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I'll probably copy this sort of brace for the upper mount

I like old computers (80's / 90's) because I grew up with them I guess, so here's a thread about doing stuff with them. Yesterday I picked up a few old computers for free from a local guy whos moving, have been looking out for something to build into a DOS gaming thing. They were under his house and the cases were a bit rusty, not a good sign. But they were all beige which means they should be at least from the 90's. Got them home and noticed one has a turbo button, which must be early 90's. Opened it up and found its a 486 DX2 66Mhz which is perfect. and the inside is in good condition. The VGA connector was corroded and the case is too. It did power on but didn't display anything or make cool old HDD or floppy drive noises, but after remounting and cleaning the video card etc it now displaying the POST check but then fails to read the HDD. After remounting the expansion card (which is for IDE, FDD etc) it started making clunking noises. Good....good... this is fine. It stopped hammering after the next power cycle. Opened it up and got it to at least spin and the arm moves but its not doing anything else, the bios doesn't detect it even if I manually put in the info. Pretty sure its from 1994, so the HDD is 25 years old. Probably wasn't designed to last this long. But these 486's are known to last for ever so hopefully the rest works. It also came with the original monitor with 'General' badging (with the USA flag design) which I know we had as a family computer. I think that was a Pentium 1 though, it could play Duke Nukem 3D at least. I'd like to see if a Compact Flash card would work as a HDD since IDE drives this small (this was a 426Mb one) aren't going to be easy to find. Then set it up to finally finish Kings Quest 3 and stuff haha

The monitor must be 13” and has awesome manual knob controls underneath. 32mb of ram, it must have been a beast in its day lol. 66Mhz which will be good for games of the era. I could just use dosbox to emulate but for proper nostalgia I want to have the right CRT display and hopefully a working IBM model M keyboard. also dosbox just doesn’t emulate the internal speaker noises right for me. I need to find a working 5 1/4” floppy drive now. and maybe figure out an lcd display for the cpu speed on the front since it has the window but no lcd stuff.

With the engine and trans in I started to look at what I was going to do for an exhaust I can choose 2 of the following 3 items Rh torsion bar Oil filter An exhaust that actually flows So I think the best option is to put coil springs in it and get rid of the torsion bars. I knocked up a dummy coilover using parts I had kicking around. I'll go see autolign this week and see if they can make a bilstein shock with a circlip adjustable lower platform and I can use the threaded one at the top. If this plan works I'll need to modify the lower arm inner pivot bush and strengthen the shock mount to cope with the weight

Put together an extensive tool kit Not quite enough to fully strip the bike and engine, but close enough. And then I figured I may as well make a larger foot for the side stand. It sunk a little in the Motu river bed, probably not a big issue really, but here it is. As big as you can go without modding anything else.

I am astounded by the condition and quality of the leather seats. Faultless. I’ve got them out for a clean up and need to get some fancy leather treatment on to them. The carpets are pretty decent too. I gave them a shampoo last week but have been a busy boy since. Will upload photos for people who appreciate the finer things in life

I scrounged up a #115 jet and went for a tootle around the back roads of East South Auckland. It's an improvement. It's now on the rich side of a good tune throughout the throttle range. Splitting the difference at #112.5 if there is such a thing may be spot on till I get some altitude under me I guess. It is kinda warm today though too. Am I going to become one of those 2 lane blacktop guys, probably not, but the wideband can stay in for a while and the jets can stay in my pocket. So far so good

threw the seal kit into the carbs and no more leaks and no more lean spitting. (also put new O rings in the soft mount kit) went for a drive around the block and it cruised great but any time you tried to accelerate quickly it would hit the wall hard and sound like a rev limiter. not something you could drive through. clearly a major issue in the carb setup. Luckily i took photos off all the jets and tubes while i was rekitting them. Went inside for a coffee and looked up some suggested specs. found all the jets to be similar enough to the suggested specs that they were probably within tune, except for the venturi chokes, the were 30mm and suggested was around 35mm. Included with the car was a set of 34mm chokes, im not sure why the 30s were swapped in but i doubt it ever drove well. fitted the 34mms and it woke right up! still not perfect, but it runs pretty bloody strong! comes on cam (i heavily suspect its hiding something fun under the cam cover) pretty hard and sounds like the apocalypse at about 5000rpm. wof very soon and then ill have to try get some video. only new photo i have is of the grill i had a play around with painting. quite like it.

Would be better with sound...

3rd pull start. All the 2-stroke goodness. Pics to come..

All assembled bar a few things that need finishing... Did this first, not sure what it should be but seems low...? But it popped into life on third pull. Was bloody surprised, and shut it down cos was just running in air. Quickly rigged a bucket to get some cooling water through it... And it chucked water everywhere, Bucket obvs not up to task so emptied the old wheely bin I use for scrap and it seemed to be pumping cooling water through ok... Had daughter holding it for that pic, she wasn't keen... Ran ok but had a few backfires after a couple of minutes, and stopped a couple of times. Could have been low on fuel as I only put a little bit in and had used a bit tickling the carb, plus I'm waiting on a plug cap so the connection's only finger tight, and am unsure how it likes running off choke. Really need some sea-trials to see how it's going... And should be able to see where I've been on the water if this residue is any indication... Stoked it ran though. Now I need to fix the boat to put it on...

New tail lights fitted, no dramas, all working now. Decided I'd let my daughter paint one of my spare cam covers. Turned out pretty cool in the end. Quite pleased and looks a million times better than what was there. The pretty cool looking headers will get a tidy up and probably heat wrapped at some point.

this is the 1st set of headers iver ever made and no i cant tig weld so mig was used........they will be wrapped to cover my shame ........and heat. so i dont like any of the off the shelf headers for the 4.1 and much prefer the huge looping JDM style headers .. these are the crap headers that cam on the motor. the only good part was the flangers so i cut them off to re use. i was talking to a guy in aussie that builds high performance 200 and 250 xflow motors and he said the ideal set up for a street car and will work with a lot of setups. 6 into 2 using front 3 and rear 3...41mm tube 660mm primerys 3into 1 collector.....then 2" -2.5" dual exhaust to the rear of the car with mufflers and a v8 stlye x pipe.. so i ordered some bends.........and i got all 6 within 10 mm of the 660mm and each other. at least there is room to play with then started with the setup i wanted it to look like before i build the rest. then made the rest front 3 rear 3 bolted in

A bit of progress on the ol girl over the past week. clutch was siezed “released” - new slave arrived now so I’ll pop that on. No fuel pump sound when car turned on. Slid fuel pump out and saw this ground wire not connected to anything (pump is In isolating rubber sleeve). Curious. Then found the body lug it should have been connected to connected to another lug connecting the body of the car to the body of the car 20mm away. Nice one previous owner. Cleaned and connected. Pumpin! Pumped some old fuel through and threw 10 litres of new in. Still no start. Pulled float bowls - no fuel and sticky valves - loosened up and cranked her over.....

Chur, for those around on Thursday night, I have an excess number of Beers. For those that enjoy Beers, and are not fussy what kind, drink my Beers.

Making plenty more progress, but this bit feels like a bit of a grind for some reason. Probably cos I keep not quite finishing things because I need something, then getting halfway through something else before stopping cos I need something, then bits turning up so I carry on with the other.... and so on seemingly endlessly. Whatever you whining prick. This is what did get done, finished or not.. An exhaust. The tip is not 100%, I need to get the deck back on to finish this nice and tidy. Added an EGT sensor to the stumpy adaptor thingy so I know exactly when I am about to detonate the engine; Oil feed line to the turbly, probably needs a heat shield going past the manifold; Oil drain pipe from the turbly to the sump. This might get tidied a bit as it gets kindof close to the boost actuator rod; I also got given a boost actuator, some amateur sleuthing involving a tyre pump gauge and compressor tells me it is cracking the seal at about 15psi. I mounted this and discovered my bracket would hit the chassis, so I had to remake the bracket. It's all sorted but I forgot to take pics, maybe later you will be able to admire the simple elegance of this.

Driving from TGA Fridee morning. /ling Repaired the rack from Callum’s first Eastcape crash today to use on my bike. and also installed the forks from that same bike. Hope the curse of the pink Chaly doesn’t affect me this time round.

Finally found a front disc brake set up and a few handy spares, hopefully strip it this week, fingers crossed the 5 speed is in good condition.

Poverty spec. Cyrix instead of an Intel, damn yo. Get some Carmen Sandiago up in thurr or some Heretic or Doom I, maybe Rise of the Triads.

So New "genuine" rings in. Looks better than the last set. One was near touching in the bore so filed it open a bit. No data on that in the manual but around 0.2 mm was the maths. Max gap is 0.5mm in the manual 120# main jet in As suspected its rich. About 12.9-13.2 at idle. About that again at very part throttle High rpm cruise about 11.4 WOT 10.2-10.9 So a #115 is likely the correct one

And just finished some assembly... And a test spin worried me as no obvious spark. Hooked it up to the drill though and while trying to hold the plug against the block got a decent belt, then after a good spin up it seems to be sparking well, even with a rudimentary points gap setting... And where I left it for the day. Fuel system to go... Got a temporary clamp holding it in place till some bits arrive and still have to fill gearbox and set points/plug gaps, but hopefully not far off a test run...

Also as it’s not very busy at work/too windy to do actual work I’ve taken the cub in fitted slotted brake pads from webike and new wheel bearings in the rear fired it up for some motovation hopefully do the front end this week and try and get the lights/indicators working

Solved the main oil leak mystery And with a free gasket courtesy of Mike, the motor now appears to be free of annoying oil leaks.

Oh yeah, that energy star logo, legit!

Want a Rolls Royce but can’t afford one? Then buy a Vandenplas Princess 1100. Connelly Leather seats, fold down walnut trays in the rear, twin carb 1100cc motor, walnut trim. Luxury front grill. Only two on the road in NZ ABSURD and therefore awesome ill be recommissioning it but it’s an excellent start point - I couldn’t help myself Bring it on runamuck - hit me in the comments Need to get it re checked as plates dead but will apply to keep black plates. 85000 odd kms. Strangely only first registered in 1971 even though 1965 - but not an import

Hey so i'm going to be bringing an assortment of small bike related crap that i will either give away or swap for roadside bj's. So if you have shit you want to unload, or maybe take my shit, then bring along your shit! The very least, J5 gets more shit!

You can see the useless blue lug in the photo of the pump. Hilarious. Engine sounds very solid - need to get my arse in to gear and put slave on so I can taker her for a run. It’s on bump stops on left side for now but I have a replacement hydrolastic displacer and borrowed the grease gun hydrolastic tool off the guy Craig too. I helped him pull it out which gave me a good idea of the cuntyness. Also shampood the carpets and headlining - carpets are very very good. Still original - photos to come. Headlining is very decent but still some mould stains to come out. And the seats..... did I mention the seats. They are unbelievable!- they look like they’re from a 5 year old car and the rear parcel shelf has been covered and is minty too. Suggestions for a good product to keep them supple? Mothers I guess but will take suggestions

wired up the fan and got the polarity right the second time so the flows the right way. Did a test fill with water and it bled up fine with no airlocks etc. heater started working too which is a first since i've owned it. ran it for 20-30 mins and it didn't overheat or leak. The fan cycled on and off a few times so I'm calling it fixed. Took it for a quick doort and the intake is now the loudest part which is how it should be.

I took the lid off so I can de-rust it. Looks okay in there. Everything is oily. There's no obvious wear. The brown/orange streaks are not oil, it's almost like dried varnish. I suspect it's some kind of liquid gasket/sealer.

I'm not super worried, it was more to confirm it worked and was roughly what the dude said it was, plus that I could get it into a good place. I think I will invest in something that I can change the springs in later. It was one of those things I didn't have that was stopping progress, but it's sorted for now.

Filler neck and mounts welded up by someone who actually knows what they are doing Made some plates and test fitted. Seems to clear everything so I'll give it a paint and figure out a bracket for the fillerneck tomorrow I took a look at the rear muffler I took off and there wasn't any fiberglass left in it which probably explains the noise

@peteretep - it’s a little pump that runs off the primary reduction gear / main clutch gear and it’s operated by the throttle via a split cable. As you wind the throttle on it opens the pump more and you can set the min/max position of the pump. The pumps can wear our and get weak, which I suspect has happened here. I’ll probably rebuild it later on for ease of use. I tested mine by pulling the hose off and idling the bike with the pump turned to max and it gave a dribble so I figured it was good. The proper way is to set the RPM and measure how much comes out (which I didn’t do because no tacho).

Thanks for supporting my HiAce drive-train direction sr2. Nirvana for me would be using the Thames as my daily driver whilst retaining the minimalist interior look and I can only achieve that goal if I stick to a column shift gearbox and a narrow enough engine to fit in the existing engine box. My HiAce donor has a 5 speed column shift which I am hoping to use as well as the Toyota rear axle. Engine wise I'm thinking of giving the 4Y a go. Sure it was originally designed as a forklift motor, so is unlikely to win any races, but like you say they go forever and parts are cheap and plentiful. The existing Consul derived motor runs okay for what it is, but parts are getting hard to find. Shot of the interior to show how minimalist it is.

Outer camtree patterns 2 of 2

some exhaust bits turned up so i made a start on my 1st set of headers ive made.... just need to get somemore bits and ill fully make them up.

I actually really like this. Something about the luxury wood trim on a tiny base design tickles my fancy... And another NEGATIVE is that it will be a punishing Barry-magnet...

Yes, it's only very small drainage on the battery...but if left turned on (open position) it can drain battery in a day or so. Batteries are probably getting old too, so that doesn't help. I can disconnect the air lines to leave open without having solenoids turned on. But if used correctly the battery lasts months without thinking about it.

It has some more go in the 5-8000rpm range which makes the slow winding roads a bit more fun

hmmm even with encoders normal plcs wont actually record the data reliably at that data rate from what I know. although maybe im just used to different plcs that are slower for reasons of systems compatability and reliability. anytime we need to measure stuff in ms its always with a standalone recorder/datalogger thigns like circuit breaker close times, stop valve close times, shaft vibrations/orbits on journal bearings. talking at speeds like that alot of things could make a difference like the glue as said, even just ambient temps, wear of moving parts etc. I would think you would want to have a fair bit of headroom in the machine speed to account for that if reliability/unattended operation is pretty important. so maybe the listed speed difference between the options isnt really a big deal? chose the one that ticks other boxes best? also one of them listing a higher speed but will only do that for 100 hours continuous or something where the one thats listed slower max actually will run at the speed for 10,000hours?

Return too small/blocked/ regulator not regulating correctly and making the pump work hard ? Have you got a pressure gauge on it?

Well, Page 3... Rest assured heaps of work has been done on this, I'm just not sure how good I have been at taking photos. Got the body mounts all tacked up, and the tray welded back together Loaded them both up on the Lexus tow rig and dragged them into work one Saturday a few weeks back. Dropped the tray off to our resident sandblaster, had the whole thing blasted and epoxy primed, cost a grand total of 1x bottle of Jack Daniels, cheers work/Ian. Haha (Have since got it back, prepped it and as of yesterday is fully coated in black Raptor liner, loooks goooood, but forgot to grab a pic) Got the mounts welded in by a ticketed welder Bill from work (I know the ticket isn't so important/relevant but he is a much better welder than myself) took it by Shane Speight on the monday and got the ok on them, so I could go ahead and paint it. Got the flywheel and new clutch on, and finally got the engine in mated (ish, still need the last of the proper bolts) to the gearbox and one passenger side mount. Drivers side doesn't line up, only off by a little bit so will just make up a bracket between the block and factory mount, one of the jobs for this weekend. For the moment it is chocked up with an appropriate length of wood, custom yo. Put the body back over the top to do a final check for clearance, took a bit more off after this to make sure there is plenty of room for things to move. Put the intercooler pipes/joiners in to se what clearance issues I had for them. Cut as necessary, fold up patches, weld em in. Still more to do. That's part of this weekends jobs, worked on it last weekend but was doing paint stuff during the week (on the tray) so couldn't do any more because dust. Also semi-finished the removable rad support section, needs some more bits welded which are a lot easier to do now it is out. Got crush tubes welded in the rad support itself which I forgot to take photos of. Plans for the weekend are to finish the tray by cutting the aluminum checker (chequer?) plate to size as I have shortened the tray, and siliconing/riveting and screwing it down to finish it up. Other than that just more cutting, folding, welding, grinding etc, on panel steel. Might even make a start on the engine cover/firewall if I am lucky. Wish I had a bead roller to get some extra strength in this, but realistically it is probably all stronger than what I am cutting out as is. Chur, Hayden

Hey Bob. Ha ha - I bet you've noticed my complete lack of activity on the Viva forum eh? No updates as far as work or mods- it has just been sitting there , barely used even as a daily. Its probably feeling a touch unloved, jealous even (if one is to anthropomorphise ones car that is... yeah. The new objectual four wheeled love in my life , little Impy, has stolen the limelight and poor old Viva has been pushed aside ..) I did move it the other day. Once the engine had been wound over enough to draw up some fuel via the mechanical pump it started fine and everything worked as it should. It now looking resplendent in its new location, safely tucked in front of our house (truck)..... Poor thing. Left outside to fare the storm we had last night while Impy and the latest edition to the fleet, the Datsun 180b got to spend the night safe under cover. (please ignore the Ford Mk3 Viva clone - its just another job)... I am still planning to re-power it and still sitting on the fence as to with what. There is a snarling wailing gusty V6 looking up at me from one side while n the other side I can see a more docile but lighter more economical Mazda/Ford Duratec L4 looking up. Hmmmmmmm? However for the immediate future we might well buy a 1256 that @AttySlungGatty has sitting spare just to give the Viva a little more oomph on the hills. I must add this. The Imp was always meant to be just a quick fling. A little bit of fun on the side. Smaller, more lithe and entertaining then the Viva. I was expecting to grow tired of the sneaky outings at night on country roads while the Viva slept unaware. I thought I'd finally see the Imp for what it was, a fun and youthful but quite impractical bit of dabbling back into my younger years of car hooning and that I would eventually dump it to the next owner and go back to my faithful, honest and practical Viva wagon. But no. The poor old slightly haggard looking Viva just sits there and watches me as I go off on yet another hoon in that 'little cute, energetic car with the pretty paint'. Maybe the Viva really does need a new dress and a better set of legs to win me back? ....

ticked another off the list......heater well more so demister...( only ever use the heater in my mk5 for the screen).. once again it had to be made with off the shelf parts for ease of replacements. so i started with a 72 camaro heater core... so i made a box for it that will be welded into the firewall like a pocket. trial fit then i cut a hole in the firewall just behind the glove box. then put the box in and plug welded the front. (will fully weld the back once back on rotisserie ) made a front cover the fan i bought is a pc fan but will run on 12v and cut your fingers off......5200rpm and moves 253cfm of air. then put it together. im going to make covers to clean up and cover the back of the fire wall.so all will be hidden. this doesn't do it justice as the battery i used wouldn't even start a car

Small win...glovebox light now works

pulled the card board air box apart and changed a few measurements and made a steel one....just tacked for now but its a good size.. some pics so far.

Not yet. I can sort a dog smell but I might need a hand with the other aromas