Leaderboard

yes. tomorrow I'm driving this car to Cromwell and back. probably. was going to go to toyota fest but thats cancelled so whatever, we're just gonna cuze around. spending the first part of the trip walking the Able Tasman track, then down to Cromwell via the west coast. back up through Twizel and Ranfurly to Hanmer. then its onto the boat and back home. ill be in Cromwell for two days (12th and 13th) but all over the show otherwise. not sure if we're going to make it to chch, we'll see what happens. i will be in Frans Joseph for a night too at some point. anywho, id be keen for a beer and a yarn if i happen to see anyone but we'll see how we go.

This is actually a good one! Most supercharger setups with a piggyback ECU and no intercooler get around 115hp at the wheels. Which isnt an amazing number. But it just cant be overstated how insanely hot they run with no intercooler haha. In other news, I've previously polyurethane filled my engine mounts. But, I've left the standard rubber in place. But the urethane hasnt bonded particularly well to the rubber, and I suspect the rubber is still actually softer than the urethane. So I think the mounts are slowly getting squishier, especially the rear one which takes the most punishment. So I've decided to hack up my spare one, and recast the pin in a full urethane no rubber. So I cut out as much of the rubber as I could, put it in a little tin of petrol and set it alight. I never undertsood that story in the bible about Moses and the burning bush, but now I get it

YELLOW CAR ! / not doing it yellow, it's just the gel coat tub they had open. Seems like a pretty good fit, bonnet has a bit of spare on the leading edge but that'll help with fettling. Happy about arch width/ clearance. Should be good.

All the adventure bikes are here

So looking at the dyno chart, yours should be quicker as it has peak power for pretty much a full 1000rpm vs a much shorter peak on the s/c one? What rpm do you shift at and how much rpm does it drop? I'm looking forward to your exhaust upgrade on your prius powered Vitz. There's some words I never thought I'd write

Boot lid and front valence done as well, we’ve reached nudity milestone!

Bought some frame rails! They're attached to a car though so I guess we own that too now.

5 x CTs heading north!

She's looking pretty minters!

toque curve just some math. would look like this.

Cheviot

So this nearly survived another Eastcapescapade in November. The gearbox locked up about 5km short of the finish, so it got loaded on the trailer and I rode bitch on the RGV150 to finish the ride on a bike. I finally got to pulling it down and found the same issue that I had riding into Gizzy the year before. The selector retaining screw had wobbled out. You can see all the scratch marks where it had jammed the mechanism. I put this back in with lots of loctite so hopefully it won't happen again! I had been getting worried about the engine during the ride, I had convinced myself there was a bearing on the way out, so I whipped the head and barrel off and gave it all a good wriggle, but everything seems to feel nice and tight. Plenty of oil deposits in there though! I'll be using a better quality oil going forward I think. I've cleaned all the carbon off everything and have just been waiting on a new set of rings to replace one I bent I'm quite looking forward to getting it nanging around again. Hopefully I'll have it back together tonight!

One of the chaps in Australia posted up dyno of his supercharged 1NZ results. So I mspainted a comparison (Happy now, @Stu?! ) (His red, mine blue) Pretty meaty through the midrange! Supercharger has about 35hp more at 3500rpm. But then runs out of puff before 7k and he's got to change gear a lot earlier. He's planning on taking it to the drags. Will be interesting to see how it compares!

Bike has been going great. I didn't get in as much racing last year as I would have liked on account of having another baby and renovating our house. Last weekend was my first outing since september. We had one of our best turn-outs with 14 bikes, which made for some really great racing. I got 2nd in the first race from 2nd place start. 2nd in the second race from starting near the back. Reeled in the young fella that was leading to where I could have patted him on the bum as we crossed the finish line. Then the third race... Started on the 4th row. Leading by the end of the first lap. Then one of our real gun riders got past me under brakes, then made a mistake and I got him back. Thinking "I've got a second chance here, I need to brake a little later so he doesn't get me again"... I did this: And that was the end of my day. And the end of that helmet, and the tail fairing, and levers, and clip-ons... The end of that straight is 80km/h, and I didn't get any braking in at all before I hit the ground. Definitely earned a few bruises, but the physio already seems to have fixed my knee with some needles.

Make sure you give them back fresh from 3 days spent shimming your arsehole half a mil off a lifan-esque power hammer

Its normally the smaller jobs that take the longest, but im gradually ticking them off the list. 1st up is the painting of the air filter cover 2nd is the air filter cover. I found some old mag wheel centre caps at work, drilled some holes and put a 6mm rivnut in the air filter. 3rd is the kicker pedal I fabricated out of some flatbar, plate and an old vans phone case i had hidden in a drawer. Lastly I bought some side boxes at the winchester swapmeet last year when swapmeets were actually a thing and you could go to them. Just toying about with the idea of them but Im pretty keen to make some brackets, colour code them and have them fitted ready for syds run this year to store some tools, spares and a few BRB Hazy Pale Ales

Fitted the rest of the moon discs. To hide the 15x6 alloy wheels. Real White wall tyres will be purchased soon, to replace the snow tyres. Wiring is well underway. Just waiting on a few components to finish up the air suspension side. Battery and back up compressor all mounted and working. New park light lenses on the front too.

.

Got shitloads done lately. Home for 10 days...yay covid!!

Napa absorbed Ashdown Ingrams, sockburn holds the most stock. Ask for Gav

Please keep the header colour scheme

On a happier note,

I spent today cutting and polishing the paint There were a couple of areas that weren't finished very well by the guy who painted it so i fixed it. Then I waxed it. Now I can't move my arms. Picture shows car that may be shiny, hard to tell how good it looks from a pic really ..

Went a bit further with assembly. I'm keen to track down an electrical fan to fit into the factory shroud

Tiger Tamers 1964 Hillman Minx Project - Project Discussion - oldschool.co.nz Here is the car as bought a couple of years ago. Powered by it's original 1600 engine with 58hp. She's no rocket ship so I will need to get it going a fair bit better. At first I was going to rebuild the engine with a head porting job, Cam , more compression which should get it to approx 90hp. Then had thoughts of Supercharging or Turbocharging it but have finally decided to repower it with a Honda K20a engine out of a Accord. I have done some lowering of the car as they sit so high in the front especially, but still another 50mm needed. It seems the combined engine gear box weight of the Hillman unit will be quite similar to the Honda engine with the Toyota R151 gearbox. Also a couple of photos for some inspiration of one done before with a lot more mods than i will be doing.

For my 13.8 run: Launched at 5500rpm, bogged to 4500ish when the wheel speed caught up to actual speed shifted at 9045rpm - on gear shift drops to 6040rpm Then shifted at 9040rpm, gear shift drops to 6725rpm Then crossed the line at 8400rpm in 3rd So yeah for a daily driver it would be pretty hectic having 35hp more at 3500rpm. But at the drags I get to stay in the meaty part of the powerband the whole time. EDIT: With my new 13" setup, the diameter of a 205/60/13 is smaller than 225/50/15 (576mm instead of 607mm) So on the 13" tyre I'll end up crossing the line at roughly 8800rpm instead of 8400rpm. So that works out better than expected.

The new K Power intake turned up today. Only took a week to get to me once sent and came straight to me without getting stung with gst etc. Can a moderator move this to the project build and i will start a discussion thread Pleeease. Sorry for getting it wrong at the start.

I suspect the supercharged one would have a chunk more torque? well unless the supercharger setup makes too much heat and not enough boost.

I could potentially go, but have a few questions for you. Fire me a pm and can go from there. I would be concerned about rear 1/4 rust staining. The earlier models (finned rear) have a design flaw where the c-pillar has a water drain which runs onto the inner wheel arch, but its only a small hole and they block up causing the inner/outer wheel arch plus the c-pillar to wheel arch gusset to rot out. Its a fuckin major to repair properly. Rear 1/4 off kind of job. I assume these have a similar design. I like these old mercs, but having done the metalwork on a finny in the past, its put me off ever buying one.

For Day 1

Think it's just a coincidence - most of these supercharger kits end up around 85kw mark.

Bike pants picked up from seamstress. (New zip fitted, and waist adjuster strap re-affixed) Communal back up guzzoline procured. Free wanker beers procured. Everythings coming up millhouse!

There's no such thing as 6.30 on a Sunday

Then got to putting all the stuff from other one onto new one etc etc, this one i welded tabs on so the fans are removable, what a fuckaround for one rivet, anywho i learnded and put tape on my drill piece to prevent exessive penentrating Pressure tested the whole thing with compressed air in a wheely bin full of water and no leaks ! I wanna keep this build thread thing accurate, not taking out all the misfortunes that evidently come with doing this stuff cheapishly ( with me anyways lol) Live and learn, or something like that

I have pined for one of these for like 25 years. I shall now live bi-curiously through you.

Caravan barryness has been achieved through joining the Liteweight Caravan Fan Club on FaceStalk, and reading the below cover to cover over the weekend. The book is a pretty amazing story, but what a shit ending to a pretty awesome company! I've made a bit of progress and spent a few hours making the wheels turn. Once I got it jacked up and out of the lawn where it had sunk, the wheels actually turned which was a bonus as I was expecting them to put up a bit of a fight. Shit wasn't pretty behind the wheels but I pulled the hubs apart, cleaned up the spindles, repacked the bearings, wire brushed everything and sprayed everything with brakekleen and then WD40. I've left the calipers off for now but the wheels spin pretty smoothly - enough for now anyway and will replace the bearings and seals later on. No photos of them cleaned up but imagine its about 50% better than what you see. The tires held 40psi of air although I did hide behind the recycling bin when they were pumping up. I didn't have anything other than a tape to measure the stud pattern but I'm pretty sure it is 4x108 as @azzurro mentioned above. So I'm eyeing up a set of turbos on trademe unless something else turns up. Will be worrying about that and new tires once its in the yard at work and I spend more time on it. So for now its down on its wheels after managing to get the leveling supports retracted, and the duratorques seem to be moving too when jumping around inside. The brake lines are goosed so will get a roll of hard line at some point and make some new ones, but the first job is to replace the coupling which has seen better days. I managed to get the coupling to rotate but there wasn't a shit show of getting the thing to release so I could hook it up and try to move it. Have priced one up so will likely make that the next purchase unless I can find a good second hand one. Unfortunately the jockey wheel was seized solid so I lopped it off with the grinder - I'm trying to find a replacement but not having much luck finding a straight replacement as yet but confident something will turn up. I plugged the trailer plug into the car and no smoke escaped which was a bonus, a few of the lights actually worked so I've ordered new ones, thanks @locost_bryan for the heads up. Through one of my work suppliers is was less than $100 for the lot including bulbs. Anyway, next step is to find someone to transport it across town to work and then the real work can commence.

Yeah it’s the rust I want seen in person, I’ve had a few old mercs before so know the common places and the bastard of a job. Just gotta see if worth the hassle or wait for something else….

This is what 1400$ worth of cams for a 5M looks like. They have been welded, hard faced, then ground to a specification that should work. Time will tell.

Decided that since I had my money back from parts van I should invest into changing radiator bottom hose to the correct side. I also had them size match to the 4ag as there was a 2mm variation between motor and radiator. Quick plumb up and I am happy with my investment. Of course i need to add my inline remote filler into the top hose mix but you get the idea. Also dropped the heater pipes down to same guys to get them where I want without unnecessary hoses. If it works out they will just go straight across back of engine bay to join either side and one running parallel to the back head outlet.

Spent the morning cleaning 50 year's worth of dirt, flaking paint and other crap out of both door shells. Once the patches are done I'll squirt a heap of rust converter at the bare internal bits and then give both shells a liberal coating of cavity wax. Hopefully that should keep things stable for a while longer. Talking about patches I've made the cardboard templates, so cutting the panel steel should be fairly straight forward. I've also given the inner skins behind the patches a good few coats of zinc paint. Took the opportunity to squirt some etch primer on the bare lower panel where I removed all of the bog. I'll chuck some epoxy primer on the new patches and this lower panel once the welding is done. Just need to check when my mate Cameron has a gap in his schedule to tackle the welding for me. Thanks for looking.

The time has finally come. I couldn't put it off anymore. I needed to cut out the rust. I have really been procrastinating on this work, as I have never really done bodywork like this before. The closest was fixing the rust on the Corolla, which was minor compared to the scope of this work. The main goal was to cut out and replace the steel on any rust that could cause an issue come WOF time. There will still be some more bodywork to do down the track, but once the car is on the road that will be easier to do. So that means I need to cut out the rust in the two front floor pans, the LH B pillar and LH outer sill. When you consider the car has been off the road for 26 odd years, and most of that stored outside, that's not bad! The front floor pans had been badly patched years ago by a previous owner, using rivets, sealant and some tin. The B pillar has a hole in it, behind the window seal, which means that the quarter window needs to come out. And the outer sill is perforated the whole way along, especially toward the rear. I started with the floor pans, as in theory, it should've been the easiest place to start and then build up to the harder sections. The first job was to grab a hammer, screwdriver and chisel, tear off the patches that had been riveted on and see what they were hiding. This big one on the RH side was the first to go. Instead of drilling the rivets out, I used the chisel to just cut through them So, it was covering a patch of very thin metal, with a drain hole that has rusted out. The circle hole is meant to be there, as it is used during the manufacturing process but usually has a steel "paint tin lid" plugging it. Obviously, the hole rusted out, the plug fell out, and it was covered over from there. There is also a recess pressed into the steel, which just acted as a rust trap over the years There are a lot of other small holes and thin metal on this side, so I originally marked it out to cut the whole lot out, but I'm a bit hesitant as finding the spot welds is proving hard due to the rusty metal (and it's spot welded to a couple of different reinforcers under the car). The LH side was a similar deal. A few patches... This one up against the inner sill gave me some concern as it has a big bead of sealant running down along the sill. Sure enough, the steel under the plate is ruined, as is the section of the inner sill where it met the floor. Another rusty drain hole, as well as a couple of screwdriver sized holes next to it (which had their own patch) Toward the tunnel, there was a large patch made up of a couple of smaller ones, which was shaped to fit the indent in the floor panel That one was bad. Big hole under it, and lots of holes poked in thin metal with a screwdriver. There are also a couple of other smaller holes I undercovered. Out came the paint pen, highlighting the extent of the damage. The only thing to do next was to grab the grinder and cutting disc This little brace for the gearbox support was a bit of a surprise. It was also full of rusty chunks from the floor disintegrating. The inner sill needed to be cut out too as that was barely holding together and was full of sealant. To access this better, I cut a hole in the outer sill (which is stuffed anyway) It was pretty ugly in there I carefully removed the inner sill section and peeled it off the jacking point brace Now, a warning. I'm not a professional, heck, I'm barely a beginner at bodywork. I know the basics thanks to a course I took a couple of years ago, but that only covered the basics of welding, not cutting out rust, making patch panels and working with less than perfect steel. I am winging this. I have a semi-decent welder, but had previously been using flux-cored wire, which I swore after welding the Corolla, I would not bother with again (it did the job, and it has a place, but it's just more work for the same result). This time I converted the welder to take a standard 0.6mm (as recommended to me for bodywork) solid wire, and shielding gas. Anyway, so I bought the steel that was recommended to me for this sort of work, which turned out to be thicker than I really should be using; 1.2mm. The original steel is about 0.8 to 1mm. I figure the thicker steel cant hurt in the floor and sill areas, and I will use some thinner steel for other panelwork as needed. The first patch I needed to make up was for the inner sill, as everything attaches to this. I did some CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) and cut the panel out so it was a reasonable fit. I left the bottom a bit longer, as that will get trimmed later when I do the outer sill. I'm embarrassed to show these initial welds, but it's all part of the process. I had been having serious issues with my wire feed, which I fixed after this section was done. I went over this a couple of times to make sure it had penetration and then ended up welding both sides. It needed to be strong. I know, I know, I needed to clean the surrounding metal better. The other issue I had was my gas regulator was DOA and the flow meter didn't work, so I just turned the gas up a bit and ran with it. The welding on the inside was marginally better. I plug welded the brace to the new inner sill section, but also later went around and welded the edges right onto the panel too. The front section of the inner sill is where I started to work out the issues with my machine, and more importantly, technique. There are some better welds here, but far from perfect. Due to the weird shape, I chose to lap weld this patch instead of butt welding it in. Once the inner sill section was in place, the first floor section went down. More CAD, but this took a couple of tries to get a nice tight fit. This has a 90 degree bend on the side to meet the sill. The welding is still a bit ugly, but it's strong and has decent penetration. As the saying goes, "A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't" I carried on again today, and really started to get into the swing of things. The first patch was to join the previous one, up toward the rear of the car. This is a weird one, as it has to start off flat but curve swiftly up to join the existing floor. I made this section slightly oversize with CAD, bent the flange on the side and then notched it The notches allowed me to gently bend the panel in the vice. Once I was happy with the curve, it got welded in place. The next patch, the one that joins on next to it, was a real pain to make. This had to match the curve of the new patch I just welded in, but also match the curve of the existing floor both on the other side and above it. The easiest way to shape this was to make the biggest bends in the vice and then using a hammer and dolly, fine tune it into place. Some additional finessing was done once the panel was tacked in. This welded in a lot better. I'm reasonably happy with it. There is a small patch welded on next to these, which is just covering the small hole I cut out. Finally, I made a large patch to start filling the area above the exhaust and torsion bar. This is plug welded to that gearbox brace, and then butt welded all around the edges. Unfortunately my poor cordless grinder ran out of batteries as I was cleaning up the welds on this patch, but some weld through zinc primer and that was me done for the day too. I still have that one hole to fill, and then I'll move onto the RH side. I've learned a lot doing this side, so hopefully it will go a bit smoother, and quicker. A second grinder will be added to the collection soon, as using the one grinder for everything is just a real pain in the bum and it's chewing through the batteries. Having a corded one at the workbench for just cutting will help immensely. Having dialled the welder in a bit better, and ironing out some of my issues with that and my own technique, my welds are getting better. That last patch needed minimal cleanup with the grinder. Once that floor is completely welded I'll scuff the whole thing up, seam seal the welds and coat it in a zinc rich epoxy. Everything will be covered by carpet eventually. It will need undersealing under the car again too, but that will come once I have both sides done and can jack the car up to get under it.

The trip Home. We stopped in Timaru to grab some lunch. Had to take up all the spaces at paknsav carpark. I got lots of filthy looks from people for doing this haha.

So the underside also looked pretty ugly. Again, I slapped it with a flapper disk expecting to find bog, but again no bog in sight. Cut out the nasty stuff and cleaned up as much of the inner as I could reach and applied a coat of rust converter. I'm relatively happy with the outcome thus far. I'll gut the driver's door tomorrow and then pull it off for some similar treatment. Thanks for looking.

A few hours rigging up some wiring this afternoon and I was able to get it fired up. Hyperpak was a breeze to wire up and just jigged up something temp for fuel pump. Hoping to spend the next couple days finalizing the wiring with the proper relays with an electric fan provision also.

I have fitted the MX5 steering column today, which seems to have worked out quite well. The spline is the same as the Hillman spline which was handy.

Well. 'Murca didn't get back to me so I went with a UK sourced kit. Bugeye, stock-ish wing width & an engine cover with no air intake hump type thing. Should be here in a month. Gonna be simple 60's looking, not some thinly veiled, rear engined, tube framed Trophy Truck Anyhoo, afternoon in the shed. Sayonara shakotan... Wings off Swapped spindles back to stock. Standard right, dropped left. *edit* Just realised pic is upside down, I s'pose. That or I rolled it on the Baja 1000. Gained about 5 inches with the old rear tyres swapped to front. Will aim for a bit more profile to get it level. No suspension lift though. Surprisingly solid underneath, I'll tidy it all up & do the interior next. Gold roll cage, fur headlining and hopefully sort out the "filled" dash.

Approved

Added neoprene fork gaiters. I think its a good preventive measure to take. Pretty cheap and easy to fit.

The body is done! Just need to put some sealer on the underside of wheel arches then move onto the front guards and bonnet. Have a donor bonnet that's good apart from one back corner so will slice it off the blue one.