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Fuck did i have some issues getting it running. On the plus side I now know what every single wire on the ecu plug does, and that it's properly connected and working, as well as 90% of the entire cars looms. One i got the thing to actually run i thought the sensible thing to do would be take it for a drive. It's still running like a dog but I drove it anyway. Fuck it's choice, even though I've only driven it 10ks in a fucking cyclone I can already feel how amazing the thing is. I'M HAVING A BEER WHO'S WITH ME!!!!!!

As many on here will know Tasman district has had fair amount of rainy weather recently. Last weekend we had a big atmospheric river and got 320mm over 36 hours. Lots of local flooding and quite a few unlucky souls have lost quite a lot. For us it was just some of our driveway getting washed downhill and a few trees coming down so mustn't grumble. Anyway - it was a good excuse to stay indoors, crank the fireplace, music, espresso machine and tinker with the Imp. Ages ago I had picked up these Mitsubishi V6 pajaro instruments from the wreckers.. In previous posts I had stripped them down, chopped off all the excess bits not needed (trip meter etc) so they'd fit into some housings I machined out of thick walled alloy tube. I had found a Toyota speed sensor that I adapted to fit my Subaru transmission. Wired them up and checked it worked, which it did well but it was reading a good 10 ~ 15kph out. I then packed the lot away in a box and stashed it away. It was time to crack on and make something of them. First job was to work out an accurate speedo face to suit the setup. I cut a circle of paper, fit it in place and we went driving. Using a GPS speedo we marked out all the various speed points. Then I used a program online... https://www.blocklayer.com/gauge-templates ..however it didn't create what I wanted as most speedos have non linear markings, especially 0-20. I chatted to the fella who was running the website and he added some custom bins into the program to suit and it worked great. We printed off a new face that matched the hand drawn one and went for a drive to check it was good.. Then I spent some time having fun creating some gauge faces. I had a particular style in mind. My current design turned out pretty boring given how far one could go with the variety of fonts, colours, images, text but I wanted a 60s/70s look to suit the car and dash layout I have in mind. Fun thing is I can change it easily now I have a saved accurate template * Used the big printer we have that barely gets used. Cut them out to suit. Machined up some tiny wad punches to do the holes. Into the housings. The backside. Later on I'll need to add some led lights to shine through the white font.I'll also re-set the odometer to match the current reading even though it'll be in km from now on. The needles will then go back in place once I have finished all this. I removed the original Imp dash pads and instrument cluster. Its a heavy bit of kit. Comical wiring layout too. Sat in the car and eyed up how I'd like the gauges to sit. The idea is to build a pod that will work with the original MK1 Imp dash pads which I really do like the style of. I had part sheet of 1.2mm alloy which I cut, bent, rolled, twisted and tweaked to shape, welding all the bits together doing my very best to try not to create holes. Not the easiest thickness alloy to tig weld but managed ok. I also welded up a bolt on pod that sits below to take the original Imp indicator stalks. Checked it was ok. Covered the outside in medium density foam.. Bought some more cow that local canvas place still had a stash of.. Very carefully cut and glued it in place. Painted the other alloy parts in etch primer then satin black. Added some tiny warning lamps. Most important gauge, the oil pressure gauge, resides in the middle.. Really happy with the finish. There's a couple of blemishes (tiny knife nick) but overall considering the awkwardness of this build I'm stoked. And bolted in place. I can adjust the angles of the gauges quite easily too but its currently good for both of us. Ties in really nicely with the dash pads.. Next job is to sort out the wiring. I'd already made it far more user friendly compared to stock by having added several multi plugs. I'm going to re-do it though and use some smaller wire where I can along with Deutsch plugs. There will be a new dash face below the dash pads that will house 3 gauges, some rocker switches and a Triumph eyeball vent at each end. * Edit - here's an example..

I got my throttle pulleys machined down to a smaller size, so they can open the throttles all of the way (Thanks Dad!) So this is all now working GREAT. and it's super snappy. So I started doing some tuning to try figure out the area just off idle, and why its such a bag of crap. I found that adding considerably more ignition timing helped a lot, and increasing injection timing to around 600deg (usually 400) However, at a fairly early stage I managed to blitz one of my ethrottle motors with about 100 amps too many haha. It still worked, but smelled funky. Well, it ended up crapping itself. So I've ordered another one but it's still a few weeks away which is annoying. Since I couldnt do anything else meaningful for that stuff, I figured probably a good idea to take all of the exhaust completely off and check it. I found a worst case scenario leak for my extractors on both sides. There were signs of a small leak coming from somewhere between the 3 pipes, up the middle of them. Blargh! Impossible to get to this to fix it without cutting everything up. I was fretting about it for longer than it actually took to fix. I cut off the collectors just slightly up past the 3x pipes. Then fully welded both halves, flattened it off, then welded back together. No more leaks and it solved what one of the ticking noises from the motor was. Even if these extractors eventually crack or something. I'm still absolutely stoked to have made these myself. My new fuel rails turned up, but I havent had them machined yet. But fits a lot better. Given the available space I think I'm gonna give up on having a front feed airbox. So thinking dual sides instead. I guess these could both rejoin around the front and grab some air from on top of the radiator. Or I could have air intakes behind the headlights, and go back to a full height radiator. Which probably isnt a bad plan. I cant fit the entire thing on my printer but I can do half at a time. So just banging one out to test fit. 2GRFSE Scheming "Since I am doing this, may as well do this" Since I need a custom rod for the 2GR destroke scheme. Has made me consider piston options. The factory piston is typical Toyota stuff, fairly big and chunky/strong. But for high rpm the lighter the better... No point in reinventing the wheel if something else already exists? I found a 94mm piston from a 400cc quad bike that runs 10k rpm from factory. Cheap and easily available, and nice and light! It has a 22mm pin so might even fit the 2GR rod (apart from that the rod is too short) So I've ordered one of these to test fit and see what sort of compression ratio will be achievable. A destroked 2GR doesnt end up tooooooo far off the geometry of the Opel Calibra DTM car which was absolutely hectic. I wonder if you could grind the journals down to lose another 9mm stroke out of it... Would only need 4.5mm taken off one side I think? Just to be 100% clear though, none of the above are detracting from getting the car onto the dyno ASAP! Once my ethrottle motor turns up, its ready to go. 2GR Destroke comparison for future scope creeping:

Stage 4 Auckland 7/8 race cam added and @kpr with the kfry fuelled dyno sesh

Got the fan mounted properly. waiting to see what water pump, top outlet etc can get hold before weld on tabs to mount in car. as may have to relocate the top pipe. Redone the tab on clutch pedal. so clutch master should be good to go Been making a new 2-1 section on headers specific to this car. Was going to use what was left of the test setup as starting point. but needed to gain a little more length, to get the correct length, before it got to the spot for the first muffler. so started from scratch my normal stainless place stopped selling the size i need for the 2-1 section, so the pipe is some crappy china stuff. which sucks to weld due to wall thickness being all over the shop. but got it done. will see how long before it cracks. i may change the flange for slip joints if has issues Somehow it all worked out after all that testing, that the correct length just happens to fit perfect in the car. the first muffler will go almost directly after the megaphone. If the 4-2 section wasn't the loop design, would have gone straight past the spot for the muffler. which would be a bad day. as need to have all of them to shut up a na 4age. 2-1 length is just under 700mm long

I still can't get this thing to run right. I'm fucking pissed off with it tbh. Is the same motor and ecu that I drove into my shed with no issue in a different car and now it won't run for shit. It's got too much fuel at idle and goes lean at throttle input. Is like the fuel controller is backwards. I haven't checked the pump voltage yet because I decided to do something to actually make progress. So I went back to being an upholstery expert. A very shit one. Whatever, so i pulled the front seats apart to see if I could swap the cushions and covers left to right. Seat base i was able to swap but the seat backs are too different left to right to make it work. I washed the seats too and got a mountain of disgusting shit out of the fabric, then I put them back together. They still look terrible. Maybe I'll die them to try and hide some of the sun fading.

Since the last post Stripped paint off the underside of the body and repainted it Exhaust; Modified to hang it closer to the body to avoid dragging it down the road. I added flanges to the pipes near the rear axle to make any future removal possible without cutting anything. Replaced a few sections of 2.25" pipe that had been used in some bends with 2.5" to match the rest of the exhaust. Probably added 50 odd HP there alone. Painted the headers and rest of the pipes with high temp paint Cleaned out the fuel tank and repainted Painted the whole body car inside and outside with 2 coats of epoxy primer. The plan is to do body work over the top of this epoxy primer This was my first time using a paint gun. There were some runs and overspray so I'm getting the full beginner experience. My plan is to now reassemble the car after cleaning up the parts and priming them while off the body. It feels like a real milestone getting paint on it. I was getting sick and tired of seeing surface rust slowly build up on the bare metal or any new patch panels I'd welded on. Anyway, time to start on the rear bumper, then the boot lid, then, then, then, etc

Windscreen is installed. Thanks to Taranaki Windscreens. Now, FINALLY, I will be able to give it a wash. When it arrived from the states it got pushed straight into the shed, then had no suspension, then no window, now its ready for a bath.

Fake news This still exists, its not full of rat droppings and looks basically how it was left (bar some extra cobwebs). The boy was stoked to check it out. Pretty happy as that the seats haven't been eaten up by rats and the engine still turns over all good by hand. I've just moved back to NZ and now living up close to where it's stored. Slowly getting the new rental setup and shifting all the stuff that I left at mum and dad's over. I'll start sifting through the car parts and bits and pieces soon, then make a plan on the next step with the slow burn build. Stoked the shed hasn't fallen over yet as the posts have all rotted out haha. See how we go anyway. Chur, Tai

painted the everything the other day. I went down to the paint shop and asked for something appropriately hard for a chassis, got given a tin of chassis black. "is this that shit that never really goes off and just gets everywhere?" I asked suspiciously. "nah" said the guy behind the counter. "look, it's got 'fast drying' written on it". both the guy behind the counter and the assholes who made this stuff were full of shit. "fast drying" relative to the geological epochs involved in forming it's bitumen component perhaps, but that's about it. at least it's sprayable with a gun so I wasn't ambling around with a paintbrush dripping shit everywhere. began to get a nagging feeling that I wasn't 100% sure exactly how all this stuff goes back together. chassis has also gained an appreciable weight in entombed blast media but hopefully it'll eventually makes it's way out driveshaft hoop arrived, and... oh.... at least it's another bit of wisdom I can pass on to the next guy in fact... will the DRIVESHAFT even fit? err.... obviously the length was always going to be wrong but I was hoping i could at least be a cheapass and just cut and modify the forward end of the old shaft. the gap between the rails is 75mm give or take, and the driveshaft is pretty much exactly the same. the rails aren't perfect box sections, there's a 5mm or so overhang lip on the inboard ends, gosh I'm so tempted to just smack that down with a hammer to get the clearance it's starting to look somewhat purposeful now at least. several onlookers have been fooled into thinking that the "hard work has been done" sorting out the mounting for the gearbox actually took a little longer than I expected because there's just so many good places to do it, it's hard to settle on one. I eventually went off the extension housing bolts, onto a little welded block on the top of the chassis (which I think the big radio support yoke doodad bolts to?). This is largely because I forgot to weld crush tubes back here for a mount and didn't want to set three litres of tar on fire by attempting to do so now. Only really started mocking this up (Bunnings umbrella steel again) then realised it needed proper bushings. surprisingly hard to find off-the shelf spindle mounts with an imperial thread these days. BUT, easy to find mounts for british stuff. So I have a whole bunch of rubber mounts To Suit Norton Commando heading my way Also began reassembling the suspension because I need to make this thing mobile again. Unfortunately found the polybush suspension kit for the rear completely nonfit for purpose, in fact it's totally fucking rubbish. Most of the bits are just dimensionally wrong. I rechecked the packaging and sure enough it says Rotoflex GT6, but I have been able to use about a quarter of the packet, even with modification. The control arm outer bushes are too small and literally slop around, the inner one doesnt even have a top hat/thrust section, the rear spring bushes were far too long for their steel tube (and for the spring).... just crap and I'm still pissed off about it stay tuned for next time and I'll tell you about my amazingly silly 3d printing adventure

So whilst I'm waiting for the cert man to give me the call off the bench I'm making it a little more finished. It's still noisy as shit so I'm doing my best to quieten it down a little. I am mostly deaf and have tinnitus so every bit helps.

A while ago I updated the plastics on the 350, and had some graphics designed and applied by @Chunky_t via some ideas and inspiration from early 1980s KTM enduro bikes. I also fitted some flush mount sort of LED rear blinkers, as the original ones were prone to being ruined via crashes and were so cooked you could barely see them when on. I just need to sort out a reflector and bodge a number plate light so I can get this WOF'd and go get my full license. This is the result. 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-43 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-50 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-57 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-74 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-114 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-144 by Richard Opie, on Flickr The #775 is tribute to my very much missed late uncle Tony, who passed away 11 years ago from MND. This was his race number on bikes. 2019 KTM 350 EXC-F-63 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Got stuck into the battery box, originally I had though to move the truck battery to separate it from the house batteries but it really doesn't make sense and I've given myself a few options and plenty of space as well as obviously being able to handle a fair bit of mass. It's made out of 4mm sheet and 40x40 tube. I decided to spread the load over a decent surface area on the chassis rail to brace it nicely. About 15mm clearance to the headers, I'll prob put a little heat shield in behind as well. I'll start sorting a bit of an engine loom after this and get it all tidy, figure out where to mount the fuel pump etc.

The eggball helpers didn't last very long. Gearbox in the back seems to have finished them off The auto box has decided it wants to randomly shift from overdrive 4th to 3rd when cruising down the motorway It may be related to the stationary cooling system test but who knows. I'll service the merc trans and if I have leftover fluid I'll check the mussos level is correct and top it up if needed

Heavy duty meat cleaver I forged, its not cut from plate, it will cut virtually anything and hold an edge, I spent the afternoon splitting fire wood with it and cut an old tire off a rim with it.

Back to the shell and a few minor bits need welding up, this patch was created and installed. Also I got 2 x heater channels so the problem areas floors pillars and channels will be fresh steel. Here's my handy work this lil patch was about 1.5 to 2 hours worth.

Yeah I am thinking later on I will probably do an X pipe and 2x pipes to the back. All of the good sounding 2GR MR2s are X pipe and 2 pipes to the back. However, in the fairly immediate future I just need to consolidate what I'm doing and get the car to a drivable state. The current exhaust is good enough to get the car onto the dyno and so on. I'm keen to put down a baseline number, then put big cams in, then see how it's going. I've been very lucky that Stu has loaned me his tig setup over the last long while, but he needs it back to make some progress on his own projects. So no more exhaust stuff for now. So I'll be putting a tig setup into the budget at some point. Super 5000% glad that I persisted with it and can now weld alright. Invaluable skill.

Some work, not many pics. New brake hoses all round. Got some new front brake rotors. Mounted fuel filter under the car. I kind of made my life hard here. I should have dropped the rear suspension when I made the fuel hard lines and ran them right back close to the tank and used some short hoses. But I didn't. I stuck the filter here to make some room in the engine bay Then I cut the power steering hose off that doesn't fit my pump and fitted a hydraulic compression fitting to the tube. Got some hose and fitted some ends. Well, 1 end anyway.... Fuck. So now I'll wait for the mailman to rectify that...

I was giving the car a bit of a once over and realised the GT lid didnt have a number plate light. That would have been embarrassing. So I found a spare one I had and welded on a small plate to attach it to. I have no idea what it had stock and couldn't see what else it had to attach to so it is what it is. The biggest problem I had/have is fighting the cold. The first coat of colour I slapped on just sagged. So I waited a day for it to harden to take off again and try again with backup. A little fan heater and an outdoor gas heater. It was touch dry in about a minute. All I had was an LED bulb so I may have to put some tape around it as it looks pretty bright. Next on the vagenda is to change the wide rims for the old pizza cutters. I still get a slight vibration at speed in and out of gear. I think possibly one of the wheels isn't balanced correctly which is an issue I have had with the local tire man a couple of times.

I'd like to introduce you to the smartest man alive, me. I believe I resolved the accelerator pump problem that (would you believe it) I caused. Apparently when I took the stuff apart and took photos I didn't actually take photos of the correct orientation of the diaphragm for the accelerator pump. I did think it was a little weird that the pump arm didn't really do anything. So this is how I had it.. And this is how it was meant to be. Obviously the spring is straight when it's screwed down. People smarter than me would have worked this out immediately but hey, live and learn. A free lesson that I'll remember. So yeah, I'm a dumbass but seems to be working again on the bench. Yet to run the car, still have that whole cooling thing to work through.

New HEL oil filter adapter with thermostat showed up. Nice bit of kit. Luckily, it just clears everything, and with some luck I'll find some fittings that clear everything. Will also upgrade from -10 to -12 hose as fittings on both ends will allow it, and it will help reduce some backpressure in the system. Filter doesn't sit as low as I was afraid of, so looks like a great solution to the annoying oil leaks I've had. Only complication is I need to find a fitting/port for gauge oil pressure sender. Little job I've had on the list for a while - replacing the water pump. The other one was OK, but was a little stiff and had some corrosion on the bearings. So rather than wait for this to fail a year or so down the track, I chucked a fresh one in there. Super easy job on this engine! Making good progress, ticking off the last of the sheetmetal jobs in prep for powdercoating.

Long coupla on my knees inside the boat just gone. I'm prepping to get the seat tops put in so am painting what is underneath the seats with three coats of epoxy before the primer and top coat. Havent actually figured out if I'll make them storage tanks or leave them as buoyancy tanks yet. I still have to cut an access hatch to help glue from inside as well as keep as an inspection hole for future. I have also been glassing the shit out of the outboard well. There is enough space now for a rise and fall bracket and I want it to be waterproof and strong. As I cut off quite a few strips of chop strand and woven I went around adding bits of tape around the mast and anywhere that took my fancy such as inside the stern where it all meets at a point. There is still more to do on the outboard well but the weather is so cold that it just isn't conducive to painting and glassing. Hopefully this rain fucks off soon and we can get a bit of sunshine.

To distance my brain from carb life for a while I decided to look into another thing that's been bugging me. The weird thing about this car is it's never got up to temperature, well at least it never seemed to get past the first little line on the gauge. Because of this I've always wondered if the thermostat was working properly and today I took apart some of the system to check it all. Once I took the hoses off it became clear that there was a thermostat problem, however it was the opposite to what I was expecting. This thing is jammed shut. I was expecting one to either be jammed open or not there at all. This might be the original (or very old at any case) thermostat, so definitely due for replacement. Also abundantly clear that there's been no water circulating in the engine for some time as the coolant that came out of the radiator was green, not mud. This got me wondering.. has there ever been any in there since I've owned it? How long has there not been water circulating ? I have actually taken this car to some events in the not so distance past and the temperature never moved then either. Does this engine somehow have the power to never overheat? This radiator has seen better days but it never leaked from memory so I don't think it was blocked and stopping flow. That said I might get it reconditioned or replace it anyway for peace of mind. As well as replace the radiator hoses as they looked pretty second hand. I'll also be bypassing the heater core so the hoses along the top here are being removed. So now I'm thinking I need to get new thermostat, pipes, some block off caps, a few gaskets and perhaps I should check the water pump as well.. it's probably not been doing a whole lot.

Couldn't get many pics past the amount of people. Was some very good dioramas and a working coalmine trainset including above and below ground windows.

they do have a lovely selection of pies there good work sheepers, i am impressed at your complete lack of ; lollygagging mucking around lazing about thumb twiddling hesitation dilly dallying goofing off dawdling

NNNoooooo............... Im penning a strongly worded letter to my signwriter. (In Comic Sans and Wingdings, of course.)

Maybe with the ride height being so high it’s affecting the float level in the carbs?

What a barryfest!

so I put the cam back in Have Advanced it by 4 degrees to bring the powerband a little lower in the rev range to compensate for the 2.6 diff . so the plan is to build the car to match the cam .

extension housing finished, installed and cynically painted in a coat of hammerite direct-to-shit silver. presented on this angle which just so happens to hide every single weld, how convenient. Ended up having to ream it out as the selector rod kept getting locked up mounts welded up and pretty much finalised, these are comprised of 80% stock triumph mounts on their side and 20% bunnings pool umbrella stand. chassis came back, one of my guys got to play "mark all the cracks" uh oh. as suspected, it was definitely time for a birthday. (Also, are all chassis welds this bad under the paint?) RHS lower wishbone attach point lots of other bits came back at the same time I was having a mental health moment earlier, the diff did NOT have a drain port. It does now. crush tubes going in for where the mounts will sit. I guess I could have welded the brackets on directly but it might've made getting the engine back out a bit funny. Plus the chassis is so thin I'd much rather have the big bolt sandwich Frustratingly I don't have half the suspension bushes that I need, otherwise I'd probably have the chassis repainted and all the doodads back on it this week. Also waiting on a new clutch and drive axles.

Was keen and carefully and precisely deleted the mid muffler Used my rotary pipe expander and a piece I cut off the muffler to hammer the pipe on Very carefully and cut a piece of tube to length. Used the same piece of muffler as a hammer to precisely clearance the end Hanger looks mint from someone else's house I did weld it all together to industry standards, no prep, shut my eyes and pull the mig trigger. And after all that caring and effort it's still quiet because the rear muffler has been replaced with a nice quiet restrictive one. Really should have looked at that first /cut that off as it would have been significantly easier. I've only got 3" stainless stuff in stock but that's destined for the Honda and its too valuable to put on this so I'll leave it as for now

(sucks teeth) yeah, that's gonna cost coffee and lamingtons. As a brofessional firmware engineer, I gotta say: have you considered brass gears?

When you dont have a press make a buck instead. Just trying some metal forming techniques for the replacement of the rusty bung holes and seems to be working out OK so far.

It is pretty cool eh, he is a regular at the taupo events too. Miss 5 must have been under instruction to not let me linger anywhere too long. But i did crap my pants at the price that kitsets have come up to, or probably have been for ages but i havent noticed. Rc boats for the kids is a good thing they do each year too, 2 bucks for 5 minutes is pretty good.

Russell, drive shaft specialists, Andromeda crescent east tamaki is who I usually recommend He's reasonably priced and does good work.

Well just learned if you blow an intercooler pipe off after the MAF turbo moves so much air through the system the injectors go max duty cycle and foul the plugs near instantly...... I rolled 1.5ks home and made it up drive and couldn't push brakes hard enough to not go into fence so handbrake to rescue! I may need to extend some pipework so I can get everything pushed in nice again, pretty sure I rushed the installation of the maf too maybe left a clamp loose. Goes great though!

Slapped the first coat of primer on the lockers and had half a pot left over so rather than chuck it out I kept going. So many drips and runs from epoxy coating last weekend looks like this weekend will be spent entirely sanding. Standing back and having a look I think I have to agree for once with @cubastreet that it looks so much nicer open than with a cabin. Maybe I need to revisit to slide over/fold up bimini/tent.

Woohoo!! Spun it to 6200rpm last night log only showed 2 knock events (not audible) in transition and I've got a whole heap of headroom now to up boost and have timing adjustable to go with it. Its ultra rich with weak timing as basically I'm starting from scratch again but I think I've got my head around how to get it set up and make decent power. Cheers HP academy without which my rods would have fallen out a long time ago.

Picked up an AliExpress tungsten grinder Dremel attachment cheap, I'm rather impressed with it! Been using a silica carbide green wheel on my bench grinder for years, that's getting swapped out for a SS wire wheel now as I won't be going back to sharpening tungsten on it in any hurry!

So the vibration seems to have gone away so it was the wheels. I say seems to because it's a noisy old car and I'm deaf. Only problem is now I'm stuck with the crappy pizza cutter wheels. They look shit. THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE!

Pretty sure you can use first gen hrv stuff like this guy with the bonus of 5 stud (B series turbo optional)

It pays to shop around, can get some ok prices online it seems. Also keep your eyes open for people selling off from their stash, can get a deal then.

Kits sure ain't cheap anymore! Kmart used to flog Airfix 1/72 stuff for about $10 and The Warehouse got some obscure kits that were decent quality for about $15, even up to 1/48 scale. What is interesting is the paint etc is roughly the same price as it was 30 years ago.

Or one of these but change the badge ever so slightly...

Christ you just triggered a memory. In my apprenticeship the factory owner had a flash ski boat and he wouldnt even let us look at it. I dont mean lifting up the engine hatch or anything. Literally in it's direction. So when us dickhead kids walked past we had to face the other direction and sort of crab walk. What a cunt

No idea sorry mate. I know i polished the fucking thing at least 5 times during my apprenticeship though.

Avoiding making the pedal work with that ^ So started on some other stuff that i haven't finished either I have a 2 piece hilux driveshaft, which has the right ends and the hanger bearing will directly fit in the chassis, once zing the captive nuts off. Just need shorten both the front and rear shafts. plan was to just cut the end off each. shorten, weld, done. But decided to put front half the lathe as is and dial it up, before giving it the chop. turns out it spun like a skipping rope with around 0.7mm run out on both ends. Mr toyota just wacked some balancing weights on the low side at both ends. And yeah turns out the tube wasn't just welded on the piss. the bits the tube spigot onto were machined wack. So far i have trued up the hanger bearing end, building up the low side a touch then machined to a tolerance fit . Got the tube on there and is bang on. Probably getting way to picky but yeah. Rest is on hold till new uni's show up Next for no particular reason. decided to do some stuff with radiator Old setup used to look like this Some kinda nissan radiator. which i still had. was too tall to sit in normal place without sticking up and looking ugly, so done some butchery to the bottom tank to drop it down further Buying a radiator that fits may sound wise. but I wanted to make a gap on the intake side to feed the intake cold air. so an ae86 specific one would need to be cut anyway. So yep i cut some more off the side of this one which you can kinda see the rough cut above^ That meant the twin fans wouldn't fit anymore (they didnt fit good anyway) Again a normal person would have brought a fan that works But i despise junk aftermarket fans. So i cut one of the twin fans out leaving a flange around it. made an ali shroud. then wasted half of my life making this plastic ring to clamp the fan to the shroud Would have been a good job for a 3d printer and made in a couple of bits. but i have lathe and a bit of acetal that has been hanging around forever I haven't finished it yet either. still need to attach shroud to radiator and but made an amazing mess

This is so fucking great.

Recently got a bit more done on the trailer. Made sure it was about the right size etc, and made the up rights/sides. For ease of use and simplicity, the front and back tailgate board things just slide into slots made from angle and flat off cuts, Then I figured out where the axle needs to be, then whipped up said axle on the BIL's lathe, made some mounts and welded it on, As you can see in the background of the pic posted above in the last update, the alloy wheels were very oxidized (they have been outside for years) so I gave them a water blast, spray painted them black, and then buffed the paint off the face of the wheel to make them all shiny again. Slapped some tyres on that match the cruisers, and good to go. Then I whipped up some mud guards. Decided just to make them out of 3mm thick steel and not bother with mounts, and just weld them directly to the frame. Found an off cut of steel, cut the desired shape out, removed the rust, and put them in my fancy press brake and bent them into shape. I don't know why, but I find the little mud guards soooo adorable! Now I just have to cut and mount the wood, paint everything, and its done. Regards VG. P.S. Say hi to your mum for me.