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Ended up going with signal orange 79. It's an original color for an escort, but not this van. Sampled a blue and a different signal 77 orange but settled on this. Have been spraying it in sections. Engine bay, interior and inside of the doors. Still a while to go before I can spray the outside but its certainly progress!

Ones for the brothers FD. We are going exactly the same spec so that we can have a fair race at some point!

Gah I hate painting cars Got the inside done, remembered how much I despise sanding and bogging and sanding and paint fumes and the paint not drying cause it's too cold and getting paint boogers So I'm going to send it to someone else to get the outside done white again .

so @Mrs 64valiant sent me more photos to use in the post above so here are some of us putting the upholstery in. me sitting at our table beth laying on the bed for scale me, beth & boobs now on the bed. we went to raglan and had fush and chups for our 1st meal in the kombi. ft potato cam yeah cool story bro. I plan on taking a week and a weekend off for my 30th and driving it around the north of the north island so the goal is legal and 85% of its problems sorted by then.

so a small update. yeah the kombi has had all my attention over recent times but i also got the dream plate that was listed here for sale. for scale this thing is huge. but pre bay windows are also quite small vws also added the bottom of the caravan also added some strength across the roof, so now have three bars from side to side. it had been a while since picking up the welder and i had to put this up against the bench so i could stand on it, on top of a box As of yesterday i got some motivation and done some more work. Cut the side door in and then i added some braces to the caravan. old mate @Geophy came over to drop some steel over and i was like hey hold this. so i welded the base of the up rights for the door, then cut the center. needed the strop in the center so i could get the grinder in. another strop here in this welding action shot. this time holding the peace of steel up. This thing looks like a caravan now. pretty happy to see a door cut out in the side. i now need some right angle for the floor and need to put some triangle braces in some corners and im pretty keen to get some paint on it this month. getting pretty annoying in the shop.

Boom!!! And double boom!!! Triple boom?

What were you driving? Cheers for the pic! Sorry for driving like a 15yo. Me and a mate swapped cars for a bit and I broke his 500+hp evo! Crank pulley exploded and let the belts go. Overheated it. Considering it’s a 2.4 stroker that’s quite new I really hope I didn’t kill it. Slapping engine together at the moment for the TYRBBQ. So far it’s been a bit of a cluster but nothing too major. The oil pickup tube fouled the plate that sits under the crank, so the die grinder sorted that out. Frustrated that the fucking pickup tube hits the sump though so will need to be modified. I bought them all off the shelf from Sikky and I would expect it to just work! Also the engine guy wrecked the water jacket bung by cross threading it. What a munter, I’m gonna have to go and find an m28x1 tap to clean it up. Got really hammered last night so progress is slow.

Bulk bought some oil filters. About $1.50 each. Changed oil today at 500km because hard break in over winter doesn't tickle me. Aluminium smoo

Gravel and dust don't agree with fork chrome and seals. Neither does city road grit. #adventureGN Spending is getting out of control. I think I'm over the $20 mark now. Have a few more items, but I'm over worked and ordered a wrong part, which needs to go on before the rest. So another weekend. Currently costs $0.05 per km in fuel. Over 5 times cheaper than ute

I’m looking at poaching dads RG150 for the task

@TimShadboltfan27 life goals?

@Truenotch Filter vs no filter. cant remember which one is which, but yeh zero loss @Roman red is my normal cam timing. blue is the inlet cam retarded 8 degrees. had a play with the exhaust cam. advanced it 5 deg, then another 5deg. pretty much no change other than a few bumps here and there. maybe slightly better all round with my normal setup, but seems pretty numb to changes. my normal settings im maxed out on both cams, any further pistons will eat valves i do have a vibration issue with either a wheel or wack axle that screws with the dyno and gives inconsistent results, right up top at around 180k i need to fix. / start running it up in a lower gear.

Well that was easier than expected. Massive thanks to @kseries.rookie for sorting me out with some gear so I could get this done today.

so we had a few problems. the engine in wasn't a straight in job. 1st we had the wrong thrust bearing, so back to the vw shop sorted out that the other one didnt go over the cone. rather annoying. now we can chuck the engine in. hold up why isnt this sliding on the last 5-10mm!!! ahh right back to the vw shop grab another clutch set up. at this point this is far more annoying than the wrong thrust bearing. so my kombi is one of those cars that is a silly year of cross over. nice ah even better this one doesnt have a clutch alignment tool, some tape on something that came off a sewing machine later and wabam tadaaaaaa on. this thing slid in with no issues at all now Now that thats in i had to make a few more little things work so we could make it run. Fuel, spark & something to make the batter keep charging while running it. had that all done and then we moved it a few times now that its running i wanted to bleed all the breaks now that we have vacuum on the booster as well. Well fuck me, tried bleeding it several time and having no luck, @flyingbrick was been a huge douche and a smart ass and trying to troll ( i ended up offering him to fuck off or ill punch him in the face ) he chose neither surprise surprise. out some the cylinder and i dropped it off for Paul to have a look at. He tried to bleed it and shit was fucked so pulled it apart put new seals in it and again, back it went and we then bleed the system up. Perfect breaks are now working!!!!!! working that good they are staying on. FUCK Right. priced up some that would suite drop spindles and fell off my chair. so apart they came. top one in this photo is cleaned new seals and pistons and in she went. and then we had breaks that were still staying on. this time due to this little spring missing and the piston not fully returning. and this one is still wrong but i modified it to work. left and drive bus problem in a right hand drive world. any who i needed to put the number plate on it so thought id drill the hole out for that. lol ill just tap that bog out shull i number plate on and i also put the headlights in as well as put the surrounds on the front. holly shit the headlights work. wonder if they tail lights work shit even the number plate light does. now lets put some upholstery back in it. door cards 1st. Underlay in before them to deaden the sound and cold factor Before after and now the door card now the wooden floor. it was resting up on a seat mount. so yeah fixed that issue rough and ready drill holes around and then jump on it. FIXED! (ps i don't care i have a kombi and i wanted it driving and carpet in it fast. i didn't want to try fuck a spider) also this ply was already cut and came with the kombi from purchase. at this point i wonder what i have under the bench for carpet turns out i have some black carpet at this point @Mrs 64valiant turned up and we put the rest of the upholstery in the back she had buggered off by this time of me sitting here having a drink to myself just been so chuffed that i was finally sitting in the back of our own kombi, Life clocked the next day i was going to @mark105 place to have a few drinks and probably not be able to drive home..... Beth was also not going to be in town, so guess what. well i had this small cut out where the spare wheel goes for my bed and well that was going to be uncomfy so lucky i know a guy who does upholstery right? found a peace of foam i had laying around and cut it to shape hey presto proceeded to a party were i slept well even more happy. so at this stage i had been driving around and this was my key haha not dodgy at all. even had a guy at the bakery see me use and said "you fully stole that didn't you" my exhaust also was pumping straight into my back bumper and was getting a bit black, so i needed to make a tip for it, i was hoping super cheap had them but yeah i dont think the love heart one was going to work. so i had this pipe i got from @Fuckedifiknow cut it a bit more and welded it and then put a nice taper on it. cleaned it up welded it on same day i done my roof racks in the 2nd half of the pop top. started with a walk over to bunnings to grab some timber slats walked back with a pool fence and some door stops? the door stops are to hold it off the roof and act as spacers. the pool fence? squash the ends this is going to work so well man this is brilliant while that was off i also changed the shitty screw holes to riv nuts lets see what else have i done lights work really well i got hub caps I had to steel this ignition out of this kombi and then u put the key part mechanism in mine as i broke mine to 100 peace's and then put a key in mine i actually needed the key part to see what barrel i needed for the wiring, one it plastic and one is steel. the one i needed was plastic. replaced the lock and handle in the sliding door as i didn't have a key and it was a prick to lock from the inside have been driving it and testing it which has been really good, beth is actually sitting in the bus in this photo also dropped off the old bus yeah. I went to drive it to work been a Friday and the battery is dead flat?! so it has something draining the battery which is great. and that is my story for now. Peace dudes & dudettes

Ramble #3: Since forever, I've always had this exhaust manifold on which is a copy of the HKS 4-2-1. Altezza manifolds sit super bloody low when swapped into different cars, so fitting the likes of the beautiful TRD pipes is problematic. With the HKS pipes, the 4-2 section finishes right down by the firewall, which meant I (by which I mean someone competent, Denham) could cut the 2-1 pipes and reangle them to suit. I've always wanted to see how a 4-1 manifold would respond in comparison but I've always thought there's no chance of making them fit, and it would be difficult to modify. But since I'm currently redoing the engine mounts, I could tip the engine over to suit fitting factory Altezza options, and then I'd have more things to play with. So had a look around and I found a shitty looking second hand FGK 4-1 manifold. The FGK site says that over the factory manifold, dyno back to back swap to standard. It gains 7hp and more torque at a lower rpm. When I went and picked it up, I chortled at how bloody tiny it is! It's only 7kg and has really neat cast flanges which dont have any material where it doenst need to be. Ideal. The HKS 4-2-1 vs the FGK 4-1: The 4-1 isnt even as long as the 4-2 section on the HKS one haha. So I can have a nice transitioning bend to the under the car part, rather than my 2-1 section which has been chopped and angled about 10 degrees maybe, right by the flange. probably not ideal. The weight difference is massive though! I'm going to design my mounts etc so that I can fit both. So I can do some comparative nerding and see whats best. I'm thinking that perhaps with exhaust side VVTI now, some of the downsides of a 4-1 design (narrow high powerband) can be mitigated a little by moving the cam around. It will be interesting to see if any improvements to the powerband from the exhaust, happens because of better cylinder clearing of exhaust gas, or other mechanisms... If it's better clearing residual gas, and allowing more fresh air in, then I'll be able to quantify the differences in powerband from each simply by looking at which gives higher airflow numbers at full throttle, via the MAF sensor. I've never had any changes to the exhaust side while I've had this ECU so it'll be interesting to look at what changes. (or not)

to save the OS bandwidth I use Imgur as much as possible Nice box too! here's a couple more 'boxes' (which I did not construct but did have a hand in) starting to gain traction slowly

So dreamy! What a combo.

Fuck yeah Spanners.

Some days it just makes me want to set fire to this. Battery is being a dick, so can't get it in for a wof fail yet, had the alternative tested, all fine. Battery tests over 12.5v but no sparkles.. Still need to get some kind of air filter on it cos I'm sure it needs them to run better tune wise. Also looked at the big end bearings in the spare motor... they have major grooves in them, poked, but the crank has no marks at all.. has 030 on them so I'm almost guessing they're a +30 set . Mains bearings look mint

I've had it done. They put it on a wheel alignment machine, then use a gas welder to heat spots along the back or front of the axle tube. AFAIK, heating the front of the tube then letting it cool makes that side shrink the tiniest amount and gives you toe-in. It takes only a tiny bit of shrinking to change the toe angle. I don't know who might do it. Ron Scanlan did mine years ago, but he is not with us anymore.

Hell yea.

And the Ute and trailer are both legal Tegal! No issues, no dramas at all. I did put new tyres on the rear and raised the height of the Ute so that it would pass.

Given its been 10 years since the last update I figured I would add another one. The initial inability to use the original plates has been overcome and after a succession of emails back and forth to Tania Taite and reuseofplates@nzta.govt.nz, I have been given the all clear to reuse its 1963 issued plates. Interestingly, in none of my correspondence with the NZTA was there any mention of a Gloria (as the car is a Prince and the registration papers simply say Prince Saloon) however she came back to me saying it was registered as a Gloria at some point, only one of my documents mentions Gloria so I knew the mistake existed but it also means that despite this being deregd since before digitization, they obviously do have records of it (even though previously I had been told there was nothing and the only chance of getting the plates would be personalisation). Interdasting. Anyway. I also bought this for it (thanks to @RUNAMUCK and @vivaspeed) Stay tuned ten years down the track for the next update. Disco link because it's been ten years and it was broken

while we are on the subject, remember that time at meremere a NA 16v beat a turbo 20v. @Stu

Was waiting on my Ali impact hex bits to arrive before I tackled the allen bolt in the fork bottoms, as they weren't moving with normal keys. First one whizzed out perfectly with the battery impact driver, then second one rounded off to a very neat circle. At least I know the Ali bits are hard metal... So no option but to drill out... And worked well. The copper washer was a good indicator how deep and true the drill bits were... Can move on now, good clean up and new seals, not sure if I'll paint or just rough polish the lower fork legs...

I took the car to the specialists where they rebuilt the power steering pump and rack (which was also leaking). This was not very cheap, but now the pump leak will not damage any more suspension bushes and the rack leak won't risk me failing WOFs. The specialist told me that some of my whines and clunks were the auto transmission (ZF 4HP22), which had good fluid so wouldn't improve without money being thrown at it. One of my rattles was the clips on the airbox - some idiot had taken the front cover of the airbox off for extra induction noise and hadn't figured that the resulting loose cover clips would rattle at certain engine rpm. Another rattle is either the engine fan clutch or the water pump, so I'll look into that myself at some point. I got new bushes for the front sway bar drop links. Here are the old bodged ones which are too thin and too large in diameter: And here are the new ones which don't really look any better! Oh well. Apparently you can get spherical bearings to replace these bushes if you're hardcore, but I think I'll pass. Anyway, the Jag specialists got someone to do my wheel alignment after they'd rebuilt the steering rack. This resulted in improved steering self centring, but the feeling of square wheels at 40kph and the vibration at 80kph did not go away. So I started looking at replacements for the Linglong directional tyres which were on my car when I got it. Other than more Linglongs, the only other tyres available in the right size are reproduction retro hotrod stuff - BF Goodrich Radial T/A, Cooper Cobra Radial G/T, Hercules H/P 4000, Galaxy Radial G/T... all tyres that OS report as being a bit average ("harder than a whore's heart"). I looked at going to wrong-sized tyres on the stock 15-inch mags, but this doesn't expand the tyre selection much. Jags of this era have a bolt pattern of 5x4.75" / 5x120.65, which is what a lot of old GM cars used. This means most aftermarket wheel choices are stuff like Cragar SS / Torq Thrusts which look wrong and/or only come in small diameters. But then some 17-inch "Performance" brand wheels came up on TradeMe, so I grabbed them. The seller had taken them off his old Jag to upgrade to 18s, so I knew they were gonna fit my car. Surprisingly, I could buy wheel nuts off the shelf at Repco with the right imperial 1/2" UNF thread pitch and tapered seats. I just threw the wheels straight on with no issues. I didn't have to take the dust caps off the front hubs to allow the wheels to fit as the seller said I might. I haven't even noticed the wheels rubbing so far. The fronts will be easier to clean than the original lattice design, even if the rears look a bit weird with no brake discs visible between the spokes. Dish photo! The improvements and compromises are all as you'd expect. The Potenza RE002 tyres on the new mags are obviously an improvement. Their lower profile doesn't magically give the XJ-S any steering feel though. I can't benchmark the lateral grip against other cars I've owned - when going around my 180-degree test curve, the Jag's speedometer reading decreases significantly for some British reason, only to increase once I straighten up again. Also, the vibration at 40kph may be gone but the one at 80 remains. Back to the drawing board.

It's been a couple of weeks since an update, mostly because it has been endless wiring up, which it time consuming but has fuck all to show for the effort. Basically I have been chunking away at it endlessly, with tidying things up and soldering chocolate block connections being most of it. It is all running on 24v now, all the bulbs and relays swapped over and running 2x DC DC converters for the 12v stuff. So many relays... You can see the convertors. One runs the wipers/washer/blower motor, the other runs the stereo power. The terminations are the same so if the wiper one shits itself I can use the stereo one as a backup. Halfway through wiring the instrument cluster, have to study the Haynes manual a bit more I reckon. I made a box for the fusable links, starter relay and glow relays. It needs welding in place yet. And a lid. The hole is access to the fuel filter manual pump knob. Battery positions. I stripped the old rear seat down to the frame, this is because I went back to the wreckers and bought the escudo rear seats from the car I got the fronts out of, these look like they could be pretty good as a solution; Just need to weld some mounts to the frame and create something to hold things folded away. It is nice that all the seats match too..

I hear it's alot of gravel @RUNAMUCK

And today's efforts for the same cause (keep brother happy). A huge materials rack. Start with this...end up with that: I made a wooden jig to help keep everything the same. String lines to get alignment squared away. And in place in a 40ft shipping container. He'll paint it next week, along with the van rack.

Adventure GN Does more than 100kph so I'm wondering if NZ ones get higher gearing, or are they putting 150 cyclinders on them sneakily? 260km and I've not hit reserve yet

Fucking civilised as fuck. It's almost a Jag or a Roller now.

POWER DUCT. all the hype. none of the powa

New engine is alive Back on the 47mm throttles for run in as had good tune for them. trying some stuff hence wiring abortion. have wiring for multiple setups on same loom, so can swap between easy must of done something right, 150kw at wheels on the small extractors, most its ever made on same setup is 145kw, usually around 143kw. Note to self put mic further away; RIP mic and all speakers.

hello darling, it's been a while. i was a bit tossed up on the last bike. it was high kms, pretty rough and i was hesitant to spend a bit of coin on it, so cut my losses and sold it. GS450s are probably one of my all time fave bikes, and i was stoked on the above one, but it wasnt no 450 sport. the bikini fairing, racing stripes, throwing star wheels, the pinnacle of motorcycle design. so i held out, waiting for one to come up for sale, and low and behold one lazy sunday afternoon this thing popped up on trademe. talked turkey with the guy, agreed on a price and today i went and grabbed it. my word its dreamy. they have a beautiful sound when you open it up and plenty of mid range torque, i wont be losing my licence anytime soon being a 450, but its performance is nothing to be ashamed of. I will be leaving it as is, and tidying a few things up. the carbs need a bit of attention as it takes a while to warm up, and there is a slight miss in the middle of the throttle, then the usual maintenance bits like brakes, tyres and chain etc. and just ride the fuckin thing. Its mean

So they don't fall off the trailer?

And it all lined up well, will be able to tinker away on this now at my leisure...

Had a bash at making a bearing installer thing, threaded rod, coupla nuts and some big washers, around $10 all up. Sort of worked... Went a bit skewiff trying to do both sides at once. Was trying to get it done at lunchtime so was rushing things a bit, and the bigger lower bearing shell got a bit angled, so I knocked it out again and put it in the freezer. Got top one in anyway so will have another go after work...

So with that parked up did a little more on the TT. Checked out the m/c I got from eBay, looks in good shape... Got the tricky little circlip out without the right tool after a bit of swearing fiddling... And gave the caliper another go, the pins were pretty well stuck with dried grease, but got them apart. Boots look ok but think there are some clips missing... And gave it a good cleanup, cleaned the seal grooves with some cheap Ali brushes. Worked well enough but shed a lot of sharp little spines... Then had a go at putting steering head bearings in. Failed miserably. so gave up and had tea. Then I wanted a clean job, so pulled each wheel spoke to lube threads. Quite like jobs like this, esp with Jon Toogood's 'Planet of Sound' going in the background - really enjoy that, the bloke has great musical taste... And it spins pretty true. Prob needs another 20 mins to sort properly, will ping each spoke to check tension by tone and re-true...