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A few things have happened since the above post, like reassembling and putting the engine and box back in the car. That happened maybe 3 weeks ago, and this weekend we tuned it. Long story short, it made 148hp at the hubs, it peaks then holds flat until limiter at just over 8k. Feels great in car. Here's some videos. This is on the local test track A quick 3rd gear motorway pulll from about 90km/h. Huge huge thanks must go to @Lithfor making the trip up to fastidiously tune the car, it drives really nicely, behaves well at all loads/conditions encountered so far and is just generally a pleasure to hoon around in.

Its moving day.... Here it will be sit for some undetermined amount of time... I may be able to get the wheels/tyres refurbed while it stays in storage but there wont be much of an update on this until I build my new shed. Been a good fun project so far and am itching to get the rest of it completed and on the road...

Popped into the infamous Kaikoura kart track on my way back up 4.1 definitely has given her a bit more pep. Interested to see if the fuel mileage differs much when I fill up tomorrow (didn't want excess weight getting onto ferry)

Also been continuing our decking and dug out for a new fence section.

My son has wanted a cubby house / tiny house for ages. According to him it needed a Mezzanine, to look old fashioned, and be good for hiding out in. This is as close to the design brief as I could manage.

It rained today

Grabbed a flight to Christchurch Thursday night to get a few bits sorted. Delray auto swapped the 4.1 in after my friend checked it over for backlash etc (within factory specs) and put in the rock auto lower control arms with ball joints already pressed in. Fitted up my new Hardtop style monsoons from an early low spec sedan (Private model) met up with some of the boys for a pretty special gx61 lineup at chrome expression session As always Christchurch old car scene never fails to provide with a few night time cruises and good yarns

May as well add the new addition to the fleet here. Picked up a 06 accord wagon for cheap off fb. Was a trade in deal and was cheap as it needed a set of tyres engine mounts and lca bushes for a wof according to the seller Because I'm a scumbag I grabbed a couple of mounts and the lcas off a car at zebra. Got lucky and someone had already taken the mounts out for me. There was a set of mudflaps I've been wanting for my daily accord which was a nice surprise. The reason it was traded in was made apparent when I was stuck in traffic It didn't get any hotter than that. It needed a litre of water and the cap was looking suspect so zebras finest cap to the rescue and I'll test it again

Steering column shortened, painted everything, got a clamp type u joint. now have steering again which I find useful

IMG_20210720_081438_1 by John Bell, on Flickr So yeah because the side panels had in coloured segments sanded and painted by a previous owner, I thought I'd whack some coloured vinyl on there and the new headlight to get it all matchy matchy. Had to try colour match to the slightly incorrect coloured tank bag. @Archetype was kind enough to send some off cut vinyl for me to simply stick on and trim out. Except I'm a talentless hack, and where the side panels have been sanded, it shows, and I struggled with creases and getting the shape cut tidily. So like most of what I touch it looks good from a far, but far from good. Good enough though. But yeah, did a trail ride a few weekends ago and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Bike out performs me, even had a very amateurish jam on their MX track and managed to stay on the bike, and even clear one or two jumps (and absolutely ruin myself on the rest)

Yeah, need to find a cheap one, this'll do in the meantime. I removed the rest of the mesh and dampening material and gave it a wire brush as far as I could reach, also tapped out a small dent. And I think I'll borrow one of the Toomey silencers from my RD parts to put on.

Last few weeks have been productive..... Floor in, panels straightened and fitted, car dropped to painter to be rubbed back and fully primed and undersealed. It's now sitting at home, rust free and ready for seam sealing and getting it on it's wheels to mock up the engine.......

Went to panel guy's place this morning to drop some parts off, and check on progress. This guy just amazes me every time with his sheetmetal skills! Door steps had some rust holes in them, so he fabbed up new ones, complete with correct swaging. Check out the detail, once painted it will be impossible to tell from original. Same goes for the chassis section which carries the LH rear spring shackle. Compare to the pic above, perfection! It is quite nice going up there and seeing progress.

Some more progress this weekend, alot of the interior fit out is well progressed.

I decided the engine bay looked crud against the new paint, soo... engine out, strip the front suspension and steering etc.

Nup - actually live at the bottom of hills - both ways. Great for staying fit, not so great for owning cars with no starter motors Update coming soon. I have a Honda starter from the wreckers to try out and see how well it fits in.

Got to save some grams in bolts to make up for the kilos of sound deadening that's going to be installed Titanium dizzy cap bolts arrived on the courier along with the fuel rail fitting

No feature, it's too basic. Builds need to be a bit more powerful/performancy these days, 148hp doesn't cut it haha

Bucket Barry has almost finished his new bike. Introducing…

Few less holes in hood frame

I'm also on a quest to turn up the ring dings. I could source an aftermarket pipe but I have cutting discs and welding wire. Inside the stock exhaust there is some baffling in the chamber which can be removed for more hp's and a crisper sound.

My bedframe/bearing puller case splitter Split them nice and easy with a few tappity taps here and there. LH crank bearing was stuffed and not long for this world. Crank has been out before as there is evidence of sausage fingery under the RH bearing where someone must have tried cutting a race off. It's currently with the bike shop for a rebuild.

I bought it as I wanted one of these 1970's 2-strokes for a while. It was owned locally and ridden to a few events and when I got it wasn't running the best. I still have a few minor things to sort but it runs sweet now. The 1st issues was it had way too much oil in it, drained and topped back up with 650mls instead of the near 1200mls. I put a new plug and then took the carb cover off and tuned it. I drained the tank and found it had a fair amount of grit in it and changed the fuel valve . I also noticed the chain was a bit tight so decided to adjust and found the back wheel was too tight so loosened it adjusted and tightened and the now the wheel spins easier. Test ride and pulls well and isn't smoking as bad as it was and about ok but I might adjust the oiler as a little extra is better than not enough. I found that it is very high geared and today I will tape my phone to it to see what gps speed I was doing, it felt like maybe 85-90km/h on a slight uphill but the speedo goes a bit weird and may need a new cable. I need to get the REGO adjusted to the correct model as someone has it down as a GT but both Chassis and motor say it's an A100, I believe this happens quite a bit in our system.

So it's been roughly 6 months and 5000kms, I thought I would do a situation report; It's fucking amazeballs. It's not stupidly big so I can use it as a daily no problem, although I do need to choose my parking spots a bit carefully. It's still big enough and industrial enough to make sure that merging like a zip is a given. It's actually really comfortable to drive, plus it's rock solid on the road. It will happily sit at 100 or so no problem. I'm getting on average 12.5l/100km, not amazing but not bad either. It is pretty lively off the mark so a reasonable balance. It takes a shitload of stuff. I put 45 sheets of 12mm ply on it the other day, 750 or 800kg, no problem. The deck is also big enough to take sizable items, it's way better than the townace for that. It's still quite noisy, I must find some vinyl and redo the floor with some deadening. I put some extra speakers on the dash that I got from the dump shop for $6, this helps me hear my audiobooks a bit better. Last night I installed a wee powered sub, now music is pretty listenable too. The wiring situation under the dash is getting stupid, I actually bought some distribution blocks today so I can remove the splice upon splice of power wires that power the stereo/sub/egt/cb/etc etc. It's got to the point even I don't know what's powering what. The engine rattle is still there but seems not to be an issue, I'll run it till it blows up I guess. But overall I am super happy with it, it is so incredibly practical. Its probably the best thing I have ever built. PFT, here it tonight loaded up with shite;

Got all the running gear buttoned up so first time outside with all the panels on (during the daytime) I can take some decent shots of it. With some new rubber and painted rims it'll look sweet, need to strip all the haggard paint off the bumper too.

Ooh, 1/24.... Forgot abut this one, found in a box of cassette tapes at my Dads the other day. Pretty cool & rare kit, may give it a bit of a refresh for old times sake. Anyway, hopefully going to get started on the Caddy tonight.

Hey, Hi, Sup, Good day, These are terrible to start off. This is the 1974 Mk1 Escort that I shall intermittently post about when I remember and when I actually get anything done. I'm Sam, Samantha, that chick that posts about the Escort that isn't even hers. The aforementioned Escort is my mums (Allie), although one day, one day mine. This is the Escort mum had me look at on a whim (the whim that I was actually going to buy it for myself, I had sent her the link) but alas she bet me to it. This car was started by someone else and probably ruined by us. Mods: 1.6L god knows what's been done engine, rear seat belts, new exhaust system, carpet plus other bits and bobs

So apparently I wasn't actually finished writing or updating. Sooooo.... we pulled the door cards off to re-stretch the vinyl and reglue and found *dun dun duuuuun* .... bloody rust. I mean it makes sense to have rust in a door that age, but was I expecting it? No. Well that turned my nice easy job into another job to add to the list. So with wire brush in hand we set off scrubbing that bloody rust. Did we wear face masks? No. Do I have rust all up my nose? God yes. Am I an idiot? Up for discussion. After we got all that rust out we decided yeah let's get to rust converting. So we brushed and painted and brushed and boy when I tell you it's hard work trying to rust converter inside a door even for little girly hands to get in I mean it. Did I get covered in rust converter? Yes. Did I lie down on the floor to see into the door while holding a loaded up brush? Yes. Did this rust converter then fall down into my eye because I didn't wear eye protection? Also Yes. Am I an idiot? I'm beginning to believe I am. Lesson for today: Wear your PPE.

You live on a hill, just roll start it.

Congratulations on finishing such an awesome project, so good to see this thing come together after so many years

Oh yeah. Will chuck some pics on when I get a chance...

Shit yeah barry Dakar

next up was the thermostat housing replacement because i don't have a thermostat and i wasn't sure what rad i would end up using i thought i would just grab a Davies Craig 90 bend and just make the base out of 10mm alloy. ..i drilled all the holes about and tapped them all so i can have adjustment if needed.......didnt drill all the way through....lol but thats that done and the top hose should nice and easy ....apart from needed the turbo water out runnig into it as well.

By no means a mint paint job but for 40bux i mean algood haha

things have occured. most are bad painted the rear bumper and kit, chucked them on. the lights still need to come out and have the surrounds done. where it promptly ran into some fitment issues. not too sure what's going on here, its almost like the bumper needs to be pulled back a good half inch, which would leave an ugly gap between it at the body proper. hmm. the kit can't go forward as it fits nicely in the wheel arch already. I'm almost tempted to just go without it if it keeps giving trouble, the car already has a pretty bulky back end JUST LIKE YO MAMA the dump pipe mk 1 had some fitment issues (and got its own thread) and thus dump pipe mk 2 was born which clears everything and allows the heat shields back in with a little adjustment. its made out of a stupid amount of segments as i didn't have nearly enough bends to create what is essentially a stupid corkscrew shape. it's ugliness has since been somewhat assuaged with a liberal coating of hi-temp shit weld hider. still better than what came out though! i swear! anyway while all of this was going on i suddenly became aware of a burning smell and smoke from under the battery compartment area so apparently the low light sender for the headlight washer reservoir just shorted out, whilst sitting in an empty and highly flammable plastic container. it would appear this thing isn't fused? I'm a bit surprised as I had only just reconnected the battery to put the windows down, but i have had it connected before with no issues, and I haven't really touched any of the wiring (although it is a mess). so potentially this thing was just waiting to burn up at some random point, fortunately I didn't leave it hooked up and wander off. The car doesn't have light washers anymore anyway so I might as well biff it. bit scary really JUST LIKE YO MAMA some adjusties turned up, probably will never fit them because I loathe suspension work had a chuckle at this too, it came off one of my spare turbos. "i dunno man, i fitted the bigger turbo but it just doesn't have the top end i'd expect". looks like it was slowly blasting its way through, he'd get that power eventually so yeah, shit stuff, scary stuff, cool stuff, funny stuff. no actual progress.

What was the radiator you got out of? I have a low km auto trans in my shed in whangarei if you want it for a spare

Been looking at buying a jeep j20 ute for a few years , now that I've started a family I thought its time to get a sensible family wagon.. she's a jap import un-complied wagon with a blown up dinosaur emissions strangled 360 amc v8. first thing is an engine conversion, please give me your thoughts on what would be a good swap *I have a 15b toyota diesel 4.1L turbo 4 cylinder that I have priced up a 12mm 200cc pump for $2200 and a g-turbo red wheel for $2800 which should give good torque. *LS? *hemi? can buy late model with 4wd auto tranny. *duramax? don't want to spend more than 10K on parts for the swap if possible.

Slowly been chipping away at bits. Have cleaned up and painted most the underside parts. Still trying to find some good axles so I can build the rear end and attach it to the van. Looks like I will have to get the axles resplined by a local engineer. Pulled the heater box apart to check it all out. Need to find/make a new resistor? So I get the 2 fan speeds, then that can be reassembled.

right so, its all back together. but first, new clutch. its a niteparts designed unit which holds heaps of torque but drives like a normal car. this thing is huge. check out the friction plate on top of the Giken twin plate unit! 20210713_184945 by sheepers, on Flickr 20210713_184938 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-07-21_08-44-05 by sheepers, on Flickr 20210713_183646 by sheepers, on Flickr right so then i put the motor back in the car. had to mod the turbo dump pipe. also had to mod the intercooler piping by the throttle body to include a new larger blow off valve. other things done include all new pipe work to and from the turbo and all new hoses for the wastegate. im waiting on a new intercooler which should be here in a couple of weeks too. and tonight i took it for a drive round the block, so far so good. noo doortz though as it needs to be tuned with the new turbo. its booked on the dyno on the 6th of August. 2021-07-21_08-32-36 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-07-21_08-32-14 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-07-21_08-32-24 by sheepers, on Flickr

The average Hilman Barry would just re-wind the starter to rotate the other way

My panelbeater has already made a start on the repairs. Rear valance removed, and new part sitting in place. Lower rear quarters removed, which will be replaced too. Some rust repairs to lower body sections will be required before these can be welded in, and a repair to the LH chassis rail behind the rear spring hanger, where it looks like the spring has made contact and punched it upwards! Quite excited to see it progressing already

Yesyesyes I used to think motard type bikes were dumb like putting semi slicks on a toyota surf I was very wrong so much fun on twisty back roads, things like big mid corner surprise bumps, which on a sport bike would probably send you into the trees, are soaked up no problem

The bike now ready I gathered some more docs together, another ownership declaration and the NZTA approval, loaded it on a trailer and towed it to VTNZ. A few days and $525 later ($325 inspection fee + 6 months rego) I got a call saying it was ready to pick up, clean sheet check, nice.

Anyhoo, so now I had the approval from NZTA I had to get it ready for its compliance inspection. Tyres were tricky due to the 21/19 sizes needed, took a bit of searching but found that Michelin Trackers came in the right size and were road legal. It was good fun getting the old ones off and the new ones on, positioning the bead lock and tube etc The brakes were shit so new discs, pads and hoses all around along with master and caliper rebuild kits. Replacing the front hose was a pain as due to Honda having some kind of patent on hose routing (WTF) for a while the KDX had a hose/hard line combo going under the fork leg. New hose routing Wheel bearings were rough so new ones chucked in front and rear. Fork seals weren't sealing, after making a couple tools the job was a piece of piss. Steering and swingarm bearings felt good so just pumped some new grease in To make it look a bit nicer I bought some new fork shields (on the right) from Aliexpress for $17 delivered Going by the NZTA info the last thing I needed was a park light as the KDX doesn't run a battery. I borrowed 3x 18650 batteries and BMS from another project and knocked up a small 12V that fits under the seat, wired in a bar switch and fit an led in the rear guard.

Made a magneto tester out of a sewing machine. Wanted the variable speed function that my angle grinder based test rig couldn't provide

Well then..... so I'm going to now have to remove the terrible Datsun engine after having been informed its crap by some Barry commenting on my 'first drive' youtube vid. He stated the following.... "Why would you replace the high efficiency Imp engine with a Nissan updated version of the BMC A series engine? Imp engine is 875cc all alloy overhead cam engine with high grade steel bore liners, with crank balanced for 10,000rpm as standard. The A12 is an A series bottom end pushrod OHV engine with improved alloy cylinder head. The Imp engine can be easily tuned to 100 bhp per litre with just work on the head and carburation, as shave it to raise compression, bore out for larger valves and fit high lift cam, plus add twin carbs with Stiletto manifold. I don't believe you can get 100 bhp per litre from the A12 no matter what you do to it" I'm sure @RUNAMUCK, who's driven my Imp with this engine, or @kyteler would love to have a little chat about just how terrible the A12 is.... Anyway - my reply was this... "Torque!, reliability, easily available parts inc so many performance upgrades, bomb proof bottom end, very strong crank as stock, only 15-20 kg heavier. Easy as to get 100bhp per litre! How about about a Tomei built 170bhp 1300 A12 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRRHnvUhDbU&t=126s I've owned a stock imp before this and driven fast imps in the UK with the 875/930 engines. This engine, even as completely stock with a tiny Hitachi carb simply blows them away for usability and mid range grunt. It is also MORE economical. My only gripe with this engine is its upright position which has lost me some of the useful parcel shelf. But hey- that will soon be sorted when I finish my flat six swap. Oh boy- that'll upset the Barries! Haters gonna hate.... " I look forward to seeing his reply. Bloody barries

Made the trip from Auckland to Christchurch, had a good look around at horopito / smash palace again. Never get bored of seeing the same rare wrecks. Used two 50L tanks of 98 on my 1000km trip running the 3.7 diff 2950rpm @ 100km/h Took this photo in Clarence along the Kaikoura coastline. Prior to making the trip I removed the wideband and Graphic control computer so I could spend time sorting out the wiring while the car is down south (left it down to split the drive up). Had it on a friend's hoist down there and a few things need attention before I'm happy to drive it back. One of my front ball joints (2000kms old) has a lot of play so ordered a couple new AC Delco complete front lower control arms from Rock Auto. A coolant leak from around the heater line section at back of the engine and rocker cover gaskets leaking also. I managed to pick up another F series complete Head in 4.1 ratio as a placeholder to get my 3.7 setup better (currently has nearly ¼ driveshaft turn backlash...

Right, all done. Turned into a struggle again at the end and it nearly went in the bin. I now see why I got so frustrated with the tracks years ago. You can buy separate link track sets for most of these tanks but they're sometimes more than the price of the kit. Anyway, enough whinging Pom.

It's a fuck up and will explode If you do not do banana aided b-0wts ASAP