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Got the diff and fuel tank out tonight, so started having a quick mock up of things. Seems like everything will be pretty well placed, and not hang too low. It will be getting raised another 20mm from these photos, as haven't cut anything yet. Will be about 10mm above sill height, so pretty happy. Would have to channel the boot floor if I wanted to raise it any higher. Also should be able to squeeze some 13x8.5 wheels under the guards too. Last photo is the look I'll be aiming for. (Different model, I know)

Have reassembled the struts and are just waiting for all the zinc plating parts to come back.

Well, everything has arrived now, and the car has been pulled into the garage..... guess the box will be coming out sometime in the near future.

Finally got round to taking it down for compliance. There were a few other minor issues, back brakes dragging, handbrake needs improvement, one ball joint not great, and front windscreen doesn't have the standard mark and the speedo bounces round at low speed Biggest issue is I had never got a repair certifier involved before it was painted. I have got a certifier involved who has been really good, fundamentally it is OK except for a repair that was done above the rear hatch. I have spoken to the panel beater about it. He is booked solid until after Christmas. Over Christmas I should be able to get the inside of the floor fully painted, sound deadening in and carpets fitted. That should cut the noise inside right down. It is fun to drive round, I might have to put a better fan on the radiator as it gets hot sitting still, no problems as soon as it starts moving. Not a lot of space on either side of the radiator.

Not heaps of low down torque but that makes it quite nice to ride imo. It seems to me that if you stay in the 1500-4000 range it is quite sedate, smooth, is still quick enough to get ahead of traffic etc If you use the other end of the tacho it goes pretty good though. I'm quite keen to run it at the drags, apparently they are good for mid 11s stock with a lighter rider, I'd be pretty stoked if it could do high 11s with a fatty on it

Aaaaaannnnddddddd.... The other thing that happened today was the panelbeater was here for another 8 hours.... The exterior of the shell is now ready for a few coats of high build primer...

I checked fault codes by joining 2 terminals in the diagnostic plug. Still nothing. I doubt it's an ecu fault or there would be visual damage inside it. But there isnt . Maybe something in the pump decided to break?

Haven't done it myself on that chassis. but you may get away with it. will likely still need to take the gearbox mounts off. so can push it aside and down a bit. so have enough room to slide the engine off the gearbox input shaft before it his the chassis rail. It wont be much fun.

please feel free to remind me if I don't get back to you - I'm in Aus, car in NZ, not likely to get home anytime soon (grrr) and I've tended to forget about the thing...

If I can get it registered and get out of Auckland yes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So I've been pining some wheels for a long time now, I found a set in America that had some on s a pre order. covid delayed shipping etc etc. Shop never replied to any communications (lucky I never gave them any money. I found another set on aliexpress but couldn't justify the freight. Nearly gave up on the pine then they popped up on trademe. Mrs Chrisr said I wouldn't shut the fuck up about them so I should get them. So I did

There were a few pallet cover sheets going spare at work so I claimed them, brought a jigsaw and got into making some new cards. Unfortunately the fronts are still on the car..down south so I could only do rears (which were way more haggard than front anyway). Wouldn’t mind pre-fitting them before I glue them so have come to a halt. also made a new partition for between the boot and rear seat. I made some more wee splash gaskets for inner guards. This grille is a proper cunt of a design. I couldn’t successfully mask it right, ended up making a card insert to cover the black and leave the silver exposed for painting..it somehow failed and I got overspray. Don’t particularly like the silver and the plastic is kinda pitted in places which I should have primed and sanded but wasn’t so obvious before. I still want to silver the seam around the inner edge but might have to use a paint pen which won’t be the same shade.. brush will look arse. I tried touching it up and the paint fried up so that’s me giving up for a few years. tried to start into making some new brake lines and the flaring kit fucked out so I went inside.

All checked, lubed and reassembled....

.and then I found this when I got home from work.

I had a cheap guitar practice amp kicking around, plus various old speakers and a hand-me-down micro system. I chopped them all up and made a new speaker panel, like so: I got some new fabric (the old stuff was rotten) and covered it up... Then I put the guts of the guitar amp in behind, and put the controls where the knobs of the old valve radio were. This meant I had to use rotary switches for on/off and for the overdrive button. I cut holes in the cabinet for the guitar input and headphones sockets. So in this photo, the original knobs are now controlling the guitar amp: I've also got a few vintage bulbs, a plasma globe and random junk in the hole where the radio dial used to be. This is just 'proof of concept' decorative electronics and I'll be developing this aspect further. =) I sat the micro system in one of the side cupboards, so that (in theory) I could play my music and jam along. The cabinet actually produces almost excessive bass for some reason, but anyway..... I put some lights in the back of the cupboards, and that's about where the project got to in 2014. Here are some staged photos:

Finally finished the boot this past weekend. Won't be everyone's cup of tea, but decided to do a spotted gum floor.

Got all the tyres on today. Pretty happy with the fitment. Some photos (Sorry about the uneven driveway) Need some SSR's asap

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

Bout time I put up a post for the on going evolution of this build, a few years ago discussed with the mrs what car she wanted to build and she wanted an hq, we put it on the 5 year plan... 3 months later im working out on site at one of contacts powerstations and got talking cars, got wind of an un finished project a mate of the site fitter had sitting in a shed, que a few calls and some $$ changing hands it came home with us, its been evolving ever since, initially we spent 8 weeks and plenty of $$ getting it back to roadworthy with the 202 and 3 on the tree, since then its had my 327 chev and a fully built th700 fitted, then i picked up a vz ss ls1 cheap so makes sense to ls swap it since i run CWS specialising in wiring them, so out came the 327 and in went the ls1 mid lockdown 4 weeks later iv just fired it up, will endeavour to post up more pics of the project build but heres a few of various stages from when we 1st brought it in pieces to how it is now with the LS1

Post drag day have been daily driving to work, broken another 2 t5 gearboxes one blew a 3rd syncro the other sounded like an angry chipmunk so now running on a Frankenstein box made from 3 parts boxes, iv decided to splash out and get a jzx110 r154, waiting for my billet adaptor to gm bellhousing to arrive from the states and will be getting it fitted up and the clutch modified again, bonus is shifter in the right spot and cube speed short shifter off the shelf but need to make a new longer halfshaft, cue the i need a lathe for ....things talk with the Mrs (too late its already ordered) (also the you need another gearbox why?) haha

Then this happened