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I did not complete the two week challenge but I'm still chipping away. Aidan at Pine Engineering sent me these photos of the br-x completed last night @BobbyBreeze was kind enough to lend me a centre cap to replicate also which are just off being anodized I have a new set of Yokohama A539 in 175/60 and 185/60 at home ready to go also

Did a trial fit of a 7.5 a type which has the same wheel bolt face to outer lip dimension as the wider pair

I have been picking away at the cabin of an evening, which got me thinking about camping trips and spare wheels. So I thought I had better make provision for one, and later, two; It's a bit flexi, which it probably needs as it is bolted to both the cab and deck, but it might bang on the roof if I hit a bump. I'll go for a run and see how it goes, I'll probably wedge some padding underneath, it's pretty close. Even though you can't tell the cabin is now covered with 3 diffey thicknesses of three different types of material, ie a $100 sheet of 2mm ACM, $20 sheets of 3mm foamed PVC, and free sheets of 4mm foamed fuck knows what packaging material. It looks way better in the pics than it actually is. Nevertheless I ordered a few hundred dollars worth of hardware from Comac today, this will give me lift struts and locking doors and allow me to clamp it to the deck, yay. That's all for now.

Give @danger a call. He's a 5ft 8 stud. /Repco

Just for reference, my vacuum unit uses 4 x 1200w vacuum motors that I have in parallel, wired in 2 x pairs. That way I only run the single pair when testing low valve lifts. With 4 going it's just enough on a hot day to achieve 28in vacuum on my 2.8 v6 heads at peak lift. Something else to be aware of is heat, the vacuum motors usually require airflow over them for cooling. So in vacuum they tend to get hot quite quickly. That's one reason I use a air bypass setup to adjust my test pressure, that way it increases the airflow for the vac motors. Also my flowbench flows a max of 247cfm@10in.

Damn I'm all full of regrets for selling my BR-X now. Tasty as.

Let's keep this thread on topic team, cheers!

I used to think that, i'm not convinced now. I think they have improved over time like everything else.

Remember how my master cylinder was rooted and pulled all the fluid into the booster? shane at powerstop brakes cleaned it up, reassembled and tested it after another shop tore it apart and quoted the earth to repair. He’s sleeving the master for me too. I’ve ordered another pcv valve. super stoked, Look him up for classic and modern/ABS brake solutions!

He’s 5/8 tall? You could keep him in a match box

I'm running 4000w of heater off a multi plug in our garage- doesn't even get warm Edit. The heaters get warm... the plug/socket does not.

Something something something maybe I'll get it together this weekend

Oh lordy those wheels look amazing!! Such a cool project dude. Also don't give Robbie credit for those centre caps. He is just the man lucky enough for me to lend them to him. I didn't realise you were getting the replacement caps CNC machined and thought you were getting them 3d printed. Please let me know costs involved to make 5 of them and I will pay you 1/5th for my single one, otherwise the cost of borrowing one to reverse engineer is far too high.

Driveshaft - russell at driveshaft specialists, andromeda cres east tamaki Hes a good sort

I like these zakspeed flares, not really digging the boxy zakspeed kit for it

If I ever make time for it, I have an idea in my head for a tailgate spare mount that unfolds to put the spare on the ground, gives bit of lever advantage to lift it back into position too. Something similar that folds the wheel down to window height for yours?

First thought was to comment how fucked life is lifting a flat muddy tyre onto the roof, then saw you have the crane, so good!

the level indicator can often be wound open to top up electrolyte on stuffed batteries

I find battery tech quite interesting for a multitude of reasons. We all have this physical item made out of basic and identifiable materials which is expensive to purchase and costly (to the planet) to recycle- yet repair is largely out of the question. It shouldn't be because a lead acid battery is incredibly basic! @Kimjons battery bugs me. I can charge it to over 14v (Using bluetooth battery monitor to log voltages is amazing) but then the instant you apply any load it drops to below 12v. The float/indicator is red even at full charge which could simply mean that one or more cells is low on electrolyte- but the battery has a firmly glued down cover which does a pretty good job of preventing any level checks or top ups (without making it look like its been butchered) TLDR: battery companies go out of their way to ensure these things aren't serviceable. Bastards. With that said, have had a few good wins with the desulphater (Validated by load testing down to 12.2v and measuring capacity).

I'm happy to wear the costs as I would have had to buy another whole wheel with centrecap from YAJ to get one to copy so it's a small price to pay. 3d printing was twice the price of cnc machining believe it or not.

You bitches are giving me ideas and i'm trying to work here.

will be lighter to lift the flat one up, wont have as much air in it plus

What the shit, I've never owned a car younger than twenty years old and suspect I'm nowhere near the only one

It had a really nice wire feeder but I would say you would struggle to weld anything at all even panel steel or an exhaust

Late to the party here re seat belts, I've had three Mk3's and they've all had different seat belt mountings. One was bolted through the pillar and two just had a 'captive' nut with a large washer inside the pillar that the belts were mounted too. Both methods were fairly common as far as I'm aware.

Chamberlains in CHCH can probably make them, worth a call anyway.

Yes hopefully Dave @avengertiger can make it along. Also steve @Gozza i hope you can come along in your triumph!

or even cut the bottom of the gaurds off and move them out ....Zak speed styles.

Personally I think the square shape of the Hunter would suit Mk2 Escort flares.

This is basically what the result would be, bit with huge guards and wide wheels

More ugly bonnet business.

It rained today

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...

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.

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)

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.

Here: https://mercedes-lager.de/shop/Mercedes-DB-190-C-110010_33 original part numbers are 1106370135 and 1106370235 Niemoeller (who I got some other panels through) also list them although slightly more expensive https://www.niemoeller.de/en/w111/w111-014-mercedes-benz-220seb/B014/630101/d63012-side-member-bottom-left-repro if you have a google you’ll find them listed in various places, I would say they’re all getting them from the same manufacturer, the first link was the cheapest I found at the time.

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.

Rocker cover finally finished and turned the granvia rear sump and pick up to a midsump setup. oil pickup is as high up as i can get it ,4mm off the conrod

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;

Fire in the hole four bolts half wound in from bellhousing side and rest onto mounts. you can just see in photo sump is fouling on the removable stone guard which is holding engine up. Test fit of drivers half of bonnet shows its fouling by hopefully the same amount it needs to drop down. the untrained eye says the carbs will fit. fingers crossed

I can see! I just had a look on Google at your work. Very impressive. You have a very talanted and keen looking bunch of team mates. You look so proud!...

I’ve still got to get new mirrors. Put the side covers on cam cover and some other small bits. Close up of the seat.

Been a while, but waiting to see some results. Pleased to share that after changing the pcv valve with a second hand one, consumption has reduced to half a litre in the last 1800km. Might buy a brand new pcv when I'm in the States next month. $12 US versus $130 plus Gst ex Japan (main dealers in NZ take piss-taking to new heights)

Agreed, have managed 170k from a Honda Jazz cvt with no mechanical dramas. It's the VW dual clutch trans that seems to have the worst rep, although a trans guy I spoke to reckoned any auto after 2005 was rubbish. He drove a 60s F100 so might have been biased.

The unfortunate thing is that the crane and the cabin are not compatible, it's one or the other....