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She's on the ground and goes. Well kinda goes. Not that bad for 22 days including this morning

Right, so this happened then this Even managed to get it insured...... So yeah all done, well not really still needs an interior and some paint touchups but that can wait, its now time to put some kms on it, this has been a pretty long project so now all I am going to do is enjoy driving it. Pretty funny car to drive gets a fair few looks some good some not so good and mostly surprised, gas mileage is so bad, like next level bad, I took it out today and my average was about 4.4kms per liter but it is running really rich (yeah that'll be it, not the rotary under the bonnet ha ha), anyway combine that with the 30l Anglia tank and I am going to be spending some time at the gas station for sure! The biggest problem that I will have now is keeping it under 5000RPM (so hard to do when all it wants to do is rev....) for the next 1000kms which is what the engine builder recommended, work is about a 30km round trip so I only have to do that 34 times and at current gas milage it will only cost me about $500 ha ha ha Anyway it's all good And I will leave this as the last shot, and in my opinion the best angle of the car

Booked this in for a WoF today. Didnt quite make it all the way. (run out of gas) Lucky i had someone who thought it was flippin hilarious driving the support vehicle Looks pretty cool even busted on the side of the road, but "get the fuel sender working" is now at the top of the list! Ive put about 30l of gas in it since i put the tank back in, and ive driven it maybe 3km, so not sure where it all went! Cruising in traffic. Goes pretty good, but i think i will get the radiator swapped out for a newer one that doesnt leak and maybe a couple of pusher fans. Dash guage reads near the top of normal when its sitting, but the mechanical one reads normal (~90degC), but thats in the lower hose. Up on the hoist. Nice to see the underside from more than a foot away! Guys were pretty happy with it. !!!WOF AQUIRED!!! After that popped around to Mr and Mrs Grants to show off, and went to Burger Fuel for lunch in it, gets lots of looks and thumbs up, and 'what is its?' Swung by the beach for a surf check on the way home No surf, so then made a start on the post-WoF list of things to sort! - Fuel sender - wheel alignment - radiator + fans - door & boot locks (no key for any of them) - more driving!

Brown car left on a trailer headed to dunedin on saturday, so spent the rest of the weekend cleaning out the garage and went and got the white one back from storage, so i could start getting this one ready for Nats. Had the radiator fixed, it had a couple of small leaks, I think the 16 pound cap probably didn't help, put a 7pound one on instead. Have ordered some new seatbelts from www.classicseatbelts.co.nz so just waiting for those to arrive. gave the brakes a once over, greased and checked the front end, and for now have borrowed the wheels off the vg, I didnt trust the tyres on a long trip. Also I thought it would be rude to not remove some of the height out of the front while it was jacked up, so I did.

Been away for a few weeks camping, was supposed to take this as the tow vehicle but oh well. Next year maybe. Escort Van trailer went great, really miss having a van tho. Anywho, by the time we got back a few orders had showed up (ie not before xmans ), from LadaPower.com, Fiatparts.co.nz and WuM-Autotiele (ebay), main bits i was waiting on were the Starter bushes. No Shots of that but its all shiney in there new with new bushes and brushes. Still a bit intermittent tho :/ Will try better earthing. (I just realised what the red gear knob and rubber straps appear to be) A few parts are going to have to wait till the next rebuild like this adjustable cam sprocket: Anyway, with the starter installed and timing (finally!) set, it rolled under outside under its own steam for a wash and a drive. After a few more checks and tightening of varois clamps and nuts it was Family wagon outing in the the Familiare time And a bit of brum brum, this is after a few runs up and down my road and a blast up to the top of this hill: As mentioned the car seems to be getting better with some use (despite not having any advance at all) Engine so far has no oil leaks or majorly disturbing sounds, and seems to hold water fine. Ive since fiddled with some shakedown stuff: - ajusted the clutch - adjusted gear shift mechanism - swapped parts between 3 spare dizzies and new parts to heve one good dizzy with advance! just needed * advance weights * not ruined advance springs * not worn out pegs for weights and springs * working vacuum advance thinger * clean and lube, new dissy cap, rotor and points (already done before) - new oil light sender - actually a dud - dash out loose wires on some lights * also adjust choke on and handbrake on switches so they are not on all the time, and water temp guage wire so it works - changed out cheapo run in oil (no metallic flakes/poweder of any note) Tomorrow ill retorque the head bolts and adjust the tappets and take it for another blast. Feels good man!

I picked up this a bout a month ago from Penrose (not Wanganui!) Ended up getting it sent from Ralph Moore Autoglass in Sydney who had one in stock, and they shipped it with an MG one for some other bloke to halve our shipping. This week i finally got it installed. Cracking the parts cats screen has not only been a very expensive fuckup but also meant ive pretty much missed cruising this summer. I reused the old rubbers, i cleaned them pretty good but they are a bit cracked and stretched in the corners so i hope they dont leak Sorting out the best surrounds, and had just enough unbroken clips, less 2 And on Pretty happy about the close fit to the opening given all the work i did around the screen top and bottom (not so much about the runs, but thats what accessories to hide them are for!) And paint run hider back on Too much or? Nothing like a pending >1200km road trip to procrastinate on sorting the list of wee jobs to sort and a few miles to put on, before hopefully a WoF Next weekend! If not then id better get the brakes on the 125 sorted! Here is a pic to remind me why I aught to pull finger:

Lol, so oil pump has turned up, bought via rock autos. look at box, oh yeah, some sort of brand. Open box, well well, what have we got here, genuine Aisin oil pump with the Toyota symbol ground off haha. Score in my books. Now I just hope it fits, as its for a cressida and all Anyway, not sure when thats going to make it into the car. busy this weekend, possibly busy the weekend after. and somewhere is nats and then I'm away the weekend after nats also. Such a busy time. Plus I need to get other crown on a hoist to do exhaust, So, kinda stuck in between both, as they both need to get on a hoist really. Not keen for removing sumps on the ground haha. Anyway heres some pictures of the turd. Seedy Al

Also her'es a few photos because I can

So Summer has officially ended and still no red paint on this thing! But never fear, I'm on it!! I've been spending what feels like every waking moment and many when I should be sleeping working on this thing, I'm beginning to understand why car paint jobs are so flippin expensive!Time, lots and lots of time.So after giving the shed a mighty clean up and tidy, thinning out the heard of pushbikes down to a manageable number and shoving anything unneeded under the house, I began with dressing down the old welds on the sunroof graft.and then the bog.So much sanding.then decided to bare metal the dash and tidy up the rest of the inside.check out the factory spot welds.the reason for this was to remove all the shitty old glue that I had spread about holding the carpets in place, as I wanted to get a nice coat of paint every where.looking much better after some etch.I even managed to get a couple days off work as I was on a roll!moved onto the underside, which apart from the bottom corners on the front firewall, needed no bog at least!also heaps and heaps of tiny small things like bogging up the spot welds under the engine air vents, smoothing out the welds where I grafted said vent panel into the roof and the front scuttle graft aswell, the A pillars, the front wheel wells...... At this point my fingers are numb and my skin feels like 180T sandpaper, are we having fun yet?!But seeing it all coming together in one colour.that is pretty cool.fantastic motivation.You gotta keep on pushin, you gotta keep on pushin!time to crank up the beast!this side was tricky, the hood release tube is right smack in the way.got it stick in place evenchually.and then the one on the scuttle.spot welder was making a bit of a mess out of this one(it may have been the operator) so I had to MIG up a few wee holes here and there.and bog and sand and etch.....another chunk done.need to start seam sealing but it would appear that the tube I used on the chassis has seam sealed its self inside the tube, fuck it, I'd only used a quarter of the fucking thing!I cut the tube open and did the under side bits here.not very pretty, but it will keep out the weather.seams about right, I went to paint the gray primer on the inside of the trunk, got half way and ran out of air, went to finish it tonight and I'd run out of thinners, and now the seam sealer. Ah well, I've been meaning to update you guys so there you are.

Just a little update. Made it into performance car mag Won best conversion at reunion Got best under construction and best euro at auto fest in the weekend. Time to do the last things ready for beach hop.

safety cletus says new seat belts are much better. In the front it had a diagonal belt, plus a lap belt so you had to put both on which was te dumb. It had no belts in the back, so I put the laps in the back, someone had cut off all the original old belts and left them bolted in for some reason. Put new lap and diagonal belts in the front, they have old style chrome leg burner buckles which look better than new plastic ones

Today's effort. New (half finished) gearbox/transfer case cross member. Lower links don't agree with the old one. new one will have a tower for the upper link with some adjustment holes. +50mm shocks look pretty short.

Gone all Roman dave science with the link setup. plugged the numbers into a calculator Tricky to get all the numbers in the acceptable range while working around the chassis, engine and wheels that need to turn. main compromise is chassis mounts on the lower links will hang below the chassis rails a bit. but still will be a touch above the transfer case x member, so shouldn't be too much drama. had to do this to get enough up travel without the links hitting the chassis rails, and also to get the roll steer numbers down. The rear is pretty text book since there wasn't really anything to work around after cutting and modifying the chassis. Done it without using a calculator, just following a guide some geezer wrote. putting the numbers in the calc, looks like got lucky and nailed it. can dial the anti squat up to 100% with the adjustment holes. but this is how it's setup currently got some springs for the coil overs 175lb top 300lb bottom. both 14'" long. shocks should be at 50% travel with the weight of the truck on them.

So christmas came a little late this year.who am I kidding, this was better!Mark at the Metric Nut sent me up pretty much everything I'd need to get this thing on the road.I wasn't going to bother with the shift rod seal but after cleaning up the gearbox, I'd found one small tear in one of the axle boots, so while it's apart we might as well stick one in, never had one before, fancy!got the front brakes back together.had to get the rear oil seals pressed in by the local shop (cheers frank and co) I tried doing my self but just mangled it. nearly didn't do that either as I read the seals don't work without the drums torqued up, again, glad I did as this was inside the leaking one.took the pedals apart, cleaned, painted, greased and reassembled.pretty much every part of the throttle linkage was all bent to hell.new bumpstopstwin circuit master with fluid res on top, started running new stainless brake lines that I brought ages ago.pedals installed.ran clutch and throttle cables, forgot how much of a ass hooking up the clutch cable was who designed that fucking thing!got the rear brakes back in along with the bearing seals, handbrake cables run and hooked up.cleaned up the tie rods and installed new inner ends, the outer one have been replaced in the last decade or so.I was going to polish up those stainless brake lines but I had run out of autosol and wanted to get it done, I've also realized how little things like a tube of this, a can of that, soon adds up, I needed rubber grommets for the brake line, some else this car has never had, and bugger me if stupercheap wanted over eight bucks for two.this shit adds up man!ah, forgot the lube!never forget the lube.then I came up with this genius way of getting it inside the steering box.and paint bla bla.front drums on, with new locking tabs for the bearings.rears all jammed on.and holy shit balls! it's on it's wheels!

Ok lets see if this works http://vid225.photobucket.com/albums/dd95/105re/TRIM_20160530_061135_zpsn99jdybk.mp4

Also, look how tiny the carb is

Today I got those side panels all welded in then made up the crossmember and welded that in as well Crossmember Goes here had to tidy up a few other things while I was doing this and found some more rust which has been dealt to but it slowed me down a bit and I didn't get quite as far as I had hoped. I have started cutting and fitting the front sheet metal that I un-stitched, so will carry on with it this week.

So the last few days have been spent sorting out the brakes, funnily enough with the master cylinders switched over it now stops like a champ so pretty happy about that. Drove the neighbors crazy running the car up and down the street slamming on the brakes but it had to be done. I also got the new shorter springs and threw them in and there is no heaps of clearance on the tyre so that will be all good now. So it is already for it's retest now. I had some time today so I sorted out something that has been bugging me for a while, there is a small cover at the top of the bonnet that I took off a while back to get some paint colour matched and then I left it out as the engine generates a bit more heat than the old crossflow and I thought it would be a good idea to let it escape, anyway it is a reasonable sized hole and it looked a bit messy with nothing on it so I did this. First holesaw some holes Then swage them with the tool I made a while back And fit to car and here is the car now that I have raised the back up by 25mm I can now get out of the drive without scraping but it still looks good I reckon. Fingers crossed that the next post will be to say that I have cert

Well it's been a busy couple of days, had cert booked for Thursday and before that I took the 1" blocks out of the back to raise it up a little, it doesn't look as good but now I can actually get it out of the drive without scraping the crap out of the exhaust. So Thursday morning I drove it out to get a warrant then the garage let me borrow a hoist for the inspection. That all went pretty good, there were a couple of things but nothing major, then we went to do the road test and the car wouldn't start, stupid thing!! anyway I think what happened is the fuel pressure was too high and was overflowing the float bowl and flooding the carb, anyway I eventually got it going but only on one rotor and just couldn't get it to clear. So the certifier left to have a look at another car and I went off and got some new plugs chucked them in and wound back the fuel pressure and it was good to go. Here's the car on the hoist (kind of boring pic but I haven't posted any for a while) Then it was off for the bump steer test which it passed and I went home to fix some of the small issues that had come up on the inspection. The certifier came back at about 10pm so we could do the road test which unfortunately didn't go so well, the car goes good, handles good but wasn't so flash on the stopping so it failed the brake test. There was no fade or anything it just wouldn't pull up properly anyway I was a bit surprised by this as I had researched it pretty thoroughly but what can you do, so we headed for home and on the way back started talking about master cylinders and sizing etc. Then this morning I had a thought and went to check the cylinders and found that I had the front and rear cylinders swapped, so I had a bigger cylinder on the front which meant it was much harder to push the pedal and explains why it wasn't stopping as it should. So yeah my bad, what a dumbass. Still it's good to know what the problem is, I have swapped them over now so hopefully they will be sorted. There are a couple of other things as well, the coilover platforms sit quite close to the tyre so I will put some shorter springs in and wind the platforms up to get some more clearance, and I need to get some documentation for the driveshaft mods. So assuming that the brakes will now be ok it is pretty much sorted, unfortunately the certifier only comes to Nelson once every 4-6 weeks so I have a bit of a wait but hey it's taken years to get to this point so another month won't hurt, it's not exactly a practical winter car anyway..... There are a couple of other things that I will do while I wait like replace the 3.9 diff with a 4.1 and look at adding some interior (specifically some sound deadening, I reckon it's louder in the car then out.....) So yeah I guess that's a win

Its started, hours of grinding. Lower links. the tube adapters were for some usa spec "dom" tubing. machined them down a few mm to fit sch40 1 1/2 pipe. Have cut all the existing mounts off the diff and tacked the lower link mounts in place for test fit. will do the same with the top link before finishing and welding them. Lower link chassis mount, will be trimmed and braced more, as they will likely get a bit of a hiding Its kinda working. lower links look like they will be ok. still trying to find some more up travel. easy way would be to run the truck at a higher ride height, but want to make it work at stock height, to keep it stable as possible. current things spoiling the fun are: sump, alternator, engine mount and the floor..

wow haven't updated this since November, oops, it isn't because things haven't been happening, just that I have been really slack at taking photos. Got this in the mail the other day I had the cage inspected after getting it all finished off and in the car and it was all good, so the car is officially a race car if I want to go that way with it. in reality I did it to make cert a bit easier and so that if I want to turn it into a full cage later on then it is already in the system but still... So that has helped with the motivation a fair bit but over the last few months I have done a lot to it Got the exhaust finished, wrapped the headers because I didn't like looking at the join between the schedule pipe elbows and the exhaust tube. Pretty happy with how it came out and learnt a valuable lesson on why you should wear gloves when putting this stuff on. I didn't and my hands itched for days Then it was on to the wiring, the old motor was running a generator so I ripped out all the wiring for that and wired up the new alternator, coils etc. I was going to leave the wiring in the engine bay (the standard Anglia wiring runs out through the firewall just below the windscreen) but it really looked bad so I rerouted it all through the guards where it is all out of sight. Wasn't too much work and makes the engine bay look heaps cleaner. And the engine bay all wired up Now I just need to deal to the washer bottle...... So what next? well I have been patching up all the little (and not so little) holes, finally go the gearlever all sealed up, ended up making a bit to cover over the hole and to adapt the type 9 boot to the shifter, that was the biggest hole to be filled so it is nice to have that one sorted. I decided to rivet it on just in case things have to move in the future. So that's where it's at, I am really just tidying up all of the little jobs now to get it ready to fire up, the wiring behind the dash is a real mess and needs some attention but that's about the worst of it I think. Hopefully the next update will be to say that it is all running........

Minitubing finished in the rear

Cleaned up a better heater bubble I had cut off a wreck a few years ago. Plug welded this in, rattle canned it, seam sealed it and canned everything one more time. 100x better. Every new panel was painted inside and out, sprayed with this 2k epoxy everywhere and seam sealed where nessecary. Its so much more solid and the cunty repairs are now finished. Long story short, it failed a warrant and I changed chicken mesh into metal to gain road legal status. Stoked. Most of the garbage I replaced.

Yep, pretty frigging happy with it, paint could be nicer, more stainless/polish/chrome etc would be cool, but at the end of it, no one is really going to see it are they!?Bonus shots.bolted in the shocks, painted the white front ones matt black like the rears.thought I may have a problem here. actually about 1cm away from the shock, should be okay? would be much eaier to change it now than when it's full of fluid.other random pics.this thing was super handy for bending up the brake lines.

Bit more progress, I was trying to get this done so I could take it to the grasskhana that the Nelson car club ran today, but didn't quite make it, part of the reason is this When I was getting the front panel lined up ready for welding a crack opened up about 50mm from the join, so while I was cleaning up the welds I had made I did a little bit of investigating and found this. Left side Right side So it appears that I was not the first person to chop off the front sheet metal, I was however the first person to weld it up properly.... apparently a few spot welds and heaps of bog was the order of the day for that particular repair, in fairness they had used heaps of underseal behind it which kept the rust away so it was just a matter of cutting the welds re-aligning it all and welding it back together. Next up fitting the fan to the radiator, I got a bit lazy and just used those push through tie things And engine back in, oil cooler and radiator fitted, fan re-wired with a digital controller as the analogue one was a bit huckory So all that work was basically just for this Before After I have some bits turning up for the exhaust tomorrow so have decided to build the new one rather than fit the old one back on

Here's another rushed and average pic of my new carpet. its much darker than it looked in the auction pictures, I like it.. so I think I'll rock it as is, reminds me of my old valiant.

So the above list was remedied..........mostly, I may have missed 2 of the outer seat belt bolts, when I re-positioned the brake line to stop it rubbing on the airbag it turn out that I had moved it right into the path of the bump stop, I thought i had created enough clearance between the Tyre and the lower shock mount (I had shortened it by around 20mm when i did the rework on the shock angles) but still wasn't quite enough it turned out, And while i had stopped the bags rubbing on the diff, there still wasn't enough clearance so needed to sort that, so I: put 2 new bolts in the outer seat belt lower mounts, made a new brake line that ran onto the rear of the diff, as the original line couldn't be manipulated any more with out risk of kinking the line, as per Clint's suggestion I flapped disc'd the remaining thread that was stuck out past the lower shock mount nut, and gave the lock stops a tweak, I flapped disc'd down the weld seam on the diff and created an angled shim to sit between the top rear bag mount to roll it forward, not only did this create the clearance I needed it actually means that the bag is on a better angle when its aired out, that resulted in this: which resulted in a compliance pass, which lead to: Which mean we could get this: Pretty happy made my goal of getting the car legal for beach hop with 6 days to spare (must be an oldschool record haha), going to rack up a few miles this weekend before we drive it to Whangamata, pretty F#cking stoked to be honest, it drives great, nice and smooth, feels less boat like than it used to with the springs in it so I'm calling it a win!!

Finally made a change from making the car further away from being on the road, to doing something that is a step in the right direction, Put my first coat of POR15 down: Came up fantastic, I was told by the panel beater we use at work to seam seal it once it gets to the point my finger leaves a finger print but the paint doesn't stick to my finger, so while I was waiting for that I etch primed the underneath of the floor pans, I then checked and it was ready for Seam sealing. Ran a thin bead first and worked it into the Seam with a paint brush, then ran over it again with a thick bead and gently spread it over the whole Seam. Very happy with the outcome. Finally I leave you with a picture that I've been using for inspiration, if I can get my car looking half as good as the one in the following photo I'll be happy (plus the Fred needs photos and the one I posted is potatoe spec/boring)

so here is an update for the people who dont see my face book stuff. my vw welded number 2 main bearing from the fly wheel. while we tried to un seize it we fucked the bearing even more.... looks like this now hopefully Paul has the engine done and back together this week and i am able to send it back down the following weekend ready for my trip home. any way while this beetle is been fixed i thought ah well i got a bit more day light now i may as well get into my other vw. im not going to bother starting another build thread for it cause practically the same car just a bit different.... started like this it started looking something like this and shit got roofless pretty quick now looks like this and like this action shot of me doing some work and im crossing my fingers. found an adopter to suite rotary in oz that mr west is going to pick up for me if this guy isnt all shit..... so fingers crossed i have some fun with this bug.

So here are the parts that have turned up from chucks, Both front floor pans: All four shocks: And front and rear suspension bush kits, brake hoses (still need to source one more front hose) brake wheel cylinders (again still need to reco/source a r/r cylinder) a drum brake self adjusting kit, I also have started converting the headlights to RHD and moving away from sealed beam to semi sealed halogens in the hope that I may actually be able to see at night So the overall plan for the car once complied is to bag it, probably on 100 spokes, spats, some Mexican blankets on the seats (even though they are in good condition already), some lace/flake on the roof, and lastly a V8/auto conversion just to make it a bit lazier to cruise. Like to discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/53628-bens-61-belair-talky-talk/#entry1739480

Top link mounts made and tacked in place. Next on the list is a brace/mount off the link mount, back to the chassis rail. will bolt it through the chassis with a few decent bolts. maybe something similar on the other side also, as the factory x member bolt locations are kinda limited, since the lower links take up the space needed to build something solid off them

Discuss here:

Got a bit more done, not quite as much as I hoped as the weekend was a total fail but I am getting there All the fab is done Front welded back together So the motor can go back in now, however there is one small snag, because I can't leave things along there was something else that has been bothering me, basically the muffler hangs too low and it would be good to quieten it down a bit so a few months ago I bought these Now the exhaust is a bit of a basted to get in as it is all one piece so I chopped it and added some v-bands, this way the headers won't have to come out again Not sure if I will get the whole exhaust made this week as there are a few bits to figure out so it may end up with the old one back in for a bit longer yet, will just have to see how the week goes....

So have done a bit of work on this old girl. Have replaced all the rear suspension bushes, the rear shocks and am just working on the rear brakes replacing the wheel cylinders and fitting a brake shoe self adjusting kit, no pictures of that as its boring stuff. Don't worry though I do have some pictures. Shakotom kindly loaned me a couple of Hundy spokes so I could gauge what size I wanted as you can get them in real OG 13x7 which will be too small in my opinion. You can also get them in 14's but they are only 6" wide so I'm thinking they maybe too skinny. Or they do them in a 15x8, which is what these are. The 15's seem to be the logical choice, they still have that huge guard/small rim look, but I cam still run a reasonable width tyre, but I think the 14's may look better/more traditional, Oh and here's a rough paintshop job that I did to give me inspiration Chur

Multi pass? Edit yay a new page So work was quite today, and had arranged to have this car at work for the weekend so i could do oil pump swap and try figure out what the fuck was going on. Anyway as said, work was quite, so got it on the hoist, dropped steering bits and got the sump off and oil pump out. After alot of diagnosing between us, we compared the old pressure relief valve spring to the new one. new one was deff longer and had more tension. Concluded that this was most likely the issue and that the relief spring had lost tension over time. Magic So the sump is back on now with a new gasket, just letting that seal up over the evening and will be back here tomorrow morning with new oil and see what the deal is. tho, was thinking while its on the hoist, it might be a bit rude NOT to remove a quarter of a coil off the front springs. So that might happen haha. I'm a little bit gutted my sedan isn't ready to drive yet, as Tomorrow would have been the perfect day for building the exhaust. oh Well

I had been holding off on an update until after the shed raid, I didn't want to give away too much before the team came round and had a look. The engine is in and mounts welded up, still some finishing to do on the drivers side once the engine comes out again. The gearbox cross member is in place. HQ holden narrowed by 300mm. Again some final welding to finish off when the engine is out. Brake booster brackets made, final hole in the firewall to finish off. We didn't do it the other night because my kids had gone to bed and the die grinder was going to make too much noise. I have been stuffing around with the diff angle and finding how much change there is in angle in normal suspension movement. I have decided to have the diff 2 degrees nose down, same as the Firebird. I have traction bars that mount under the spring pad at one end and below and forward of the front spring eye on the chassis. At expected ride height they are almost parallel with ground and the diff angle stays constant. The main thing I want is no axle tramp and I think these will do the trick.Traction is always going to be an issue with 215 tires. Still plenty to do but getting rapidly closer to all cuts cut, shuts shut and then off for final rust work and paint. Photos to come.

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,

I don't think there would be many, I've seen 2 other Plymouth valiants here but they were 4 doors. When my mate bought it, it had been on trademe for quite a while so I thought there must have been something wrong with it, but I think it was because they were the sort of car your nana would drive in america so never had a following like a barracuda or duster etc If it was a red mustang with cragars it would have sold quick

Quickly took the car down for an alignment this arvo to try and work out the pulling to the left situation. Well have a look at the "before" spec below.. haha! As they didn't have a listing for hako on the system I figured Kenmeri woud probably be closest. One of the front caster arms is bent which is causing some of that issue and the toe adjust arms are a bit shit but managed to get them back in line. There is a lot of rust underneath so I'll be loading up on repair panels in this next container! Went to stop in at the compliance place on the way back but it was closed Also I think I need a GT-Kai badge.. everyone thinks it's a GT-R and are crushingly disappointed when I tell them otherwise haha Oh, so result of alignment car definitely feels like it drives a bit straighter, still pulls to the side occasionally but I think that may be as a result of my spring situation. I received a few more bits for it from Kevin san (the aussie guy previously mentioned) so one day I'll get to putting those in and see if that makes the difference.

Bit more progress this week. Starting with getting the old trans tunnel brace drilled out (it must have had a different gearbox in it at some stage and someone had mangled the old one), then the new one welded in and sealed (Cheers Joe). Also Por15'd the cross-member and sway-bar so it's ready for the motor to go back in now. Pile of goodies also turned up from the UK. Cheers Matt

Got to work on doing the springs and shocks today, went with cut standards all round, cut one side of the cobra rears and the coil diameter was quite a bit thicker than standard coil. turns out by the time id cut to fit the short shocks it was so rigid because of such little weight in these cars that it hardly compressed more than 10-15mm when it was on the ground haha. so cut the standard rears to the same height and it slammed it down nicely. got a bit over-excited with the fronts and ended up cutting too much off... took it for a whip round the block and aside from the horrid sounds of mudguards scraping the ground the entire time, it was actually mighty comfortable, new shocks working a treat! thankfully i still have the cobra fronts to play around with to get the ride height mint.

Probably just as well you sold the hard top.

and then there were two.. Going to part this one out

super fucking great news man!!! well done, just in time to buy that AC 124 too.

Cheers guys, was a bloody awesome feeling driving this round on Thursday, and it's a great feeling to have something I've built get legal

Slant Sex

well, after a successful brew i was in no fit state to go for a ride on any bike, order of the day was a drunken lunch time nap, last batch of hops added to the mash ton. doesnt look very appetising i admit but sunday was a good day, first i took pinky (b120) for a ride to find it was running out of gas at full throttle, so pulled the carb and adjusted the float, another spin and she was bang on, even managed to get to 55mph on the flat hehe next on the cards was wee red (bridgestone) had to replace a buggered exhaust gasket, then decided id take her for a spin with out the seat, ran like a champ!! managed 80mph on the clocks and pulled pretty well getting there, big red (vtr) got a start up a wee run, as well, just because it'd been such a fruitful day blacky (bandit) didnt get any love pics for thread

right, i took the seat to be recovered, so that'll be away a week or 2, also spoke to the vintage japanese motorcycle club (vjmc) about dating the bike for the dvla (vtnz in nz, dmv in the states) so that got done pretty painlessly still waiting for the dvla to send out the paperwork for me to fill in and send back (frankly astounded you cant just download the paperwork, british bureaucracy at its best, of course they've also shut down all their offices so you cant just pick it up either) so while i was waiting, i thought id work on the mrs suzuki B120 of 72 vintage. (not that she has ever ridden it, but she swears she's doing her licence this year.... ) it hadnt been started in a couple of years and last time i rode it, the fuel would piss out the float bowl, or alternatively run out of fuel because the bowl wasnt full enough. and since the carbs are almost the same as the bridgestone i thought id steal a float from one of the 4 spare carbs i have, and put that in, also uses a 95 main jet as well which i had a few spare, so a new one of those went in, put it back together, turned on the fuel, and... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t6I7NK3L1M first kick after 2 years. might take it out for a spin if im not to drunk after ive done my beer brew in the morning. so probably wont take it out for a ride i really need to sell my vtr and buy another 2 stroke,

Small update. Have been getting all the bits and pieces ready for the cars return (which has been delayed, but more on that later) just got all the airbag brackets back from powdercoating, All my parts turned up from rockauto so should be able to minimise the leaks, get a decent supply of fuel, and get rid of the minor driveline shudder, New Grants steering wheel has turned up, just waiting for the bosskit to turn up. So exciting to have all the parts turn up. It's like Christmas all the time haha Like I said unfortunately we have run into problems at the metal workers, Clint has been out and feels that the rear floorpans are too thin and as such he won't cert the seatbelt mounts. Fair call obviously, so new floorpans are on their way to Custom metalshapers and all going to plan they will be able to start on them next week and have the car back to me by the end of next week. Then I'll paint the inside of the floor with POR15, etch prime and underseal the underneath. Then it's onto the airbags!!! Got to add one more picture and while it's not related I'm sure most of you will recognise Shakotom...... That's right it took 4 of them to get one silicone hose off of a piece of alloy pipe,

So ordered the parts that I wasn't able to get from chucks, from rockauto they took two weeks to turn up which was agony haha, but in the end I was able to finish off the rear end And tonight made a start on the front end, kinda sucks knowing that I'll be putting standard height springs back in but want to keep things simple for compliance. Anyway got the L/H upper an lower control arms out, am gonna have to try match up some ball joint boots up as the ones on it are in shit condition so fingers crossed that I can find something to work. Also had to remove the steering shaft to get the upper arm out an in doing so found a crack in the rag joint, so that will need replacing too. Will get the other side apart an then sort out what to do next.