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Bit of a bitter sweet update. After the last monthly meet the 2l decided to run a bearing on the way home leave me stranded on the side of the motorway. I managed to source a gamble na 1600 motor of a friend so whipped that in and after the legend himself @RUNAMUCK worked his wizardry swapping out the dizzy and timing the motor up I was back in business again . Have taken it for a wee drive around the block and the motor seems to be happy enough. Old water pump was shot so picked up another and slammed it in. Oil change and some new plugs and hopefully it's smooth sailing from here on in I also put some guard mirrors on it. Damn they're useless but they look the part

The HB Viva went to a new home and have this new project arriving next week

PNot an update as such, more a musing/potential future upgrade. Upon procuring the engine, id noted the front crank seal had been leaking. I whipped the crank pulley off, and much like the pinion seal on the diff, the seal journal was quite rutted/cut into. A speedy sleeve put this back to new. While i had the crank pulley off, i noticed an interesting shape was present. So i figured while it was off, it would be a travesty not to machine off the power steering pump pulley, (these are attached to the main hub, not the dampered pulleys that drive the water pump/alternator/AC) A nice spigot was machined on, and some holes drilled and tapped to correspond with those nice bosses. This is very hard to photograph in the car. Quite a while ago, the old boy picked up an Eaton M62 supercharger off Ebay. It came off a USDM nissan frontier truck, with the nissan VG33ER. (The larger version of the single can VG30 which were once common here) i basically told him, i was commandeering it. And back when @Vintage Grumblewas a cool kid, he had some SR20det injectors which he kindly gifted to me. So in the unlikely event 5his wreck ever sees the road, it wont be too big of a stretch to turn the wick up.

The steel wheels on it are very heavy. When it did its quickest time it had some very light cragar super tricks on the front. They were popular in the 70s but the internet reckons there's not many around these days because they were prone to failure. I bought them ages ago from a guy who took them off his car because they made creaking noises when doing tight turns, they were very cheap. They weigh as much as a bag of chips and are a bit sketchy, also the tyres were right on the limit speed rating and load rating wise. Plus I had to run a 5mm spacer which I did not like. I only did 2x passes with them on and didn't like it So I've had my eye out for a second set of wheels suitable for drag racing Being an impressionable teenager in the 90s who read street machine magazine a lot I've always wanted a set of weld draglites. They don't come up often second hand, I found a set a while ago but they were not wide enough. You can still buy them new but they are pricey Picked these up today, 15x5 and 15x8. Tried them on then got the tyres off, they are very fucked. They need a polish but should tidy up well Anybody know a good polishing place in south auckland?

After much head scratching and thinking about the radiator situation I listened to Koro @sheepers and just got a radiator that fits. Using the telstar rad as a template as its the perfect size I went down a rabbit hole of radiator websites to look up dimensions, turns out the perfect fit while fitting the criteria of cooling a forced induction 2L engine is a EVO 1-3 unit but i wasnt going to drop $500 on a brand new one incase it wasnt going to fit so haggled a deal on marketplace for this Fenix unit with electric fan for $150, few bent fins to straighten and a rattle can overhaul but im not complaining for the price. Yeah it just fits but I couple of quick mods will give me as much room as im going to get without hacking the whole front of the ute to bits. Water outlets will be easy to run with a few bends and straight sections but glad to have that headache sorted. Just the loom to sort out and mount an external fuel pump somewhere then il be close to firing it up

Some more boring old shock mount photo's. It's been a while as I ran out of gas and time but finally found the time and bought some gas so I was back into it. I did make up another top piece, so it didn't have the added middle section. I drilled lots of holes and used bolts mainly and some clamps to sandwich it all together. Welded up the plug holes and then the bolt holes. I will weld around the edge as well both underneath and the top piece but I will only weld it in about 25mm sections 50mm apart should do. I certainly think it is better being one piece going the width of the car. Certainly easier to get both sides the same.

Aftermarket carpet sucks. I learnt this the hard way I suppose. The Celica carpet was already aftermarket by the time I got it and it was super old, dirty and chopped to hell. In my attempt to try and freshen up the interior this year I decided to get one of those moulded carpets. I quickly realised I'm not made for an upholstery career. They say you should start from the rear and move forwards when fitting them up. The problem I quickly found was that these are not quite right for this car. Research suggests that they are in fact moulded off TA23 not TA22, a small but important difference. TA22 did not even have carpet like this from the factory, more like glorified floor mats. My cutting skills are terrible as I was getting annoyed by this point, and the blades were getting blunt. I initially wanted to wrap it under the seat base however the seat sits directly on the body with no room to move so that was not possible. Additionally the roll cage mounts in the rear are in the way of the seat bottom which is why its curved up on each end. I'm not sure what the OEM TA22 carpet looks like but I believe there are some clips that it can use to hold up, but I've not actually seen any factory standard TA22 carpets in person before to compare it. I'll paint the floor black and the rear around the seats so it is less noticeable but yeah, disappointed with my efforts on that one. Another thing about the TA23 vs TA22 is the TA23 side rocker sill things are designed for the edge of the carpet to go underneath and bolt down, TA22 are not. That means more rough cuts along the side edges too. As you can see, lots of bits cut off. Anyway I got the front kind of fitted up as best as possible (remember those fucking blocks in the way) and installed the seats back. I'll need to replace these as it turns out as there is some damage on both of them (more than just superficial and foam). Then I got her fired up and went for a burn and I didn't care about the carpet at all. The fuel is probably 2 years old by now and it still worked mint. Sadly I don't have a phone mount but the sounds on song were excellent. The panhard rod I put in stopped any rubbing that I could tell and actually the car handled surprisingly well. It goes, stops and turns just like it should. Good car.

Then I painted it red because that's the first tin of colour I pulled out of the cupboard.

Been getting a bit done, cbf smacking out a big update right now. Couple weeks ago we got the bitch fired up. Thanks to the GC @fletch for his exceptional trouble shooting abilities.And timing light. Working on water pipes now so will hopefully be on to diff next Chur https://youtube.com/shorts/loj9hqDgwQE?si=C8Xhtq75FGZGLL2j

Last week we headed off on a supply run in the pouring rain and as we got into town, I noticed the temp creeping up above normal. Quickly pulled over and switched off and when I cycled the ignition key to the aux setting I noticed no noise coming from the thermo fan. WTF. Checked the under dash fuse panel and the fuse for the thermo fan relay exciter wire was still good. Lifted the engine cover lid to get a closer look at the inline fuse on the relay power feed. Bloody fuse wouldn't come out. Grabbed a pair of longnose pliers from my tool kit and gave the fuse a bloody good yank and out she came. Yikes, definite signs of overheating, but the fuse itself was still intact. Fuse holder looked decidedly shabby too. Looking at the back of the fuse holder and I could immediately tell that the input wire on the connector had dropped. Managed to push the connector back into the housing and with a working fan we were back on the road again. Fast forward to today and I figured I'd best do a proper fix. Luckily, I had one of those fairly robust auto reset trip switches in stock, so I've mounted that in the battery box and have run a new relay power feed directly from the battery. The relay trigger wire is still ignition switch activated via a separate fuse from the under dash fuse panel. Longer term I need to replace the crappy thermo fan with a decent Spal unit as the cheapies sure do suck up the amps.

the good diff is out now, something fugly is going in just to keep shell mobile, front end out soon too, paint it all up ready for refit

so it was bent twisted, and bent all over the place. ive managed to get it fairly straight, and got the front end in primer.

I’ve seen it, it’s not as good as a Morris, but I like it.

Imagine all the stuff you can bring home with a ute, and rapidly in this case

Sump baffle. Anyone who's driven the misery Inducing stock 4M will know that the stock sump baffle setup is a bit shit. You don't even have to be hard on the brakes to get the oil light to flicker on. And besides all that the stock baffle wouldn't fit now anyway. So I made a new one that might work a bit better to keep some oil around the pickup under braking. Let's not kid ourselves and think that acceleration is going to be an issue. It won't. The baffle sits across between the pump and the pickup. The red lines on the block indicate where it sits. Now I'm going to paint it

My old kart has the motor mounted on a hinged plate, with a bolt on the non hinged end. The bolt was tightened down to raise the motor plate, and tension the chain. Also, delete the governor.

You are one million percent correct. A mate has a pair literally returning to the earth at Maheno. (20 mins south of Oamaru) they are rust fucked beyond human comprehension. The bottom of the A pillar was disolved, to the extent that when you opened the door, you could see the chassis outrigger where the cab mounts to the floor. I robbed some bits off it when i picked up that 1200wagon recently, and the chassis rails have now collasped too. As this truck spent most of its life in Alexandra (which is as dry as a fuck without foreplay) its not suffered the cancerous attrition which 99% of 620s were afflicted with.

620s must be amongst the most water soluble vehicles ever made, my Dad owned one before I was born, was on its third set of guards (now in fibreglass) by 1984 when replaced with a new ( and heavily rust proofed) 720. I admire your perseverance.

I like your bort ute

Some years later, seems i have a solution. if it doesn't break; I ended up making the gearbox better replacing a lot of parts, but was never amazing at high rpm. had to shift pretty slow so didn't grind. recently tried some thinner mt-lv redline oil, in an attempt to get the syncro's to grip some more. Yeah it made it worse over the castrol vmx. After sifting through the internet and finding not much other than the old grind some teeth off the synchro. Found a comment saying something along the lines of; "putting double springs in the selector may help with high rpm changes" The spring being what red arrow is pointing at below. Yeah you cant put 2 in there, but some have a coil spring the sits in the middle of the hub so maybe that's what they meant. After looking how it actually works, rather than just replacing parts. The spring presses up against the little keys in green. they have a raised section that sits in a recess in the selector hub(outer part) Now when you go to change gears the selector hub pushes the 3 keys up against synchro ring, which pushes the synchro ring onto the cone, slowing the gearbox down. Until you put enough pressure on the shifter/selector hub, the selector hub cams over the keys and selects the gear. So having a stronger spring on the keys will put more force on the synchro ring before it trys to select the gear. which means it should slow the gearbox down more before it tries to change gears, cool. Will it work who knows. sifting though my pile of gearbox parts I found some bearing retainer spring clips that would work for 1/2 gears. 3rd/4th found some that would work out of some hilux front hubs I dont have any pictures of what it looked like once i modified it them. but ground them down to similar shape as the factor ones as above, just thicker, so more spring pressure. I ground a few teeth off some of the synchro rings also, but i dont this would have changed things much. All this went into my spare t50, with the best selection of 2nd hand junk i could find. So worse base than the one in the car. Result. It amazingly works, can throw it through the gears at 10k easy, haven't been super rough with it yet, but changing pretty fast no crunches, changes nice. only side effect, is its a bit more notchy selecting gears, but not terrible at all. I even used the same oil that come out of the gearbox in the car, for a fair test.

Middy's phone has a soggy battery, and she's complained it doesn't always charge in the car. The cig plug was coming out of the socket, so Now I can go back to ignoring the phone battery

Alright alright alright! So I pushed the car outside this afternoon so I could reach some wiring inside to try fire it up. I filled the car up with coolant, by which I mean water because I was expecting things to leak. Sure enough each head had a hole up the front where water started leaking out. I couldnt remember what these were for, then found out that they are like an air bleed channel that goes back to the thermostat housing. So, these seem to have gone AWOL when moving house so I'll need to pickapart some more. I must have removed them when taking the heads off to clean them. Easy fix. Then I got the fuel pump working and fixed a few fuel leaks. It turns out that AN fittings arent very good at sealing if you havent tightened them up? Crazy. Then I got my tune somewhat sorted, and tried cranking the motor over.... and the bloody battery died! Ugh. I mucked around to get another battery, it sort of spluttered a few times but not quite. I had a look through the tune settings. Engine size was still set to 1500cc from using this ECU in the Echo - woops. I needed to disable the fuel pressure sensor allocation. As since this isnt wired in yet, it took 0v to believe that the motor had zillions of psi worth of fuel pressure. Then when I cranked the motor it was registering the crank trigger, but not cam trigger. Checked the settings, had this wrong. Both were set to VR sensors, but the crank is VR and the cams are hall effect. So once that was fixed... Bam! We are running. It was absolutely awesome to reach this point. So whats next? Lots. Get the coolant system functioning properly. Make an exhaust for it. A lot of wiring work, get the fusebox setup all connected nicely and mount all of the wiring nicely. Need to put some gearbox oil in the box, will do this before running the engine any longer. Pull the fuel rails off, and do tests to work out the CC rating and deadtimes for the injectors. Calibrate all of the sensors Mount a radiator fan Check intake for leaks (I think all of the air bypass screws are currently all the way out) Install the wideband Finish wiring up the alternator And a bunch of other little similar jobs. Most of these I can peck away at over winter with limited space. Making an exhaust will be difficult when weather starts getting darker and wetter and I can only really work outside. Will push ahead as best I can. Super excited for first start though!

So I decided to make it one piece which I should have done the first time. It makes it much easier to get both sides the same. Pretty much the same design apart from that, with the boots sheet metal sandwiched between the two pieces. All just being tacked together for now until I am sure it is right. Shouldn't need an additional brace between the two sides now.

So my experiences with the w163 span most models, including both the v8 and V6 petrols and the diesel 2.7 common rail. Largely the petrol models are fairly simple reliable things out of the box. All models run the 5 speed 722.6 trans, which is used in a heap of mercs of the era. It largely gives few problems if serviced well. They are meant to be a 'service free' trans. Don't buy that bullshit, fresh oil and filter does wonders. One issue that does crop up is the low range selector motor electric motor can seize, necessitating either the bash with a hammer technique, a pull apart and fettling of the contacts, or a replacement. The V6 M112 engine isn't really much to write home about as it uses nearly the same amount of gas as the v8s M113, so why bother... They are effectively the same engine with two cylinders lopped off so share a lot of parts in common including water pumps etc. In nz I think all models are rated to tow 3200kg braked. Other general issues are around the radio chip in the key failing, requiring recoding a new key. I've never had this problem. Also something called the All Activity Module, which is sort of a central brain. I've never had that fail either, but they can cause some dicky little issues. It would be great if someone made some sort of emulator to delete this, it would sort a lot of little bugs. Window switches as mentioned above. Lots of cheap knockoffs on AliExpress for cheap - along with many other parts. The door locks can sometimes be problematic too. They have a weak spring in them which breaks and the locks fault. I've never replaced or repaired these...not bothering locking my car I found was the easiest fix.. they are a cunt to remove so I gave up, haha. Like all vehicles there are other things that can fail all over the show but I haven't experienced much else there, and what I'm outlining here is the common stuff. Oh the odd bit of trim falls off, my solution there was often not to replace or use some boogie up to fix... My main area of focus has been around the diesel engine. It's a solid unit and makes a healthy 121kw out of the box. My first one went like a cut cat, my current one has been remapped to 150kw to achieve the same thing by some random eastern European YouTuber, Caryfuk8 I sent the file to. I used a cheap AliExpress Kess clone box for sucking the ECU file off and he did the rest. Dark art that shit, I don't know how to write a map.. his intention is to get a 0-100 in the 6 second bracket on largely stock hardware, which he has very nearly managed. He mapped mine to 20psi, I didn't want to roll coal, and he put in a hard cut which sounds awesome.. example here. before undertaking a map, there are a few hardware issues to sort with the 270. Underneath the complicated things is actually a simple bulletproof engine. The trick is to get rid of a lot of shit up front so it doesn't cause you grief, as much of it will at some stage. I know a local Dutchman here who's pretty clever with them and he has one that's seen over 900,000km. So yeah... The main problem with Merc common rails, and probably a few other common rails is a thing called black death. The injectors hare held down by a cantilevered forked bracket by way of a stretch bolt. It is truly a shit design. Over time the injector seal to head becomes compromised allowing a slow built-up of diesely sludge around the injector. Bad ones will chuff and damage the sealing face on the head. Sometimes removal of really bad ones will result in snapped bolts (I've had this problem). I've found that it's best to pull all the injectors and clean seats with a bit of scotchy on the end of a screwdriver, or recut the faces with a cheap AliExpress seat cutting tool. Also cut a groove in an old bolt and use to fastidiously clean threads with solvent etc to ensure correct torquing and bolts no bottoming out on old sludge..Replacement with factory Merc seals or aftermarket is generally fraught. New stretch bolts are always required. One fix is to use a Honda diesel washer, and annealing it to soften it to allow better crush. The Honda washer has an oval cross-section so you get proper point contact. During lockdown I tackled mine and due to limited oversease shipping I couldn't get the Honda washer, so I resorted to making my own. I brought stock Merc washers, which are flat and hence useless. I lathed up a little press tool that I then fit the annealed washer into and smacked with a hammer. The press tool was shaped to effectively compress the inner and outer diameters of the washer and raise a peak in the centre on both top and bottom faces. I then reannealed the washers before fitment to soften and allow 'crush'. These are presently over 50,000km deep and no sign of leaking. Furthermore Merc updated the torque spec on these to 7nm +90deg +90deg, formerly it was only one 90deg. It's a shit design and it feels like it was designed to fail, the cleanup is a patience game but once you sus it they can be pretty reliable. Once the injectors are sorted the other main issues largely revolve around the egr system and the inlet swirl flaps. The swirl flaps are to increase low rpm air speed, but they sometimes fall apart and get lodged in the inlet tract, or leak around the pivots, or seize up, ironically due to egr sludge buildup, causing the actuator motor to fault and throw a limp condition. So the trick is to simply remove the manifold and get rid of the flaps and drill/tap/blank the pivot holes in the plastic manifold then clean all the exhaust sludge from the manifold from the egrs most positive influence over emissions.. if your swirl motor is still working just leave it plugged in. If it isn't you can put a resistor across the plug so the computer thinks it's still there. Lots of internet info on this mod. The egr system also needs to go. This can either be mapped out, as can most things including swirl motor etc, or you can splice a little diode/resistor combo in to the ECU inputs to trick it. A lah below.. Again. Computer still thinks it's there, it's basically emulating a difference in airflow condition that the computer wants to see. I also physically removed all egr stuff and made a blanking plate on the head by number 5 cylinder, which only has a water outlet to hook to the heater. I also remove the fuel heat exchanger while I'm at it as it's only useful in Russia and Nordic countries where it's arctic cold. Makes life easier. Only other mod I've done is add a bigger variable vane garret turbo off an e320cdi om613 3.2 6 cylinder. It was bolt on and only required some exhaust mods, removing the cat. I actually lunched the first turbo due to not fixing a dodgy turbo inlet pipe and bits got sucked in... Aside from that there is not much else. It seems like a minor laundry list, but if you buy one knowing these things from the outset, it's about a 2 day program of work as a baseline to get rid of a whole lot of future niggles that have a good chance of cropping up. Knock off parts are really cheap. Probably due to Russia's proximity to China. Ball joints are about $40 a corner and can be fit in 20minutes on a jack for instance. Bumpers are made of something akin to glass, and owing to my roughness I have disintegrated both ends of mine and replaced with steel buttyness. Any questions feel free to ask. I'll move on to the start of my GL320cdi adventure next...

Tried this. Hate to admit it but it was terrible. Surprising amount of grip until there’s none at all. And being rear heavy I could hold very little drift angle before it spun very quickly. Did eventually add a chain tensioner as the chain was super slack. Drove this a few blocks away to show a mate, got chased by a dog on the way. Dog was bigger and faster and wanted a piece of me. Luckily (for me) it got a little too close to the rear wheel and got clipped, tumbled and gave up the chase. Scariest moment so far on this thing.

My Dad had a new one of these as a “company” vehicle in 1979 in Swaziland. Bench seat and column change IIRC. It was an enormous improvement over the Marina van it replaced which, at the grand old age of 5, was already largely defeated by Africa. The 620 though was ridiculously easy to get stuck when unladen. On one memorable occasion, 11 year old me had to get out and push after he’d pulled half off the tarred road to avoid a lorry and the left hand wheel just spun uselessly on the gravel shoulder. A colleague borrowed it one day and hit a cow with it, dead centre. Colleague considerably messed up (wear your seat belt!), truck also considerably messed up. Cow allegedly fine. Dad back in the Marina van for 6 months while the 620 was “fixed”. It never was the same again though. Africa wins again.

Oh true, I just had a look at his profile and it looks like he hasn't been on in a few years. That's a shame, I'd love to catch up with some locals who also have terrible taste in engines/cars.

Up in the air tonight...... rotisserie? Or spot blast ? Most of the underside is pretty good

After a bit of messing around I've got the flywheel, clutch and master cylinder sorted. I was looking into the different types of sound deadening, Dynamatt seems to be the go to but fuck it's spendy. Just to do the front half of the interior it was going to cost about $450. I went the cheap Chinese route instead. I bought enough to do almost the entire inside of the car and it was $45 including shipping. Time will tell if it's any good, but it seems about right. I pulled the dash and trim parts out from under the bench and gave them a clean up. It was the first time I've seen them in about 16 years. The stored really well. I have had the instrument cluster in at Parrot and son to have a little work done, the main thing was having the tacho modified to suit the 6 cylinder and they fixed a couple of small issues. I've wired the engine up more or less. I'm waiting on the electronic ignition to arrive, I'm going to run some hard fuel lines, install a fuel pump, regulator and make some new brake lines. The drive shaft is being built and should be ready in a week or so. Hopefully not too much longer until she's running. The interior is mint apart from the front seats, they need recovering and probably some new padding. Does anyone have any recommendations for someone in Christchurch? Cheers.

Id made a bet with @Luke that id have this thing drivable in time for an event aaages ago. I lost miserably. Id been sending him pictures of my progress at the time. (Before i had messenger, so by txt at fantastic cost) talking to him the other day, he still had them, and sent a few back to me. I manages to squeeze an Ebay special fan between the custom radiator and the front panel. And i got some pics of the diff too. 620s run an H190 diff, with an aluminium centre housing. However because they were an underpowered light comercial vehicle, they run a 4.6:1 ratio. Great for rally driving, or farm duties. But and absolute fucking nightmare for open road driving. I found a 3.9:1 head somewhere in Hamilton. @mark105 kindly delivered it to camp Rangiwoods for Old school nats 2013. (I might have had the yellow truck that far back) since we were only rolling in a dastun 1200, @Gomaxgo kindly dragged it back down to Christchurch for me in his 6cyl KE70 ' goon. Because reasons, i finished up using the axle out of the one i parted out for the front cut. As i mixed and matched a few bits, (my handbrake cables were fucked) i discovered this axle was ~15-20mm narrower each side. I had the housing blasted by Blain at FastBlast. And @LowTech powder coated the housing back when he had a powedercoating booth. I swapped the pinion flange over. This also required a hefty sleeve be fitted. Both because the seal journal was bady cut/worn, and because the seal journal was considerably bigger on the 3.9 diff. A lick of paint on the head, and it was glued in. Absolutely nobody had a listing for new brake drums. And all of mine were worn out of spec. ROCK AUTO to the rescue. (For all the parts your car will ever need) they were something stupid like $20 each. I gave the backing plates a brush up and paint. And rebuilt the brakes/ew cylinders and shoes. (My bench hasnt been that clear for a looooong ass time) I dont have any pictures, but these diffs use a turbo gay cup and cone arrangement on the axle bearings. You have to set the axle bearing preload by changing shims. (Theres a thrust block in the centre of the side gears that the tip of the axle runs in permanent contact) i fucked these off, and replaced them with deep groove bearings. The deep groove bearing was a few mm narrower than the Cup of the cup and cone. So i had to make a spacer ring as insurance that the bearings could never migrate in and out within that pocket. The other picture i found was of the gearbox X member i made. Its nothing fancy. The material was kindly donated by @Chris.QCR

In typical Alex fashion I started a job without having all the bits to complete it. That mess I posted yesterday got covered up today with new underseal but I ran out so only have the one side done so far. I've just sat the trim on there loosely with some incorrectly sized screws but you can get the idea. I think it turned out pretty good. The trims looked pretty nasty after years of sitting around so I hit them with a bit of scotch pad to get rid of the muck and surface rust. That'll do.

so after getting rid of my ae85 levin because i made it too nice to bash about at the track i was on the lookout for a suitable car to buy/build to have some fun in, bonus of this car is its also rego on hold if i get that way inclined. This popped on on market place for sale, the previous owner had JB Fab here build a 6 point cage and equal length 4 link setup with a b1600 diff, photos below how i got the car. It came with a lot of spares and all the parts needed to put a rolling body together really. i got it home yesterday and started attacking some dodgy spots with a wire wheel to see what i'm dealing with rust wise, didn't find too many surprises only a couple of bad spots that need patches. Removed everything that was bolted on, it had Silvia front suspension which i will be getting rid of and i have ae86 coilovers and knuckles to replace this. before i got this car i had already purchased an engine mount and j160 adaptor kit from Niteparts for 2zz. looking into diff options for the b1600 diff, i've seen a bit online about what heads fit into the b1600 setup. Ideally i would like a nice 2 way diff for this, I saw that potentially fc3s nuggets bolt in? i have a 4.9 Ratio at the moment which is perfect. current plan of attack is: - Rust patches. - wirewheel and re undercoat the underside. - Doors and front end to panel beater for a quick panel and paint. - Weld up all the unnecessary holes in the engine bay. - Mockup j160/2zz combo and start headers and itb setup. - Sort rear brake setup on the diff. - Powedercoat/Zinc everything to make it nice Discussion - Discussion

Front bumper restoration complete. After giving the bumper a good clean, firstly with a water blaster then scrubbing with a brush and some warm soapy water, I needed to fill in some of the larger scraps and scratches left by the previous owners touch parking attempts. After some sanding and a quick clean with grease and wax remover it was time for a spray with bumper paint, 4 coats later and it was looking pretty good. I also took the time to paint the headlight surrounds, grill, number plate lights and grill. Now all reassembled with freshly painted number plates and LED indicators and DRLs The finished product

How about that wellside tray i hear you ask? Well, thats an ongoing saga. To start with, i had is sandblasted. Yep, she was a "bit" rusty. it must have been left sitting full of geass or the like i think. Anyway, i was somewhat worse for wear. Dropped it off to a mates shop, and he sid this with it. fast forward to lockdown, and i removed the floor. (It was fuuuuucked) I disovered this was a new Zealand made tray. (Possibly made in Timaru) they had a different profile on the floor, different wheel tubs, no swage around the whel arches to match the front. I replaced the floor with like for like. And a sheet metal mate halped me make new wheel tubs too. ( @JustHarry grafted these in) the same mate helped me reproduce the top edges which were also different. (Harry grafted those on too) Harry also grafted in wheel arches out of some fucked front guards to mimic what a proper datsun tray would have had. The tail gate is actually off a proper datsun tray, and its needed quite a bit of fettling to fit. (The NZ tray is a bit deeper) The tray is still a work in progress. Harry has opted to make new lower sections from scratch, rather than attempting to strighten the mangled mess that was there before.

[SHARN] The NZDM 620s all came with the quarter windows. And im not a fan. Im sure in the days when everybody smoked they were great for drawing away the smoke. But they leak, they whistle, and they offer another place for someone to try break in. The USDM trucks all had one piece door glass. A good while back, my dad gave me a heads up. " one of my mates is imporring a couple of boats from the states. Theyre being shipped out of seattle. If you want to get anything shipped diwn here for free, get them sent to qhere the boats are, and they can be put in one" So i jumped on SeattleTacoma craigslist. I found a guy wrecking a 620 KC in Seattle. And although i was fairly sure that the doors were the same between KC and regular trucks, i wanted to be sure. I jumped onto ratsun.net, and explained my situation/asked the question. Yeah theyre the same was the response. Sweet! But then i get a PM from a user on there named @bananahamuck saying his mate has heaps of that stuff, heres his number. (Turns out its the same Bananahamuck as the one on OS! So i ring this fella up, and he says yeah i got heaps of rusty doors etc. I tell him, ill need him to freight them up the Seattle. (This guy is actually in Portland) he says, oh, our shipping is really slow, and expensive. Ill drive them up there on Saturday. Im like how far is that? About an ahour and half drive! Fucking hell. I offer to pay for his gas etc. So i ring my Dad and get the address of where these boats are in the container. Turns out its not Seattle, its a place called Yelm. (Its actually closer to Portland) i email Ted with the address. He replys, oh i work in Yelm. Ill drop them off before work one morning. So a couple of months later i get the call that my glass is here. And after having them tinted, they went it beautifully.

You can see the grill just didnt look nice enough with the rest of the truck painted. So once again i called on Hamish to give it a birthday for me. And the grill badge likewise looked pretty used. I enlisted the help of @filthy one mrs (Gemma from twisted sister customs) to give it a birthday for me.

Then theres the body work, So it began pretty rust free. But sitting around outside in Christchurch, a bit of cancer began to show. My coarch builder mate fabricated me a new drivers side sill, and @governorsam grafted it in for me. (As well a couple of other small bits) i dont have any pictures of this either. And one of the gaurds needed a patch too. Again no pics, but i got a panel smasher to come weave his magic. Id fitted the front guards, and they did not match the shape of the doors at all. Also i found that old repairs etc meant that the drivers door was beyond economic repair. And needed to be replaced too. So mister panel smasher had the guards fiting beautifully afternonly a couple of hours. I removed rhe back window, and dropped the headlining down so he could pop some dents out of the roof. (It had been a working truck in its former life) he did a bloody good job all told too. I told him, im not some file finish fuckwit. Its a datsun, and its a ute. You can use as much filler as you need to. Because i knew he wont use more than is necessary. I also said, u donr expect a show car result. If its good enough fo you, its good enough for me too. But as a tradesman, i also knew he would do a good job. The last car he did for me came out really really nice. After the panel smashing was done, a mate brought over one of those paint spectro camera thingos. We took a picture of the paint on the underside of the roof skin. This gave me the colour the trauck was when new. Most of the rest of it had suffeeed 40+ years of central otago UV degradation. Some paint was procured, and it was sent into @I'm new here work on a long weekend. Hamish really pushed the boat out with stopping all the repairs, before paint

New springs made it more consistent,although slightly slower. Different wheels and muffler off when it did the 11.35 previously 11.5@118 every pass I have turned the 2 step rev limit down slightly as it was having trouble holding on the brake which I can probably fiddle with to improve I'd like to get it down to 11.0 so it's more competitive at the night drags https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kdfGgT2pKHw&pp=ygUMVW5kZXJjYXJ2aWV3

I've been chipping away a fair bit lately. I managed to find some radiator suport panels. This was my first time doing any sort of panel work, after a fair bit of tweeking I managed to get them good enough to where I was happy. I also filled in the 2 big holes in the engine bay. Years ago I hacked off the washer bottle mount to make room, luckily I kept the remains of it. I made new ends for it to replace the bits I hacked away. Replaced the battery tray. I did a test fit of the engine to sort a few things out. The main things were the gearbox cross member and where to fit a clutch master cylinder and sorting the exhaust. Not a hell of a lot of room, but it worked out OK. The wee fella helped modify a toyota gearbox cross member. I've just finished painting the engine bay today. It's not going to win any awards, but I'm happy enough with it. I'll start the final reassembly now. I sorted out the flywheel/clutch issue too. The guys who did the engine work (Kennally Cams) did some magic to the fly wheel and machined it to accept shouldered bolts to locate the pressure plate as it's being torqued down. Hopefully this week I'll get the engine in for the last time.

Body painted, trunk and hood should have been done today. Popped up the road and collected the rear bumper and other parts from the panel shop. Plan is to be all back together for the Beach Hop.

Did a supply run to town this morning and when I got back to the van it had done a little wee. Stuck my head underneath for a nosey and it looked suspiciously like it had originated from the radiator overflow pipe. I keep an almost constant eye on my temp gauge, so I knew that she hadn't run any hotter than usual. Grabbed a rag and popped the radiator cap off and he didn't spew his guts, so I figured that was a good sign. Cap spring felt pretty weak to the touch and on closer inspection it looks pretty crusty: Luckily Repco was just a block away, so I strolled on down and grabbed a new one. The new cap is the same 0.9 bar rating, but I could definitely feel the difference in the spring resistance compared to the old one. Made a few extra stops before heading back home and no more piddles, so looks like that's another win.

It's a toasty 32 degrees Celsius in our part of the world today, so a perfect time to visit this place: To get this done: And I then enjoyed a cool ride home. My DIY a/c hoses are holding up so far. Time will tell how long that lasts. I'm getting a bit of a/c belt slip, so some adjustment is called for, but apart from that all seems good.

Thread dredge from a million pages back. I do still have this . Went hard over the holidays and got a few panels painted. Made a start on the deck ages ago. Still a bit to finish off.

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 cleaned up the other Avenger spring top spring perch and welded on the plates to attach it to the chassis. I tacked it in place and lifted the diff back up into position and fitted the upper track arms and offered up the springs. I got one side in but trying to fit the other side the car became very unstable being only a shell and being up high. I decided to abandon that side before I wore the car, which is still quite heavy. I think I will wait until the car is down a lot lower.

I made up the plates for the passenger side today and took some pic's. I made a start on welding in one of the plates. I will leave it there for today. It will be interesting to see how it sits with the Avenger springs in. The minx is about 100kg heavier. I think I will need to get some shorter springs made to get it sitting where I want it.

The front badge is a NOS unit so came already painted but the red was a bit patchy and faded from many years in storage. Mrs Flash gave it a fresh coat and it now looks minty.

I managed to track down a V6 rear end, some idiot got rid of mine when I was going down the V8 route. I gave it a good freshen up with new bearings, shoes, piston, an LSD from Palmside and a lick of paint. Finding the engine was a lot harder than it used to be. I managed to find this one quite far from where I lived. I bought it sight unseen had it shipped and hoped for the best. I stripped it down and there was good news and bad news. The bad news was that it was a bit fucked and needed a bore and new pistons. The good news was that it was a bit fucked, and needed a bore and new pistons. So I did a quite a large order from Burtons in the U.K. I got some 60 tho over high compression forged pistons, bigger valves and various other goodies oil pump, alternator, gaskets, cast alloy rocker covers etc. The engine is currently in the loving hands of Kennally Cams here in Christchurch. They seem really great there. I also treated her to a badly needed brake upgrade. She now has some 285mm discs up front, and new calipers.

So there is some shit to know about the w163 platform. Firstly, they are the only Merc on a full chassis, or body on frame, aside from the G-wagen. They were originally slated to replace the G, and we're actually launched as a concept car in Jurassic Park movie (circa 1997). They are much loved by the Ruski's, most of europe, Asia the USA, and Soccer Mum's. They kind of invented the SUV category in a way. They are very safe and have many stability features and 12 airbags. Merc was broke at the time and half owned by Chrysler so the engines ended up in everything. Think Jeeps, Ssangyongs, ambulances and sprinter Vans erc. They run independent susp all around, torsion bars in front and coil over rear, yes they can be lifted both at suspension and body off frame. They have a low range transfer case with a very low crawling gear. They have exceptional departure and approach angles, still ahead of many more contemporary machines. They have a 20" fording depth factory. They have massive 4pot brakes and a very clever 4wd system in lieu of locking diffs. Basically they brake the slipping wheel which transfers the power to the non slipping wheel through the open differential...it all happens very fast and is quite effective. Toyota has only just copied this on the recent Hilux.. I suspect it's due to a patent. They were built in Alabama, Germany and Japan. The pre 2000 models are best avoided as they facelifted and fixed a lot of shit around 2000. They ran till about 2005. I'll mostly give my experiences with the 5 cylinder common rail. Sorry for few pics to accommodate my technical foibles, but there's loads of internet info, should you be so inclined. Or ask here. Some things I have had to solve myself. Cool Merc development vid... https://youtu.be/f599FIqCpSg