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Project discussion above This has been in storage but that has come to a end so it was time to dig it out of the shipping container its been sitting in. I've had this for about eight years. I bought off my brother, its dead in the reg so plan is to get some live plates back on it. It has a few spots of rust in the body and the engine dropped a exhaust valve. So I pulled the short block out as the head had been pulled off years ago. Although it dropped a valve it hasn't done any major damage. Someone has done a sweet red paint job on the engine bay. I won't open up a can of worms by painting it at the moment. Just concentrating on just getting it up and running then focussing on the rust to get it back on the road.

Been pretty inactive on here for the last few years, as I’ve been staying away from old cars that tend to do my head in. But I’ve fallen into the trap again, and picked up this 1981 Mitsubishi Mirage! Has the Supershift gearbox too Have wanted one of these for years. Was looking at buying a reliable modern hatchback to daily, then stumbled across this and could help myself It has no wof, as it failed the last one on the rust in the doors. Other than the doors being rusty though, it pretty bloody tidy! So first of all, I need to get it a warrant. Then at this stage, the plan is to just slam on a set of 14 inch wheels. Then I’ll see where I go from there! Heres a couple pics anyway

Special delivery! 125cc semi auto lifan

Bit more rust work done... never exciting really. But, I decided to sort my mirrors out whilst the rust work was being done. The mirrors were from @WLDRX2 and with a bit of cutting and welding. Originally from a 80s L200 I believe. Matt

Primed the many pieces..

Cletus, you're a fucking genius. Better than chess and sandwiches with all the hot girls at Mensa. I have no idea why I didn't look at that tag. I'm off to Google now

Holy shit. Front spaghetti. Engine spaghetti. Inside spaghetti. Fusebox spaghetti. Currently (ha!) I have; Headlights high and low Indicators Hazards Park lights Brake lights Wipers and washers Heater blower Acc, main and start off the key A glow plug timer I have the glow loom stuff hacked out of the Safari loom. Things going surprisingly well, I have only blown 7 protection fuses during engagements.

Ahaaa! That I will also try. Great thinking. I have been hankering for a smartphone endoscope anyway. I'll order one now

Without the bushing but You get the idea

Since the engine and box has mounts now, I suppose I should take the engine back out to look at modifying the sump and properly welding the engine mounts. Bonus, the oil pickup pipe doesn't start bending at that step so I can cut this much out with no problem. This means I can lift the rack about 10-15mm, which means I can also shorten my spacers on the steering arms/tie rod ends. I do have an AC tig welder, but I haven't attempted any aluminium welding. I will need to find something to practice on. I plan on bolting the sump to to something flat and stiff to try keep it from warping. I also cleaned, prepped and zinc primed to weld the engine mounts on. I didn't grind down the original tack welds so I can use them to align the mounts.

^I tried one of those in the Samurai (lockright), it was shit, undriveable. Constantly unlocking either axle at random. U-turns were impossible, driving a straight line was impossible tbh. Even the diff shop couldn't get it to work. (There's a bit of a story here, but spam). Don't imo

Snappy...snappy. In other news: I have almost hit two young cattle beasts in as many weeks at night here. It's terrifying. They either just stand (black as hell) in the middle of the road, or bolt out of no-where right in-front of the vehicle. I put a 50" light bar on a week or so ago, but just about hit one at ~ 70kmph on Friday. I think I got its tail (only) with the passenger's headlight. It crossed in the rain and dark from my right. Praise be to the sweet baby Jesus that it didn't end up on my lap. In an Atlas frontal impact you only have a thin sheet of metal and then your knees. You'd possibly be a long time waiting for an ambulance on this island... (arguably the next day. Some days I can drive for 5 hours without seeing another vehicle.) EDIT: And yes, I carry a headlamp, rifle, boning knife and skinning knife in the truck at all times. Danger would be proud of me

Saturday was a right-off because of weather, Did manage to get everything prepped for the roof in between showers. So on sunday I did this, Roof and half the walls on, Bloody shattered now.

Well... this got put under the bench and forgotten about for 3 years updated pics back - some pics are lost unfortunately. Its back out on top of the bench and the bits are being worked on. Some primed bits some of the pitting I have been dealing with .. which I'm priming, then skim filling and sanding it, then high fill priming after

Well this thing still hasn't left the garage yet. Funds have slowed down greatly now as well as we've started saving for a house pretty seriously but still putting a bit away for it. Motivation was on a decline so went to the shop and got it a nice and shiny air filter (actually ended up returning and getting another as the 4.5" was too tall for the little 1300). I also dropped in to Weber Specialties to have a catch up with my old mate Murray. He's convinced me to bring in the IDA for him to have a look at as it's setup is a little unknown (previous owner had it on both a bp and pp setup), and he's going to sort a throttle wheel and help me shorten the cable. Looking to sort a malpassi fuel regulator for the old girl as well. In the pipeline I'm also looking into the ignition setup and seeing what options are available,so plenty of reading up to do get my head around the ideal setup. Cheers

Holy shit!!! I reckon there's a tag like that up high on the B pillar. BRB *dons gumboots and 12 layers of clothing P.S: it's a banjo

Should be a tag somewhere (under the seat or on one of the pillars maybe?) with an axle code on it That might help?

From one end to the other (south to north) is about 1.5 hours non-stop in each direction, but there's bits off either side too. When friends come to visit we usually go out for about a five hour look-see. The Atlas is my only vehicle here so I'm kind of careful with her. The Holden crew here a few weeks ago were probably jealous but (TBH they were mainly really nice people). /SPAM

Gave the interior a quick clean this afternoon. Would really like to give the seats a good wash at some point, when I get the motivation Hoping to try take it in for a wof check this week. A couple of the doors are pretty rusty though, so I’m probably going to have to fix/replace them If anyone on here is wrecking one of these, or has parts, flick me a message!

Left to do; • Install air filter, need couple screws • Fit dipstick • Alter wiring loom to suite • Install starter - needs a repair • Install choke cable - on order

Weldie weldie...

Can you see the diff nugget through the oil fill hole? Might give you some idea if you can see the centre

What do you think of the super-shift? I borrowed one for a day back in the '80s and found it quite fun.

today I decided to freeze my buts off in the garage. cleaned the block and moving parts.. reinstalled the pistons and crank assembly to check bearing oil clearances. I used plastigage for a rough measurement. All mains were well within spec, but 2 of the 5 have some grooving, there is no marking on the crank journals though. Big ends are basically at brand new specs top compression ring end gap is also at the min clearance range however a 2nd comp/scraper ring is broken aswell as 1 oil control ring. my guess is that this engine got a rebuild no more than 20,000kms ago, but has sat for a considerable amount of time. a couple of the frost plugs look new, where the remainder are heavily corroded. Now the big task at hand is to locate a set of +60 rings, big end and mains bearings, full gasket/seal kit, head kit etc. in the meantime I will plonk the head back on the block and make a start on the carb manifold and the headers. while I was looking over this block today I noticed many ports in the block for oil and water galleries, would be simple enough to plumb a turbo into this block if I were ever keen to see the limits of it..probably not very high.

Another part of trying to sort the idle is to replace the idle control valve, which has been a bit suspect from the beginning. I don't particularly enjoy taking the intake off, but its the only way to get to the idle valve. I cleaned the idle valve a while back, but obviously it was still suspect. Even after cleaning I was still getting a reading of zero in DIS for idle air flow (I haven't had a chance to test since replacement). After some research it turned out that the S50B30 idle valve is shared with the M60/M62 BMW V8 engines, so although its bigger and not shared with the other I6 engines, it's not too hard to source one from an E34/E39/E38. I got a good used replacement, and got to work pulling the intake out again. Thankfully last time I had it all off I chose to fit a pod filter instead of the standard airbox, as that was one part that pissed me off a lot when reassembling; refitting the airbox. Taking the plenum off doesn't take too long, it's just a bit fiddly. Here we go again Out came the old valve. The only difference between the M6x ones and S50 is that there is a rubber grommet on the M6x ones. Once you pull that off, they are the same, even down to Bosch part number. It became obvious that despite me cleaning it, the original valve was still sticking, and it moved nowhere near as freely as the used replacement. An easy test of how freely they operate is to twist/shake the unit side to side and see how easily the shutter inside it moves. The old one needs quite a firm shake to move the shutter, whilst the replacement moves very freely. I suspect this is how the original one moved in DIS but may not be working correctly. With a full whack of voltage to fully open or close it (as the DIS test does), it works OK, but you can't finesse the movement and tweak it just a little. With one of my previous orders, I had ordered a replacement mount for the valve, as the old one was brittle and broke last time I removed it (hence the zip tie in the above photos). On went the new mount. I fit the replacement valve, reassembled, and tested. It seems the idle acts a bit better than it did, with noticeable changes when load is applied at idle, but it's still rough and misfiring at idle, so obviously the idle valve was an issue, but not related to my original fault.

Piss-ute is now gone...long live the new king!

another small area of rust that ended up being a weeeeeeee but more. ran out of flapper discs...so still needs a clean up.

yea cool so 1 month later and ive managed to get the fuel tank acid dipped and cleaned, put a liner in it and paint it. such progress, much wow. still not complied. 2019-05-28_03-45-30 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-05-31_08-22-55 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-05-31_08-23-03 by sheepers, on Flickr

OK, so not the end of the story New owner has been busy with the pain gun. Interior is also partly re-done.

So I met this guy Dave my last year of high school. A year or so later he came into my work (wreckers yard) looking for a fan for his off roader, which he had just purchased from his little sisters boyfriend (who had purchased it from a work mate, who had originally built it in the 90s) He said I should come see it sometime. I went to have a gork at it some time later, but it was out of action due to the steering rack being broken (steering geometry was all wrong) Dave had worked on it on and off for years, but never got it drivable again. I'd had a crush on it ever since I first laid eyes on it, and pined hard to go for a hoon in it. The off roader then spends most of it's time hidden in a shed, I see it now and then due to me ending up married to Dave's little sister (who I wouldn't have met if I hadn't gone to see said off roader, and started hanging around with Dave) 18+ years after I first saw it, Dave loses interest and decided to sell, so I snap it up. One little problem though, I've never been able to drive it, because it's always been broken, and because my 6'4" ass don't fit in it. That's the first thing I'll sort, so I have cut the front off it, and will extend it about 120mm. It's a bit of a kit set at the moment, due to Dave starting on fixing a few of it's design issues but not finishing them, and from me stripping the front to extend it. I want to get it drivable pretty quickly, and then will work on modifying/upgrading a few things I don't like. A few pics. Just before cutting the front off, Boxes full of bits, Like all cool things, it has a live rear axle, with a gay ass 4x motorbike shock set up, one of the things I want to change. It's powered by a late 80s GSZ600 engine, that makes about 80hp. It also came with a spare engine, which I hacked out of this bad boy, I've had this in the shed for quite a while, but haven't let myself touch it until I finished a few other projects, and sold off a few other things. Super excited about getting stuck into this, and one day being able to hoon it after nearly two decades of pining. Regards, VG.

Hey, its been awhile since ive had anything to post on here have only recently gotten back into the oldschool game, more or less Datsuns, Well my weird obsession for them this being my 5-6th B310, Anyway. ive owned this Sunny for about 2-3 months now, and i have only recently started ripping into it after being employeed again. So far ive done the basics motor wise to an unknown car, Spark plugs, leads dizzy cap and rotors. also had brendan tune and sort my carb issue out and a new radiator put in, also a few cosmetic things, better tail lights. fender mirrors. I also have been buying and collection a lot of the interior pieces that have been missing or annoy me because the are rough, so currently in the process of putting my new dash in and painting the top of it, and found a small amount of rust which was better then i expected! bonus, and also getting the heatercore sorted for those winter drives, Here are a few photos of it so far, will post progress photos as i go, as ill use this a reference of where im at. -Michael

Apart from not being able to turn or drive in a straight line was it good though? LOL!!!!

Run an SU on it. 1 3/4" seems about right on my 600 it just opens as much as it needs to.

Yeah open diff will spin the opposite wheel in reverse if you hold the driveshaft and spin a wheel, but then so will a Torsen LSD.

I think you might need to change your screen name to the Riddler lol

Does anyone have a not fucked cab? Maybe some common sense and a number for a scrap collector? At least itl be quick to cut out that patch and get access to the inside there.

Slowing coming together New thermo housing, stant rad cap, RS2000 alternator bracket, later had to remove and throw cortina one on, RS2000 type won't work with lucas acr style, bracket fowls alternator. Blue themeDays work, helps having basically everything on hand after planing swap for 8 years....

well after over 2 years of ownership and passing every wof so far as well as never really letting me down apart from the few times it hasn't wanted to start. there are a few issues with the old girl...after last years hamner meet it picked up a vibration in the drive train.(still looking into that. the motor starts and runs well but it blowing smoke (valve guides are stuffed .(working on that now) so i do have a 205 pinto motor in bits so im going to rebuild that and to factory spec ...no interested in huge cams and twin side drafts ..im happy with the motor in my cortina now so just want the same....its good on gas and can pull a trailer with another car on it fine. so i started cleaning up the old 205 pistons.

hi. so 8 years after i bought a supercharger and 5 years after i made a manifold for it im actually going to install it. old people like me will tell you about how times speeds up and you just dont know where the time went but this is fucking ridiculous. how the fuck has it been 5 years since i made that manifold? how? anywho. i took the motor out. its fairly depressing to look at the engine bay that i once spent so much time and effort on and see what a pile of crap it looks like now. still, me, and a few other people too, have done a bunch of Ks in this car. ive dailyed it for almost 8 years, driven it to invercargil and back, been to heaps of nats in it, leadfoots, Toyota nationals, thrashed it at countless track days, done 70,000Ks in it. and its NEVER missed a beat. not fucking once has it ever let me down ( you could count the time i blew the gearbox up but any idiot who puts a W55 behind a UZ deserves all he gets). cant complain about that i suppose. so now its time for a new look, a new motor and a new other things as well. first point of business, motor out, 2019-05-31_08-22-40 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-05-31_08-22-32 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-05-31_08-22-24 by sheepers, on Flickr as it now takes me 27 years to scratch my arse i doubt the progress i used to make on projects is going to be a thing again. so dont expect me to have this thing finished by monday as i would have done in the old days.

Its a miracle! Only took about 8 years to get the engine in the hole....

So I fixed the main problem, I now fit in it. I made up little 120mm extensions, with a bit of tube hammed into them, to add a bit of strength. Welded them into the frame, and then added side and bottom cross braces. I just have to sort out the top pipes now. A few of the problems this thing had, that Dave sorted out, were the steering rack that kept snapping rack ends due to bung geometry. It had a rack out of some grotty old english car originally, so Dave shortened a KP60 starlet rack to suit, He also made new knuckles to fix the bung geometry. The next big problem was it was way over geared. Apparently they hardly ever got out of second. So we got a big ass sprocket for the back, which should cause it to top out at 140ish kmh. It also used to have a motorcycle brake disc and calliper, which didn't work so well, so Dave made a hub to take a car disc, and calliper to suit. Apparently it also never quite ran right, which they put down to it not having an air box. They made up a plenum, with little trumpets inside. Another thing Dave made, was a double layer heat shed with an air gap, to stop the exhaust melting the seat. I'll probably make a top shield to protect the driver from the fuel tank, thats located behind your head. I'll start putting the front end together next, so I can finish off the steering gubbins. Regards, VG.

In the mean time, the old owner managed to track down the leg shield which he reported was fucked, but I wanted it anyway. Turns out my standards must be lower as its perfect. Perfectly aged! I also ditched the front guard as it looked weird as it had faded to grey and sat waaay to high. Looks much better without in my opinion. And to keep the barrys happy, here is my solution to stop me from losing the key (it is just a random key that works but rattle out when riding). Perfect. Next are plans to big block/chuck a lifan in. Not really going to touch the bike otherwise, as I like the idea of a originalish looking bike but with enough grunt to go adventuring.

Finished seat.

SHS chassis? It's basically a Ferrari.

So probably should update this.. a few things have happened lately. I put the car into Automania (a car show in Auckland for those not familiar), or more Matt (the organiser) asked if they could use it in the Nissan stand, looked all good. Probably the cleanest it's ever been actually. One of the conditions was they had to clean/detail it and Grant from Final Touch took care of that. Turns out I won a prize too, so now that car has won two prizes I haven't claimed LOL The second condition was I would exploit their free transport by having them send the car to Strange Workshop to get a whole bunch of stuff taken care of and start the road to road legalness. I asked him to do a fluid change on basically everything that has fluids and he put all these fancy ones inside.. I would've gone to the warehouse bargain bin personally. While doing the oil change he found a crack in the sump (which I knew was there but was hoping it would just fix itself) so I gave the go ahead to do a repair on it. The original plan didn't go quite as we expected as there wasn't really any access from the top side so just made a whole new edge bit. Also the diff was seeping so fixed that. While on the hoist he arranged for some panel guys to come around and check out what we'd be working with rust wise. Unsurprisingly (I also knew about these things) the side sills will need to be cut off and replaced/repaired on both sides. There's probably more stuff too but hard to know until start cutting. So far this area in the rear of each side appears to be the worst. Jon also replaced the rear brake lines and brake cylinders as both sides were flogged. Found some locally but didn't quite fit so he milled down what needed to be done to get em on again. Both of the original brake calipers on the front needed a rebuild but a while ago I bought these Hilux 4 pots which bolt right on, just needed to get new lines done up which Jon took care of as well. He bled the system up and it's all minty. I had replaced the discs a while ago with some slotted ones as you can kind of see. So now it's just sitting there while I drag ass because I want to drive it briefly when I'm back in NZ shortly then will give the go ahead to cut er down and throw all my money in the fire. Discuss -

made the bottom radiator brackets.(was going to flod up some alloy tabs and weld them to the rad but i want to be able to get replacement parts off the shelf and bolt them in with out modifying them ) still need to do some trimming on them but they work..i also used adhesive rubber on all the rad sides.

dragged it out of storage got a wof and some rego, and a well needed clean

Well, I learned 2 valuable lessons this weekend. One, yes it is possible to do a 2100km round trip road trip in a single weekend. And 2, probably better to do it with someone else helping with the driving vs doing it your self. I decided to drive from Calgary (where I live) all the way through the Rocky Mountains, down to Vancouver on the west coast of the country. Just about 1000km each way, plus running around in Vancouver and area. Why you may ask? I decided to help out some members of Canada's version of Oldschool that's specifically for older Toyotas by bringing down some larger parts that would be hard to send with a courier/post. But more importantly, I picked up my mint condition hatch for my corolla. One of the members had this mint hatch off a 79 Wagon for sale with basically no rust on it what so ever. Came with all the factory badging, and a near mint condition licence plate lamp section. The one on my car was so old and rotten that the letters are all blown out. Theres maybe 2 or 3 small spots of surface rust that I managed to clear up with some steel wool yesterday evening in 5 minutes. While I was down there, I also managed to score a Personal Neo Eagle 345mm steering wheel for $100. It's been used, but not in horrible shape. Decided to see what it looks like with the TRD horn button I currently have in my steering wheel right now. Still on the fence if I like it as much as I like my current cheap Grant steering wheel, but the authentic Italian made/JDM touch would be nice VS the cheaply made US branded Grant I have on there now. I'm going to have to buy a new hub for the Personal, or my MOMO I have sitting in the garage if I decide to switch over. For some reason Grant decided to us a 5 bolt hub instead of the traditional 6. Thoughts?

OK sorry for more spam but Shane just sent over some more close up images with various repair stuff which is good and thorough. Engine had a strange miss which turned out to be a bung plug, replaced that with some random one and it worked. Compression appears to be a little low on one cylinder but the car still seems to run relatively well so when I get it I'll do plugs/leads/dizzy cap etc anyway as a precaution. Shane also has some MDI spark booster thing (you know those boxes you always see on old Jap cars to boost the spark) so he'll throw that in too. A few more pics.. Powerhouse! I'm actually happy that the numbers match on this and the body.. otherwise that could be a bit of a problem come time for VIN etc. Angry face! Interior is overall very clean, will need new centre console as that one looks banged up and not correct for the car (more holes for buttons and switches than my povo one has). Plus side, less things to go wrong in mine right? But this really got me excited.. https://vid.me/fhmd Annd they reckon we should have a booking for shipping next week so that's pretty exciting.