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Great news. Clutch adjusted and no slippage. I should have taken photos but the clutch when I chiselled it off was rusted something shocking. I would have replaced it on the spot but owing it was a custom jobbie I cbf'd. I couldnt get reverse initially but four forward gears werent a drama. Took it for a spin and holy shit what a weapon. I thought the clutch was slipping in second until I saw that I had churned up the driveway with both wheels. The torque of the scooby brings shame and dishonour on the 875cc Imp engine. I filled it with water and looped the hoses back on each other to get some flow and heat. Then with the engine off I stuffed the hose into it reverse flow and gave it a blast. Then went the normal way. Took a good couple of minutes both ways until the water coming out was crystal clear. Thankfully reverse then decided to work (maybe it needed waking up after 30 years or so off the road). Then again probably all of it does. When I dragged it out the engine and starter were both locked solid. Still so much to do but I'm enjoying it. Gives me a bit of a boost knowing it actually works and works well.

1x engine ready for this prestigious event!

I'm frothing, after owning the car for 13+ years it finally got new rims

Whilst waiting for some wiring parts I couldnt help myself and rigged up some temp wiring to get it to start. Sounds fantastic and a shit load better than an Imp engine. Clutch doesnt work and it creeps in neutral so Ill have to do some bleeding and adjusting on the fork. It was hailing when I took this vid but in person it sounds so nice. So next on the agenda is the clutch and getting a hose into the engine to flush out the crud before installing the rear radiator.

Change of tack. I got my mrs to look at my conundrum in exchange for reading her university paper on Mental health and DBT Therapy. And her solution although glaringly obvious is remake the AC lines I didn't want to touch them because ac ain't in my realm. She pointed out what I have already built and said just weld new ones up....... she's right. So for now I will finish everything turbo related but the down pipe till I'm ready to deal with that the AC lines. I'll then treat my self and build the sexy 3.5" exhaust I have all the parts for and hook it up to the R35 GTR front muffler ive already got on it (yes I already have nissan bits fitted) and just run it non turbo for a little longer to get it a warrant.

Another spurt of enthusiasm drivers side manifold just needs V band stuck on and I can move to the passengers side and cross over pipe. Crossover will be piss easy nice and low just above cross member so hopefully most of the heat disappears under car. Has been on and off of course 10 plus times in engine bay. Can tick off clearing sway bar power steering and transmission lines as well and its removable in one piece!

Absolute fucking fail this morning. Turbo and wastegate fit but exhaust pokes straight into the air conditioning lines. Looks like my $700 manifold I bought was never made to work with air con fitted. Bit pissed off I've chopped everything up to start again but have stopped to regroup before I fuck up a pile of very expensive parts. Air con or turbo I can't currently have both. Only things that fit I made. No photos......

I think you're going to have to take your rearset mounts off the available holes in the frame lower castings. Do they call them the hatchets or something similar ? Plenty of aftermarket folding pegs around - usually sold as pillion pegs Edit - A couple of stray neurons collided and I remembered that in HD language those castings are the tomahawks.

So cool. Congrats on first start.

And sold as a rolling shell and gone to a good home no one was interested in the engines so I’m thinking mini jet boat no regerts made back what I spent on it not counting time and have a shed full of tools and skills I picked up working on it

Side note: those horrendous looking pullmax dies were a quick slap togethor for a test job that I reshaped for this purpose. I know Pullmax baby Jesus was weeping seeing those pics but they work fine.

Rear firewall design and fabrication

Here's some further photos to update this thread. Cando tube upper and lower control arms. These are produced in the US and were sourced over in Aus. A mate was kind enough to bring them over on a flight Also a tilton pedal box was sourced. I intend to have the reservoirs fitted in the guts of a later model Hilux dash (98-04) So one of those was sourced including the dash crossmember

Thanks to @yoeddynz for the idea of yellow tartan. For those who don't know, Imps were made in Scotland. Hard to see but the carpets also have yellow stitching.

The body drop equates to a 3-1/8" (80mm) drop. Relatively pretty big on a Toyota and cut into the rocker panel Here's the sill panel folded up and construction of the floor structure

I went through a faze of buying and selling wellsides, all of the Toyota variant, mainly the later 98-04 shape, from S/C, D/C and X/C. I'd part them out, either sell off the tuff deck, keep the tailgates (I collect those for future dream shed art) cut tail light buckets out and then occasionally keep the good ones. Here's one of those said good ones, and the final wellside for RDGR8R. I picked this up through a work colleague, he said he was keeping it for a spare, I told him it was off to a good home, and later @RXFORD was kind enough to cut it up, I.e get surgical and removed the bedsides. I'm going back to a Simi factory look, I like to refer this to a Japanese minitruck style, heavily modified with subtle factory tones. I'll get Matt to build this tray around the factory sides, incorporate my old combo skin, fab some nice swaged inner lining, keep the orginal plastic stone guards, and potentially the OG fuel door?

Die grinder and paint won’t make me the welder I ain’t ...