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Have been prepping smaller jobs inside underfelt cut for floor and hoodlining, plus foams, spent ridiculous amount of time trying to get seat mechs to work correctly(still not 100%). Major part is its now finally at the painters, spent a day yesterday helping prep underside, good things to come

I'm a big fan of the fawn and green interior

was going for the ramen / pad thai combo. but old mate pad thai made his cup the wrong size. so looks like its ramen noodles for lunch, to get that 4th cup They even have the full rolled bellmouth everyone likes

Well I got back into this and finally finished building the box and have now filled it with tools. Very happy with the finished product. Continuing on from my first post I added a few more bits. First off was a lid that covered the stainless tray. This was 18mm plywood left over from the shed build. I hinged it off from one side and made a swing out support to hold it up when its opened. Then I build a lift up section along the back to hang spanners and screwdrivers off. I added a lid to this bit. I ripped down some bits of eucalypt timber left over from the coffee cart we recently built for a customer ( that's another thing I must put some pics up of because it was a cool project!) These bits of timber were then profiled into corner cappings. With them attached Hannah then oiled it all and varnished the flip back lid. I made some handles. One main one for shifting it about the workshop and then a swing up one with more leverage that is for moving it offroad. I found a little handle we have had for yonks. Ideal for the lift up section... Finally a little box on the side for a few often used cans- wd40, spraygrease, zinc it black etc. I took no photos of all this because I was just absorbed with the build. Now complete I filled it with all the tools I use on car jobs etc. This was super fun because it meant I could shuffle loads of stuff about and off the walls. I could also move my old toolbox that took plenty of useful 'Flat six' sized space and put it under the bench. The bench area became a bomb site with stuff all over the place as I did a workshop bench spring clean. Got rid of lots of crap and re-organised a load of stuff into new trays I'd bought from Bunnings. This satisfies me no end. Anyway- back to the toolbox. Which now has a very catchy name. The 'Wheelybox 2000' pics. Closed up and ready to move... and opened up (a pic sort of like a toolbox equivalent of 80's Lambo poster with all the doors/boot/engine covers open).. In action... on the move.. detail shots... ( should have done a narrow depth of field shot of the cans through an open window...) the tray.. and for your amusement - this is what happens when I do a spring clean... So happy with it. It going to be a bloody useful asset to the business and save a lot of walking back and forth to the bench, especially when doing jobs on cars, trucks and tractors etc outside. Should have done it ages ago! My next plans for the bench area are to paint the plywood walls a bright colour and probably add a window over the bench - especially as we have chopped down loads of trees and we would now be able to watch the sunset through it as I tinker with Goldwing engines. I'll update the bushblock thread with that sort of workshop tinkering though. Better get back onto the Micras and the Imp 911 first eh....

Discuss here Sharn incoming. Lots of words not many photos (yet). So, I'd been wanting to buy an Impala for a while and when the datsun popped up I thought it could be a good opportunity to make some money to put towards owning one. Unfortunately prices went crazy this year so it still seemed out of reach. As soon as it sold I put an ad up on one of the Facebook pages and I think I only got two responses. One was for a car way out of my budget and the other was a Bel Air in Wellington that looked rough. Anyway as time went on the Bel Air started to look like it could be worth looking at. I messaged @crustywhip and he was in the UK. Oh. No worries, if the guy still has it when Kane gets home we'll go from there. Thankfully the car wasn't actually advertised for sale so when it came time to revisit the idea it was still available. Kane had a look for me last week and determined that yes the body and interior is beat up but it is original and mechanicals are good. That was enough for me. Flight booked. "Hey m8. Have a 64 Belair if u interested? Have just put brand new mags on it also. Has NO RUST and has been through compliance etc when my m8 I brought it off had it. New body mounts and vtnz checked and wof also. Awesome tidy car and drives mint as! All original paint, carpets , seats etc etc so been untouched part from the wheels haha. It’s got a good 307 in it at the moment. My m8 had the bottom end checked by his mechanic and all tidy as. Only looking at selling to by a new vehicle for my new business otherwise I’d keep it 100% send u some pics" So anyway. Picked it up on Saturday and drove it home yesterday. It was tidier than I thought it would be and it drove well so I'm pretty stoked. I'll add some photos when I next drive it. Plans are to get rid of the 20"s asap and go to 14"s. Get some of the body tidied up (There's a gark down the right side and some dents in the roof I wouldn't mind disappearing). A new hoodlining, probably a stereo, and all going well hydros.

So after driving this for a bit, I really found it way too rough. Maybe I'm getting old. Diff hitting floor etc. Was going to cut out where it's hitting and modify it etc, but want new wheels as well. If I'm doing that all that, I might as well 4 link it, and if I'm doing that, I might as well change to 4x114, and if I'm doing that I'll have to stuff around and shorten the diff to fit the wheels I want. Long story short, shit snowballed and now I'm the owner of a shortened MX5 rear end. (And still have to change to 4x114) Will build some new rails for the frame to sit under, and run them from the back to the rear seat area, and try tie them in with the original rails. Really wanting to use 40x40x3 SHS, to keep the subframe as high as possible under the boot floor, but everyone seems to use 50x50 for this sort of thing. If anyone has experience in this, will 40x40 be enough? The original rear "rails" are only monocoque, so surely 40x40x3 will be more than enough for a subframe to sit under. I won't be cutting much out of the originals.

If we put beacons on top of the support vehicles and all were hi viz the road works wouldn't be an issue.

Shizer it's been a while and cringe at my old posts. Anyways, I chucked a blanket over this and shut the garage while I did other things for a couple of years. Lockdowns meant pulling the blankets off, I got it running on the factory intake so was motivated again. Rear screen rubber in, stainless trims fresh and polished, random clips from russia and its now airbagged using accuair control with airlift struts. It drives well around the hood and I'm slowly getting more confident on going further. I never drove this car so was a big moment. Next on the list is sorting my rear wheels as they are a bit wide for frame laying and then a bespoke itb manifold from Mr Whitley tune. Pic courtesy of Simon when it was picked up a few weeks ago. Il take some when I get the trims back on.

And laid down some black. Gave all the bushes, which I replaced earlier in the year, a clean and fitted with fresh grease. Also spent some time cleaning up the threads on the shackles and lower shock mounts plus the fasteners to suit. Some of them were pretty manky. Got it all back togethor and threw the has tank back in too. Good way to finish up a nice evening. Excuse the wheel nuts on the shock mounts, I had no m12x1.5 nylocs at the time.

Priced up supremes today. It came into the country on some but they were long gone.

Pic 4 fred

More pics

Man, so busy... wish I had more time to work on my cars. Anyway, recently failed wof on bad FL wheel bearing, rub mark on FR brake hose and the sill is push up on the jacking point. Weirdly I cannot see how the hose could have rubbed at all, I get the feeling it's been like that the whole time. It's on the inside/chassis side, even pushing it by hand I can't get it to touch...weird. Here's a blurry photo, the red part there. And the wheel bearing was definitely stuffed, I had noticed a noise recently when turning right so that explains it. They are S14 hubs with the bigger spindle, which also means the bearings are not replaceable like S13 ones. You probably could figure something out but I just bought a genuine Nissan hub. Mmmmm genuine shiny oily paper wrapped hub.... Also got some GKtech braided brake lines, have installed the fronts. Yet to bleed as its up on the hoist while I work on pulling the sill back again. Will be interesting to see if I can feel any pedal difference going from normal soft lines. Ugly sill, to be honest I am pretty certain it has been like this for a long time: I have got it back to really good condition again, haven't got any photo's. I need to primer and paint it too.

We knew that this was a deregistered car from the start and got into it anyway. Just part of being a noob I guess, but I always figured we'd be able to sort it out down the line.. maybe it'll be a bit expensive but should still hopefully be reasonable in regards to the value of a fully restored Starion. Right...? I called a few panel beaty places and instead of straightening the car out, they straightened me out. It's not fun hearing "oh yeah you can expect about $30k for an average panel and paint job on a car this old". Especially when that's followed up with "deregistered? Okay yeah we can do it but it'll have to be be the Rolls Royce of repair jobs". But one of the nicer folks I called offered to come around and check it out soonish. So I had no idea whether we still even had a project. Anxiety effing sucks. Thinks like sunk cost fallacy was at the forefront of my mind. Was this a lost cause? How much will this repair cost - is it going to be better to just getting a beaten up reg-on-hold Starion and starting fresh with that? How many years would it take for that opportunity to make itself available again? I didn't want to put another second into the car. All motivation just gone. Also the frustration of the legalities of this. I could roll the dice and hope the re-registration people just feel like stamping paper that day, and don't whip out the endoscope or mandate stripping everything back to metal. Yet if whoever had it registered last had just paid the $peanuts every year to put the registration on hold the above repair would be perfectly legal. ARRRRRGH. ---- Guyman McPanelbeaty finally is able to come around. He's a numbers guy so he brings a hammerbeast. I bitch to them about my registration frustrations. Hammerbeast replies instantly with "yeah", throws his hands up, "yeah!" He goes on his own rant. This was a perfectly legit (if ugly) repair back in those days, the style of the time, onion on his belt. Kindred souls. They like the car. It's in pretty good shape rust-wise, they hand-wave the other repairs. They warn me of the dangers to my wallet if I end up going with a darker colour (or god forbid black). What colour should I go with? Not important right now, but this question will be asked a little more frantically later on down the line. But onto the work. I ask them to ballpark the repairs that need real certifying, the bare minimum to just get it back on the road. They guesstimate the work and throw some numbers out. The numbers are acceptable. My shoulders relax. I shake their hands and literally bounce back inside. We have a project! ---- Of course, they're super busy so it won't happen until next year, but I have homework in the meantime: I have to find new front rails and a new radiator mount. There's a wreck in Palmerston North so I started there. "Yeah mate let me check. You need both rails?" "Yes please." "... ah sorry mate, someone's already taken the front cut" Amayama's manager is permanently offline. The image above is from their site. Easily over 50% of the parts I order there end up being out of production, and for whatever reason they don't have the rails themselves listed separately, so I wanna talk to a person. The rails + wheel housing + other thingy are over NZ$1k each to import. if they exist. Bah. NZ's Starion facebook group is small but often useful. Not this time though - I got a name dropped to me but he was out of stock. The Austarion facebook group is much more lively but same deal there. @ProZac's Starion Sell-Up has long exited FOMO territory and is well established in MO territory. I have some more options before I'm ultra desperate (USA + expensive shipping, more mitsi parts websites, from-scratch fabrication) but things aren't tracking great lol. Does anyone know of anyone with a Starion parts car who might be willing to part with their front rails? Motivation's back tho.

Bit more progress on the B2000 over the past few weeks. I had a bunch of stainless tube and bends lying around, but havn't had the hoist free or the time to make a system, so when I spotted this setup that a guy was selling I thought I'd better jump on it. He was parting out his bagged truck for some reason which never actually made in on the road. He had the system made to tuck up above the chassis rails but still fit the stock chassis mounting points. Has an AdrenelinR muffler and reasonator fitted so wouldn't have been a cheap setup to get made. Can't complain for $425 shipped from Timaru to Akl... He even made this sweet crate to send it up in. My shifter bush kit finally showed up from Aussie, so I swapped out all the worn shit and fitted a new non-split boot then got it installed. Tight boxes are gooooood.

I forgot to readdress this. I did speak to the individual last week, and from what he'd explained, was that he was residing outside of the Waikato boundary, but had travelled to his personal property inside the Waikato boundary to tend to it, adhering to whatever rules or permits applied at that time (I don't know). Probably redundant now regardless, as I understand there is no Waikato boundary any longer? I'm unsure if anyone was particularly concerned by this whole thing or not, but there it is, as I know it anyway.

Workmates doing similar dec/Jan with an xl125. I'll borrow/ buy it off him. Also depends if I am able physically

Indeed

Surprisingly wasn't too much difference between Datsun sale price and Chev purchase price thankfully so the mazda is safe.

I'm up for whatever tbh. Start in Blenheim, ride to st Arnaud, do the rainbow to hanmer, camp there the night. Do the rainbow in reverse back to Nelson. (Reverse of day three last year) Then the maungatapu to peloris, up the wairau/mt patriarch and back to Blenheim?

Us fullas (covid permitting) coming from Auckland liked the idea of starting from somewhere we could ride to after flying in. We had a friendly depot in ChCh so we could ship bikes ahead of time. ASSume there will still be vehicles coming from ChCh so we could travel to starting point with them if we can get enough seats that will be ace. Pretty sure it will be @Tumeke @sentra @slacker.cam @peteretep If not all good - we can look into other flights/shipping options if the start point changes to see if that's possible / affordable / not stink providing we get enough notice to book stuff.

From what I've heard and read, you can ride from Hanmer to the cobb cottage where we had lunch, but go no further. Roadworks is more at the Blenheim end, with local access only. Could ride to cottage from Hanmer, camp the night there or back to Hanmer. Day 2 Rainbow and then there's plenty of other rides between St Arnaurd and Nelson like Mt Robert, Inwoods Lookout, Porika track, etc Stay night at St Arnaurd and go back through Rainbow. Plenty of options to compensate for no Molesworth. There used to be a pushbike race called the Rainbow Rage, we could steal that name...

So what we did last year, except up the Rainbow from Hanmer rather than up the Molesworth (up being North, not up the river valley!). This would probably be the easy option, but nothing new / that interesting. Inland Kaikoura route still has a very large proportion of kms on SH1, and overall wouldn't be that interesting on small bikes imo. There's no other back roads route that I know of. Most of the Nelson Lakes National Park is walking tracks only. Motorcycles and vehicles are specifically banned. So the question is, are we tied to starting in Hanmer? Noting Rainbow is then our only option.

They said upper part of the road, but yeah weren't very specific beyond that. There does seem to be a whole lot of repairs spread out, there's multiple pictures of slips and washouts.

Yup. my money is on the small white ones working better than the big ones. well the big ones will just act like a shorter runner. Will see what i can do to resurrect the peach cans. although there seems to be more noodle cups scattered across my kitchen bench than peach cans at the moment..

few more come in!

So I took the case and crank over to Qualitat for their air-cooled guy to check if the it was viable to rebuild. Wasn't holding out much hope as this is 40-50 year old chunk of alloy that I abused on a daily basis. Took the opportunity to clean up the rear wheel well. Made these from some scrap alloy I had. Marked up a that's about right spot. And cut some massive triangles out of my nicely painted engine bay. Drilled hole and popped rivnuts in. Left the edge rough to hammer over the frame to strengthen the panel up. Both bent to shape and countersunk for mounting, the plan was to drill and tap the frame for the covers to attach with but was thinking about using VHB tape. All this work is to make installing the carbs and manifolds easier, it to about 10 minutes to put the engine in last time, and two hours to tighten the four nuts that hold the manifolds on.

So, I sold this thing last month. Mostly trouble free motoring. It now resides near Dunedin. New owner bought it unseen and flew up same night and drove it home.

Wow

Smashed some epoxy down and probably covered my shitbox daily laser in overspray

Still have a few brackets to weld on, but needed to get some paint on the rear end. It was a nice day Saturday just been, so got it stripped and prepped.

Two weeks I waited to hear the verdict on the case. Before I took the car off the road for the rust and paint mission, the oil leaks had pissed me off enough to pull the engine out and take it to a local mechanic for new pushrod tubes and any other seal he could bung up. I remember him telling me the case was cracked behind number 3, the thinnest part and hottest running cylinder, and the heads were toast. We he was fuckin wrong about the case! Unbelievably it's only on its second over size now, so happy as finding a good base to build is getting hard these days. Even more amazingly, the crank is still within standard spec and even the center journal with the munted bearing only needed a light polish. The dude even said " he can't remember the last time a crank came in,that didn't need machining" guessing lucky! But I do always change my oil regularly, every 3000miles or six months as you should on these old clankers. I set about cleaning up the case. Using a small brass wire brush and turps. Will need to make sure all the galleries and shit are clean before it goes back together. Also go as well as the crank bearings, which are machined to fit, new big end bearing in the rods, new cam bearings and a full engine seal kit. These however, have been quietly waiting their turn under the bench for a long time. Soon my pretty, soon.

Cheers. I'll get some photos later- its very simple.

You still have a depot, or you're looking for one? It's 50/50 whether I'm riding or driving backup, if I'm driving you're all most definitely welcome to seats from chc.

Could you buy and store your own box trailer? Just a wild idea.

Ok so update on the road works, direct from the council infrastructure / roading department today. Unfortunately the Awatere Valley Road will be closed until late March, quite possibly into April, and no alternative route is available. So we probably need to rename this event cos getting through the Molesworth is out. As mentioned all is not lost, there are some other good roads down The Sounds to pest, we just have to link them all together into manageable day rides. I would propose starting either in Picton, or Blenheim with a transit to Saint Arnaud. E.g Day 1: Picton - Port Underwood Road and Tumbledown Bay, to Rarangi, Tuamarina, Kaituna first morning. Probably a quick 5km to Renwick for lunch, then Mount Patriarch in the afternoon. This is a relatively easy first day. Return to Blenheim for overnight, repairs etc. Day 2: To Picton then Queen Charlotte Drive through to Kenepuru Sound, then to Portage and back (if gas/time allows), through to Havelock, Pelorus, Maungatapu to Nelson. Could either stop in Nelson, or push up to Saint Arnaud for the night. Finding suitable accommodation up there will be the issue though. Day 3: This is the most problematic day - need to factor in transit to the start of the Rainbow. Rainbow Road to Hanmer. It could finish there, but obviously most vehicles would be back in Blenheim / Picton. A solution could be to do the Rainbow in reverse back to Saint Arnaud, but this would add another day or make it a very long single day (It's straight highway, mostly downhill, all the way back to Blenheim/Picton). Alternatively run the route backwards, but this way makes more sense to me. So this was just what was in my head as an outline, I haven't checked distances or planned fuel stops and overnights. I suspect the Rainbow both ways would be too big for one day... Welcome any thoughts or alternative suggestions. I would be really keen to figure something out. Cheers ears

Underside is the same as the top except a very fine anti chip seal.

Well it’s finally in paint and will be finished in a couple of weeks. Went with the original factory Dragoon Red. Can’t wait to start putting it together over the Xmas break

The seats came our easily, plan is to keep them looking scruffy and original. The leather is cracked and dry - any suggestions on how we should be treat it will be much appreciated by both Rigamortice and yours truly. Love the old leather, the kapok stuffing, the springs and the wooden frame – not a modern staple in sight.

Have been a bit slack on working on this but have word the tailgate is almost done. As much of the bottom straightened as possible and then some filler to sort the rest. Purchased an old fiberglass fixed back to run in this as a bit of a tester to see how bad the shipping prices from Japan are for them. Who is Alex? I'm not sure but I have a vague memory of flicking through catalogue pages and seeing the name so went for a sift this afternoon. Listed in 1989 CARBOY sports tuning guide from Japan is the 'Mr Alex' fixed seat for ¥28000 Also found my old Bride reclineable which I didn't think was an original upholstery at the time

shit i forgot to post the pics of the seats and carpets all done. lol, that was ages ago. 2021-08-12_06-31-20 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-08-12_06-31-12 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-08-12_06-31-02 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-08-12_06-30-52 by sheepers, on Flickr

Dummy engine and box back in to fab a gearbox cross member. Now for the moment of truth – did I keep things straight through all the cutting and welding. 0.1 degree woks for me!

Nearly finished this bit, and the lid part is currently printing. Having a 3d printed core is 100% cheat mode for carbon stuff haha. It makes drilling/filing the holes super easy, because I can just work from the other side and shows me exactly how far I need to go (a few of the holes as pictured need a little more work with the dremel) Most of the work is sanding down sharp edges, I dont think I've experienced any splinters more ruthless than from CF. Definitely 100% do not want to get that shit in your eyes/lungs/whatever. Although I've got a setup that can do vacuum bagging and /or resin infusion, or making 2 piece moulds to make a 100% carbon part. Wet layup and retaining a thin printed core provides excellent results that is about 1000 times less effort. It's also nice because you can retain 3d features like upstands for clips or bolts or whatever, rather than being left with a super thin material that you then have to add stuff to. Which is another time consuming step where you could get things put in the wrong place. A++ would cheat again

So I got a tyre fitted up today. Pretty stoked on the profile. 175/50r13 nankangs. Very cheap as well. Will fit the rest up tomorrow, and hopefully get some proper photos. Also bought some masonite in the weekend and finally made some boot interior panels, as they were missing. Has tidied the interior up tenfold. Highly recommend masonite over MDF. Much stiffer and easier to work with. Still need to get some speed nuts for the RH side. My front indicators showed up too. Genuine fakes from Thailand. Pretty happy with the quality though. Can't complain for $50 all up.

So the rear springs came back from resetting. 2.5 inches is all I could get them reset to, before they lost their arch. Will probably end up with 2 inch blocks also. Ended up going with some Saab 900 front shocks for the rear, as they're a lot shorter. Front Mk1 golf inserts showed up. So will get the strut bodies dropped off tomorrow for shortening. Part numbers for anyone interested are; Front inserts : KYB 363001 (Only KYB brand fit 45mm strut bodies) Rear shocks : KYB 343023 Carpet and tyres are on their way. Also picked up a coupe grille

Been sharing these around a bit. Looking forward to a drive in the sun and a spin of the back wheels.