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I've been loathed to do this, but the time has come to start an impala thread. Lots a trivial shit will be posted, as the bulk of the work has already been done on this car.

Not actually my impala...But I like this photo (for many reasons). I'll call this an aspirational photo...

Machined up this bracket to hold a period correct looking rev counter to the steering column.

Quite an odd delivery from the family parts horde this week via some friends in town for swapmeet. The original brake master, pedal and booster from the Datsun plus a front diff housing for the Niva. Also snuck into the crate was some interior trim I was missing and a boot badge. This is the only badge I don't have an original of. Without messing about I drew it up on the computer and hopefully will have a replica sorted by the time this one is due home. Also keen to try cast it, the geometry is quite challenging, but only one way to find out! Have been putting in some hours on the Sumitomo MK63 4 pot callipers from my fathers race 1600, they are coming up nice and i'm struggling to resist fitting them to mine! So far we've sourced a set of NOS pistons and seals, just need to suss the pads and hopefully some dust boots Picked up some paint today and scrubbed out the last of the rust, looking forward to seeing these rebuilt. And just to tease, here's a 45 year old picture of the car they'll be going into....

Nutserts added to floor, then I bolted a tool box into boot tucked out of the way. It also helps protect the vulnerable rear quarter panels from getting dinged by lose stuff in the boot hitting them. Believe me...I've seen a beautiful HQ monaro destroyed by a trolley jack in the boot rolling around lose, after a spirited drive from Hamilton to the Mount!

Quite a bit has happened, I removed the rust holes in the roof, welded, and refinished the areas. Had a go with spraying through the gun, don't think the results came out too bad but it was done in a bit of a hurry to beat incoming bad weather. I also cleaned up the scruffy tailgate, the bottom is still made entirely of filler and will be a major to fix, so I'll follow a lead I have on one in Australia. First time seeing it with badges! This was pushed in bad when I got the car. I also painted the front lip to blend a little nicer with the bodywork. I spent some time and fibreglassed the ends too, to reshape them for my lower panel. For anyone interested in the same lip, it was to suit a KE70 Corolla. I think it works pretty well with the car. Also picked up a low k's E series diff, unsure on the ratio but it should be fine as it was spun by a W55, which is what the wagon will eventually receive. I can make it work. Gave the diff a clean and paint tonight, even threw in some non-factory, factory looking markings for lols. Tomorrow it will get new slaves and shoes and be put into the car this weekend. The current diff is so noisy, at the pinion but also both wheelbearings, and the brakes leak. So, cheaper and easier to just put this fresh diff in, which also doesn't leak which is perfect. This month's focus is prep for next months warrant. Being entered in at drag days, and with a big road trip planned over summer I'll be screwed without it! So fingers are crossed she makes it through. I'll give it some fresh suspension bushes in the rear too, for peace of mind. Also, I managed to find a full set of NOS toyota centre caps for a corona. With the gold Hayashi Street's I think it really works. Happy with this current setup. That's all for now, I still (desperately) need springs that fit until the S13 coilover conversion next year. Cheers

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.

New overflow bottle, horn etc... and general tidy up of engine bay.

Cast some heater control knobs.

Only serious rust in this car, cut that shit out and patch her up. Luckily it's under the rear seat and won't affect the paint.

Wheel studs, needed to be longer as not enough thread engagement with mags on. Sorted!

@UTERUS listen to @Yowzer and ignore the other muppets. light bar on its own switch, not connected to the high beams is all good, even facing forward as a work lamp.

Ok, here is an answer with value for you: According to the WoF Virm, you have a work lamp. The work lamp is NOT considered a cosmetic lamp. Therefore it can emit light in any direction. The work lamp is perfectly legal as long as it is NOT operated by any switch that operates mandatory lamps. https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/in-service-wof-and-cof/general/lighting/cosmetic-lamps You happy now?

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.

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

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!

Steering column "wiggle" sorted!

New master cylinder, flexible lines in rear, drums in rear got new slave cylinders and freshened up by machining the drums true, new pads in front, front discs machined etc etc...

Disc brake conversion tidied up...

Getting seatbelts sorted. Came up with this solution to keep the system vertically oriented. The certifier was happy with this...so rock on!

Boring shit Exhaust was rubbing on the bigger tyres. It's got a 255/45/18 in the rear...heat, hammer, and a little finesse...sorted!

We often have trucks in with many lights, as long as they're on their own switches to disconnect them from the highbeam/light circuit we ignore them at wof time.

Thanks for adding zero value as per usual

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.

I love TVRs for the exotic-ness and the fact that they were always so hard to drive on Playstation1, I didn’t realise that there were affordable models around until reading this post. I had never heard of the Tasmin but now when I win lotto tonight I am going to buy one. Keep at it man, this thing is so damn cool.

Got a pic sent of this the other day. Nothing like an FMF chamber on a farm bike. Apparently it's rather nang-ey. Not long till this event happens!

There was a chunk missing here, I filled it with the TIG and ground a new groove for the gasket with a die grinder (Dremel brand sucks BTW, I've had 2 fail, threw it in the bin). Also added some wool and mesh into the baffles since it was off:

you're creating 2 things called IDLE, one in warningStates_t and one in rpmState_t you're also cant mix enums and defines like that. an enum is a set of numbers that increase by 1, so enum test_t {STATEA, STATEB, STATEC, STATED}; will mean STATEA = 0, STATEB = 1, STATEC = 2 and STATED = 3 etc so you're enums and defines wont work. What are you trying to do with them? you also cant have multiple variables with the same names... curState and oldState are douibles as you made one with rpmStates_t and one with warningStates_t. The compiler doesnt know/care that they are fifferent types, they have the same name, so it wont know which one you are talking about when you say oldState = IDLE; etc

Yeah, it'd be great if I could drive the damn thing though!

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.

Managed to scratch up some suitable paints from the horde and now the badge looks much better than expected, time for a beer!

Quick fixer upper for one last hoon on Queens birthday.... Someone left coffee grinds in the fuel filter..... Yep, that sucks, tank is gunna have to come out, will be put on the winter list. Considering the filter is ~2 years old so I am going to just replaced it and let the rust be tomorrow Nick's problem. The alternator issue turned out to be an OK repair, considering I went about it the hardest way possible! The pulley is meant to have 2 flats that engage on the shaft, my guess is that years ago the nut got loose, was also stripped at some stage in its life to finally work loose until it spun and made a right mess of the lot. My fix? In some odd moment of cheap and quick I decided that fabricating a new pulley was the correct approach. (I really should have just fizzed the pulley onto the spacer and been done with it) Step 1) Wait for the workshop staff to go home and leave some machines unguarded Step 2) Spin bit of 6061 real fast like Step 3) Dig around behind the CNC mills and uncover a largely neglected indexing head and spin many dials real slow and orderly Step 4) Realise the M12 thread is actually poked and have to change the design, interference fit for the pulley and cut a M10 thread with stuff all material free. Step 5) Bake till crispy and seal in the luck thus far. Step 6) Plug it back together Step 7) Dump it back in the hole where no one will ever see it again. Step 8 turn in for the night, waking the household this late with Datsun noise will not be in my longterm interests, will be a long day waiting to test drive! Very stupid/illogical that I put in all this effort, half as much would have grafted a modern alternator into position with much less future hassle.

Since selling off my other projects and dedicating most of my available time to this barge I figure it deserves a project log. Nobody wanted this, it was for sale on TM for aaaggeess until I thought to see if the seller wanted a ute. Thankfully, the answer was yes, and a deal was made to swap cars later that night. However, arriving to collect this, the bonnet refused to open, the exhaust was half falling off, the tires were low, and she ran on 5, but I had to have it. The deal was done and it chugged along to the nearest gas station on as many cylinders as it could, where no visible issues were present. Air in the tires, and a quick window clean saw us headed over the harbor bridge back home wondering if we'd even make it. Sure enough we made it back late that night. First thing out was the huge "fart cannon" muffler, and since it's my only functioning vehicle, I used it for the following two days until the warrant expired on Friday, and then went and got a fresh WOF on the Saturday. First Order of business was to clean it, and investigate the misfire. After a week of diagnosis I finally found the issue - the wires inside injector plug 2 didn't reach the injector after that was sorted it was relatively smooth (but far from quiet) sailing. At this point it looked like this : Although that didn't last long. Pulled the window tints due to not enjoying having window tints. Replaced weird wrong 5 stud spare wheel with a 4 stud one. Power steering pump seal quit life and shat oil across the entire engine bay, fan assisted. Replaced pump. Gearbox rear seal and sump pan gasket, rubber trans lines, along with the engine front main seal thought it would be fun to leak lots and drain the entire gearbox overnight. Lifter tick got annoying Removed whole engine and gearbox with pleasure Installed 1G-E and auto from later model cressida = success Problems = solved Problems left to solve = shitloads lots

Granddad spec 1962 Super snipe purchased a few months ago. The 'ol Slumber is reasonably advanced for '62 with power assisted front discs, a hemi'ish head that makes casual observers by think there is more than one cam going on. Drive is through 3 on the tree. Plenty of torque - she can be left in top gear most of the time and pulls from pretty much standstill to motorway speeds. She's no lightweight track car though. 15ft 8" long, 1544 kgs and an oil change will take 15 pints or 8.5 litres. The paint looks like it's possibly house enamel, so I expect 40 seasons out of it, which is good as it has the usual 'nice from afar, far from nice' thing going on. There's minimal rust as the old boy I purchased it off seems to have sorted most of that out. Interior is glorious red stuff. Possibly leather but unlikely and lashings of walnut veneer. Picnic tables in the back for tea parties / lines of Raro etc. Since I've picked her up I've done a few things which I'll blog about with photos in the near future. So far : - Changed to negative earth so the pixies run the right way for radios and stuff. - Given her indicators on a stalk rather than the toggle switch that was cable tied under the dash - Found the horn relay (this took a lot of time...) and made it all horny - Re-upholstered the front seat to stop all the foam falling out from underneath and my ass sitting on the frame - Fitted a stereo, speakers and a sub - Made head and air come inside the cabin other than from that of the engine - Made it run on 6 cylinders - rebuilt the fuel pump Few other items on the agenda. Probably won't be slammed as it's quite nice to full her with 6 people and go for a cruise without loosing the exhaust. So, watch this space.

So regarding the trans you can use a micro squirt to run the Toyota A341E which is super common behind soarers and surpas and a million things in the 90s. You will be able to setup a 1G bell housing and converter I’m sure they came behind 1G’s. The supra one shifts crisp and you can bang the gears, other ones from normal cars a more sad but you can get shift kits and shit. When I was messing with them there was no controller but the microsquirt trans thing was finally made and should be sweet.

Wheels are on point! That grey/silver engine casing looks rad and that speedO setup too

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

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

Who knows about injector pumps? A bit smokey when you put your foot down (but otherwise fine) makes me think there is something worn in here... So whats the plan....? Firstly, I cant touch it until my mini is done... Last WOF was in 2018 so somewhat thinking of just putting it through seeing if the list is managable and using it from there. But long term I want to pull the whole thing down a do a chassis swap to a late model hilux/navara etc and build it up from there. Will respray and refit as much interior as possible to make as comfortable as possible. Only thing which would prevent that is if I have to rego as a 'scratch build' and do a cert from there. Otherwise would either repower or rebuild the running gear and do a disc brake/power steering modification. Time will tell.... Discuss

It's a bit lame when factory parts don't meet the certifiers requests.

Just take the pics with a potato in low res lol

That I would say is an EXCELLENT handle!

weld a big washer that fits over it on then a big nut and fill the center with weld and as above the heat will sort it out, the washer allows you to be heavy handed with the MIG

Weld a bolt to it, heat will help loosen it up.

Resurrection Session 1: Missing sparks in cylinder number 6. Diagnosis = bad lead. Researched and found that VL Commodore RB motors have the right length. Not perfect, but close enough. Found bargain. Purchased. Fitted. Next went for a drive to diagnose further problems. Broke down. Pulled fuel line off crab and noted no fuel coming through. Luckily a strong and powerful rescue car turned up to help with a Jerry can that was rigged direct to the carburetor to return home. This worked fine until the Jerry can ran out. Ran the last 200 metres on brake-kleen sprayed directly into the carb whilst perched on the guard. Diagnosed fuel blockage in tank and now dead electric pump. Cleaned out tank and gave it a paint. Will now try sourcing a new pump and nylon lines.

Since I'm still waiting on the pressure testing kit to arrive, I got impatient and did some more testing. I wanted to remove the injectors and see if any of them were leaking and what the spray pattern is. The intake plenum needs to come off. before this can be removed though, the coolant block on the front needs to be unbolted. Unbolting this saves disconnecting the coolant hoses. All the other hoses got removed, and the 7th injector was removed from the plenum. The plenum is held down with eight long bolts that go into the inlet manifold. Just a note, these bolts aren't sealed off from the inside of the plenum, so will need sealant on them upon reassembly. With everything disconnected and unbolted, the plenum just lifts off Removing the injectors is fairly simple. The clamp on the pipes (which goes above, below and between the pipes), as visible in the lower Lh corner of the above photo, has to be removed to allow enough slack in the pipes, but otherwise its a case of removing the single bolt per injector, and then pulling it free from the manifold. They are meant to be sealed in, but mine came out suspiciously easily. The rubber collar is weird. I presume/hope there is a normal O-Ring under it, as that is what all the parts manuals say it should have, and there seems to be no part for that rubber collar. I'll have to carefully remove and reuse the collar. All the injectors look pretty rough, but I guess thats what 39 years of sitting in the intake looks like. The ends all look clean enough, with no obvious buildup. I did note that cylinder 6 was very wet upon removal, and a couple of others were damp. The engine has been off and cold for about a week, with no pressure in the lines. Testing them isnt rocket surgery, just pop them all into jars, fire up the pump and see if they produce any fuel (which they all did to some degree), which indicates either the fuel plunger is letting excess fuel through, or the injectors are leaking. Further investigations show its probably a 50:50 on leaking or adjustment causing it. With the pump running, lift the sensor plate in the AFM to its stop and observe the flow and pattern from the injectors. All mine seem to flow roughly the same, but the flow pattern out of all of them appeared to be rubbish, with minimal misting and heading off in all directions. That's good, it confirms that buying a whole set of replacement injectors was the right decision! One other thing that has been bugging me, was the sensor plate in the AFM. This is meant to be a finely calibrated instrument, but I think someone has mucked with mine before. You can see in the above photo that it looks like the sensor plate (the disk in the middle of the cone) is sitting high with a gap under it. Well, it is. From the below diagram, you can see the sensor plate sits at the bottom of a cone. As air comes in from the filter at the bottom, it comes in under the plate and a combination of that air coming in, and engine vacuum in the intake, lifts the plate to allow air into the intake. Lifting the plate also lifts the fuel plunger, increasing fuel flow. The plate should be set to a specific height, which is more or less with the highest point of the plate flush with the lip at the bottom of the cone (before where it tapers outwards again, under the plate). Mine was clearly sitting a lot higher than that. Not to mention the other issue... The plate was off-centre. I even thought the plate was too big to fit through the opening, but it was just because it was off-centre. I carefully backed off the center bolt, and centered the plate (this should be done with feeler gauges, but I did it by eye this time) Now it fits through the opening It was still sitting too high though There is a spring under the plate that sets the height. The manual says to adjust it with pliers, but I'm damned if I can bend the thing. I'll keep at it and see if I can tweak it. The other thing I noticed is that you can hear and feel the plunger moving when you manipulate the sensor plate. I'm not sure how normal it is, but my plunger seems very slow to return to the zero position. It doesn't seem to bind and it moves smoothly, it's just slow to return. I'll be removing and cleaning this in the future anyway. So that's where I'm at. I'm waiting for a set of new injectors to arrive, and I need to remove the fuel distributor and WUR to clean them out. I'm planning on setting everything up from zero since I have no idea what's been done to this by previous bodgers.

Success! The 1G SOHC crankshaft and connecting rods have, and will work perfectly in my twin cam block. Need to find time to get my block sent away to dipping. I'll be taking the head in to get refreshed sometime next week, I've had it quoted up. I'm currently waiting on the cheap and probably shit really good value complete gasket set from Aliexpress. Cringe all you like, I've heard good things and it includes every gasket + seal required On the body side of things, I really need to get into the rust spots that are forming under the paint. I'm expecting some lovely filler work when I go digging rust out, shes had a repaint at some point in the past. Hopefully it doesn't become a huge nightmare and I can keep repairs small and neat. The bonnet has rusted out on the inside, but I have a basically new, perfect bonnet that needs to be painted and put on someday. It would be really neat to have the stickers in the engine bay and under the bonnet reproduced so I can put them on after the engine bay gets it's respray. As far as ride height etc goes this is awful to ride in. If it weren't for the comfy seats I'd be seeing a physiotherapist by this point. The rear springs have had some meat removed and it has really short and stiff Mitsubishi springs to keep everything tight but it jumps over bumps, bounces over every little thing in the road. Suspension + springs etc is certainly not my strong point so any advice on making it a little comfier to ride around in would be awesome. I thought X73 king springs may be the solution, but I'm not sure they'll fit. I had even brainstormed the idea of fitting the IRS rear end but really haven't put thought into that. I don't really have the coin for S13 front coilovers at this point in time. That's all for now, I'll update the thread when I rip into it and start changing things (again). Grabbed some pics out on a weekend cruise.

Nats Update: Drove Car. Rolled Guards Met GCs Did a skids Did a skids again and runded over a cone Went to the Warehouse Trained. Parked. Good trip. Would trade again. A+