drove it Id discover afterwards a new fresh coating of oil mist over everything. I checked the rocker cover and sure enough that was loose. But still the mystery mist kept appearing.. hmmmmm… Finally I worked out that it was spinning off from the front pulley. Luckily my stash of Viva spares had a new seal. I popped off the timing chain cover and swapped out the very very hard old seal. The nice soft new one stopped the mist. Yay. But that rough idle was annoying me. More so the engine shal=king about and making the exhaust knock the crossmember. This I had to fix. It was too close and sat quite low as well.. So I cut off the down pipe and while it was off I repaired my previous ‘repair’ to the manifold joining flange which had started to leak. Knock be gone but still the car idled rough. I checked the compressions and they were all good @ 150 psi each (which is way higher than the 130 Mr Haynes tells me to expect so I either have a gauge that lies or someone in the past has skimmed the head?) But still the car ran rough. I finally bought a new timing light. A self powered one. So good not having to plug in the battery leads! With my new light I was able to check the timing which turned out to be only about 5 degrees out. So I was happy that Id managed to get it so close just by ear but not happy that it was obviously not the cause of the poor idle. I checked the valve clearances. Now things got messy… the manuals all say check them hot and many sources out there say the best thing is to check them with the engine running….. NEVER AGAIN will I try using feeler gauges on a idling engine! What a kerfuffle and resulting mess! After I had spent many clean rags clearing up the oil from everywhere I set the clearances hot. They were all pretty good actually. I screwed the rocker cover down and started the engine. TINK TINK TINK TINK TINK…. WTF?!!! Where’s that coming from. Oh no.. have I dropped a valve? Sounds like piston slap or a broken piston top but higher pitched? Oh dear I thought. I popped the cover off and started the engine. Sound has gone! What? Looked at rocker cover and I could see marks underneath from where a rocker was just touching my altered breather gallery… Oh OK. So tightening the cover down further on a new hot cork gasket just pulled it down that bit more to touch. One swift smack with the hammer and the sound was gone So what is causing the rough running then. I had been pulling the plugs after every few runs to look at the condition. Always the front 1 and 2 plugs were clean and borderline lean. The rear 3 and 4 always a touch oily. Hmmmm. Then I looked at my servo and breather lines heading into my inlet manifold- remember back when I changed the positions?.. I popped off the servo one and sucked on it. Hang on… no resistance! What? Bugger me.. I have a split diaphragm in the servo causing an air leak. Which also explains the hefty brake pedal ( I’d just put that down to poor brakes bedding in or not being manly enough..) I plugged the tee on the manifold and started the car. Wow!! What a difference!!!! So smooth. I was able to lower the idle speed right down. Then double checked the timing, tweeked the carb jet a little and it was heaps better. Next drive was way smoother, engine had more pull and no lurching. Heaven. But I knew it could be even better. So I undid the breather pipe from the inlet and re-routed it down the back of the block, holding it in place by the bottom of the bell housing with a zip tie. I plugged the remaining takeoff on the tee and started the car… even better! Yes!! Having got rid of another ‘air leak’ helped no end plus was also explaining why the rear two plugs were constantly oily. I will source another HC servo and for now just put up with a harder pedal. The brakes work well but just need a shove. As for the inlet take off I will move the position to just after the carb in the middle so its even across all cylinders. The breather can remain to atmosphere. Now I knew the engine was actually OK I gave it an oil change. The old oil was not too dirty but it did smell. It burns a little oil at start up past the inlet valve stems. I have found out that this earlier engine doesn’t have stem seals but a friend who owns many Vivas said they used to slide an O-ring down the stem so most oil ran over the o-ring rather than down the guide. Nifty idea I might try if I do pop the head off. Im now a little reluctant to take the head off as its running well..but I am a little curious to see how carboned up it might be?. So my once rough running Viva is now a very smooth little car to drive. In fact its an utter joy to drive, allowing for a general lacking in power. My fears about driving up hills have been removed. Yeah it’s a bit slow but only on one very steep section do I need second gear, otherwise its third gear and cruise. Its ideal about town and fantastic for popping to the beach, a trip it has done many times now. I like it. I like it a lot. I just cruise. Windows down. Chilled out. Lifes a breeze. I love the way the car handles with the tiny engine up front. Steering is very light and it fun to flick around. Many more little things to tidy up now and make it a nicer place. Hannah’s mum is over from the UK on holiday so I made the most of her baggage and got her to bring over lots of stuff I got cheap on ebay Uk. See here… New dizzy cap, rotor, a full set of mint Vauxhall service manuals (only £1.50 ), full head gasket set (cheap), a few magazines, adjustable electric fan controller, a chrome air filter which doesn’t quite fit but I’ll sort that. So that’s where I’m at now. Just using it. Transporting mountain bikes (easy pesy).. Going to the beach.. Sitting pretty in the afternoon… Taking me down to my local village for moonlit strolls along the beach.. Just generally being a very good fun wee classic daily
    1 point
  37. Back to fixing the lower cab corner rust. Look at that nice 1950's welding!
    1 point
  38. Hey bud, I had the exact same problem on my cortina a few weeks ago and I was worried it was gearbox too but I took my driveshaft (which looked mint and so did the universals) to a driveshaft place for a balance and universals replaced and said said it was way outta bal and the joints were screwed. Mint as now. Give that a try. I paid about $285 to get it done. Cheers Cam
    1 point
  39. Driveshaft bent or rear bush in gearbox worn?
    1 point
  40. Obviously you've balanced the wheels. Some of the symptoms sound a bit like my wife's Laser when it dropped a couple of balance weights. Of course she didn't notice just like she didn't notice when the back shocks were fucked. That doesn't explain the gear stick shake though.
    1 point
  41. Loading her up. This was a nightmare.. It doesn't run so no hydraulics, which meant cutting hoses and allowing the bleed out of the legs so we could move them manually. Obviously the flip side of this means they went wherever the fuck they wanted and with a machine weighing 7 Tonne this made things farking hard!! In the end it took 6 hours, 4 of us, 2 block n tackles, the hydraulic winch of the transporter (snapped its cable twice) and a very underpowered old tractor
    1 point
  42. Got some more shit for this while blowing money on my Z10. FCR41. Rebuilt them with the right size jets, will probably get a couple of sizes for max Kaicho jet changes at the track. Also got some new wheels. Going to weld some front guard arches on the back to fit the 9s. 13x8 -12 and 9-25 Also this cars always annoyed me in a few ways. The chassis is bent up front, the rears full of bog and heaps of other little shit. So have decided to cut it up for spare bits, and have bought another shell. The other shell comes with a full 4age setup. Smallport with ITBs and a megasquirt, T50 and 86 disc rear end. I should be able to sell it all off and end up with a better shell and not loose any money, or so im hoping.
    1 point
  43. Tridies. by Richard Opie, on Flickr Decided the 6-inch pair looked stupid so brought in another pair of 7's from Japan, much better. 165/55/14 is a bit small though. Will polish and add bigger tyres then cruise some more. These are shank nut type though so now I need some shank nuts. Blergh. Looks super cool.
    1 point
  44. Kids birthday over the weekend so after putting up with half a dozen yelling 7yr old girls on a sleepover (why are they always shouting?) I sought refuge in the shed. Goodbye blue rocker covers... The cork gaskets had stuck fairly well in the short time they'd been on, but popped off ok, and it looked clean enough inside... Apart from a few little bits of black goo. Whatever it was was soft - hoping this is assembly lube remnants...? And side 1 done/new PCV valve installed... Doesn't look too bad I suppose, the big blue frying pan dominates things... And a bit of tidying up to do yet. waiting on black lead clamps and new breather cap in the mail...
    1 point
  45. 1 point
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