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Thought I'd post a few pic's.

Can we get pics at some point? I'm moist in the pants area for a Pantera

/spam

a Pant tearer eh

This other one turned up today with much needed parts that didn’t come with the first one. the body is rooted but will tack it together for someone’s garden art or nostalgia stock car project. first thing was to take the suspension to make it easier to move around.

So many little jobs that add up to suck time. But its a fun time to be at and there's no point in rushing it. The rear seat base was next up because I needed to work out where I could run the engine loom through. I tried the base in place, got an idea of how its steel rod framework needed to be adjusted and set to it. As you might spot in the above pic I also gave myself a decent cut from something sharp in there. Seat base now fits in neatly although it wont be a luxurious softly sprung seat for a middle passenger when 5 up. Highly unlikely scenario that is an Imp though. Megasquirt and associated fuses/relays etc are tucked away under the seat. I made some mounts for the exhaust box.. Welded the mounts in place and I was then able to tack, then weld the secondaries to their flanges. I painted the crossmember after having added some handbrake cable guides. Then it and the rear suspension was all bolted up in place. The new driveshafts fitted and hubs pulled on, wheels bolted up and it was rolling again. So it got rolled out the back to join green imp so I could use the hoist to do a customers van job. As soon as the van was fixed and out of the shop I put Impy back up on the hoist. I then worked out the final section of pipework for the clutch's concentric slave cylinder (CSC). I wanted the bleed nipple to be easier to access and not have any spillage running down into the bellhousing. I made some pipework and fittings to suit. Bench was covered in brake fitting stuff and I pieced together a system. I made one setup, tested the clutch and while it worked fine I wasn't happy with the pipes sticking up in the way so I changed a it again leading to the final iteration.. The csc itself was a unit I'd scored from a Ford Mundano engine and gearbox I had well over 6 years ago. Intended to fit the duratec into my Viva wagon. Sold the engine and kept the release bearing just because I thought it might be handy. So six years I've had it laying about and before that it was residing in a wreckers yard. It must surely be a bit cruddy inside? They are not designed to be serviceable but they are also stupidly priced here in NZ - like triple what they cost in the UK. So I decided it was going to be serviceable and I took it apart. Sure enough it had some mild corrosion marks on luckily what is a stainless guide tube but otherwise actually pretty good. It cleaned up well in the lathe.. Its a very nicely made thing and quite simple but has to be mounted correctly. This guide tube seals on the mounting plate with a thin square section seal. I made a new bigger mount to support the base because the original machined support I'd made wasn't broad enough. I was then able to add two more bolts to sandwich the lot together so that square seal remains squished evenly at all times, as it would in a OEM situation. We trial fitted it all with the new base plate and pipework. I was not sure whether my stock Imp 5/8" bore master cylinder was going to move enough fluid to get the release bearing travel I needed and I was prepared that I might have had to fit a 3/4" M/C. However it all seems fine with a light pedal and the bite point is about midway. Very smooth motion too! While this lot was being done Hannah finished prepping the rear valance for paint. On a nice warm morning I set up the paint frame outside and sprayed some blue about.. I did my best not to paint the cat blue.. It turned out fine.. Another little fun job was cleaning up the gearstick shaft in the lathe.. ...and discovering that universal steering rack boots make for neat gearstick boots... I'd bought some muffler packing sheet and then played with scissors... I then painted it with stove paint and sat it on the burner to help it harden. It looks much better in black. I've used silicone to seal the lid. Ran some beads, let them set for a couple of hours till at the point where it squishes flat without smearing. Stainless bolts carefully pulled up evenly. Seems all good but only time will tell on how the seal lasts. Like a few things on this build its a bit experimental. Gaskets for the inlets and tailpipes are copper. I have quite a bit of decent thick walled copper pipe from the Imp racecar cooling system. Chopped some bits, flattened out, heated and quenched with the oxycet and now nice and soft. Exhaust all mounted and engine now ready to go in for the final time (he says..) I just had to get a few more pics of this stage because its a point I've been looking forward to Positioning the power plant under the car.jpg Yep. Getting very close now!!!

Very curious who the original owner was. Has he been approached for a verification it was previously registered ? If he has any photos it may tell you the original rego.

Made a buck for the chop on the window..and if your wondering why there is a curve at the rear I’ve decided to go all in and try build this into a coupe. something like this.

Ooooooooohhhhhhhh. I have just had a new project delivered. What could it be? Discuss here... Now a few of you here already know the answer. Don't be a silly sausage and spoil the fun. Let the others play guessy games. I have tried to take some shots that only cars nerds might recognise. Lets start with this...

ENTRY FORM HERE https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/8dKo06O3pfc Please remember to pay asap. We can't afford outstanding entry's when the date rolls round ENTRY FORM ABOVE Venue Alpine holiday apartments and campground 200 jollies pass rd The plan. Friday 23rd Show up to hanmer Friday arvo. We will probably organize a lead convoy from the peg hotel in belfast like we have in previous Years. Leaving early arvo. Will confirm later. We will assign rooms and beds . If there is a Group of 3 or 4 that you all want to be together get in contact with either myself or @RUNAMUCK @- i5oogt - Sort your own food. There is bbqs and cooking facilities at the camp if you so desire. Or there js pubs in hanmer. Suport the local community . Get otp Friday night. Sharns. And frost pot action . Saturday 24th Saturday morning. Cleanup from the night before please. We will have labeled bins around the frost pot/garage area like normal. Please use these as we are responsible for our own rubbish . Saturday day. Is really upto you . There will likely be a cruise up to lake Tennyson for some cheese crackers and serenity. This is a rough road but has been done by many far to low cars already. Saturday evening. Same. Sort yourself or go to the pub. Then frost pot sharns. Sunday 25th Sunday morning. Clean up after yourselves and drive back to chch. There are plenty of beds and heaps of space for camping if you feel the need. We will be assigning beds on Friday so there is no confusion and so we don't have to use every room if we don't have to . HAVING THE WHOLE CAMP IS A PRIVILEGE WE WANT TO KEEP. PLEASE TREAT THE CAMP AND SURROUNDING AREA WITH RESPECT Just go do skids on the road like a normal person. ENTERED 1 - Justharry - paid 2 - Runamuck- paid 3 - TimShadboltFan27 - Paid 4 - dobrojesus - paid 5 - igor - paid 6 - Swayblack - Paid 7 - Mr Swayblack - paid 8 - Leone - paid 9 - Truenotch - paid 10 - i5oogt - paid 11 - Sungai Sungai - Paid 12 - smokin'joe - paid 13 - smokin'joe+1 - paid 14 - azzar - paid 15 - thphantum - paid 16 - sidewayssickness - paid 17 - maxpower - paid 18 - LowTech - Paid 19 - nominal - paid 20 - cletus - paid 21 - datto_610 - paid 22 - threeonthetree - paid 23 - Slacker_Sam - Paid 24 - mightyjoe - paid 25 - mightyjoe +1 - paid 26 - giddaymate - paid 27 - giddaymate +1 - paid 28 - DRAD1Stylez - paid 29 - Valiant - paid 30 - moparmuppet - paid 31 - NickJ - paid 32 - sidewayssickness +1 - paid 33 - mof - paid 34 - mof+1 - paid

Done. you should be able to change the title if you want to. Have you looked through this thread \/ ?

Agreed, I’m currently in Italy and this is one of the sexiest things I’ve seen lately.

Thanks for the feedback guys, this is all good information to consider. Definitely want to keep it all Toyota based and don't want to add huge complexity into the project. All things I need to consider before getting to the engine stage.

Assuming it's dereg. IF the THPVVA##### number does come up when searching (I'm not sure who is doing the searching, this should be the entry compliance place), you should be able to apply for an alternate docs approval (here), and state your case with proof outlining the Pantera VIN naming convention, proving that it MUST have been incorrectly entered in the system, and that beyond resonable doubt, it Is the same car, just with a few letters in the vin mis-entered. Then you should be away laughing. A stat dec "should" be ok for the proof of ownership part. But will need some approval for the "proof of previous registration" part using the alt docs route. I've used the alt docs route before, basically fluffed it with a whole heap of stuff so it looked like I'd researched the shit out of it and it was all approved. I think @kicker did something similar with when registering his KDX, which had no import documentation. Put all the email trail/pics of buying it through turners etc etc. Try and give as much info as you can, however irrelevant it might seem. If this is approved, then its your golden ticket for registration. Just go to a vinz/vtnz/whoever and give them the approval and you're sorted! So yeah, there are ways, but its often due to the attitude of the inspector on the day unfortunately.

I've been chipping away at this thing a fair bit lately but I don't have a whole lot to show. It seems to be 1 step forward, 3 steps backwards. Ages ago I changed the gearbox shifter position. I need the gear sick to be more rearward. I bought a longer selector shaft and the corresponding housing plate from a gearbox outfit in the North Island (There are about 8 different shifter positions for the W boxes). This is the original I had to take the gearbox apart to change the shaft over, which I was a little worried about doing. I got it all back together and it turns out the turkey sent me miss matched parts. The shaft was too long for the housing. The gearbox is in neutral here, so the little circle should be in the center of the hole. So it won't select half the gears... I tried to get them to send me the correct housing to suit but he had a sob story about his company being evicted from their building and he doesn't have access to the parts. That was months ago, and I just continued and put the gearbox in as I can fit the correct housing when i find one while the gearbox is in the car. After quite a while of looking I found the next size up housing (so I thought). I put it in but it was 2 sizes bigger, and I had a similar problem. So I decided to just extended the shaft by 10mm so that it works with the new housing (the new housing fits with the hole in the tunnel perfectly). I made a wee jig and extended it. Since I had to strip the gearbox again I figured I'd treat it to some love and gave new bearings and replaced a suspect 5th gear. Now I finally think I have the gearbox side of things sorted. The last few days I've been sorting out the fuel system. With this carb set up I have read they are prone to vapor locking with the heat build up, the solution seems to be having a return to tank line to help with cooling. I made up a hard fuel return line, plumbed in a pump near the tank, and this sweet looking regulator/filter. I'll get the gearbox back in soon with any luck, then install the radiator and shouldn't be too far from kicking her in the guts.

I borrowed some 14's off a chap to see the rough state of play; Current 13x5 ET25 Lancia 14x5 ET45 - I like the look but that offset is a hard no Fiat steels, 14x5.5 ET28 (ish, I couldnt find markings so did a roughy measurement). These fill the arches nicely but I have never liked this style and they are heavy as fuck. I am leaning pretty heavily to some 5.5 or 6 steels with the RWD offset, but in the holey style if @azzurro will sell me some Altho a man with a Maserati has told me he has some of those mint rims then ghosted me The search continues.

No actual updates other than today’s flex session. although I did notice that I had the “diagnostic” switch turned on, so it’s basically had its timing set to 10 degrees for his knows how long rather than 17degrees. Dick. it has now got an expired wof so need to sort that.

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.

So end of 2004 the paint work was finished, the standard suspension tidied up and put back in to get it rolling. I finished high school and the awesome after school job. Unfortunately the Sony digi cam also stopped working and since cell phones didn't have cameras yet there are no photos from 2004 to about 2012. In all honesty next to nothing photo worthy happened on the car in this time. I sold the 4K and K50, and brought and sold, traded, wrecked about 10 or 12 other KPs. I still collected parts and pieces for this car, tided up all the interior boxed it safely, had all the nuts, bolts and brackets blasted and replated, imported new molded carpet from US, picked up some new wheels etc etc, but for the most part it just sat on jack stands in my parents garage. In 2017 I quit my job and decided I was going to move to the UK. I had a 6 weeks before I flew out and spent sometime working on the KP. Made good progress and some serious decisions about what I wanted the car to finish up as, but its still a long way form done. The specs are roughly as follows, which I'll probably change my mind on before its done... - Flat front conversion, full headlight panel graft and front and rear metal bumpers etc (this still needs to be fitted and painted) - Rebuilt 7K with Kennelly Cams street grind and brand new 32/36 DGA weber - K-T bell housing with 20 spline T50 and forward shifter position - U code diff (Imported a TRD lsd from Yahoo but not sure if I'll fit this) - AE111 master and calipers, E30 front rotors & S14 rear rotors, wilwood prop valve - Bug eye steering arms, T3 RCAs, cobra super low springs (what are these like to drive on?), KYB gas struts to suit - Recaro fish nets (cant have the early 2000s escape this build now can we?), factory sprint rear seats - Refurbished 14x6 +15 Gallop Racing welded 2 piece This is the only photo I have access to at the moment of its current state. I do have some more photos from the work I did in 2017 which I'll update later. So this sharn down memory lane pretty much brings it up to current state. I've just moved back from the UK (4 days left in MIQ) and I'm hoping to take 3 or 4 months off before starting a new job to get this finished and back on the road. The to do list is still pretty long and there is another KP to finish, but we will see if I can finish in 3 months what I haven't been able to do in 18 years... hopefully this post isnt on page 14 by the time I update it next. Discussion thread here: Keen to hear your thoughts on wheel centre colour, cobra springs or how this will still not be finished in 2031