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Way too many, its amazing how much time it can take to do fairly simple things in a half assed way. Dunno how skilled patient people get anything done. So got a bit more done, cut out and installed the last bit of floor, and the seat base. Got the boy onto sealing/priming them, Then I made up the tow bar and bumper support doofer. Made another bumper the same as the front, not how the real ones have it, but needed something to try protect the lights & body, Then I welded a bit of pipe down the length of the shassis, to protect the wiring, Then I thought I better make the throttle pedal fit. The old one is basically a full scale thing, and it takes up a lot of real estate. I thought about modifying it, but ended up just buying a much smaller one off Ali, Then I dismantled the shassis for paint prep, and discovered the motor is going moldy from all the fruit the kids have run over in the back yard, ewww. Also, one of the brush holders is coming out, so i'll have to fix that. I'ma pull the axle to bits and grease it all up real good too. Then I made up a little dash panel, which I didn't like, because the charge port looks ewwey there, and the switches are ugly and very wonky. The body of the switches are on a huge gangster lean to try make them look straight in the front. So I found a new home for the charge port (hidden up behind the dash) and got some new, much less wonky switches. This panel will get painted white, Charge port and charge diddle, Got some threaded wood insert things and slapped the dash thing in, Then prepped and started painting all the bits and bobs, Then today we finally got some sun so starting slapping colour on the body (this is just the first coat), And then primed the shassis, The CRC cans I'm using for the body have been complete cunts. I'm shaking the piss out of them for ages, and heating them up in hot water, but some cans constantly clog nozzles, others have shitty nozzles that put out fuck all paint, and others chuck out too much, spitting out big droplets, so its been a bit of a cunt. I'm keeping the good nozzles and reusing them, but damn, sort your shit out CRC. The fucking thing might be finished in the next update. Maybe. Regards, VG. Probably not though.

The car came with a phone kit from factory but that's long since redundant. I carefully disassembled the center console lid and removed the old phone mount thing Carefully trimmed the mount so the usb charger would fit Same deal, soldered wires on and screwed it back together Clipped back into the base Fished the cable through and connected to the cigarette lighter feed And all reassembled Factory cap even fits over the top

Been robbing bits off the green meanie, mostly things that will improve the overall experience of the blue. Like this little bit of plastic that goes over the throttle mech under the pedals; This is kindof important as @yoeddynz found out when he drove it, because it is surprisingly easy to accidentally wide open the throttle by pushing down on what you think is the floor as you enter the car, but is actually the throttle rod that runs under the pedals. I had to grab his trousers and forcibly lift his leg up, and he immediately got a totally inappropriate erection. So here is me trying to prevent that shit happening. I really didnt want to drill out the broken off screws in the floor, plus all the plastic had broken off where the holes were meant to be anyway so I glued it in place and held down with what was to hand. While I was grovelling in that area I also grabbed the footrest to replace the fudge one I had made, here it is getting some rust treatment and paint. Obviously i was doing all this while I removed the filthy rat piss and oil soaked carpet. Getting this out wasnt a good time. I waterblasted it then soaked it in toilet cleaner and blasted it again. Better. Good enough actually given the state of the rest of the car. I also grabbed the uno turbo front brakes, these looked ok. I'll rebuild the calipers and see if I can find discs, they might get slipped on but someone in Canada wants them really badly. I might see how badly they want them, I need some cash right now. Also GC @shizzl picked up a TM gearbox for me from some old dude in Manakau. I popped over to Picton to grab it as he was on the way through, but when I got home I had a decent look and it wasn't an X gearbox at all. I gently enquired of the old boy if he was trying to fuck me, but he tells me it was a genuine mistake. Unfortunately he is now in Prague or somewhere for a few weeks but assures me he will ship the right one free of charge when he is back. Sigh. Also we fixed the black bitches brake lights that failed as the inevitable result of touching the loom when he removed the heater box. This turned out to be a sweet twist n tape join in the brake wire under the dash that despite using a tried and true method had somehow parted company. Elliot ended a happy boy and I got a bottle of nice beer, so totally worth the grovelling.

Yearly update, but things are progressing well. I’ve had this thing for 14 years now and while I’m proud I got it running in its old guise, I’m really excited to see it become the car I always wanted it to be. Since the last update it’s had: - Diff drain/fill and breather repaired - Extractors - Moved to 15 inch wheels, looks pretty stout- enkei j speed with R888 tyres - New body panels, scuttle, bonnet Nearly time for paint, I’m thinking Honda championship white. Anyway, pics

Orderd a couple of bits from alix and the courier must have had the waste gate welded shut. I ordered a couple of usb charger boards, cup holder and a Bluetooth to 3.5mm aux jack adaptor. The wagon has a factory aux in jack in the glove box and I wanted a clean looking installation. Soldered on some wire to the jacks Covered the lot in heat shrink. Fished the wire through to the cigarette lighter. Tapped into that and hid the whole lot behind the glove box light And put everything back into the glove box. Yes that's a hardback 4B1 notebook as it'd be rude not to continue with the barry notes and stack of receipts

Pictureless update for a fun less update. have just installed new shoes and wheel cylinders in the rear brakes, the only thing worse than drum brakes is drum brakes with 2 cylinders per wheel. damn theyre a dog to adjust right. front is still drum brake so im on the hunt for a front disc conversion . i believe 81 to 85 b1600 and b2000 brakes bolt straight on. i have done the conversion on a previous b1600 i owned but that was well over a decade ago. if anyone knows of any for sale please get at me, i really dont want to have to rebuild the front drums. On a brighter note i have been driving this around a fair amount with trouble free motoring. has become my weekend driver. i really need to get around to aligning the tray a bit better, body lines dont line up with the cab real good

It's probably smartest for my hyperactive brain to buy a leaf preemptively for a project I'll get bored of in a month. But at the price, that's a lot of battery capacity. You just have to dispose of the car. I could design a battery bank area off the side of the shed I haven't built too. Edit a 67% SOH leaf I was thinking about and forgot just sold for 1650 in Hastings. A similar one went for 2100 in gisborne the other day

I’ve kept the original groove in it so I can slide the body lip into it and spot weld it in place. I can’t believe it was originally just tacked into the wooden b pillar.

Another quick update. The engine and gearbox are back in, and the bolts have been torqued up for the first time which is a little exciting. I also bled the clutch. To be honest it did it itself really. All I did was keep topping up the mc and performed a couple of quiet pumps and then tightened up the bleeder. And it seems to be doing all the right things (Yay). Even more excitement. I really need to write my own order of procedure for this as if you don't bolt some things in the correct order then it could cause a major meltdown. Maybe I have turned a Hillman into a Jaguar. Of course, there has to be a pic. Also a pic of my Minx I had, and as the song goes by Linda Ronstadt A long long time ago.

4.88 hilux diff is different carrier to all the others. so you need the 4.88 specific carrier to run them. unless they are aftermarket gears. you can get a 4 pinion non lsd. but that looks like a lsd, although they are pretty rubbish at being a lsd

Nearly finished the first b pillar. once I get the other side done I’ll be able to brace them and work everything from there.

Great turd polishing as always Mr Sheep

I do have a 1/2 built prototype design for a round-robin load-sharer, exactly for running multiple freezers etc off a limited supply. E.g, drop the freezer when you hit the microwave, then restart the same one while the compressor is charged, then after the first one reaches temeperature set-point, start the next one .

Settle in for a sharn… We’ve been talking for a year or two about selling our mustang and getting an old wagon. The muzzy isn’t quite big enough for us to do family trips in, and we can’t/dont want to tow the caravan with it. So a wagon seemed like a good idea. After we had been thinking and talking about doing this for such a long time, a really tidy 67 Country Sedan popped up on the LA Wellington Shipping Facebook page. Some boxes we wanted to tick were: Small block v8, ideally manual, 10 seat option, power steering, power disc brakes. This one ticked all the boxes, and the price was spot on. So we sent some money, and Danny from LA Wellington Shipping sent his man in the states to go and inspect it. How exciting! This was all moving pretty fast! He came back pretty quick with a stack of photos and to let us know that he had turned it down. It was so close to good enough but not quite. Little rust holes and scabs all over the place and some misaligned panels that have him bad feelings for NZ compliance. This was pretty gutting, but gave us some confidence in who we were dealing with and that he wouldn’t knowingly set us up buying a shitter. But we were on the slide now, so kept hunting to find another car.

I'm pretty rubbish at doing a skid, so that's fine with me Thanks though, I had read there possibly was a difference for 4.88 even though still a G series, but needed to confirm, think I'll just throw the 4.3 back in for now, and worry about gearing after cert. Cheers

Looks friggen awesome.

Power.

Yes it is a 4 pinion, you can see the ends of the pins x4 in the carrier on most diffs, the carrier is the same offset and the difference is in the gearset, ie the ring gear might be thinner but the pinion gear is a bigger diameter to change gearing. Which doesn't really make sense in your situation, a 4.8 would have a smaller diameter pinion, not bigger I would think I am not a hilux diff expert though so someone else might know 100%

Holy shit those cam covers are lush!

I think the DC-DC converter to charge the 12V battery is about 1500W so should be OK for freezers but not so much for hot water.

GM T car, try Vauxhall Chevette or Chev/Pontiac version.

Mine didn't come with the Scandinavian option so I'm a bit disappointed there. It is a really nice place to be and quite nice to drive (even in Auckland traffic) had it a hour out of town and it's so comfortable for touring Secondary de cat and possibly center resonator delete and replace with a x pipe is on the cards. Seems like I've got the quiet taxi spec mufflers as can't even hear it. I don't want it super loud but no point in having a v8 and not being able to hear the exhaust note

I picked it up in great condition for a great price. It was dusty as fuck so I guess the 88 year old original owner hadn't used it for a while. A bit of a clean and she's looking quite nice. This is the facelift version of the 201. The original version was cast iron but post war they made this lighter version out of melted down spitfires. It went from about 15 to 12kg without base or motor, whereas the modern singer Heavy Duty 4452 model weighs 6.4kg all up. It's known for being a battleship but I've only owned industrial sewing machines before so it still feels pretty dinky to me. The machine itself is the smoothest and quietest I've ever owned, but the motor was noisy, hence the strip down. The commutator cleaned up nice and the bushings got a little oil bath. everythjng seemed to be a nice fit so I was starting to wonder why it was noisy when I saw the wire to one of the brushes had a dry solder joint. I soldered that up and slapped it back together and now it's running nice and quiet. The only trouble I had was that someone had been in before me and damaged one of the threads on a screw. They fixed it by loctiting it in, so when I tried to unscrew it the head popped off. This made disassembly a bit tricky but I got there. I gained a couple of Barry points by having a screw with the correct thread and length, but lost three points because its the wrong colour and the head is different. Still, plan B was going to be a retap for a metric cap head screw.

any interest in electrical overhaul of a 1957 sewing machine?

Apart from the odd gentle clean, this thing is going to be pretty hydrophobic and won't be seeing water. Its got a dedicated space in the garage and will only be driven on nice days. It's pretty well rust-proofed around the work I've done, but yes, I'll be doing as much as I can to slow down any creeping cancer it has. I thought the door drain holes were fairly reasonable size, but I'll go back and have another look and see if I can enlarge them.

I pulled the rear valance off the green menace, like actually pulled it off as it was so rusty I didnt need to undo bolts. Gave it a lick of paint and bolted it up to the blue meanie, came up nice. I drew up some more random shit, this time the little caps that go at the end of the top inner door trim, this was for Elliot but the X community at large was pretty happy about it. Speaking of Elliots black bitch, he came around today with some lowering springs and some new rear shocks, I smashed those in while he removed the heater so we could replace the tap and make it work...the springs took a 1/3 of the time the heater project did. I forgot to take pics but the results are pretty great. He is fucking stoked. Also, some artfully arranged X1/9's;

I couldn't get any decent pictures due to how tight it is behind the motor. But I managed to connect the SR20 heater pipes on the motor to the heater on the car. While the motor was out, I'd had reducer tails easyflo'd into the pipes. (Due to the silvia heater hoses being one size up from the datsun ones) the angles and shapes involved in getting from A to B so impossible, that everyone well meaning advise of "just go to repco and find something off the shelf that fits" was not an option. I ended up using a bunch of shorts, with elbows where it changed direction. It's ugly as fuck, and 100% not the right way/best practise to do it. But I ran out of fucks. And it's done now. Once that ordeal was put to bed, I was finally able to install the booster, and brake and clutch masters. The clutch is all bled up, and (with a bit of help from miss 12) I've seen the fork move as intended. I had a crack at bleeding the brakes too. There's a pedal, but I'm not 100% satisfied if feels right. (No matter how much brake fluid I've bled through it) I intend to revisit this once the engine is running, and it's getting some vacuum assist from the booster. Pic of refitted parts. I've also engaged an auto sparky about coming to lend a hand to knock over the last 10% of the ecu wiring too. (He's penciled in for next weekend)

Bloke up north had a fair few of the bits I needed so slid him some cash.

Some engine got built today. I pre lubed the lifters and got all the air out of them. Assembled the cams and valve drive train. Chucked a few random parts on. Hilariously this engine has 5 temperature sensor locations. Like that's going to fucking help. Also I have some other cam covers on the way for it, these are just too keep the shit out.

Sickness and life getting in the way slowed progress way down, but starting to achieve a little bit on this thing. I slapped in a dash, will house the switches/key/volt gauge and so on in the slot. Then I glued on and sanded the back panel, this is to get the swage shape in the back "doors" without having to rout it out of the body (I don't own a router and this was way easier to do). Then I welded in some supports for the firewall, and made up said firewall. The firewall and center section of floor will stay on the chassis. Next was to whip up a front bumper bumper from some box section. Made up some bumper mounts, which was a mission, because the chassis isn't straight or square, so had to diddle around a bit to get it looking central to the body. Also glued N screwed the grill that holds the lights in, and cut some more slots in the lower front to make it look more like the real thing. ALSO, I started on the window frame, which is for looks, but also something for the passenger to hold onto, to lessen the chance of an unplanned rapid vehicle disembarkment. I have made up some flat bar to weld on and make it look more like a window frame, but not sure if I will fit it. ALSO ALSO I made up and attached the mudguards and running boards. And then, just to make me feel like I am actually getting somewhere, last night I started the paint process. I have started off with brushing on some pigmented sealer, as I'm painting over ply, fiberglass and bog. Hopefully this sticks and seals everything up well, then I'll chuck heaps of rattle can primer filler and top coat at it. I failed to do a test patch, so really hoping the spray primer and sealer get along. And that's about it for now. Regards, VG xoxox

Well I've been driving this round a wee bit since getting it's warrant. It's running pretty good. Great for throwing the bike on. Been dialing in a few small things that have been bugging me. Just small oil leaks , rattles and the like. With all the new suspension, steering and tires it actually drives pretty bloody nice. Next on the to do list is a new exhaust

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.

Been busy getting everything back together, got it all running again on the monsoon and run the cam in with new lifters after finding a cracked lifter face. Alot of work into building a custom cam pickup for sequential triggering built the new wiring loom for the xtreme and fitted it all up last week, made up mount for the LS coils, adaptor for the e-throttle and mount for the pedal. Off for dyno run in time and tune tomorrow

Surely you could fit a pull starter to the car

PS - Matt, you are a fucking crazy mo-fo, the level of detail is borderline psycho and I have half the office around my desk creaming themselves looking through the pics.