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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've gone ahead with a brake upgrade. Matt has developed an in house front and rear Willwood kit....

I think I might know what the starting problem is... Pretty sure that should be something over 12VDC. Charged it for another 24hrs with it disconnected from the car and still 9.8V. This has dropped at least one cell, probably shorted since it had none volts before I charged it. I haven't checked the alternator voltage but I'll get a new battery and check it then. The car could still have a short draining the battery but easy enough to check if there is current draw when I fit the new one.

And a permanent roof tent. Nice work on the interior, huge improvement.

Got back from Japan with my little UP Garage purchase. fitted it as soon as I got to the shop this morning. Dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyymmmmmmmm

The seats actually came out looking quite good. So I put them back together and put them back in the truck. Fuck, so much more comfort. And now both seats have adjustable lumber support. Then I fitted a cooling fan I had to the AC condenser. I made a bracket and it's in there pretty good. I made up the wiring loom for it but it got dark so I'll fit it tomorrow. Also I bought new discs and drums for it.

We made it down to Americarna after months of mucking around. We headed down to Puke on the Thursday afternoon and headed off to New Plymouth from there. First stop, gas and coffee at Hampton Downs The Mustang runs really nicely on the motorway and Waikato Expressway. No problems overheating in traffic and cruises at 60mph easily. No more vibes and it is nice having the steering wheel centered again. Without aircon we got a bit toasty ourselves so from Hampton Downs we had the windows cracked to let in some air. It's a bit noisy and the wind is almost as noisy as the (not subtle) exhaust. Also noticeable with the exhaust though were the fumes. You don't notice so much on a normal short cruise but after 4hrs we were smelling of burnt dinosaurs. The steering is still pretty notchy around centre at speed. Low speed it is not noticable and through the twisties on Mt Messenger it was great, apart from getting a bit sideways on a crappy pot holed corner. Made it in good time though. Got ourselves a hotel with a secure carpark too Put the muzzy to bed and off for a beer. I've only been to the Beach Hop but Americarna was great, didn't feel as busy but still heaps of cars. We got a beer from a local micro brewery and stood on the curb outside watching the cars go past in the Friday night parade. We did get fumed out for the second time in the day. 100 big v8s doing laps on a city street will do that. Came home after dinner and found the mustang had good company And some cool ones up stairs too. The truck is an original flathead from Rotorua.

The only real 'controlled' way to shrink is oxy/acet heat shrinking. You were kinda on the right track, but most likely heat up too big of an area with the butane. Firstly find a dolly thats either the same crown or slightly less of a crown as the panel/area you are shrinking and grab a flat faced panel hammer. Onve you have identified the area thats too full and needs shrinking, use a small gas welding tip (not a big cutting tip) and heat up a small 5c coin sized spot til cherry red, then while its still red, start lightly hammering it. I set myself up something I can safely chuck the torch over so I can drop it and start hammering. The initial blows might have to be a bit harder to dress the swollen centre down, but then for the next 20 seconds or so, just lightly dress the surrounding 50mm radiused area down. It should now be cool enough to touch. It will still be warm, but nothing crazy. The light hammering just helps control the shrinking while cooling in that area. It may shrink slightly more once its completely cooled depending on the location, but at least it won't do any weird shit because you kept it localised and told it what to do. The idea behind the lower crown dolly and flat hammer, is to dress the material into itself, rather than stretch which is what would happen with a higher crowned hammer and dolly. The concentrated pinch would just start stretching again. Don't use any form of wet rag or air to cool it. Just the hammer/dolly, then let the rest cool naturally. Shrinking discs work ok sometimes but it has to the 'perfect' high spot. Once you get good at heat shrinking you'll be set.

Lost about 1 minute over a week, which is about as new for one of those, certainly pretty great now that it's 75 odd years old. Suits me, Just roll it forwards a minute at church on a sunday

If you ever need a new rear door latch cable I have a brand new one here I was to put in ours before it got nicked. The cable in ours would jam up and not latch properly, Rosie took it for a wof up here, the back door opened while he was doing the brake test and a bag of apples fell out.. still passed the wof tho #cuntrylyfe

Two tasks planned for today, both failed. First task was to remove the dashboard. Reason for that is so I could check out some wiring behind it and also make sure I could eventually get as much undercoat sprayed up in as many areas as possible. Additionally I didn't want to damage it when trying to grind away the mounting blocks that were put in for the roll cage. After drilling out one broken screw and breaking the surround for the steering column unfortunately I did not get to take the dash out. I was thwarted by the choke cable knob that seemed like it was fused on by the nuclear power. I also didn't want to undo the choke cable from the engine bay and drag it all the way through as by this time my interest in that portion of the project had been depleted so I put it back together as best as I could and had lunch. I did find this gem under there which answers one puzzle about the headlights. After lunch I thought I'd see how I went with grinding away the roll cage boxes at the front. Unfortunately I could only access so much with the grinder and when I got to about here is where I gave up. Talking to some panel beaters the suggested method from a DIY point of view is reciprocating saw to get in as many cuts and angles as possible really and smash/grind out the rest. Just a shit job all around. Oh well, an excuse to get some more tools.

So time to attack the underside so I looked into how to do this. Acid dipping was going to be 1st option a place nearby but that was no longer around and closest place was tauranga with a 6 month wait? Next plan was sand blasting, the entire shell quoted was 3k so out of my budget. I decided to just go cheap and learn along the way. I first got a sandblaster unit from super cheap. For sand I bought a 10kg bag from bunnings. I fired up compressor and it was a fail. Sand would not flow, it was damp... adding water to it was a worse idea it blocked it entirely. I undid hose and blew it out. So wet sand and water was a no go. Dry sand only. Tipped the entire bag out on clean concrete floor to dry, then sifted it into bucket ready for launch. I then made slight increases to the diameter for sand input and the air hole. Since this stuff goes everywhere I put a tarp up and wore a mask and welding helmet for protection. Had the fan blowing dust outside and got cracking into it. These are the 2 sides as a comparison, check out the horrid welds? These are factory or before my time...

New AC system. As previously I bought one of everything from rock auto. Then I installed it. It was quite the job to get the TX valve out but yea whatever. I still have to fit a fan to the condenser, factory they don't have one which doesn't do the rest of the system a lot of good and is the reason why the TX valves shit themselves.

Went to hanmer motorfest for the day. Only took a pic when I filled it with gas

Also shit I forgot to mention that I put the rear bumper back on. This was harder then it sounds but basically I pulled all the brackets apart, soaked them in evoporust for a few days then painted them all. I beat most of the dents out of the side bits and then bolted it all back in. One of the mud flaps was broken in two so I welded it beck together with a soldering iron using cable ties for welding rod. Is it good as new? No. Will it last a thousand years? Also no But it's back on the truck and works until it doesn't so I'm calling it a win.

Welcome to the family to my mint 14x8 SS Cragars. the 12 slots and Tridens/tridents have been sold. last pic is file footage of how my XY will look approx.

A few of us went for a bit of a shakedown run today, doing 170km and I took all my gear. Pretty happy with how everything went, and fizzing for the main event in 2 weeks.

So, what am I going to do to it? First thing I did was clean it because it was fucking gross. Think used chewing gum in the door pockets, center console full of dried moldy coke, at least a full medium fries down the side of the seat and LOTS of dog fur. I took the whole interior out, including the headliner, and scrubbed it. The front seats are pretty bad and I'm trying to buy some others because they're so gross I don't think cleaning them will do much. One of the seat mount captive nuts was broken so I made up a plate with a nut and welded it in.

Today I mounted the hand brake cable back onto the Avenger diff and brought it around to the Minx hand brake lever. I needed to make up a bracket to connect it but all else fitted up well. So that worked out well and now I have a working handbrake. I also put the rear springs in and bolted the front X member back in with the springs but without any shocks yet. I wanted to see how it sat with the stock Avenger rear springs and 50mm cut from the Minx front springs. I threw in the seats a full fuel container a battery the intake, alternator etc to try and get it as close as I could to the weight it will be. Still needs fluids, bumpers and a few other smaller items. So this is how it sits at the moment which is quite promising. I might drag it outside tomorrow and give it a bath and have a decent look. If I want it lower it would not be by much. Once I have decided I will get new front springs made and rear if I want it lower. Back on it's wheels for the first time must call for a small celebratory refreshment I would think. Sort of like a roof shout.

Finished the sound deadening. There was a bit of red stuff under the drivers feet, and no original sound insulation. I'm picking there was a bit of a leak so they removed the insulation but didn't treat anything. I gave this a wire brush and sprayed some rust converter. I didn't have any POR or Brunox so I just sprayed some primer and flat black. Didn't take a photo. The passenger side still had the original sound insulation Ripped it out again and this side was much cleaner than the drivers side A couple of mats and tape and it is now all covered except under the front seats.

Not my thing but I can sure appreciate the time, thought, and skill that goes into creating these artworks.

Still waiting on the panel beater but had a bit of a play with some other bits. Gave the rear window regulators a clean and replaced a couple of rollers. There was a ton of gunk to clean off. 55 years of grease and dust. I'll still have to ensure there is room for the inertial reels but otherwise they work nicely. Also removed the pink batts from the rear seat base and inserted some packing foam instead. Still a bit agricultural but actually works to firm up the seat. I'll probably have dynamat under the seat and an MDF cargo divider with underlay behind it so should cut a small amount of noise from the back of the car. I'll see how this turns out in the car once I get it back. Best give the panel guy a call and see how he's getting on.

Front of right rear wheel arch

More repair photos from the tin basher No more crud or 'bullet holes in the side panel. Welded up the extra trim mounting holes as well. Same at the back Rear window crud removed And treated I'm guessing it will be ready sometime next week, then I'll have to pay the bill.

Hey, looks like a great day for Pickapart! Time to get a bellhousing. So I using some fairly crappy tools I brought, after smashing a few knuckles and many swear words I got a gearbox separated from an engine. Luckily I didnt have to undo the torque converter, it just slid off. As that was looking like a whole other nightmare. I couldnt get the bellhousing off the box, and it's same price for a full box. So I decided I'll just grab the whole thing. However, my next problem. I'm down near the back of Mangere Pickapart and there are no wheel barrows or carts or anything. This transmisison is bloody heavy. I can carry J160s okay, but this thing is beefy. So, I made a little sled out of an engine heat shield and a seat belt. Instagram vs real life: Then I dragged it to the car on a piece of carpet. What a mission haha. The auto bellhousing is very short, but hopefully the idea of a cut and shut onto J161 front will work okay. That's enough punishment for one morning though.

Took the Mustang to Alpine Panelbeaters to assess the scratch on the rear quarter. Can't vouch for their work yet but seem like good people. Had a nice Challenger fully stripped and a couple of other interesting cars. Will have to re raise my claim with AA Classic. Sounds like they will have to repain the whole back half of the car so am getting a quote for repairing all the other issues first. Hope I can swing that with the insurance. Had a brief look at the headers too. Easy to see how they could leak, the flange is almost like a collar holding the pipes in rather than a flat flange. Will also be interesting to see if I could even get them off with the whole system being rigid.

New lines fitted, seems dry now. Need a wheel alignment now. Need new rear tyres anyway so will get that done at the same time. They also said I had an exhaust leak from the left header gasket, sound familiar anyone? Might need to have that off and replace the gasket and fire on some gasket goo. I'm tempted to fit some flex joints behind the headers as well since they are solid welded all the way back. No flanges anywhere.

First step, jack your car... These items were leaking from everywhere so need to come out. Had to buy a tool for the steering arm, hit it with a hammer and off she comes The ram was a bit stubborn, hammer didn't work had to use heat. Lucky didn't need to move up to a torch The lines get too much heat. From the header I think, not the hot air gun, I'm not that gash. All the tools required because Ford. Need to take it in to a power steering specialist now, I'll hopefully get new seals, lines, and bushes. I might replace some other steering and suspension bushes while it is up in the air.

Took it for a run at our tarmac sprints the other day. Little autocross and 1/4 mile. No timing gear so no idea on times but did a nice wheel hopping one wheel peel with about 85mph at the finish. Must have looked like a mad man spinning the wheel in the autocross, not really suited for that but fun. Have to assume it is all good as none of the gauges are reliable. Tried to track down some action shots but all I've got is this: