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As per the suggestion from Adoom I jacked the back end up onto axle stands, started it, clanged it into gear, gave it some revs, clutch in and slammed on the brakes. Ping! Clutch freed off! Smiles and much punching of air. Removed stands, pumped up flat front tyre and took it for a spin up the drive. All good. Parked it inside and wiped all the pine tree pollen off making it look concours mint... Rang my friendly garage and its booked in for a WOF. Meanwhile the new engine has now got new crank seals. I looked down the inlet ports (all two of them..) and the valves look a bit oily and mucky. Because I have a spare head gasket set to suit this engine I think it makes sense to give it a look over. Because I like to treat people to fun things I think I'll get Hannah to pop the head off, strip it down and give it all a good cleanup. She can re-grind the valves in. This is an early engine without valve stem seals but a friend who knows these engines well said they used to slide an O-ring over each inlet stem and it serves to stop too much oil running down the stem? Seems legit? Anyone heard of this? Answers on the back of a pie packet please and post to Bodgit and Scarper race engines, Marahau. Once back together it can get a coat of fresh paint and it'll pretty much be a fully re-conned race motor. Took the exhaust manifold off because its studs look like future anguish in waiting. I shall deal to them while its out. I don't see them coming out in one piece....

So after getting it legal i decided that it needed to sit a little bit lower. To do so i sent the rear springs off to Chamberlians (If that is how you spell it) and get them compressed by 52mm (transferring to 65mm at the wheel.) The fronts we were told we could just cut and they would still be captive which was true. it sat a little bit lower but i still would've liked for it to be slightly lower. This is the perfect height as it doesn't rub what so ever and only catches on the front guard corner on the center of the tyre when at a certain angle. heres how it sits: We then took it for a run to ensure it was all going well for the Kaikoura Hop, taking it to the Amberly RocknWheels meet and the Kustom Car Club Breakfast. It preformed amazingly and got alot of attention for being a different and rareish car.

and the wheel arch, there is was a 6mm factory hole just inboard of the tub seam in the apex of the guard for a plastic fuel line clamp to mount. Good one. I have also been here before, check out the thickness of the wob (thats me!) on the right over my last patches and the paint archaeology on the left inner arch repair patches made, getting a solid non popous base for the needed bog skim to join up the previous patches was more important than getting it perfect nice and slow tack wait, move, tack wait for less warpy, but also more grindy after skim number 42, its like it never happened apart from the offerings of oxide Car is now turned around with much the same to do on the passenger side, aiming for drag day

haha. good luck man.

Having sold my last VL to fund taking the Belair to the next level, I had told myself that once the Belair was done I would get another first gen Commy as there was lots of things I wanted to take the Royale too but sold it before I had a chance. While I had actually been looking for a VK, noting of any worth was out there, it was all over priced rusty shitboxes, or it sold before I had a chance to look at it. And then I thought to myself, my old mate Jimmy has a nice VL Calais that's gathering dust, maybe I'll see if he is interested in selling it, turns out he was, and he was happy to sell it to me at a very good price. it's genuine V8 Calais, 150km on the clock, one previous owner (before my mate) who had had it for 18 years and was a mechanic who did a fair bit of work to it. It's got: ACL flat top pistons Crane "group a" camshaft 1.6 ratio roller rockers Double row timing chain with adjustable sprockets Big valve cylinder heads Port matched manifolds Brock VK SS Electronic dizzy Rebuilt Rochester four barrrel carb Holley fuel pump an reg PAcemaker headers with 2.5" exhaust, backed up by a built Trimatic with extra clutches, a shift kit and 2400rpm torque converter. Hardest part is that I have to wait until the 16th to pick it up.

I Beat it for a little bit today, had some funny business going on in the tank in that it would seem to run out of gas when still half full. I had already replaced the fuel tap way back when I first got it running, which was a piss around as it uses a vacuum tap with a M14x1.0 thread which was hard to find. Manual taps were a no go as it is all hidden up behind the sidecover. (Here is the one I bought http://www.ebay.com/itm/Benzinhahn-CPI-Keeway-Generic-ATU-Explorer-Longjia-2Takt-50ccm-Roller-M14X1-/161821009433?hash=item25ad48a619:g:7ZkAAOSwHmhV8HDh) Anyhoo, when I replaced the tap I couldn't get the filter out so just left it, I finally pulled it out today. It was good and stuck so I had to thead an M8 bolt into it then slide hammer the fucker out and of course it was all varnished up and fuel could only get in through the hole on the very top. The replacement is a bit different but will still work, noice. I don't think I put a picture up of my heater vents installed yet.

Oh nice work mate, I see you have bought some adjustable suspension for your car. Goooood.

Pinto. Then when you reach you fishing spot you throw it over the side to stop you drifting awsy.

Been enjoying driving this wee thing around until my friend neighbour f**ked up reversing out of his drive. Nice big dent in the drivers door and no longer able to open from the outside with the door handle. On the plus side he missed the pillars and insurance is sorting it. Bought a parts Mirage that popped up on facebook as it had three things I wanted. Went to pick up the new one (Named clifford due to it being red and having the 'big' 1200cc motor) from Oamaru. Was told that it ran fine and the tyres were wofable, as with all facebook sales. Rock up to swap a set of wheels for it and the gearbox is noisy and tyres aren't very flash. Ran it through for a wof as four years out was too long for me to risk driving home and need to get three tyres, secure a sun visor and two pedals pads. So I now have two bloody wee Mirages. Clifford is supershift and it is very fun to drive using all eight gears. Novelty lasts for a couple of weeks then you get over it.

Looking into a limited slip glove compartment should help contain shit.

Hey Guys, I rented the track for my birthday in September and my associates that drift have all bailed on me, unfortunately I cannot cancel my day however I can move it to October 21st. To give back to Oldschool for all the meets, Drags, BBQs, and good yarns over the last 8 years I have been a member, I would like to offer you guys a relaxed as day to come and have a bash, do some skids, enjoy a BBQ and get some basic pointers down at Meremere. This will be a super relaxed day, doing cone work in the large open area. The greener you are the better. I dont care what care you bring, could be new, could be old, just has to do a skid. NOTES: Car must have, seat belts and windows, you must have a helmet, extinguisher isnt required but recomended. Track rules, Hit the Armco you pay for it, Do a burnout or skid on the yellow lines or return road $1000 fine, doing standstills $1000 fine Gates open at 8am, Driver breifing at 9am, driving by 9:05am. Lunch at 12, closed track until 12:30 Pack up at 4pm, gates closed and locked up by 5pm Entry $130 Final Payment Date October 13th leave a message below, PM me, text me 021 794 705 if you are interested. If you are a Joe Manji Superstar, and want to just slalom up the track all day YOU WILL BE BORED as I want to give everyone who has never had a go at drifting, doing a doughnut, doing a figure 8 seat time to get comfortable and enjoy themselves.

The flying fox had one of those temporary fixes that kind of gets normalised. See the kids were too short to get onto the seat, so I chucked a couple old hilux rims under it...9 months later... So, considering I didn't want to invest a fortune in building this, an old pallet, some decking offcuts, 4m of rough sawn timber and a couple bags of quickcrete were all it took (about $35 total cost). Much better than the doggy old wheels. Kj

i went shopping for things around the house the other day and we are getting some chickens so ill probably have some of this laying around to help me out that and some paper a hot glue gun i think i should be able to sort it out.

So, ive extended the garage, its a shelter station modfied to suit the spot with a tarp instead - the trademe ad under-guesstimated the measurements but the mods i made meanthe van will fit under it and i can still put it up normally with the proper cover in some other place, one day. Not 100% weather proof but 100% better than nothing Anyways, 125 has sat ^there ever since the last update, but i have picked a few scabs, starting from the front:

No point having all that power if the glovebox cant handle it. what a waste of money

Oops, missed a bit. Past couple of weeks I've cleaned up and put the interior back in. Cat helped - these had been out for about 10 seconds... Did I show you guys this? It's from Speedhut , they have a super cool gauge-face designer, can upload images and text and everything. Have a play, it's fun. Fitted in the hole pretty well (this was just a mock-up, fitted better after some more trimming inside and some sikaflex to fill the gap around the outside. It's tidier than it sounds, promise). Lights up all purdy-like too

Things are looking good.Surgery was required & the firewall was cut up a lil bit. This has meant the engine could be brought back a bit whats solved a raft of issues. Clearances for PS rack hose connections solved. It was right up against the sump. But now we have ample room. Able to bring the engine into the center more. Its now only slightly offset by about 20mil. Engine mounts will work way better. Able to get the carbs to the ideal flat positioning as it was on a bit of an angle. Positioning for bracing to join the two sides of the rails will be better. Being able to go under the engine in a bolt in set up. How the trans will sit along with the two piece drive shaft will be way better and pretty much flat whilst not having to modify the floor pan other than maybe slightly at the very front. The distributor will be hidden more. I wanted wires out of sight as much as possible so this suits me. Being a pertronix unit I shouldn't need to get to it much but if needs be will still be able to with out to much hassles. Weight and center of gravity move a bit more back behind the front wheels instead of over them. better clearances for sump. Doing all this means we may have a heap of room up front. Not what I really want but we will have to wait and see how it all looks with the alt, PS pump, radiator and fans. the custom fan shroud I was envisioning may need to be bigger than I was thinking to help fill the gap. Time will tell. once I have the panels on & rad in.Speaking of the radiator. i have decided to keep the original Hudson radiator. Its getting re-cored by a local shop Timaru Radiator Repairs. Russell the guy in charge is a top man and been bloody helpful with some great input. Gave options for different cores etc for the old four core copper rad that included different row spacing etc.Since the tanks are off etc im getting him to do a few other modifications. moving the bottom outlet to the other side to match the Nailheads inlet then shifting the radiators top inlet to the center to match the Nailheads centrally mounted thermostat. Thinking of using a flexy hose to give it that vintage look you see in all the old 50's and 60s mags. Plus the ribbing will go with the fins on the engine.Since its not a great idea to have the filler at the same point as the inlet due to pressure etc im getting it moved to one side on the top but im also getting a dummy one added to the opposite side. This is merely to please my OCD nature. when im standing with the hood up looking down at the engine I want to see the top hose running center rad to center engine then two caps to add balance on either side. My train of thought was with just the one to one side it would be a bit lopsided for the look im after. The dummy will also have a dummy overflow pipe just to keep it symmetrical. OCD much? /twitchA slight notching is needed on the chassis rail above for the steering arm.The engine mounts minus the side supports shown. Along with PS hose clearance. Once the trans is lifted slightly and bolted up it will get the carbs flat along with increasing clearances around the racks hose fittings & rocker covers. Hard to tell from that photo but its looking like very little if any modifications will be required to the floor pan. Will pop it in soon to have a look. Should still be nice and tucked up even at air out.A look at the old Hudson rad and where everything is being shifted to.

I did my apprenticeship on VT onward at a Holden Dealer. If you get stuck with something id love to pretend I know everything. chur Scott.

Should be ok to squeeze the sides of the kink and bend it back straight, or a little straighter so it works ok.

Boost will keep the oil in

If you already have .8 you will be fine. American steel is alot more forgiving than thin jap stuff. Once you are out of .8 then consider .6. But you will probably be used to .8 by then.

Cheers guys. Will definitely be picking some brains. I still have a bit of gear to accumulate and plan on practicing on some junk first. Plan is to just chip away, while still keeping it on the road, but things might change depending on what surprises I find.

Tip #1: Heat distorts the shit out of the parent metal as well as the patch you're adding, so use as little heat as possible for the shortest time possible. Thin MIG wire, short welds with a cool down time, and practice will help. Failing that; smash it all down with a huge hammer and bog over the lot Tip #2: UJ has just about all of the tools, but he never works on cars because mint slice. If you wanna borrow anything just arsk.

I'd link to grunta's too, but his photos are all dead/pb'd

Ryobi one ways and a welded diff? Cutting the bonnet for a bug catcher? Welding up cracked Astro's?

My two cents, Those O rings really only work so long as the guidethis.e nice and snug. Once your guide develops "bonus tolerance" it works less well. Maybe you could use some umbrella type seals from something else? And regarding lapping in the valves, I would advise against doing this. Ive seen two engines where a nice tight valve seal led to lots of blue smoke. The poor old rings couldn't cope with the extra vacuum.

ohhh what so your telling me those fresh panel and paint kingswoods in matty b are not as mint as they always say??? trade me has been telling me lies this hole time

Pulled the intake manifold and fuel rail off last night. Made sure I marked all the vacuum lines before I removed them as I don't fancy trying to suss out where they all go when it goes back together. Everything came apart okay once I found the last two bolts that were tucked away underneath. The inlet manifold and coolant hardlines look pretty nasty so I will send them away and get them cleaned up. I'm running out of coin pretty quick but while I'm in there I will replace all the hoses too, may as well do it once and do it right. Unfortunately the fuel pressure regulator has a kink in the pipe, I really want to keep everything factory looking so I will try and hide an aftermarket one somewhere out of sight. Not really sure what I'm looking for as far as decent quality aftermarket regulators? I'll also replace the injector seals and hoses while I'm in there, hopefully someone will be able to match them. The diff I bought will hopefully arrive Friday, need to go back to BNT and see if I can exchange the shoes I bought for some new wheel bearings and brake pads. must admit I'm quite looking forward to fitting some new parts as opposed to pulling stuff apart and finding more I need to order!

I got a quick bit of welding done last night before work. Not much but it's progress.

the skin and brake lines came to 421.36 nz dollars landed here in hamilton. tail gate skin was 185 plus postage which was 100.

base of the C pillar where pinholes in a previous repair and not cleaning out the panel seam properly have come back to bite me:

Then if we could lure a certain white big block ap5 out too there would be a trio of pure ap5 lushness.

Been thinking about a Valiant convoy to nationals. Pretty sure an AP5 Safari would be the ideal flagship for such an adventure.

lemon party golden shower squirt munro, geyser wilhelm, donald pump, gush gush, gone fistin', dirty hose, pump in the trunk

Paint it pink, call it wet on the inside

You'l go ok mate. just go careful. There is nothing that is not online with calisturbo. PM me if you get stuck... VL was a lovely period of Fuel injection.

Far out no way! BNT are happy to exchange my shoes for pads so I should be sorted!

Just a little update today. The exhaust I'm using is the same 2" one I'd had made up before 2015 nats. The chap that put it together made it with a downturned tip, not quite what I was after, but didn't have time to change it at that point. I know the downturned dumpy look is a kiwi staple, but I'm really not a fan. So! Chopped off the curved section. I'd nabbed a nice polished rolled tip recently, one of the ones that has a big jubilee clip inside for holding it on. The rearmost hanger was in the way, so I umm'd and ahh'd about chopping that off too, welding the tip on, and welding the hanger back onto the outside of the tip. Went for the slightly easier method of cutting a channel in the tip to slide over the hanger, then clamped it in place. Works well, sits nicely in relation to the body, and both the hanger and the jubilee clip are tucked away under the rear valance. Happy with that.

Hi all and welcome to my thread on the Triumph Dolomite I have in my car. It's quite a special wee thing in my opinion as it registered originally in the UK and imported here at about 8 months of age and spent a lots it's time in the South island around Christchurch until it was purchased by the car dealer whom sold it to us. It hasn't been the most reliable car, but has done a trip to Auckland with only one minor problem. And several short ones. I think it was run on a tight budget as in the bodywork department it was a bit interesting.. (Will show photos once I work out how to upload from phone) and had a lot of mechanical things being just holding together or very badly repaired. After a year and a half of use in my ownership I thought it was about time to address the engine and it's oil consumption problem. Now I'm not actually sure if it actually burnt any but it most definitely leaked it. So much that it's nessasary to check the level on a long trip. It appeared to leak from just about everywhere. So I decided it was time for some attention. So engine out and started removing peices as id already brought gaskets minus a head gasket as id planned to leave this. However it appeared as though it's be best to remove that too! Which turned out to be a good idea as the piston gap in the bore was quite bad as were the bearings... and the gudgeon bushes and also the exhaust valves and guides. So a large pile of new bits was acquired and the block and head were shipped off to an engine rebuilder. Its not all back and reassembled and looks pretty good, hopefully it runs well.

Alright time to make up for the time I've been away. Prepare for a pic dump for the ages. I've been working on buttoning up the bottom front corner of the driver's side inner wing. In the last post I got the outer skin of the chassis leg all finished up so now I'm working on the other side. I sprayed the inside of the rail and the back side of the bumper mount reinforcing plate before I clamped it up ready for welding. I tried to position the welds close to where they were originally for no reason other than neatness. Then I welded it all on, including some tacks to the crush tubes,. This might seem a bit on the weak side but that's what was holding the original pieces together so once again, good enough for Uncle Henry... And cleaned it all up while I was there. Now it was time to start thinking about fitting up my inner wing repair panel that I made up months and months ago before I realised just how much of a mission all this front end work was going to be. This part is going to dictate where the front valence panel will mount so it's fairly critical that I get it in the right spot. Thankfully, some clever bloke thought about all of this before hand. When I went to all that trouble to make my guards bolt on, I made sure they bolted to the front valence in a way that held it tight to the inner wings while they were still there at the time. Therefore, I should be able to clamp the front panel up to the upper inner wings that I already know are in the right place, bolt them to the guards, and then clamp my lower inner wing repair panel to the valence to show me where it needs to go. If none of that made any sense, don't worry, I took photos. So to start, clamping the front panel to the upper inner wings. Like this. Then bolt the guards on... The repair panel actually jammed in place by itself which was handy. Then I passed some bolts through the crush tubes with some grease on the ends and spun them once they touched the new panel. This put a grease spot in the position of the hole for the crush tube which I could then center punch and drill through. Which gave me this... The holes weren't in the perfect place and the tack welds made it difficult to fit so I opened each hole out with a die grinder until it fit nicelyish. This photo shows what the panel was that I had to work with. It's hard to see properly from this angle but there was quite a gap between where the panels were and where they needed to be in order to butt up together nicely. I decided to bolt up the brake booster mount to try and brace everything a bit and stop myself from pulling things too far trying to make my panel fit Uncle Henry's. Goodness knows how effective it will be but at the very least it makes me feel better about myself. Then I went ahead and opened the hole out further to more closely fit my panel. At this point I started to go the other way and began to trim my panel to fit the hole. Once it was fairly close I started to clamp it into position. Once I had it all fully trimmed up and holes drilled for plug welds I sprayed everything with a good coat of weld through primer. Once it was dry it got clamped up once again and tacked in place with the TIG. I figured now would be a good time to double check the front valance fit before I do all the plug welds. Once they're in it'll be a real prick to try and adjust. Looks pretty good to me. So I set to and broke out the MIG to fill in all those holes. Turned out well. Good penetration all round. And that's about as far as I got. I decided to clean up a bit before I did all the TIG welding fully, as well as pulling out the cross member for better access. So that's it for this week. Next plan is to finish up the welding on the driver's side inner wing then give the fab work a rest for a bit and get my ass into gear with pulling the V6 out of the Mazda. Hopefully the welding shouldn't take too long but these things always seem to for me. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted.

So when we brought the kombi I was told that I had to get the wagon going and gone before I can spend any money on it. So I went shopping just last week for a new tail gate and some brake lines. Look what arrived at the work shop this morning. Didn't even get stung by the tax man at customs. Pretty wrapped about that. New skin and brake hoses acquired. I see @Evan is rebuilding carbs for a hobby now days so I think I'll send mine upto him to rebuild cause he loves them so much. SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!!!!!!

Got some brake hoses and a tail gate on there way. Pretty excited about this tbh Need to find a carb that's not fucked in my pile and take it for a hoon.

Who knew all your previous Google searches would be relevant in another context? I think the big issue here is why no bug catcher?

Fitted all the radiator gubbins back in and filled it up with coolant. Thought I ought to let the old girl put her face on. She's a pretty lady! Dropped her down on the ground to check wheel clearance. Sits thusly: Not insurmountable and almost exactly what I expected, but the bigger issue is that the now-spaced wheels rub the back of the arch on lock, didn't think about that. Hum. Might have to get some less dishy wheels on the front. Anyone got any 13x6 equips? Oh, filled it up with coolant and brought it up to temp to start getting air out. First time I've been able to get some warmth in this engine, seems to run pretty well! Then I ran out of fuel, welp.

Hah turns out it was already a 70cc and the new piston makes it 84cc, not 100 cc as advertised I see why people mess around with scooters, had it stripped in 30 min. Found some grey paint that matched ok so painted the bits of frame that were modified The variator rollers were worn with big flat spots so hopefully the new ones make that work better .

Went to hamilton today to pick up this fine specimen. It's a 8.8 ford diff out of a 91-99 explorer. There are a few reasons for using this. They are cheap ish, have discs and a decent handbrake setup , lsd, 31 spline axles, same diff as a mustang so plenty of aftermarket parts available, and if you narrow one axle tube 3" and use 2 short axles it makes it just the right width and pinion offset for a valiant. I do have a 9" that I was going to use, but it has already been narrowed but not enough. New housing and axles was going to be 2k, plus rebuild the diff and get a lsd center, plus brake conversion, was probably the best part of 3.5- 4k. And yay, wheels fit over the brakes.

Went up to Waihi on an OS cruise for Pizza, and then snuck off out to Te Arai for a surprisingly good surf. Car went quite well, which is good becasue OS Drag Day coming up on December 12. i also took this on the way back from Te Arai to Muriwai, SH16 between Wellsford and Kaukapakapa, then Peak Road to Waimauku is a great drive! Unfortunately is after the really nice twistly bits but cars running well - Camer is jammed in the headrest so the mic is a bit muffled, so turn it up.