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Alright so as of yesterday I'm finally out of mortgage prison! I finished moving house with heaps of time to spare, I definitely wasnt biffing trailer loads of stuff onto the lawn the night before settlement. I got some throttle pulleys cut from stainless. I'll put a radius on the inside of the pulley edges and deburr a few spots, but on the whole they came out really nicely. Quite heavy though, probably could have made some parts thinner. (Everything 2mm stainless) It's looking like it'll be fiddlier than expected to balance the cable length and pulley positions to get the banks even. One thing that I didnt take into account is that there is no tolerance for having a cable that is "overlength" as you physically cant slide the protruding end of the cable into the pulley. However I could probably chop out the relevant section of the pulley to allow this without any issues, as these are still significantly beefier than they need to be. I need to make some end stops of some sort to stop the throttle rails moving forward or backwards so everything stays aligned correctly. You may notice that in this photo I've got the linking cable on the wrong way up. It looks dumb having these on the front of the motor, but down the back is getting very crowded and I've got ants in my pants to get this damn thing fired up. I got the throttle rails drilled, took about 3 hours to drill 6 holes! We had to grind flats onto the rod to get through the hardening. Otherwise carbide bits didnt even make a dent. Next jobs are to print a final iteration of the manifold from Nylon, get fuel lines connected up, and keep working on the exhaust. Then I'm preeeeety close to firing it up!

Nick recharged the AC system and now it works fucking ace. Couldn't feel my fingers by the time I got home so I'm calling that a win. Installation of new discs and drums. Front was easy, as you'd expect. Rear was a bit bit difficult to get the drum of due to the massive lip on the inside. However once I got the drum off I discovered the thinnest brake shoe I've ever seen. And of course the wheel cylinder was leaking so I'll get new bits next week and re- do the whole back brakes. Also I found the reason why I'm now the best 4wd driver in NZ. Auto disconnected sway bar for max flex bro. That's what the 4wd people say, you wouldn't understand.

I glooped the two halves together, bolted them up, bolted the tailhousing on and let it set. Following morning it was bolted onto the engine, unsurprisingly a bit heftier with all the gubbins placed back within the box. Its about 9kg heavier than the standard imp box. I then started to fit the first part of the gearshift linkage. The first of those snazzy universal joints, handily available in a diameter to suit the shifter shaft on the Subaru box. I just needed to add a small locating hole for the grub screw... Universal in place.. Engine and box were then bolted back into the car. This bit is so quick and easy when using the 'engine stand 2000'. It takes about 10 mins and I'm getting quicker. It'll be slower when there's shift linkage to undo and driveshafts to slip out of the way. But at least the main heavy awkward part is actually easy. That lot in place I took some pics. Its neat to be able to look out from the one of the lounge room windows down onto the workshop floor and see this... With that lot in place I was able to suss out the angles I could get away with, as shallow as possible and allowing for the handbrake mechanism. I had this old imp gearstick assembly that @dmulally kindly posted over to me. Some previous owner of the car he got it from liked painting things. Everything. Multiple times... I scraped all the layers off, took it apart and cleaned off the dirty old grease. Discovered it had been cobbled together from two old shifter bases. It was originally a very early Imp unit when the very first cars had an automatic choke, which often proved problematic. Hillman then changed the cars over to a manual choke with a nifty little lever in front of the shifter. This mount had been added to the early base. Which means they must have chopped up a later baseplate to get the choke mount. Why they didn't just fit the entire newer base plate I don't know. But what I had in front of me was a frankenstein of base plates with barry spec welding and fixes, but also including a not too badly made bronze bush on the lever where there is normally a (wornout) plastic bush. I had a couple of shift rods to choose from. I chose the least worn. Moving back to the gearbox end I machined up some shaft ends from stainless bar to suit the universal joints. I had some stainless tube and welded the ends in place on the first shaft that runs from the gearbox universal down to the tunnel. Now I needed a sturdy, slippery support to mount in place of the second universal joint. This will not only take back and forth movement on the shaft but also a bit of thrust loading created by the angle on the connecting shaft. I had already bought a lump of slippery hard engineering plastic with this application in mind when I had ordered the plastic for the flywheel thrust bearing a while back. It was bright yellow. Luckily not seen under the car as it would clash with the blue paint. I put a hole in it and machined the outside down. Which also created a pile of pretty swarf.. Then reamed it out to 1" Still a bit tight so out with the adjustable reamers.. until it was just right... Then made a stainless cradle .. The cradle got some wings welded in place and I dug the rivnut tool out.. Mount now bolted in place in the tunnel I had to chop the last tube to the right length, weld on the end and bolt the universal in place.. The front end below the shifter was was standard imp stuff and this is where problems popped up to throw a medium sized spanner in my workings. The side to side gearstick movement across the gate was minimal. Ridiculously so. Like about 1". Or 25mm in new money. Yet the fore and aft movement was about right. But quite stiff. I was contemplating why this was so and what I could do to remedy this when I also noted that 1st gear was where 3rd was and 3rd was where 1st was. Poos. Four years ago when I had compared the Subaru gearshift pattern at the box to the imp unit I thought they were exactly the same. But I had not accounted for the reverse rotation taking place under the imp gearstick. Also I never really thought much about how little of rotation the Subaru box needed on its shifter shaft to shift the internal selector across the 3 rods. Its a tiny amount, like 3 degrees say. Whereas the Imp box has a shorter internal selector and requires more rotation at the shaft. Hence the Imps gearstick knob only moves a teeny bit when coupled to the Subaru box. But the Subaru box has a standard/similar amount of rod movement within (ie 1-2 and 3-4th) which was going to make things trickier to fix. Simple linkage/leverage multiplications that is easier to see than explain. Sorry if your brain hurts. I had to hurt my brain a little bit to suss out a solution but there was only a little bit of smoke. The reason the scooby box is different becomes obvious when you see the scooby shifter setup. Which luckily I can show you because last week thanks to @Leone I was put onto a local fella to me who happens to have many old Leones and Brats kicking about his property and he had a spare leone front wheel drive box that I wanted (always handy just in case...) His property is amazing!!! Long 4wd only driveway up to a ridgetop house with stunning views out over Tasman Bay. Old leones just kicking about... Luckily we have our trusty old 4wd Hiace and that became the days gearbox transporter... Box on bench. Look at that shifter mechanism... The shifter rod attached to the gearstick only rotates a tiny amount when the stick is moved sideways across the gate. But the rod moves 10mm in each direction when shifting for and aft. Simple. Robust. Very Subaru. I can't copy it though because I have turned my box 180 degrees. No matter where I put my pivot point (below or above) I'll have one of the planes working backwards. So I decided to build a new shifter base setup. The most important thing was to reverse the rotation so the gearstick pattern is correct. The imp pivot point needed raising to allow the offset shaft end to be rotated to above rather than below the centre line, so reversing the across gate movement. I would add the ability to adjust both rotation and lineal movement. Started with a new pivot cup because I was not happy with the worn and Barried pressed steel item.. I dug out a large lump of steel bar... Chopped out a square and cleaned it up in the mill.. Big drill = big hole.. Rough machined out a cup shape. Cut a form in cardboard to suit the brass ball and used a die grinder bit to finish the shape... Grinding paste time... Slots for pivot pin.. Lightened the lump down.. Built the shaft up with weld and machined it down so I could add a lower pivot point. Milled some steel like so.. Welded a boss on.. New socket for shift lever ball end... Cut out Barrys previous workmanship... Machined up some spacers and a base plate.. Welded up a little tower (my stainless and steel tig welding is definitely improving, helped muchly by realising that not being able to see what I'm doing does not help much and finally admitting to my age and buying some reading glasses....) Welded tower to base.. Now all together please... Bolted together. You can spot the adjustable rotation, which the spacers allow for, along with adjustable pivot point. In place... Yay- it works! The shift pattern is correct and the action is much smoother. The spring loaded indents on the internal gearbox shift rods are quite stiff, which I noted was the same on the other box with its stock shifter. Its a bit baulky to push past the synchro baulk rings into gear but I think will feel better when the gears are actually rotating. There's certainly no slop in the system and it feels very mechanical - not rubbery. I now note how much flex there is around the shifter base in the imps tunnel (granted a very rusty shell..) Its something I might just try to stiffen up on my blue Imp when fitting this lot in. Phew. That was a little mini engineering mission I was not expecting but that's this project in general

Well its a month later and I am getting back on form, hence this effort today; Plenty of room to finish off the wiring now. There was a minor mishap during engagements, now I need to figure out which Fiat Uno that distributor is off. I'll give the donk a clean up, new oils and filter, new plugs etc. Might drop the sump to see the state of play. For some reason it has way more oil than it actually needs, not sure why.

Went to Repco and got a new battery. Then went back to Repco to get the correct battery, (Repco branded) Century 68MF if anyone is interested. Threw it in and checked current draw. None. All good. Hooked it up and checked the voltage again, 12.6VDC, still good. thought it was sitting a little low and then remembered the battery spacer that was in it. High tech piece of particle board. Thought it could use a coat of paint. Looks like it was meant to be there. Last check was to fire it up and check the charge voltage. If it wasn't leakage current running it flat I needed to make sure the charge was within limits 13.2VDC at idle just after start, not too bad, needed a bit of a rev to see if it would come up to 14Vish. Got to 14V, then 15V then nearly 16V. Guess I know why the battery was toast. Guess I'll look at a new (internally regulated) alternator.

I'm a bloody farmer now you fucking ignoramus. Anywho, The heater drive motor has stripped a gear and thanks to the Nicksparky I got a new drive motor. Also the AC compressor I ordered had the wrong pulley on it so I had to swap the new bearing into the old pulley. I didn't want to smash the new bearing with a hammer so I machined the pulley away from the outside of it. Once I got the old bearing out I chucked some metal glue on the new bearing and pushed it into the old pulley. Jobs a goodin

All of which I have on order.

I picked up a saw during the week and had a go at cutting, didn't get very far before the blade decided to become smooth and basically just polish things. Smoke fell out of it too. So today I learnt there are different blades for cutting different thickness of metal. I've now spent my life savings again to buy a bunch of blades for chonker steel. If that doesn't work then I give up and will just get new carpet and cut around these stupid boxes. I did conduct a somewhat successful experiment with sound deadening though. I was reading about how to remove sound deadening without dry ice and this freeze spray stuff came up a few times so I gave it a shot. It didn't work too bad but it would be a ludicriously expensive way to actually remove large portions of sound deadening. Just getting the chips of this little bit used up the whole can. I haven't really worked out where the cuts for these boxes will be done but hopefully when I start to cut things it will make more sense depending on what access becomes available.

I managed to get the driver side welded in. Man, that took some time. By the time I clamped it in place (the easy bit) then put the 4 bolts in to hold it to the boots sheet metal. Then used some metal screws in between the bolts to hold the sheet metal to the shock mount. Then welded the bracket to the boot floor and the chassis fish plate. Once that was welded in I had to fit and weld the top plate which sandwiches the boot floor between the two. I made the top plate a little smaller in size so when I welded it, I was welding to the weld and bottom plate so I could use a bit more heat. Same procedure with bolts and screws and then welded it in. Welding went well really (well I think), though not that easy being folded in two inside the boot for some of it. Should have taken the pic before I sprayed on the weld through.

"The front TinTricksMfg bracketry kits for '85-'00 2wd Hilux hubs consist of... ▪︎2x billet 6061-t6 anodized alloy hats ▪︎2x billet p20 zinc plated steel brackets ▪︎complete zinc plated fastener pack to suit -The billet 6061-t6 hats are a hubcentric, bolt on adaptor that mount to the back side of hub the same as the oem rotor would. The rotor is also located centrally to the hat by the lip machined in on back side. 8x 5/16" fasteners attach the rotor to the hat. The hats are anodized for corrosion protection. -The billet p20 steel caliper brackets adapt the aftermarket caliper to the oem spindle caliper mounts. Ease of fitment & fastener/tool access has been kept in mind with bracket design. The brackets are zinc plated for corrosion protection. -Fasteners used are suited to a high-heat environment. Grade 12.9 cap screws zinc plated and post heat-treated. Hardened flat washers with Nordlock & Schnorr locking washers plus zinc plated cone-lock nuts. These kits are built to comply with New Zealands LVV Braking & Attachment Systems Certification standards and discussions with our local certifier were had throughout the design process. They are 100% bolt on with the oem hubs, and are made to work with oem or drop-spindles. (Minor variations may apply between spindles/castings) >>Note: kits suit 17" wheels upwards. I will confirm caliper clearance via private message. ALL PRICING IS IN NEW ZEALAND DOLLARS AND INCLUDES GST. OPTION 1 >>Hat, Bracket & fastener kit only (both sides) $1300.00 with natural/clear anodized hats $1335.00 with black/colour anodized hats (Minimum run of 10 hats needed for bulk anodizing prices otherwise a one-off charge applies) OPTION 2: >>Complete kit with Rotors, Calipers, Brackets & fasteners. (excludes brake pads)(both sides) $3085.00 with natural/clear anodized hats $3120.00 with black/colour anodized hats (Minimum run of 10 hats needed for bulk anodizing prices otherwise a one-off charge applies) -Rotors are Wilwood 13.06"x1.374" (331x34mm) Gt48 curved vane slotted & vented. P/n: 160-3584c (Right) & 160-3585c (Left) -Calipers are Wilwood 4-piston Superlite forged type. 1.75"x1.10". P/n: 120-11135 (Note: extras you will need to buy are brake pads with a compound to suit your requirement, plus brake hoses/fittings.) * Copied over from Matt's business page

Another email from panel Barry come through recently. He's been spending time cleaning up the sills and preparing for the final weld in as well as getting all the welds in the rear floor/boot area ready to support the rear end going back together.

lol sheepers spends 5 mins in south auckland...

Picked up a pair of trailer guards, aka wheel tubs from a solid GC today. just sat them in place where I think they’ll end up, or there abouts. stood back and admired the look, quite like it. still need to trim to fit snug once it’s all decided.

Just needs a couple of LED whippy boys on both sides of the front bumper and a kenworth windscreen banner

Replaced oil pump with other unit I have with the SQ Engineering additional relief valve spring setup to bump up the pressure, we seem to be good! If that still doesn't give me good pressure at all times i'll flick the cam caps off and have a measure up New Speedo drive is in so I've now got a work speedo Think that's it really, time for cert? Bumper is back and looking absolutely insane if you compare to what it was previously!

My parents gave me this for my 21st It came with a card that says W.W.I MAJOR JENNINGS D.S.O. Google wasn't around when I got the watch, but now it is, so o know he was a surgeon. http://www.maltaramc.com/ramcoff/j/jenningsjw.html

Hanmer car show

Here's the process of forming the front firewall..... All the correct tooling has been used, such as the planishing hammer, to spot welding it in. You could call it a c10 style firewall, it's all going to be exposed with no wheel tubs. Check out the 'frenched' in wiper motor, I've never seen this done before and I was blown away when Matt surprised me with this! Wayyy cool. Also with the body drop, the steering has to be reconfigured, this is now ticked off the list

I needed something to get building materials and generally haul shit around with. I had an 80 series when I built our last house and it was invaluable for getting shit done, should have never sold it... Anyway, life story, get to the point. My new truck is a KZN185 96 hilux surf, turbo diesel. It's done 340ks which is up there but I've had a few toyotas with high Ks and it doesn't seem to affect them to much. This truck drives really nicely, even with the big tyres it doesn't seem to have that shaking vibration thing that modern rangers etc have.

Remove the residual pressure valves for discs, had the same problem on the lancer with a USDM master cylinder

I finally got a set of top door stainless trim for all 4 doors. I’m way too drop nuts to drill holes to mount them but.

Yea it was semi not terrible to get out with the dash apart. Was a cunt to put back in

Hah, classic 185 probs.. that warm/cold servo is also a massive cunt to change with the dash in..

Also fitted a new radio. The one in it had FM and CD player. And nothing else. Yip yip new radio. Nick the sparky found this thing on special so it was cheap enough. Also fitted a reverse camera which was quite the job getting the cables into the rear door. By some fluke it works.

Yeah they certainly did, had a headrest with horizontal strings, instead of the fishnet type. See them more often in the V6 Petrol models.

Got the wheel bearings replaced along with the rear shocks and bushes, and front brake pads. Apparently both bearings were toast so both should have failed a warrant so I'm glad I planned to do both sides anyway. Got The warrant and headed to Orewa for the Rodders Beach Fest. The bearings must have been FUBAR as it seemed to be a lot more steady around 60MPH, the rear suspension was much better as well. Didn't sound like an old trailer any more. Found the Mustangs older topless brother I asked about the colour and they said it was painted by a previous owner around 1992 in a Chevy colour that has been brightened up a bit. Ours was imported in 1991 so maybe some guy imported 2 cars and painted both to match. I'm always partial to an XD as well And I like a good fairlane. One of the few American classics that would get me out of the Mustang And I found this nice HQ Premier with a 253. I like the double lights but the nerd in me thinks the coolest part is the AA badge.

Yea so this got the backburner big time as the next day from that ^ I wound up in hospital and spent 8 days there. This is a tedious story where my partially removed gall bladder decided to spontaneously weld itself back together, make gallstones that happily blocked my bile duct, which basically meant my liver was pumping bile into the wrong bit of my insides. I turned very yellow until they flew me to chch on the flying doctor plane (this was actually pretty awesome) and reamed me out. I still have a drain in and hopefully will be getting surgery mid Feb to sort the rest of it. This is all very very boring, I would not recommend in any way. -43/10 So many wasted shed hours. But in the meantime I have been slowly picking away at things, nothing too serious tho. Splashed out on some new hoops, Goodride something's at $80 a corner fitted. They may not stay but will be an improvement on the tyres that were there, these were the same ones it had when I sold it. Then I installed the heater and dash, this hurt me and I probably shouldn't have done it. @HumberSS has found a heater mech out of an NA MX5 for me so I should be able to hack that in there. There is a wrecker in chch who quoted $260 plus shipping for an original heater mech, which is more than a 1/3rd the cost of the entire car so they can get fucked. I had to draw up and print a vent that was missing, some previous owner decided to bin all the heater gubbins and had weirdly blocked off the screen vents which wasnt particularly solid thinking. I also spent a bit of time rerouting and extending the control cables as the heater is out of an earlier car. I bought a cheap AFR off AliX a while ago so I mounted this while I was at it. The seatbelts were pretty toast and of different makes. I had bought some cheap seatbelts off FB, but when I picked them up the tags were unconvincing; So when I got flown to Christchurch to talk to the surgeon last Wednesday I (again probably stupidly given my state of health) grabbed a lime scooter over lunch and made my way to NZ Seatbelts and picked up some proper ones. These got fitted up; Now I just have to look wistfully at this and hope that in a month or so I will be fit enough be able to drop it so I can finally sort the wiring;

Went for a warrant and failed on the front left wheel bearing. Got a warning last time so fair call. It'll be fixed this week along with the rear suspension. A little wary about my new power steering lines. I had fitted some heat sheathing as the original lines were burnt and the new line is probably not fire proof but this seems to have some damage now. It only contacts at full lock so hopefully it won't be a problem but I have put some ally tape on the area for some extra protection. Ally tape fixed most problems. Took the Mustang to Kumeu, don tell the fuzz. I wanted to get it out a few times for 'testing/shakedown'. Bloody good event this year. Hotter than the face of the sun but the shady bar was good.

Part 2... catching up now. I finished what I needed to on the loom to enable testing of the injectors. I had made a simple little alloy jig that I could bolt the two rails onto and it sat high enough that 6 matching jam jars could sit below. We set this lot up on the big mobile steel bench and rolled it down to the front of the workshop near the entrance just in case it all goes a bit wrong. Set the ecu up along with a little 'ignition' switch and starter button for later testing of various engine sensors/ test running. The tuning software that megasquirt uses, Tunerstudio, has a good set of testing programs built in including injector testing. Started using that and as soon as the injectors primed and started squirting we found a tiny leak. Poos. My home made rails were brazed together and there was one teeny bit the bronze hadn't flowed into leaving a tiny pin hole that let out a comical jet of fuel. Glad I tested them now. Here under that lovely layer of carefully applied epoxy black... was a tiny hole.. So out with the oxycet and I brazed it up. Then re-tested the setup. No more leaks We ran through a few tests and made notes on fill rates at different opening times/frequencies etc etc to work out the injector dead times. Not a crucial thing to do but since it was setup as such it seemed rude not to. The battery I had was a bit tired and my charger couldn't keep up so I installed a larger wheeled type of Nissan charger at the front of the workshop. This also meant the testing was being done at a realistic voltage you'd expect to see. Happy the injectors were all matched and meeting the factory Nissan specs I packed all the stuff away. Then I fitted the inlet manifold gaskets and bolted the inlet in place on the engine, followed by the rails, with the repaired bit hand painted with epoxy as best I could to match. Next job to finish was the Bosch style idle air control valve. It had far too big in and out bosses so I machine up some stepdown parts to suit a more sensible sized tubing. I needed to mount it somewhere out of the way, safe and not on view because its not very pretty. I spotted a handy bracket on the bottom of the starter motor that has a threaded hole. Perfect! I made a little P clip to suit mounting the iacv. which bolts here.. Like so... I did some more plumbing to suit and after a few last little bits of wiring the engine was about complete. I fitted the pod filter I'd bought a while back directly onto the throttle body but it will actually end up remotely mounted in a cooler spot. I was just waiting on some posh ventilation hose to arrive. The Imp got a fresh wof and we took some pics of it when down at a local swimming spot near Motueka. It looked neat on the river stone so I took some pics.. Went hooning up a local valley to get wild plums.. Got home and snapped some pics of the engine next to car. The perspective makes the engine look huge... Next stage was to bolt the exhaust headers in place properly with the new gaskets and special nuts I'd bought. But before playing with exhausts always be aware of the potential dangers, as so carefully pointed out in the workshop manual !... Manifolds bolted up fine but a few of the nuts are awkward to get started as its tight on space around the header pipes. Next parts in the exhaust chain was the flexible joints. My welding was improved a bit by wearing some reading glasses. I guess I just have to accept that aging thing and embrace the power of +1.5 because now I could actually see what I was welding. Its still not instagram weld porn but it'll do for this project Bolted the cross member in place and with a bit of alloy I was able to check the heights to weld the next sections at. Unfortunately I must have fabricated the LH manifold out of line and I have ended up having to weld the secondary pipe at an angle to make sure the outlet heights match. It wont be easy to spot when its on the car, with a exhaust box hiding them. But I know its there... Or maybe I don't bother with a single large tranversely mounted silencer and just run a couple of old dumpy mufflers... I was now at the point I could fill the engine with oil and test the oil system. Quite a while back I bought some quality oil when on sale.. I filled the filter up first and then carefully filled the engine. Up until this point I had no real idea of exactly how much my resized sump would take before it got to height I wanted it at. I'd done some basic sketches and napkin formula and I knew it would be more than 3 litres. Hopefully more than 4. It almost took 5 litres to get to the halfway point on the sight glass and that will drop once the oil pump primed up and filled the oilways. Cool. Great news then. I'm really happy it'll have a decent amount of oil in there. Now remember back to around the end of December 2021 when I wrote this... "Lastly I needed to bolt the sump cover in place. I had to think carefully about bolt placement for sealing purposes and get the bolts square. This sump plate is going to have to be sealed well because there is no usual high sided sump like most cars. Hence I built it rigid to help against flex. Good quality sealant will be the order of the day* *It will leak. Its a British car. Its destined to leak." Well then. Guess what. It leaked! Ha. Just after patting myself on the back at having a great sump capacity the level started to drop and was leaving a good puddle on the engine stand top. So Hannah helped me move the engine so I could drain the sump and then I mounted the engine/box assembly into the spare imp. On a positive note I was chuffed with how quick and easy it was to bolt up in place by myself - all of about 5 or 10 minutes. Engine in place and with the car up in the air I took that above photo. I had a good idea where it was coming from and wasn't feeling to glum (not even a single toy was lifted from my cot) I unbolted the sump plate and found the hole... Back when I was machining the sump plate and milling the slots it wasn't initially clamped down tight enough and it shifted out of line without me spotting it. By the time I noticed it had moved it was too late. I had to weld up the resulting mess and re-machine that area. I thought it was all fine but I'd obviously missed a tiny pinhole, maybe exposed when I machined the inside of the plate out to take some weight off it. The plate got a good clean (that threebond sealant is tenacious stuff! ) and I fixed the hole with a dollop of JB weld. Took some pics of engine from below with its innards exposed.. Little pistons... Bolted the sump plate back up, waited till the following day and refilled it. This time no puddles. Yay. While the engine was bolted into the spare imp I took the chance to double check measurements and clearances. It was all looking good and I was very happy that I had placed things ideally, especially as most measurements were taken in awkward areas by all sorts of various ruler/tape measure/level balancing acts. The ignition coils for example, just mounted on their makeshift bracket I'd made for bench testing, are actually almost bang on in the right place and only sitting a touch too high. The filter hose will just clear the underside of the parcel shelf and there's heaps of room for the remote filter.. Hose (turned up the day before) .. Hannah's hand holding filter roughly where it will be mounted to the bulkhead... Lots of room out back between engine and where the removable rear valance bolts in place.. and lastly, the 'Mandalorian spaceship' will not at all be hidden by the rear parcel shelf .. Engine is now out and back on the bench for more 'bench testing'...

It's alive! Took a little bit to pump some gas through but started sweet as. Good seeing fuel in the filter. Good to confirm it was the pump and that I fitted it properly. Took it for a test drive and something tinkled and fell on the road. I went back to find it and it was some random clip. When I got home my wife thought the wheel nuts were loose and so I checked them and noticed something missing. This thing goes in there. Fixed. I had also noticed a clunk in the boot when going around corners. Turned out to be the wheel brace. It is still a pig to start hot but I had ordered a new Pertronix coil (to match the rest of the ignition) as that might have caused my non start. I figured I may as well throw it in, coils don't like being hot and the original chrome one is probably old. Started right up but the proof will be road tripping to Americarna. A few more things to do then we are off.

I disconnected the fuel tank line and got the expected run of fuel down my arm, in the eye, etc. Plenty coming out there. Disconnected the filter and blasted the line out with Contact Cleaner. Not sure if any gunk came out but plenty of fuel there too. If fuel was getting to the engine bay but not getting drawn in surely it is the pump. Got a new Carter mechanical pump for $54 and decided to throw it in. That is the view down. Bit of a prick to get at and can't swing a spanner in there so off came the power steering pump. As with everything this was also a bit of a prick. The top attachment is a threaded rod with a nylock nut. The whole rod came out so hopefully it would go back in. Later problem. Next came the fuel lines, easy enough from below. Then the pump itself. For some reason it had a 9/16" and a 5/8" bolt because of course it did. Cleaned up the mounting face as much as possible and had a look inside. Some v8's have a extra pushrod on the cam for the pump and it will drop out and end up in the oil pan if you don't secure it first. Hopefully mine does not. I did look up a few videos of 289/302 pump replacements and they didn't mention it so hopefully I'm good. If not, engine out. New pump went in much easier than I thought. I got the lever under the cam and managed to get the bolts started then wound them in slowly to seat the pump. Again hope I haven't caused an issue but I'll find out. I managed the get the power steering pump back in ok but it is probably a bit loose, again later problem. The battery is on a regen cycle so once that is finished I'll give it a crank and see if it goes. I did notice when actuating the old pump that air seemed to be coming out the side so it could have a dud diaphragm. Hopefully that was the problem and I'm good to go now. I'm saying hopefully a lot in this post.

Mainly done. I need to weld in a small piece to fill the hole you can see in the pic's. It's that shape to give a bit more clearance for the odd square corner of the Honda engine. Also, another piece to fill the tight corner up on the right. It will make a little shelf but will be ok. I am pretty happy with the welding. I seem to have good penetration and not too much build in the main. I have taken a few high starting lumps off but it won't need much more. Some filler will be needed to smooth of top join (I suppose I am allowed to being sheet metal), but I still need to weld that from the inside as well. I think it is coming along well. Far better than my first attempt which was not so good but still gave me a stepping stone to doing a much better job the second time.

I got the tail shaft back from the shop so I thought that was a 5 min job and the car would be back on the ground and driveable. Wrong again. The 'new' shaft is made from a second hand Falcon drive shaft. 1.75" tube, second hand yoke and new unis and bearings. It is heaps lighter than the old one and pretty much everything was unusable on the old one. The new one is also about 25mm longer which it needs. I climbed under to slip it in and got this far... I tapped it back out to check it and the spline is exactly the same as the old one but without the extra 30mm or so of counterbored part. Basically it should fit better than the old one but does not. At the back I have this... I measured both ends and the 35mm gap shown is pretty much what I need to get it in. Once fitted it will have a good amount of back and forth. Talking to the shop he said the problem is likely due to the second hand yoke being twisted which is why it is hard to fit and remove. The old one slips right in. We'll either replace the yoke or counter bore it so it fits. It will depend on getting enough engagement. I refitted the old shaft and got it back on the ground so it was at least driveable. I went to start it to take it for a test drive aaand, nothing. Cranks but wont light off. I put my hand under the fuel filter and it came away covered in varnish so I thought a new filter was a way to go. I got a nice new filter from Repco, cheap and see through so I could see if there was gas. Looks nice and clean. I'd prefer full of gas but. So I either have a blockage or dud pump. Either could happen as the car sat for ages before I bought it so the tank will be full of crap. It runs well normally though.

Finished up on the sound deadening in the rear. Just worked with the carpet pulled back. Dynamat is much easier to use than I thought. Got it all laid nicely and then put the underlay back on top. I then had a go at refitting the chrome trim around the drip rail. I used a bit of Dow Corning 4 silicon grease on the rail and it slipped on reasonably easily. The right hand side did not play the game nicely though. I could get it on in places but not all the way and didn't want to smash it on. I think the thickness of the paint makes a bit of a difference I may try again later or just get my panel guy to give me a hand for 5 min. (or 30s probably) Side with no chrome: I also jacked up the car and measured the driveshaft. It is about 35-40mm between the spider and the diff yoke once disconnected and pushed fully forward (at ride height) which I think is about right. I just need to check if the driveshaft guy can make a new one minus the extra welds and dodgyness. With it up in the air it is less than 5min to get it out so easy job.

Next step is the underlay and sound deadening. I took out the rear underlay and it has what looks like the factory sound deadening. Sort of a rubbery mat with hessian type insulation. The underlay felt a bit damp from being there a while so is airing. I ripped out the sound deadener as I have new dynamat to use and the old stuff is degraded. I also wanted to check on the condition of the floor so up it came. Peeled out really easy so it would have been doing something but not as effective as it should have been. The floors though are mint Bit of brown in the seams but for what is probably 55 year old paint and no real rust in the floor. Sweet. Ideally I need the seats out to fully remove the carpet but I may just work around them as there is actually a double floor in that area, I assume that is the seam you can see left of the above pic. The nuts are in the upper skin through a small hole in the main shell but with long bolts so I need a really long reach socket to get over the bolt and get the nut off. A standard short socket like mine will never get them off.

I ordered some new regulators and decided to work on the trunk divider and parcel tray while I waited. Cut some shape out of 9mm (I think) MDF. Some trial and error was required. Covered the parcel tray in vinyl, Ados F3 and staples to hold it. Not my best work but not terrible. The bracking and area behind the rear seat is not flat in so a flat piece of MDF would not work but slotted a rectangular part in with some glue, screws and ally tape. Cut the edges into smaller patches which are just taped in to place. Work on an aircraft skin at 400kts so should work here. Lots of tape. Another issue with the larger divider was it stuck out too far and the seat would not slot back in but this works. Finished the parcel tray with some holes for the speakers and speaker cloth. The corners look a bit average but I'll leave it till it annoys me too much and I'll just make another one. Looks good with the seat fitted.

Job done, hopefully I pick it up tomorrow and then can start the rest of my little jobs.

Side project while waiting on the Mustang to be returned. Pretending I'm on the repair shop restoring my Father in law's old tool box. He worked for South Auckland Motors till he retired and this was his. It is from Chicago and must be ancient with probably 60 years of oil and grime to remove. Some cool tools I didn't know existed but wish I did like stubby sockets with a built in uni.

Got some more photos from the Panel beater. Final prime for the main body: Colour in the jams: More areas painted than I thought. The boot gutter and rear valance along with the boot lid are being done. there were a few cracks in the door jams as well that I was ignoring but now they are sorted.

Car is now in the paint booth. the main problem with the car in the first place was poor prep before using filler or paint on lead. It doesn't look like he's used any filler yet but has done some really nice steel repairs. Etch primer? Gold member. and epoxy primer Hopefully some nice blue paint next. I asked for a factory finish not show quality so hopefully he doesn't spend a bunch of time getting every imperfection out otherwise she'll have a really nice bum butter face... The colour apparently came out closest to a volvo blue. Not sure which and I think it needed more white to match the car so is likely some odd concoction they mixed up last time it was painted.

Got the report and pictures from the panel beaters: Most of the paint cracking is loose filler over lead joins on front A’ pillars and rear quarter sail panel areas. - Roof is good only some small dents with filler repairs. - Gutters have heavy rust surface rust, which we have removed all old seam sealer and rust treated. - LR quarter panel- Old panel pull holes were just filler filled, need dressing up and welding - Lower front wheel arch needs rust repair - Wheel arch needs a little hammer up to true up edge before re filler work. - Rear lower panel area was heavily filled needs a hammer up before refinishing - Quarter window corner needs weld up, stress crack area. Will need to remove window seal and channel out. - Right Rear quarter- Front area need a hammer up before re filler work - Rust repair lower front wheel arch area - Old patch repair I recommend removing old patch in this area and replacing. - Rear window area- Needs rear window removed due to rust in lower rear corners and seam area SUMMARY: Apart from some findings that need attention, overall body is great for its age. The car has been stripped to bare metal at some stage, with just filler work over bare metal letting it down in areas. Should be an easy fix and proceeding nicely. Going to hit the bank balance a bit more than I planned as the insurance is only paying for a blend not a respray but they will at least save me about $2k.

It made my day today when @Stu sent me through some pictures of bellhousing progress! Firstly the J160 front was milled down to 15mm above flush, to give the correct overall length later. Then it was noticed that a 75mm tube fit into the input shaft hole nicely. So then a second round part was machined that fits centrally over the 75mm tube, to the dimensions to centralize the auto bellhousing onto this. Then all tacked together, ready for a test fit after taking the bits out of the middle. So in the end there was no need for an intermediate plate. I'll hopefully have time for a test fit in the next few days. But I'm 100% amazed and relieved about how much simpler the job has been thanks to the auto box having that circular mounting setup. (The job was also easier than expected, because Stu did all the hard bits...) So thanks again for the assistance and expertise. Very much appreciated.

Started pulling a few things out prior to taking it to the tin basher for the panel and paint repairs. I took out the rear seat, parcel tray, and trunk divider as both were just cardboard and shit. A previous owner loved his pink batts, not sure if they were doing much but it's in the bin now. I kept the parcel tray for now just in case my new one is too thick but hopefully I'll ditch it. Also took out the speakers but I may just end up putting them back minus the grills. I made new panels from 9mm MDF. The parcel tray will get covered in black vinyl that I have left over from doing the same on my Fairmont. I may put some speaker mesh on the tray itself rather than the ugly grills although I will lose a bit of the 90's 6x9's bro look. I'll get some proper underlay for both I think. Next I took out the sail panels, more pink stuff here too. I don't know the sound isolation properties of Pink Batts but since there is a lot of tin resonating I doubt it did much. Got a good look at the seat belts. I'm not sure if the car came with lap sash belts but I'm pretty sure the inertial reel is after market. Bit sneaky it hasn't been certed but looks pretty legit. Only problem is it blocks the window mech so will need tweaking so the window goes down. Took the window out so I can service it and get it working. It is actually really smooth so should work ok if not contacting the belt reel. Not sure how I'm going to get it all back in though, it is a bit fiddly. Will give the cavity a good clean out, already got some crap body sealer and sand out. I can see why I have a bit of crud under the paint on the outside as there was a bunch of sediment between the inner guard and the outer sail panel. I may wait till the paint is done to finish the inside just in case he cuts anything out. Looks pretty clean otherwise. Will give it some spray in sound deadener and fish oil once the paint is done.

Before diving back into the steering I thought I'd revert to what I know, wiring. The temp and oil pressure gauges are dodgy, they may work but I can't really tell. The terminals looked shite so I replaced them I decided the Random bracket on the engine mount that does nothing was getting in the way of the power steering lines Now gone Dunno what that did but the car is not lighter and more efficient. It freed up enough space to lower the lines a bit below the headers and with some manipulation I managed to realign the hard lines off the power valve. Add a zip tie and now I have more clearance. I think the pressure line is still a bit long and hits the header at the bottom on full lock but the heat sheath will save it for a while. There are also a few leaks and the lines from the power valve to the ram still need to be replaced but I might take it in to a pro to check everything and do an alignment once finished. I also need to replace the trans shifter seal so I might get that done at the same time. Lucky I live pretty close to the shop.

Finally got my carb spacer from summit, it got caught in customs. Not sure why, I didn't get charged anything so maybe just adding FAF. Good chance to check out my performer clone intake. I was lazy and didn't disconnect the carb, just unbolted it and moved it to the side. Spacer kit comes with studs, used the locknut method to screw them in and did them up to 5 wrist pounds Finished product. 1/4" extra height which fits under the bonnet with about 1/2" to spare with the current air cleaner height. Hopefully this keeps the carb a bit cooler and maybe might add a tad more airspeed and the 1 extra HP will make all the difference. Not much I can do about ambient air temp so that will always be hot on a hot day in traffic.

Decided to have a quick look at why the rear windows don't go down. Started by pulling out the seats and then side trim The previous owner really liked house insulation, not sure if it is achieving much The side panels are actually metal. Mustang guys probably knew that but news to me. I can see why you'd insulate it but dynomat or similar would be better. Later project. Can see how the window system bolts in and also (badly focused) the inertia reel. What you can't see is the rollers on the bell crank came off the fixed and moving sliders. Still can't see it here but it was wedged at the top behind the inertia reel. I think the belts were probably fixed and inertia reels added and there may be an interference problem but getting the rollers back on proved to be a bitch. I got one back on the window but not the fixed slider and then removed the roller to see if I could set that first and probably made things worse. I probably need new rollers and to actually remove the system and clean it all up. I could then also clean up the red stuff inside the panel while I'm at it and cavity wax it all. I think there will need to be a take two. Did manage to slide the window down by hand though. Secure as.