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Decided to try and get this thing riding a bit nicer, previous suspension setup was a little soft and hit the bump stops a bit too often, and with the extra weight of a 4age it would of been worse. Went with a set of Fortune Auto's coilovers all around, since I'll end up chucking an F series or similar diff in and I have the skills to strengthen the rear strut towers. Picked up another pair of struts, cut them down and and blasted them. Wound them all the way down and the front ended up a little higher and the back's a bit lower. Might try and get the front down a bit more, to at least were it was. Made a stainless distributor blanking cover. Bought a Flo's upper water outlet, as it looked to be the much simpler and tidier way of doing the cooling system. Needed a RWD waterpump (inc pulley), thermostat housing and a little bypass pipe to complete the setup. And of course with everything else, when you change one thing you have to change something else. The FWD alternator bracket fouled on the thermostat housing, so I got a RWD one from Japan. Borrowed some Flo's 4age to K series engine mounts and made up my own. Sitting in the hole. Had to space the engine mounts out by 8mm, possibly because of the Cusco mounts being thinner than factory ones? Dizzy relocation kit installed, had to cut a bit of a hole in the fire wall for some clearance. Stripped the interior, pulled out the dash, heater, seats, carpet and scrapped off some sound deadening around the gearbox tunnel. Cut a big ol' hole for the J160 to fit. Probably didn't need to cut so much out, but to make it easy to drop out and fit, some extra clearance was needed. Also wanted it to sit up above the sills and chassis rails. Made up a gearbox mount. Added two extra body mounts further back so that it spreads the load a bit. Has heaps of ground clearance as well. The J160 shifter needed moving forward as it lined up with the end of the handbrake. Cut up the original shifter housing and welded it on to some ali tube and 12mm plate. Spent hours on our little lathe turning up the adapter bits. Works mint, barely any flex and feels like it should. Moved it 200mm forward from the Altezza position, 50mm more than the SQ kit and 40mm back from where the factory Starlet one was.

No it's not, but that's one way to come across as a bit of a dick.

Suzuki GT-185 This is my Suzuki GT185. It has more pistons than my other bikes. This is the inside of my GT185 after I exploded it. This is the GT185 after I fixed it again.

Still have a blockage somewhere in the fuel system but it is a intermittent thing. FFS. Anyway, got a WOF. Went to the Raza because Humber.

Thought I may as well start a thread on this raging beast, a friend of mine (may have been on here once) moved from hamilton to dunedin and abandoned it on my doorstep. He had had it sitting for quite a few years. Is a 1600 with twin strombergs & extractors - the motor has had some unspecified work done, apparently from a rally car. Body is in pretty decent condition, original paint is extremely worn and has surface rust for dayz, only welding required is in rear arches due to 3/4 inch coating of oil everywhere else. interior is 5/10, seats & dash have seen better days. lots of new suspension bushes in it which is nice. bodges required: weld rear arches where needed, sand & seal surface rust fill old badge, aerial holes etc muck around with ignition, it is totally pre-bodged and doesnt turn off with key until an electrical load is introduced i.e brake lights, horn (which to be fair is pretty funny) ideally obtain electronic ignition from chrysler. minimise ridiculous oil leaks put seats and dash cover on to cover wrecked originals wof treat with disdain as not proper leyland product. feel free to question my sanity on this thread, updates will be fairly slow as im only home a few days a fortnight!

Long time no update. Car ran super well over summer, minus a little incident where I struck some slippery stuff (oil?) on the way up the bombay hill heading to Auckland for a classic meet. Long story short, front of the car hit the barrier, was lucky it missed the wheel and didn't swing the back end into it! 100km on full lock doesn't feel too good. About a week later we were heading to Leadfoot fest so had to quickly turn a repair around and get it presentable again... Slide hammer and a few dollys helped with that.

Honda Country Calendar Collection.mp3 These are my 4t farm spec bikes for rounding up nangs at the shed. 2 x CT-200 Auto AG with pull-start because getinbehindyamongrel. 1 x CT-125 conventional I don't really know why I have these, other than cheap. One came with a thistle grubber which hasn't yet been useful. Will probably offload but keen on some @UTERUS Thomson's track action first if there are thistles up there.

A little more progress. The side covers look BOSS!! Just ordered a bunch of other new parts, still a lot to do, all small shit, its just progress trying to figure out exactly what I need to buy. Next step is @kicker dragging his welder around to finish welding all the bits of steel together.

SUZUKI A100 I saw this at Kumeu with an 'offers' sign on it but CBF at the time, so grabbed the guys number. Rang him a week later to find he had been dicked about and wanted rid of it so I went and grabbed it. Motor was seized so separated with big hammers, cleaned up barrel and throw a new piston at it. Bike has decided it likes to seize after long periods of WOT. Will throw a bigger main jet at it one day. Is fine around the suburbs.

I have a Cigweld 135 also. Had been using sodastream co2 bottles as shielding gas, worked reasonably well. But this week I just picked up one of the Bunnings/Coregas ‘Mig gas’ bottles. Looking forward to not running out of gas so quickly! Seems to weld a little nicer too. Although I’ve only used it to make a mount for a motorcycle exhaust so far. Next step is to borrow some of the washing machine and teach myself to do panel rust repairs on the Austin.

Small win... 99% sure I can do my chassis swap as a modified production LVV assessed and not as a scratch built.... A series2 on a later chassis is an example given in this sheet.... https://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/infosheets/LVVTA_Info_02-2018_Modified_Production_&_Scratch-built_Low_Volume_Vehicle_Definitions.pdf That makes me happy.....

Right - got more bikes, so updated thread to keep track. SUZUKI SEPIA Suzuki Sepia 2T. Was a sub hundy FB marketplace buy. Added go fast badges and Tongan flag. When it's not carving up the mean streets of Mangere, it's put to use collecting firewood.

I couldn't sleep so I carried on with the switch wiring for the cub. Soldered new longer wires on most of the switches in order to avoid having joins midway down. Yes the housings need to be cleaned and polished but that'll happen later I just need to extend the brake switch wiring and thats the controls done. I've kept the brake switch wires separate in case it ever needs to be replaced

One thing did bug me though, with the headlight on there was no tail light only brake would illuminate. Got home today to check bulb and looks someone in the past has jammed a 21w/12v bulb in there. Which was a single filament and double contact bulb lol. Will get the correct 6v bulb and then everything should work properly haha.

Definitions of what is scratch built has changed last year https://lvvta.org.nz/documents/infosheets/LVVTA_Info_02-2018_Modified_Production_&_Scratch-built_Low_Volume_Vehicle_Definitions.pdf

Taken the dive and have got a Cigweld 135 on order (store had ran out, but have ordered one in at the sale price for me). Next question, which may sound daft, where does one get sheet metal from? I see Mitre 10 and Bunnings have some, but seems very limited in gauge and material choice.

Slowly ticking small jobs off the list. Got speakers in front and rear in the factory locations. Did an LED dash light swap. Which doesn’t make a lot of difference to the dash lights themselves. But the illumination is now clearer and has a whiter glow to it vs the amber glow normal bulbs have. Also got some steely rims sorted that seem to work for me at the moment. shes due for a wof. Couple little things I wanna sort while it’s up on the hoist. But it’s mostly up to the fun stuff now. Really wanna set of wiper louvres. But I haven’t seen any anywhere for years.

I hit a bit of a brick wall with progress because at some point I want to paint the engine bay and underside, and was trying to do things in a way which meant I could get that done, get the engine sorted and painted and in for good and then do things like make the exhaust afterwards Then I realised that was stupid and I was wasting time mucking around trying to figure out things with the engine on the stand, and whacked the motor and box back in . I need to get everything done then I'll take it apart for paint last Shifter mounted, i wanted it up high so it's not far from the steering wheel to the shifter, @RXFORD/matt from tin tricks helped me out again with that by folding up a shifter mount and putting some fancy holes in it And put the carb and hat on, the bonnet doesnt shut so I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do with that

This is my '51 Chevrolet Pickup. I finally got some motivation to work on it after owning it for about 5 years. I bought it back in 2010 with help from my parents, when I was 14 turning 15. It was 100% stock, farm spec when we got it. Was originally from Bakersfield, CA. Had the straight-6 blue-flame engine which has been sold. Currently sitting on a jaguar front end and Holden LSD rear end. It's the longwheel base model, which I wasn't too much of a fan of, but it is growing on me. The extra long tray has been good for storing parts and boxes. Has hardly any major rust, just a hole is the passenger's foot well were the heater was leaking. The plan is to keep the body as is, slam it more with airbags, and chuck in a v8 (probably a 1UZ) Already have new rubbers, chrome badges, handles etc and airbag kit. Next major task will probably be to c-notch both the front and rear to get it sitting where I want / as low as the ground will let me. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/47317-matts-1951-chevy-pickup-discussion/

A fella in Wales builds his own Panzer tank... http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/35947-panzer-2-turret/#comments

Nice work man! I really like the Gbox cross member

Orrrr you could use a P38. 108" wheelbase The best diffs, motor, gearbox Cheap

The axles I have are essentially the early version of what ended up in the defender/disco. It means a disc brake conversion can use existing LR parts.

@Kimjon Would this option work for you?

In other news, as predicted this was a fkcn messy nightmare to weld but it’s looking okay now. Crack is gone and I’ve filled in the missing bit. Full disclosure, I could stick my finger through a big melty hole at one stage. But no harm in trying and it’s looking ok. Still have to die grind the gasket groove and shape the outside a bit more.

Not favourable. When I was leaving I almost drove through the sandwiches and tea area, many many disapproving looks were metered out. Edit. Barry on the left in the sharn pic liked the star. He said it made it stand out and was amazed what an effective muffler it was.

The Mcleans Island Vintage machinery club had its annual show this weekend just gone, It seemed rude not to attend. Ill post pics here, in the tractor thread, and or in the wombling Barry thread. In the show, standing proud Pushed some dirt. Had some sharns.

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Learnt a lot in the past month and a bit. Main thing being that you should probably lube your fuel injector o-rings when you go to put them back in. Got the engine running, was only running on half the cylinders. Discovered there was no fuel going to the rear half cylinders, so decided to pull out the injectors. Took them into town and put them on an injector tester and nothing happened. Was told they can gunk up after sitting for awhile. So went off back home and gave them a spray with some cleaner and smashed them on the ground until they started clicking freely again with power to them. Got them all sounding really good, so in they went (without any lube, thinking back it should of been something that should of come to mind, but I guess I was just in a rush to get it running!), as they went in they must of torn the o-rings. I got the intake and everything back on and together and we started it up again. Ran mint!! So turned it off to see how it would start again, flat battery. Chucked the charger on, and then decided we'd put the wheels on, piece it a bit more together and go for a drive up the driveway. By time we got it together and off the hoist, a few hours had past and so had a decent amount of fuel past the o-rings and into cylinder no.5. Cranked it over and it didn't want to start very easily, so gave it a few more attempts and finally started up with a lovely knocking noise! We thought maybe it was just something loose in the bellhousing, as when we first started it we quickly realised there were no bolts in the flex plate to the torque converter. Anyway drove it up and down the driveway and then back on to the hoist. Decided over Christmas we'd pull out the transmission to have a look in there, other than the weights on the flex plate being ripped off by the torque converter there was nothing that obvious. Started the engine without the trans in and it still had the knock, which was a disappointment. Our neighbours Tony and Jason, who are a bit more mechanically minded came over on Boxing day after hearing that it wasn't transmission related, and went over everything they could think of. Eventually after a good few hours we narrowed it down and decided to check how high each piston is coming up by sticking a threaded rod with a nut on it and turning the engine over by hand. Got around to cylinder no.5 and it was about 5-6mm lower than the rest. Was obvious at this stage that we had a bent rod that was caused by hydraulicing the engine with fuel. Out came the engine, onto a stand, flipped over and then pulled the sump off. It was pretty bent! The crank smashed up the bottom of the piston, but other than the rod and piston everything else looked good. The engine is now at the rebuilders and injectors have been professionally cleaned with new o-rings. The buggered o-rings on the injectors. Since I had awhile off work over Christmas and the engine debacle halted progress a bit, we decided it was a good time to sand out all the runs in the clearcoat and give it another couple of coats with some flatter clear since I wasn't quite happy with the last stuff I used. Used some PPG autothane clear with flattening base in it this time. Was way easier to spray, looks waaaaay better, a lot smoother and a more consistent flatness. Also the extra coats covered the rust up a bit more, as before it didn't seem to be covered well in the rusty areas. With the engine out it was a good time to go through and tidy up a few things. Made up some stainless heatshields that cover the wiring on one side and the fuel and brake lines on the other. Also wrapped some of the exhaust in heat wrap to try and help keep some heat away. Ignore the plastic cable ties, the ones that came with the wrap were too short, and I'll change them soon. After trying to drain the coolant I decided it'd much easier if there was a drain plug, rather than having to disconnect a hose and having it run straight onto a crossmember. Next thing to do was sort out the fuel filler. Turned out the u-bends I bought for the headers were the correct size I needed, so took one of them, cut it to fit and welded a breather pipe on the side. Made a stainless pipe that goes from the 1 5/8" u-bend to 2" on the tank. Also added some gas struts to the rear bed lift up part. Whilst under the rear end noticed the rear airbags were only mounted on the bottom with bolts and no washers. This was mostly because the mount was so close to the diff tube and the airbag mounting holes had quite a small PCD, you couldn't fit much else in there. Came up with these plates that mount to the airbags with a countersunk screw and then have the studs stick through the outer of the slotted hole in the diff mount. Heaps of room to get a nyloc nut and washer now. Was running out of stuff that I could think of to do, so my Dad made a start planing and fitting the Matai wood planks that I bought quite a while ago. Fitted in they looked a bit weird being natural, too bright or something. Had some Japanese stain lying around that we tried and I quite liked it. So went and wiped that all over it once it was fitting well. Then wiped over some Scandinavian oil and came it out really nice. Got the windows installed, he still needs to come back and finish them off. The front window stainless trim doesn't fit as well as I'd hope it would, sorta sticks out a bit, but we're sure it's in there properly. Probably a combination of the crappy re-pro rubber and trim not being 100% right to start with, as I've heard of a heap of people having troubles with windscreen rubbers not fitting nicely on these. Supposed to be taking this to Nats in less than 6 weeks hahaha

Went and painted the seat frame and the interior window frames. Terrible photo but came out really well. Awhile ago I made some stainless steel bracket things to hold the airlines down. Did some others to fit further along the chassis but they didn't work well enough so I think I'll just use some P clips. Mounted the airbag height sensors on the 4-link bars. Got them pretty good to the movement needed throughout travel, but then I jacked it up with the airbags inflated and the diff drops further than what the bags pump it up, so it was pulling on the sensors a little. To fix that I made some travel limit straps and got them sewed at a local auto interior shop. These also helped with the rear brake hose that goes from the diff to chassis as there was just too much travel for it. Now that every thing chassis fab related was done (that I know of for now) it was time to strip everything off to the bare chassis. A few hours later and... Now the cab was off it was a good time to sort out the battery tray that I bought in from america to replace the rusty on that was originally there. Once I got the old one off I decided that it would be better to just make a box that bolts in there instead. So drew one up and made it from some 2.5mm ali. Hoping that I can either fit one really big battery or a couple of smaller ones in there, so one can run the air compressors. Flipped the chassis and started to finish welding all the little bits I never fully welded previously, until I ran out of argon, so I made a start sanding it all back and then I ran out of sanding disks for now. I can't decide on what colour to paint the chassis, will be a gloss or metallic of some sort and the front and rear end will most likely be gloss black. So far the decision is gloss black (everyone does that though) a darkish grey either metallic or just 2k. Also have thought about going all out and doing something like purple flake, but I feel like it would just be wasted as hardly any of the chassis will be visible and will cost a bit more.

Have been slack at doing updates and thought I'd better post one soon so the posts don't get too long. Made a stainless steel frame that those hinges lift up. It works well, need to figure out some sort of latch for it now. Fixed the rust at the front of the tray. Took awhile trying to decide how to go about it, the best/easiest was was to just cut it out and spot weld a new piece on. The wood will sit above it and so it won't be visible. Dug out the old heater that came out of this originally. Will restore it, needs a new 12v motor which can be bought new and a heater core which I'll probably need to find and modify something to work. Made up a stainless steel transition to take the air up to the front windscreen since the window vents have round inlets and the heater outlet is square. Ages ago I made another fuel tank since I wasn't 100% happy with the other. This time made the top out of 6mm so it could be tapped without needing to weld on doublers. Also modified a holden fuel pump unit to suit, with a new Walbro pump. The parts from America also included a new window wiper motor. Thought I'd have to make some mounts for it since the dash brackets are mixed up between LHD and RHD but the RHD dash had both the mounts on the dash, whereas the LHD ones have them one on the bracket and one on the dash. Will make something to support the other end though as it's fairly heavy. The original wiper linkages are correct just need to bend them a bit so they sit a bit nicer. Another thing I remade is the airbag tray thing. This time I centered the holes and used a proper dimple die and then folded it after to straighten it out. Looks heaps better!

Made some brackets to mount the valves. For some reason the holes ended up too far out so had to slot them a little. They're held in with countersunk screws so it's all still flush underneath (not that anyone will be able to see underneath anyway haha). Played around a bit with the location for a while and decided this was the best. Wasn't really enough room for the compressor to fit in between. Will mount a compressor on each side of the bed, just above the exhaust area. Back to fitting and fixing the rust in the dash now. Cut out the good/un-butchered section of the dash that some idiot tried fitting a commodore cluster in. Glad to finally throw this shit out! Pic for motivation

Finished another patch of rust. Hate trying to do them when you can't get in behind with a dolly, makes it difficult. Made up some strap sort of things to mount the fuel tank. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to mount it and decided that adding another bar between the chassis rails was the best. The straps pull the tank up against the top brackets, should hopefully hold it in place well enough. Made up a aluminium tray to mount the air tank and compressor in. Being able to draw stuff up in cad, program it, laser cut and use a CNC press-brake is pretty great! It's pretty tight but fits. Will swap the tank to the back as the tank will look better being visible through those holes than the compressor. I'm sure I'll paint it black so it's a bit more subtle. Got the rest of the exhaust tacked together as well. Not sure if I'll change where it exits, because at the moment it sort of comes out between the tailgate and bumper or just leave it as is. I think the whole exhaust has 10-12 u-bends in it now haha.

Done the floor patch, just need to do the bit up the side and then there's a few little patches of rust, where the top of the guards bolt to the cab on both sides and a pin hole in the rear cab corner. That'll hopefully be all the rust in the cab done, then I can start on the transmission tunnel.

Longest exhaust build ever! What a stupid idea it was to design it like this haha. So far has 5 pairs of flanges on each side if you include the ones at the end of the headers. Will have another pair after the diff as well. Got some flexi's and welded them in, as well as the rest of it. Need to put the tray back on now and see where the rest of the exhaust can run out the back. Made some mounts, after making them incorrectly to start with. Had the rubber hanging under tension where-as it should be compressing, otherwise it would most likely tear the rubber in half. Also made some gussets for the 4 link brackets since they didn't quite look strong enough. Might make some to tie in the other side as well. Need to make a start on the fuel tank soon. Any recommendations on an in-tank fuel pump to use? Don't really know much about them, 255LPH should be enough? Tank will be about 220mm deep if that matters.

Got just a few flanges laser cut. Got most of the exhaust tacked together. Couldn't pull out the part with the resonators so they're going to need a couple more flanges welded on either side. Looks so good though! Will it need any flexi's up the front? I'm thinking it will be mounted at the front of the resonators and at the back where the shock mounting bar is with some quite stiff rubber mounts. A package finally arrived from America. New floor panels!

A little more rust fixed. Getting good at it now!

Today I pulled out all the stuff from behind the dash, chucked the seat back in and temporary mounted a Commodore brake booster/master cylinder along with the accelerator and brake pedals. The firewall now has an excessive amount of holes. Will definitely be welding most of them up. My Dad didn't believe me that the dash was spot welded in all the way along the top, so out came the windows. Really not looking forward to trying to remove the dash, if I decide it needs to come out, otherwise I'll just chop it up and weld it in place so it can be RHD. Little bit of rust in the lower windscreen corners, but not too bad.

Spun up some shock mounts for the rear. Top ones got welded through the RHS that goes between the C-notch. Bottom pair got welded to a plate which was then welded to the lower 4-link brackets. Added the commodore sway bar as well. Once everything was fitted we tested it and worked well. Fully welded all the diff and airbag mounts etc so is pretty done for now. Started on the front end again. Test fitted the sway bar and it only just fits in between the chassis and front end. Need to make up some mounts and maybe scallop a bit out for more clearance. Front shock mounts will look something like this. Drew them up and now just waiting for them to be laser cut.

RUST! Was just getting worse so I decided I should probably fix it. As you can see this panel has been painted quite a few times; Original brown, then yellow, blue, another coat of blue and then red haha So stripped it all back to bare metal. Did the valance as well, since that had some decent stone chips etc. Just two bits of rust to fix now; a hole under the wiper motor and a bit under the fuel flap. Not looking forward to trying to fix them.

Installed some MRP RCAs and some rear superlow springs which made it higher, so now has even more rake than before haha. Will get them compressed once they have settled a bit. Got sick of the tires rubbing on the plastic inner guards, so pulled them off. Also rolled the guards and then undercoated everything to try and prevent rust. No longer rubs at all, so that only means it needs to go lower!

Now has a K50 in it, so no longer sits at ~3600rpm at 100kmh Also bought some struts to start cutting up for more low!

Put some 175/60/13 tires on. They make such a huge difference. Just needs lowering another couple of inches.

Wow. Crikey. Its been a while aint it. July was the last post. A few things have been done since then so I better get typing. First off. Come February we will have owned the land for two years and it will be 14 months since we moved out to it. Its settled in nicely and we are getting a good feel for the seasons and all the little things that happen out here when they change. Starting to get to know the locals quite well and have had lots of work coming into the workshop from just word of mouth which is awesome. Hannah is working a summer season job down at the beach front and when thats over we will be doing a flyer drop around the valley and surrounding areas to put out to people that they can get many sorts of engineering/repairs/bike repairs/advice on cats/great coffee from us* *my coffee aint that great.. In the start of spring I spent a morning going about the land taking photos. I tried to compose them as close as I could to the original photos we took as we cleared the land. Some are ever so slightly off. This was because things have changed so much that even I struggled to work out where the original photos were taken! I'm pretty happy with the resulting before and after collection so I'll put them right here. I have tried to list them from the drive way entrance and then heading down the drive to the north end of the property. The driveway entrance.. heading up the drive.. The highest point of the driveway.. I like this one.. looking down the driveway. Such a difference. Next up- one of the 5 old caravans that got taken away. This one was surrounded by lots of junk/scrap steel etc. Now just trees and some sweet old gates we saved. The mountain bike track I started heads in just around there. These next ones are looking out from about where the cabin veranda is.. Looking back towards where the cabin is now. Thats my brother duncan trying to locate where the Gravely mowers might be. We found them a few months later. and now.. Hannah wondering WTF... This next one is from the first night we stayed over to check the land out. We had pushed the driveway gorse down by throwing the van into 4wd and just driving over the top. Here down at the north end I was just laying back in the grass chilling and imagining what the area could be like. There is now a bit more parking area.. The following morning of the first night Hannah chilling in the morning sun with a coffee. We didnt really know what this area was going to be like in two years time.. This is it. you can see we kept the little Kanuka to the left. Its thriving now! The main yard was not much of a yard back then.. This is better !... Our first morning.. two years later.. I'm really glad I took so many photos before we cleared it all. Its great to look back at. Moving on to recent times. Not long before xmas this happened.. https://youtu.be/uaAHS96LGP4 We had been wanting rid of that 70 plus year old bugger for ages and its so good to see it gone. Shane (sideways sickness) and Greg (64Valiant) came round and got to see some of it heading to earth. Then we had a nice BBQ. Big thanks goes out to Shep for chopping it down. No way would I be doing that job. For starters I dont have chainsaw with a metre long bar! Nor the skill or experience. It was great fun just helping out and watching. We have many more big pine trees to come down over the next couple of years but this one was the one I wanted gone now. The view afterwards is heaps better!!!. Plus we now have a sweet as 8 metre high trunk to build a cool viewing platform on one day Before.. After.. Then for the end of the year we thought we had better crack on and finish the bathroom before my brother came over to stay. We needed the shower going for him so we got stuck in and finished it just before xmas eve. It still has some little finshing touches like light switches, extra lights, better prettier shower head, hand rail up the steps etc but its pretty much done. It works really well however I reckon we'll get a new califont for winter as the old Palomar is a bit small on heating capacity. We'll see. The compost toilet is working really well and still doesn't smell. Ive not yet even wired in the fan. Happy with that. Its taking about 3-4 months to fill a bin. Will put in a third bin soon and then start a secondary outside composting area away up under the eucalyptes just to be safe. The bathroom lights and shower pump are running off the cabin solar panel setup too and we have run wires to add a couple of outside lights to light up the pathway from the cabin to the bathroom. I just have to make some lights yet. Anyway.. some photos of the new bathroom ... We moved all the various piles of gorse and Kanuka into one place to chop too. Here you can get an idea of the amount of Gorse we cleared.. We have also started a vege garden and although a bit late its going well. Its certainly not a massive affair like our neighbours but we'll learn and it'll get bigger/better. The strawberries all going mental and its great to have 4 or 5 fresh strawberries on the cereal in the morning. Our fruit orchard trees are growing well and seem pretty happy. We'll plant heaps more this winter. The olive tree seems happy as so we'll plant more of them along the driveway. Finally Hannah spotted an old picnic table offered for free down at someones holiday home so we grabbed that. I told the owner we had been after one for ages so he was stoked it was going to be used. It looks the part and is an ideal little spot to chill. Thats it for now. I hope you enjoyed it. Im pretty damn happy with it all and now the rush is sort of over (for a bit) we have both finally been enjoying more of a summer recently of just swimming and cycling. Next big plan is the mezzanine floor in the workshop but that will be a winter thing. Then more cabins! Oh and bike tracks. Oh and spa pool. Damn...

The chassis is now fully welded. It is so much stronger now, hardly twists at all. This is the design I've come up with so far. I was thinking of using 1.25 inch round tubing and getting it all cut out on the tube laser we have at work. It will be double layer like the last image, so there's room for the exhaust etc to go through. In-between will be hoops for the drive shaft as well. Does it sound like a good idea?

Picked up a pair of SSR Star Sharks in Taupo thanks to kp_james for bringing them. They're 13x6's with I think +11 offset. Gave them a polish and they came up quite nice. I have another pair on there way from Japan, which should hopefully arrive soon. Will the current 175/70 tyres look alright on them? Or would it be better with some lower profile ones? Got a 4K from James as well. I am keen to rebuild it and get a bit more power out of it, but I don't really know where to start, so any suggestions on what to do? //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/48889-matts-81-kp60-starlet-discussion/

Not very much progress has happened in the past months; Gave the Jag front end a good clean, cut off a few bits and decided how to mount it. Goes low enough with out cutting chunks out of the chassis or front end, which is good. Bought an engine this week as well. A lot of people won't be too happy with the choice but it was really cheap and already has been rewired to suit a project like this. It's a Nissan VH41. Gave it a steam clean today and come out much better. Was covered in dust. Test fitted it and it seems to fit quite nicely, except the inner guards might need some work. Keen to get rid of that ugly spider looking thing and get some ITB's on there. Tell me how I should have bought a LS and spent ~10x as much to get it going: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/47317-matts-1951-chevy-pickup-discussion/

Finally got the c-notch pieces laser cut. So we pulled off the tray and started stripping it back.

I took it to a test day at Manfeild. It only lasted for about ~10mins of thrashing before it lost power and then started to knock as I was rolling into the pits haha. I wasn't really surprised that it only lasted that long tbh. Oh well. It was a good excuse to swap in a blacktop for more dooortz! Started to sand it back for a full respray since the colour is pretty yuck. Scored some fixed back bucket seats and a Nardi steering wheel off my brother.