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Have done a heap on this. Despite the lack of updates. Shocks were mounted months ago. The inner fenders have progress. The rear bed floor also has progress Have since remade the hinges, without all the speed holes. As the gas struts ive since added bend them out of shape.

I was going to get into some leather work, I got this late 50s Pfaff 335 leather sewing mechine for $50 off Facebook

It's a pretty big hole he has dug himself into There will probably be more non activated ones coming out of the woodwork in the next few weeks as this spreads As well as him not activating them and pocketing the money, the other issue is wof inspectors have not been checking the certs at wof time so if nobody looks at the cert then nobody knows it's not activated for a year until the next wof Tbh i'm surprised it took this long for something to happen, there has been issues with his service for quite a while Not a great idea to rip people off, when you are talking $700-$1000 for a cert, and if there's multiple people he owes refunds, that's a big pile to find

Similar state on the passenger side. Epoxy primer and seam sealer. Hopefully no more leaks! I learnt you shouldn't feather seam sealer edges because it will pucker up when painted over. I treated a load of light surface rust around the engine bay & under the radiator supports. Repainted everything. Stoked to have the rust repairs complete! Now it's time to start putting things back together and start on the exterior.

However, i found the perfect sticker, that I didn't know i had, to cover it with.

It really is a shame when shit like this happens as it gives all the anti-cert loons more fuel and probably raises a few eyebrows at the govt/nzta level. I guess Lvvta has thier hands tied to a degree as certifier are independent companies.

They were longer but I snapped the blade when I was setting the blades, made from ball race bearings outer race.

The plate holder also looked silly and wonky with plenty of rust pitting, so weight reduction. also shortened the exhaust a little but the main item I was after was the bumper iron.. it makes the chassis rail on a land cruiser seam wimpy found a suitable replacement at pick-a already removed with the correct curve just cut to length, weld on mounting bolts, drill holes for rivets, then fit to vehicle. I could have gone lighter as others have just deleted the iron and trim down the rubber to have a tucked in bumper but I like to keep the original look and strength just not the weight scale pictures are with the rubber attached

Many camping trips later... Its that time of year when I vaguely entertain the idea of getting this thing ready for the holidays. I haven't actually bothered with a WOF for a couple of years but I might feel generous and get it one soon. The draw bar was a bit neglected and been showing its age. Its been in the back of my mind how much of a bitch it would be if it let go somewhere remote.. So I took it to work over the weekend and the front fell off: On close inspection the steel wasn't too bad but it was probably a good thing to replace it - better for my piece of mind anyway Ghost bar Then got some 75x50 duragalv, a new braked coupling etc and after a couple of hours: That aint going no where. I had a good poke around at the rest of the chassis and its mint so that's good. Towed it home and got to work with the black paint: Picked up a roll of brake line today, and am 3D printing some clamps for it and the LPG line, then assembly time followed hopefully by a wof. Plan is to make some sort of box on the front instead of having the fibreglass fairing which does wreck the original vibe, but the extra space will trump the looks. Will be something like this but custom made because I'm a sucker for punishment: Lovely.

Ended up trimming the coaming at the rear. Then got it all covered in primer and have started the top coating process. Only the bilge and under the seats is done so far as the oil based enamel takes ages to dry. I'll do a bit every day so hopefully by the weekend I'll be ready to start on the rudder or the trailer. Not long to go, legends.

Sorry I forgot to say JUST ANOTHER CERT MAN ON THE TAKE

Then it was back to making square parts on a machine that makes round parts Since Aftermarket fuel regs are expensive, trash or both at the same time. I would rather use oem one off something original idea was to use one those corvette filter regs, but dont need 58psi fuel pressure and also merica. Enter the 40 year old toyota reg.. The part in the lathe is basically an oversized banjo fitting, that bolts onto a bosch fuel filter One side is the fuel pressure reg, the other one is a dampener. may not be necessary, but had it hanging around so on it went Will probably go here somewhere. Its kinda a semi deadhead? system. As will just be a short single line to center of the rail. which is the part on the right in below pic. i cant finish that till i get the head back from the shop. so will have to find something else to start on, to avoid fixing my fuel tank

This pisses me off. It is bloody easy to check this stuff online, but all these lazy pricks do is make it harder for the rest of us. My phone doesn't have nfc, but i can still go the same pc i log the wofs on amd enter the cert number. If my dumb arse can do it, there is no excuse. Bad enough the other bastards mailing out warrants etc, NZTA will retaliate by making things harder on the rest of us.

Makes you wonder what situation people must be in to rip people off. I find it hard to fathom it's just greed in this situation where its so obviously that person, so expect there's some kind of desperation/addiction/broken knee caps going on. Semi OT, My old primary school by my folks place has had the office manager in the news for ripping off the school, which I found weird cos it's a really tight community, so waiting to see what the dealio is

the lvv requirements for max offset are actually pretty extreme- 35% of rim width is max offset positive or negative it is pretty rare that its a problem from an offset perspective however, it might drive a bit yuck, and thats going to be up to the certifier depends on the car, front or rear wheels, etc

Sandwich plate made and in the process of being stuck to the manifold with gaskets/RTV. If this doesnt stop the leak, nothing will

Ordered some brand new Watanabe Type R 15x8 from Nengun in Japan to complete the package. These were the original plan but the Konigs did such a great job, it wasn't urgent. (looking back at my very first build post in 2015 haha 'a bit later on in the piece' is right) Fortunately/unfortunately my calculations for tyre size (225/50/15) were a bit too exact and ended up with 2mm clearance at full lock on the fronts. This was gonna freak me out so got the fronts changed to 205/55/15 and now very happy with the fit. Also ordered some Watanabe centrecaps but they only fit the rears since the front hubs stick out through the middle about 20mm too much. That will be the next update, have some plans involving 3d printing... Cheers!

I went to invercargill. It was incredibly pleasant. Anyway, back to this bullshit My fuel map is based on the result from TPS 1, and then the other bank will just run rich or lean depending on how wrong its throttle angle is. So I've been simultaneously revising my fuel map, and adjusting the left to right throttle balance too. In this table below you can see that when throttle 2 is at "30 percent" throttle one needs to be at 19 percent to match. and so on. A mildly annoying problem to deal with, but I've got it nicely matched up now. The difference in the fuel map now is absolutely incredible. It was well worth the effort to get the new intake made. Here's the extended rpm range of what I posted a few posts above. Gains everywhere, nothing anywhere is worse. I was surprised to see that even as low as 3000-3500rpm there are improvements. There might be some mild gains from doing some VVT adjustments, and perhaps it wants a little less ignition timing now that the airmass is so much higher. Although its not running a crazy amount of ign advance anyway. I can confirm that its pretty quick now. I am open to the possibility that the dyno results arent any where near the above estimates. However whatever the number is. It revs out amazingly, and its plenty fast enough for me. I've still got issues with clutch engagement, I need to fit the bias valve for the brakes, need a wheel alignment, and a few other fiddly things. But I'm comfortably on track for drag day. So long as nothing blows up in the meantime. It doesnt feel like it's out of puff, it just keeps going until the limiter starts kicking in if you havent shifted by then. Pretty stoked that it's all coming together now! Will get some video soonish

Though I'd give this one it's own thread as I just found all the old photos that disappeared from the old thread and had re-uploaded them back into the original one. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since building the original bike, but I'm not going to let being older and assumed "wiser" get in the way of some childish stupidity. Fingers crossed I'll have this one ready for the 2025 OS Drags.

Loving the mitsi l300 spec oil on the table!

Hey @yetchh not a lot really. I pushed it outside a few months ago and rattle canned a couple of panels to get an idea of what it'd look like but it's been sitting in the shed since then. Still needs paint but I don't know where to start with doing it myself. I did have it up for sale for awhile but I've been a bit too sentimental to let it go.

I thought when I rang I’d get fobbed off but they said they had already contacted the dealer he got car off ( he bought the car and the dealer sorted the cert/wheels/lowering with mag and turbo)

Yeah found out he got it as a deal with mag and turbo so I rang them this morning and they gonna sort it for him.

if the top cup and the recess in the lower arm holds the spring from moving, and the shock keeps it from becoming uncaptive at full extension, that will be fine

I will be doing the tilt front but will look at splitting it on a 45 degree from the rear of the wheel arch up to the chrome trim line. That way I hope to hide most of the split.

So when I bought this around a decade ago it already had the snorkel installed. A while ago I noticed rust staining coming from under it at the centre point, I assumed the bolt hole had started to rust and there was also a dent there. HoOooBoy did I underestimate it... I tried looking around for a good condition guard but had no luck so decided to try save it. Patches welded in, of course I ran out of gas half way. Spent lots of time making it flat again then primed and blocked (around 9:30pm in the dark because who has time anymore?). EDIT: I also trimmed a decent about off the lower section to clear 35's, added a lip for strength etc. 2k blackest black that ever blacked: Fitted again and it makes the 35 year old tired paint look terrible so will repaint the whole thing at some stage.

Oh man I'm buggered this morning. Thanks for coming everyone, big call but maybe the best one so far?! That fully pinned non-stop run from Ohura through the forgotten highway to Whangamomona was wild. I didn't get many pics but here is a selection. When your Lifan manages to destroy its engine mounting bolts and there are no suitable replacements in Piopio you gotta improvise...

So the off the shelf spray can was a little off and was terribly mixed as came out in stages but the plan is to paint it better when I don’t have my paint gear in different parts of the North Island. Then I took a week to reassemble the rear with some minor tweaking if anyone could notice..

Hey guys Just wanted to say massive thanks for an epic weekend. I had no idea what to expect coming into this and I enjoyed every second (even the constantly broken TS125). Appreciate all of the assistance with broken bikes and the patience when I kept you all waiting while bikes were swapped 😅 Will 100% be back next year (with my own bike). I've got a bit of GoPro footage so I might put a short video together. If anyone else wants to donate video or photos, I'll edit together a 2-3 minute montage or something. Just drag and drop the files into this link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/bGqd8lWwyhx6ul9yLXq4 Cheers Jody

Managed to get a bit more done on this thing. Amongst working on other peoples stuff and driveshafts trying to kill me on the dyno Got some new ae86 water hoses. welded some smaller inlet pipes on radiator to suit them. re-welded my water inlet / thermostat pipe on a slightly different angle so plays nicely with alternator and the lower hose Brake master was another thing that was trash after sitting for 10 years. but also 40 years old.. genuine ones no longer available. From a quick look, the aftermarket replacement ones were donkey cast metal ones, yuck. found about a million lhd ones on ebay made by aisin (basiclly genuine) took a gamble on one, as it looked the same as rhd other than reso. Yep same thing as the rhd one, just reso sticks out the other side. so swapped the og reso onto it, as need the clearance for intake. Had to make a new line also as the old one come out the front rather than the top.

So, here we are 3 months on…. I’ve been trying to get out in the car at the weekends, just clocked up 600kms since it’s been back. I’d bought some wing back seats planning on putting them in my Land Rover, but they are a bit too tall, so they’ve gone in the Escort. Seats are great, not snug at all, but still comfortable. I've replaced the front springs to cure a ride height issue, the n/s was sitting 25mm higher than the drivers side. The rear isn’t perfect but much better. Ive changed the engine temp sensor and rewired it so I now have a working and hopefully truthful temp gauge. It now sits at about 1/3 from the bottom on a run going up to just over 1/2 when stuck in traffic on a warm day. Ive been waiting for our local supplier to get some Escort carpet in since August, still nothing. I’ve since been to Bunnings and found some black garage carpet and used that for now, much thinner than the original so the centre console sits much lower than it should, I may end up doing 3 layers on the gearbox tunnel. I’m also happy to report that the new fuel cap has solved a few leak , no more fuel spilling on to my Sport decals when driving….

It Runs Started, ran, revved ok without the previous knock knock noise - but wouldnt idle. Inlet manifold was still leaking like a sieve so I called it a win and shut it off. Drained all the water. Removed the inlet manifold again and i'm fabbing a sandwich plate to resolve this issue.

I've started mocking up the park brake. The caliper I have is off a cx5. Anyway, firstly I was entertaining positioning it off centre, then I realized I could just reclock the bracket so the cable pull is in the right direction and simply mount dead centre above the pinion. Cunty bit about it being dead centre is I'd like to spin another 30mm or so off the disk, and the diff head is the limiting factor as to how much I can shift the caliper inward towards the pinion. But it will work. However yesterday whilst browsing marketplace is saw some electric calipers off a late model Ford for $100 ea (I only need one) This would much simplify things as it's electrical wires vs having to get a big long cable made or hobble something mechanically together. I suspect the electric calipers can exert a whole lot more force on the pad/disk too Anyone got any experience with the electric calipers and any reason it might be a bad idea??

Got the combustion chamber bowls finished. Took 10hrs! On the 2 cylinder test part I used an Aliexpress steel shank, carbide single insert Lollypop style tool. It would ring and chatter so easily that it took 3+hrs just for one bowl. Luckily in amongst a bunch of tooling I bought from an auction was a full carbide shank, carbide insert ball mill. Turns out these are worth 1000s on their own so that paid for itself! Managed to find some new cast iron inserts on Ebay. So much more ridged. The only issue is there are 3 inserts at different heights and I guess they are not quite aligned right. The point you transfer between inserts it leaves a slightly raised section. Not really a problem. On to the final cylinder opp now. Need to have an undercut / relief at the top of the bore. So when boring and honing they can run upto the bowl without hitting it and messing up the bowl and hone.

Took it down to the jdm swap meet, got 480kms - 28ish litres of 95 which is pretty decent cause a lot of doooooooorting on the way, but the next day it was making a horrible noise, I think it’s the timing chain/tensioner so have ordered a full kit to do all that, otherwise maybe a lifter has given up on it

Thanks mate. I'm still bricking it that I'll launch it and water will fill from the outboard well and sink it. That'll be a quiet drive home in the land rover. Metaphorically quiet I mean. It's a land rover.

Bit of a mixed bag today. It's probably been 1.5-2 months since the car ran as seems to be tradition when I pull something apart. So let's start with the good stuff cause there's quite a bit actually. * A new intake manifold gasket arrived, and that fits fine and seems to not be leaking. * "Rebuilt" radiator not leaking. * Replacement radiator hoses fit up, although not super in love with how close to spinny wheel of death the lower one is but that seems to be same as the one that was on there before; which as it turns out was from some kind of Landrover according to part number on the side of it. The lower one did have a slice in it when removed so maybe that's forewarning. * My replacement bush that I worked out for the linkage works excellently after some trimming down. Very little play in that whole system now after replacing some of the other ends with new ones too. * Fuel no longer leaking from carb fittings and seems like there's more air being pulled in from the rear carb now than there was before so I think that's improved. * Water system seems to be working now. Temperature came up fairly quickly and bubbles in the radiator etc so I presume circulation is happening. I'd say considering the water went mud brown it's likely to be circulating but might need to flush it out before actually filling with coolant. * Car still runs.. Onto the not so good.. * I did some Barry fab to make a wee block off plate for the PCV unit that was doing nothing, sadly it leaks a bit. Might need to revisit that one. I was re-using an old gasket that had some kind of molding specifically to fit the PCV filter unit as my gasket paper didn't arrive yet. Basically I just got impatient. * Not entirely sure if vacuum leaks are resolved. As part of the PCV system there are two vents on the intake manifold that I did a ghetto block off with (this is upside down caps jammed in). Again, got impatient as my block off caps didn't arrive yet. However, the rear carb does seem to be pulling more air than it was before so maybe that's working? * Car still runs shit. But.. I feel like things are heading in the right direction. I have an inkling the throttle tube in one of the carbs may be bent but also still possible vacuum leak. Hopefully my muffler arrives soon from Japan so I can weld that on and actually handle the car for more than a short time to do some tuning and see if I can get it to idle. Anyway, it will be an excuse to get one of them smoke machines now to see if there are any other leaks which I'm sure there are.

Back into these wee things after a solid years worth of vehicular modification and various other side quests. Ditched the 3HP on the blue bike as it didn't have a good balance of being clapped out and functional, the ratio was off. Just too clapped out. Retired it to the shelf. I tore a pretty nice original 5HP apart for a freshen up. Honed it, new rings, new valves, re cut the seats, shaved the block "eyebrows" for better flow. Clear coated the whole thing to preserve the 'tina. I cut the motor plate off, moved it roughly an inch forward and burnt it back on. It's a bit of a must to fit the "big block" in the frame, otherwise the fuel tanks hit the tyre. No regrets, she runs hard now. 12t clutch with a 60t rear sprocket. Loads of get up and go off the mark with a pretty OK top speed. Nothing silly, it seems to be a pretty versatile setup for on/off road hoonage. The yellow bike is on the chopping block to get done before Christmas. There's always more to fix/fabricate than meets the eye with these little bikes! Here's the lucky recipient of a freshen up. 1974 5HP, ex Masport Rotary Hoe. She scrubbed up not bad. Clear just gone on in this pic. Going back together. Whizzed the engine plate off Burnt back on, and over to the right some, just enough to still be able to get bolts and washers on to hold the engine down. Looks right at home! And if you forgot what single cylinder flathead outdoor power equipment sounds like, here is a rather uninteresting video of the engine on its first fire up after the rebuild.

I'd just like to get this out of the way FUCK YOU, V MOTOR PIECE OF SHIT, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS ,WHAT IS YOUR FUCKEN PROBLEM ,WHY ARE YOU SO DIFFICULT, FUCK YOU So anyway, Ethrottle. Easy right! Get an ECU that can run 2x motors, read 2x TPS then you're sorted. Wrong. I drove the car up the road and it was insanely uneven left to right banks, was misfiring and popping and all sorts of bullshit. So I've been thinking back over my setup a bit. If the TPS doesnt output an exactly linear signal (like 0.1 volts per 5 degrees or something) Then there are problems if you have two TPSs and need them to exactly match. What makes the problem worse for me, is that I'm sweeping one "backwards" as it rotates counter clockwise. To get a feel for whether this is a genuine issue or not, I randomly stuffed some garage objects into the throttle on each side, then wrote down the output voltage. If everything is good, it should be two straight lines, just with a constant offset of 0.5 volts (or whatever) So yeah its a bit screwy. So I spent a bit more time on it this morning. I figure the best option is to scale them both to 100% and 0% with some exactness, and then make a compensation table for one bank so it opens the throttle at different amounts until they match. So started writing down some numbers, starting with something that opens them about half way. With the throttles opened the same physical amount, one TPS showed 40%, the other side 70%. Even though they both show 0% and 100% correctly. Gah! Nowhere near good enough to be usable. So my next option is likely gonna be buying the TPSs that are designed to be left and right sided, and presumably have a lot more windings on them. But it's another delay and another $320ish I have to pull out of my ass. Frustrating. Also the cable setup works kinda alright, but funnily enough it seems like it worked better previously when I was using a single motor to pull both banks open. The problem is that the PID settings expect to be able to use the motors to pull the throttles open, but then also "push" the throttles shut. If I have the PID settings nice and snappy for opening, it has a bit of a fit when they're closing again, and they can only close at the rate that the return spring allows them to. So my next idea. These throttles have an 8mm "D" shaft for the TPS or throttle pulleys to bolt to. I've found some DC motors that have a planetary gearbox on the front, so they are slower speed but higher torque. So I'll biff these onto the front of the throttles, and hopefully without any backlash etc in the system, it'll work better. I am conscious of running out of time heading towards drag day, only about a month to go! If need be I'll just go back to a fully cable operated setup. Another thing is, the Link G4+ Thunder. Man I would be absolutely furious if I bought one of these back in the day. They basically released this as a top spec fancy ECU then dropped support for it pretty much instantly. So some of the features particular to this model are still undercooked. Example, the dual ethrottle control. The idle up table only works on one of the throttles not both. What the fuck is that good for? Also one side can have up to 3 different tables controlling it, but the second bank only gets one. I'm very grateful that a friend has let me use it, but, man its annoying that some of the code is half arsed and they wont ever fix it.

I'm inching closer to getting things sorted. I spent a few nights working on unrelated wiring to get the lights and so on working. Just indicators and windscreen wipers left to sort then I can tidy it all up and tuck it away. I've been doing some more car-on-jackstands based fuckery to try and dial in the fuel map. It's surprising how well you can get the ramp rate when you put it in 4th or 5th and just jam the brakes on. But just have to keep them spinning for a while after to let the poor discs cool down haha. TL;DR: noises: But anyway, after a few more runs, much to everyone elses annoyance probably. I've got some good values in the fuel table now, and it's mostly tracking on target apart from some bank to bank imbalance. Its looking fairly promising for next dyno visit! Here are the old VE values from the old intake, new values, and the percentage difference. Keep in mind that with NA motor improvements, you're usually scrambling for 1% or 2% at a time and looking for accumulative gains. So this is pretty amazing / shows how crap my old setup was. Now I appreciate that it's a stretch to expect horsepower to directly correlate with AFR changes. But, if wheel horsepower did improve by the same % as extra airflow now, here's where we would be looking: I believe part of this is thanks to my new runner length giving the good bump right on the 7500-8000rpm region now. If I try some slightly shorter runners, I might be able to bump it over to the right a bit which would be cool! If it gets to over 250whp I will be pretty happy. Here's a diagram of what my original runner length was, the two long lengths that we tried on the dyno (which were either too short or too long) and my best guess for current intake length. Another thing to keep in mind is that the motor might like having some more cam advance now, for higher up in the rpm range. So it might not be done yet! Exciting if any of this pans out to be true, but, we all know that dyno day can be a heart breaker. Haha Something else that I screwed around with, was adding or subtracting 5 degrees of VVT advance from 1 bank only. It didnt seem very sensitive to this, not enough to make up for the AFR imbalance. So I'll need to do some more checks and figure out if there's any other reason why this might be happening. The bank that is running richer is the drivers side, which is funny because its the one with the better looking exhaust manifold on it. Its not toooooo far off I guess ,but I'd rather try find a mechanical reason for the imbalance than just accept it and run a fuel correction on one side. As there's possibly a few more farts to squeeze out of it yet.

Got this junk all welded together. new pinion seal in. Took awhile to get it all bang on toe wise. grinding some V's in the case and laying some welds into them, got it pulled back into spec. Then realized after i poorly painted it, with almost zero prep. The car has no bump stops. well it has bump stops in the coilovers, but the diff would be inside the car before they made contact. even if setup right, adjusting the body adjustable coilovers would effectively move the bump stop location around. so welded some pads to the diff, that line up with whats left of the factory bump stops. The top arms hit the diff at pretty much the same time as the diff center his the floor. so the idea of lowering the top arm mounts didn't become a thing. Nothing had any signs of contact from when it had no bump stops. but pinion was pointing down, which makes clearance better but driveshaft angle bad. Likely have a little less travel now everything is setup right ,driveshaft angle wise. but still should be enough. full bump straight up is here, will be a touch more when cornering. ideally the bumpstops even further inboard would be better, since that allows more side to side up travel. and it's only stuff in the middle that wants to make contact. ride height is about here. Everything fits together nice. so should be good to go together properly. I might change some stuff with the brakes and lines, but worst comes to worst will be just a couple of tabs to weld to the housing.

This is a bit of a different project for me, and my first real try with carpentry. I set the goal to make a workbench using all wood joints - no nails/screws. Every piece means something: Rimu (laminate top) - recycled from 1880s biscuit factory Rimu (frame) - from a large beam left in the garage when we bought the house. Rata (laminate and legs) - saved from the lintels from a greenhouse I had to take down (the beams were heavy) Macrocarpa (frame) - milled from a work colleagues house site overlooking Otago harbour. Wood vice (Record 52 1/2) - ex Otago Girls HS (c. 1950s) Blacksmiths vice - from my pops workshop (still more restoration needed)

Oh man that’s so cool, love small cars with big engines swapped in

My old man has a 351 Cleveland motor he has had for ever that he planned to drop in his Mk1 Sedan. I love Z cars so will follow along with interest!

Hmmm, pretty crusty under the scuttle panel... This patch was brazed over the worst of it. I had to make the repair in two sections as there was too many curves for my lack of skillz I cut the middle section under the scuttle out too, but is was okay so welded it back in. I've got a similar but smaller repair to make on the passenger side.

Fast forward 4 1/2yrs, and it’s finally road legal….

In the far north we play a game to see what’s the newest dereged car is when we go shopping, so far a it’s a 2021 ranger