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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...

Did a run around the block with a speedo app. Time to tighten up the governor a bit. Can’t be holding up traffic. edit. I tried to take a terrible one handed video of a ride in this. But it’s, well, terrible. As I need 2 hands to drive. Might upload it anyway.

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.

I like your Ute Bart.

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.

A few people have asked why theres no thread for this vehicle. (Because the owner is so useless tbh) i showed some pictures on my phone to some people at Garlic nats. And one of them convinced me i should post them up. (Thanks @Sungai Sungai) The story begins quite some years ago when i bought a datsun 620 ute of @Mr.Mk1. He'd rescued it from scrap. He also found a pretty fucked wellside tray for it. (Which is also rockinghorse shit 8n terms of rarity) it would seem i only have one picture of that truck. It needed plenty of work, but the rego was on hold, and it was (mostly) complete. When josh and i did the mission down to Alexandra to collect it, he showed me another 620 ute. It belonged to the landlord from whom his brother rented his business premesis from. Daily driven, and a real sweet honey. Because Alexandra is as dry as fuck with no foreplay, it was completely rust free too. (For what its worth, 620 are without a doubt the most rust prone vehicles on planet earth) Some time later, i learned that the elderly gentleman who owned that truck stacked it. And some time later it popped up as wrecking in Christchurch. Hoping to get some parts, i shot around there. Where i met @Agent75. The truck was still pretty rust feee. But unfortunately Shane had cut the radiator support panel off to make removing the engine easier. The inner gaurds were a little bit puckered, but it could have been straightened out. A deal was struck, and i dragged it home. Another mate had another 620 he wanted ro move on. ( @I'm new here) it had been completely dismantled. And had some prettt cunty rust. So i bought that, and had a coachbuilder mate graft the inner gaurds and rad support panel off that cab onto this one. Unfortunately i have no pictures of this. I also picked up a pair of front guards off another mate. As i didnt get the nasty, underpowered, leaky, J15 with the truck, i opted for an S14 SR20 that i bought off @mint16. With the gearbox attached, i had to make the centre of the rad support panel removeable. After id painted the engine bay, @fletch have me a hand to do the final engine installation. Because id slung the engine so low, and so far back, the sump had to be notched to clear the drag link. Seeing as this chassis is the later model/last iteration of the 620, it was fitted with ball joints, rather than king pins. This is a wicked bonus, because i learned that if the top ball joint is swapped over, that D21 navara hubs and stubs are a bolt in affair. No more gawdaful drum brakes. Best of all, a mate gave me a set for free. (Less calipers, which i then sourced of marketplace) because im not a total broken arse any more, i threw on a pair of new rotors too. Discussion,

Oh yeah, and @governorsam gave me a Jaffle iron yonks ago, I finally put handles on it for holiday beach fire eating

Oh man I have some embarrassing shit to divulge. I talked to Palmside today about getting some jets and during the conversation I mentioned that it was running rich and that it was weird cos making the air corrector bigger would make them much bigger than most of the setups specs I had collected. The dude asked me what I had seen on the AFR so far and I said like 16 or so. He said that that is lean..... And of course I actually thought about that for more than two seconds which is longer than I ever had, and fucking of course that is lean... What a cunt I am, I obviously had some preconceived notions and hadn't actually thought about what that reading meant. Oh man I can never talk to Palmside again, the dude clearly and rightly thought I was a fucking idiot. So having gone through that self slapdown I will probably put some smaller air correction jets in, and maybe some bigger idle jets.

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.

Found the misfire. This was after I took the injectors out and had them clean and flow tested, new filters and seals. $175 later in platinum plugs

One of Rigamortice’s dirty little secrets was a set of these little shockers hidden behind the front wheels! I found a pair of proper hub-centric spacers on Trademe for a very reasonable price. I then upgraded to some ARP studs at a very unreasonable price. (Talk about charging like a friggin wounded bull!). All torqued up with a snug fit on the hub and wheel. Finally got the front ride height and wheel track just where I want it. Decided the rear needed a tweak, so I backed off the rear U bolts…. …and figured out how much I could safely lower the rear. I ended up using solid bar for the spacers I’m expecting the rear springs to settle with a little use….. Have to say I’m finally happy with the old girls stance.

The radiator situation is proving to be a bit of a headache as the available space is minimal thanks to the S/C electroclutch pulley taking up alot of space. where you would ususally plonk a nice thick rad for plenty of cooling. Did a bit of mocking up today with a couple of radiators I had kicking round its looking like a unit from a GA61 Supra will juuuust fit with a pusher fan on the front of the radiator. This one is pretty beat up and manky so will see if I can find an alloy option

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

More pics. Also, I only have 7 original plug leads and they are not flash, and one oddball. I'm really struggling to find replacements that fit and would appreciate any Intel on sourcing something suitable. Amayama list but no stock.. wondering if maybe I could butcher some 7M leads perhaps?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This year is one of those significant wedding anniversaries for Mrs Flash and I, so a few weeks back I asked my lady what she would like. Now most ladies would ask for some new jewellery or maybe a new outfit or two, or perhaps a romantic weekend away at some fancy resort. But that's just not how my girl rolls. Without even thinking about it she immediately asked if we could rather spend the money getting the upholstery work done for the back of the Thames. Jeez, no wonder I love this woman so much. So, with the decision made off I headed to town to visit two of our local upholstery places. The first stop was at the auto trimmers. Now I get that these guys do nothing but cars all day, but I was still expecting the chap to at least comment on the Thames, but not a peep. He noseyed around with a measuring tape and then proceeded to give me one of those loosey goosey "between this and this" verbal quotes where you immediately know that the final figure is going to be nowhere near the bottom figure quoted and you are likely to get very little change back from the upper figure quoted. Anyhoo, undaunted by his lack of enthusiasm I headed off to the next stop which is a place that mainly specialises in recovering furniture. Now as I pulled into their driveway, I spotted this guy scurrying across to greet me and we proceeded to yarn about the Thames for a good 10 minutes before we even started talking business. It turns out that Bill is originally from Masterton where his dad ran a motor trimming business back in the day. The minute that Bill was big enough to reach the pedals on the sewing machine he was put to work and by the age of eight he was already doing diamond stitching which was all the rage back then. We chatted a bit about what I was looking for style wise and Bill was already throwing in some really good suggestions, so I knew I was on to the right guy. We looked at some samples, Bill took some measurements and the next minute Caroline the owner handed me a written quote that was significantly less than the first quote I got. Winner! Roll forward a few weeks whilst Caroline sourced the marine grade vinyl material and some top-quality foam, and I then took the van around for final measurements. Because the cushions are loose, I didn't have to leave the van with them which was another plus. Roll forward another week and late yesterday I got a call from Caroline to say that the cushions were ready for final fitting, so we wheeled through first thing this morning and Bill laid down some velcro to keep everything in place and then proceeded to do the final fit up. To say that we are blown away with the results would be an understatement. The job has turned out absolutely amazing. Rear facing couch looks like so: Bill even shaped the base of the front facing "dog box" so that it clears the engine cover tie downs: And lastly even our doggo seems happy with her comfy wee seat. Thanks for looking.

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

Rhs needs glued up, panelbeater may not appreciate me cutting holes hehe, i made a single piece patch for him to glue in for me.