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Finished and loaded up. Probably the most expensive and elaborate way to lower an El Camino! Looks like we'll see how good these bump stops are!

Well it didnt 100% work. But it could definitely be fixed with a welder! It didnt fill fast enough and there wasnt enough pressure. So they had to frantically fill from one of the riser holes to try save it. In doing that there is a big section of cold lap and a big hole! So the changes would be to have 2 filling sprues in the middle of the casting. Then increase the head pressure a little bit. The bowl I had in the sprue was way too big and reduced the head pressure. For the most part it looks pretty good. All the finer details are there. No cores collapsed or shifted, no shrin

Six months since last update, feels like a year... Spent the last four months with a new member in the family so car time has suffered accordingly. Will keep it brief with a few pics. Have been working my arse off the last week or so to get the car back together. Lots to still do, but I finally have a window of time to get things done, so I have to get it done. Last update ended with lack of clearance between strut and wheel. It was the locking nut to be exact. I spent a long time working out spacer requirements and longer wheel studs needed etc. Problem with spacers is that it shift

Hi. lets go back a few steps. I had just received my beam from Sean at kune re. I put a few layers of brunox on it and painted it black. and stashed it away. the next stage was to fill some holes and touch up some rusty peaces and i was waiting on a mate for a hand with this part but i ended up getting a bit impatient and smashing them out with the mig welder and cleaning them up with a grinder cause im clearly not a welder and while i was at it i went over a bunch of my old welding peaces and ground them up and cleaned them up. a few late nights and got the job done. next up i wanted to

Took the day off work today to pick this up. Donkeys! Then home. Gave it a rinse inside and out with the waterblaster, and started digging in to see what I got/whats missing. It is mostly complete, box of spares has old brake bits, which might be ominous. It has a 4x148 or so stud pattern, which ive never seen before. The body is pretty good, just the bottom of all the doors and front floors are crispy. All the switches are bung. Windows are stuck. Found the chassis number, data plate and an faint image of an old wof sticker and an old style reg sticker

Got it down without dropping it or injuring myself! Been a productive weekend. Just need to add some walls and pack some extra sand around the areas im worried about. Then will be good to go to the foundry!

All assembled. Quite a mission. Not my best work but I'm learning a lot. Total is about 380kg. Now I need to make a pallet and tie it all together well enough so that when it’s tipped over to horizontal it doesn’t shift around.

Still been cracking on with this, 70% finished with our tiny home build so that's taken priority over this unfortunately.. Still been trying to get this running. Installed exhaust with lambda o2 sensor in it. No photo though. Fucked off the extra 2 injector loom and plugs and terminated the end. I used my soldering iron to engrave the plugs so I no which is which. Loom all finished now. Mounted ecu and relays on bottom side of glovebox hidden and out of the way. Used 2 bolts thru from glovebox into perspex so can remove ea

Sprayed some black rust remover and metal restorer on the rims. Massive stud pattern. Ill take the drums off to look at the brakes another day. Im sure they are juuust fiiine. Cop mode. Put the rear doors back together and straightened a few things out and did a bit more sanding. They are still busted but now they open and close nicely. Pulled the front door apart to get the inner latch out. Safari! Some percussive maintenance needed where the limit strap had bent in the door flange and the door now opens and closes lovely.

A week ago I sold some 19" 3p weds lips to a fella who runs a 3d modeling and printing business. I mentioned I was after some fender mirror gaskets for my gx61 as one had blown apart (common fault) I sent my good one up to him and he scanned it and flipped it and printed of this new pair for me in an ABS like resin. Pretty happy with the finish being smooth on all the seen surfaces and I'll just need to fine sand the dimples off the bottom

Got the small cores made and bonded in. Will try not to break them off when installing the main core.

Runner mould done. Was being a bit too fast and didnt mix the sand as well as I should have. Really soft section at one end. This wouldnt be good because it would erode like crazing and send sand through the fill. Managed to cut it out and repair it. Hopefully it doesnt leak.

So this happened. ive purchased a toyota granvia with the 1kzte to shoehorn into the wags . il keep the box and fuel system also But to keep with the restomod theme, i plan to not make it look like a kz . Also will make custom intake/exhaust manifolds and intercooler. plan on keeping the a/c. I have an old aftermarket under dash unit

its been a while. given that i bought the supercharged crown, i was starting to think that perhaps id like to have a turbo car in the garage, so i listed the supercharger kit for sale and it turns out matteybean on here bought it and has fitted it to hit RT104 and done a real nice job of finishing it off. real glad i get to see it finished off. now turbo 18rgs are pretty common and never wanting to do the smart or easy thing decided i really like the look of aftermarket twin high mount turbo rb26 engines. so decided this is the style id go for. twin IHI VF32s the secondary tu

I also tidied the hub caps. Came with all 4, which i happy about as they are van specific too, but they had all been given a good kicking. Underside to show the ring that clips into another ring on the rim, and, A former owners address? D. S. Clark Kelso 5 RD Gore Again alloy, so came up much better, certainly good enough, after tapping the dents out and a whiz with the scotchbrite and wore wool. Ill give the rims a fresh waft of black and pop these on tomorrow.

Finished removing the underseal. What a shit job, lying under the car scraping with a chisel. Only a bit of surface rust, cleaned up no worries with a strip disc and wire brush. Gave it a coat of Brunox, scuffed up with scotchbrite and brush painted with epoxy primer. Not mint, but good enough for the underside. Just need to move the stands and do the same for the jacking points now. Getting the fuel tank dipped and lined, rear brake cylinders sleeved at the moment. Next, I will tidy up and paint the diff and fuel tank.

a few more pics......... Browndog's 1972 V8 Transit - Page 3 - Project Discussion - oldschool.co.nz

Had a design in mind for the wall up to the lounge from very early on. Was gonna take a bit of time but I thought it would be well worth it. Cut and planed lots of batons from Rimu off cuts Its not a techy thing. They went up along the wall and are spaced just so that as you enter from what will be a hallway it sort of looks like a solid wood wall. Then as you walk in and past you can see the orange paint through the gaps... Neato. Much neater. I like the effect. But I also had this planned... and a

All the bits ready to go together.

completed last week, and took it to the Auckland All Ford Day on Sunday Browndog's 1972 V8 Transit - Page 3 - Project Discussion - oldschool.co.nz

That’s better. The epoxy glue kinda sucked so I whipped up a wee reinforcer plate. Once bolted back in against firewall she’ll be safe. And I scaled back the front runners. ..just for sandblasting.

Figured out the EWP and got it working easy as. It's just 2 high current wires for 12v supply and earth. Then one is a pull to ground PWM signal to control pump speed. Then the other is a square wave pump speed signal which you can feed back to the ECU. (which is what I was hoping for) So you can tell if its jammed or stopped working before the motor overheats! Cool. It's got a failsafe so a high duty cycle on the pwm signal slows the pump down - So if there's no signal, it runs at full speed. Trying to work out the water line situation though, I'm not sure if there's a water

And another shot from last week, this one is growing on me and may have to have printed larger.

And rummaged in my box of coilovers , I've got a plan to make some rear shocks for it The biggest problem with the usual axle flip (the diff housing gets put on top of the spring instead of underneath) is shock angles- they are on a big angle factory, then when it gets lowered 6 inches the shocks end up on stupid angles and dont do anything so the big lump of a diff flops around all over the place The best driving slammed ones, have the shock brackets moved to straighten them up, and decent shocks so they actually have some hope of controlling all the unsprung weight I've go

None of the door handles really worked so the doors dont really close properly. Lack of use had made them stiff and sticky. I was most worried about the rear door handles and mechanism because thats stuff is van specific, and well, good luck finding another one, and it was jammed. Tap tap with a hammer didnt do anything much so drastic destructive action needed! That'll do it! Both bottom latches were full of gunk, that could get in but not out. Cleaned up ok, very different life compared to the top ones which look like new! a bit more weld to fill in the we

Bit more wombling. Took the front bits off for a tidy up, and hit a few dents out, drivers headlight bucket had had a dint (as they say), headlight spaced out with a stack of rusty washers the paint underneath what remains of the maroon had only been lightly scuffed and the front looks waaay better after a bit (a lot) more wet and dry and the bright work (all cast alloy) given a light tidy. I think it will come around, but gosh, i just really fricken hate hand sanding. Ill do around all the door handles for now so i can pop those back on tomorro

got my fairings back from the painter on the weekend. he did a pretty lush job I think. Im glad I put a lot of effort into the prep. Bit of a mockup on the bike Really happy with how the custom tail piece worked out with the XR250 tail light. The tool bag is a cool touch I think and the colour is pretty close. I used the original real mudguard piece mostly to have somewhere to mount the number plate. Would have looked cool without it but will also serve some purpose of stopping too much shit getting flicked around. It is also a small memento of its previous life a

If you read the tech forum you'll know I was trying to figure out where I could score a drive-by-wire throttle and pedal without having to pay over $500 for new Bosch motorsport units. On the weekend I went to Pick-A-Part to look for some rear calipers, but ended up finding exactly what I needed for the throttle setup. Turns out that almost every Euro from 2000 onwards has the right setup - the 68mm Bosch throttlebody. There are a few variations in them as some have water passages, etc, so I ended up removing about 4 or 5 before I found one I liked, which came from a Volvo V50 (2004-2012). It

I found a diagram, it looks like the water return is internal in the block rather than an external pipe like on 3S etc. So the two main external lines are just the heater circuit. However yes there's all sorts of complicated shit going on apart from just a heater! Cams arrived today, and it's bloody exciting - I've never had non standard cams in anything before. Since an Echo is basically a more modern iteration of a Starlet, I shall keep with the established nomenclature and call this a 3/4 race cam. I hope it goes hard for what it is. Not sure if these will work without pinging

Pretty stoked with how that's come up I could see vapour blasting becoming quite addictive if rebuilding an old engine, the finish is like new. Spent yesterday making up new gaskets to go between both adapters and swapping over the iscv and cold start injector and vacuum ports

I bought a ToolShed linisher/belt grinder/sander thingo a while back. It had mediocre performance and it was easy to stall the belt. It came with a 1HP 1400rpm motor. Boooo! There! I've fixed it! YAAAAAY! Three times the power and double the speed should do it. The belt guard is off here. It's a bit shit and rattles and vibrates. It's almost as if they forgot to add fasteners to that lower bracket. I'm gonna sort that out. Should be able to flatten my exhaust manifold flange now.

Finally, it's been a long time in the making, but for the first time in many years the Marina has brakes. In the previous post, I refurbed and reassembled the rear brakes, but in the meantime I had also been working on the rest of the system. Unfortunately, things like this take time and money, both of which are a sticking point for me at the moment (mainly time, I'm waiting over a month for parts from the UK). Even further back I started to strip the front calipers, which after some creative work with my compressor, I managed to do. First, I reinstalled the old pads, with a pry bar

Another month passed and I get a text to say the fuel flap has been sent to the big smoke for a paint match, and hopefully painting can start next week! Clean slam panel Radiator support panel repaired Behind the left headlight done. New smile

My girl came through with more rock auto goodies! New fuel sender and radius rod bushes. I opted for the sender that has a built in return line in case I go EFI down the line. I stripped the loom out and and pulled the Dash after work too. Nothing broke

Got a mention on the deboss YT channel which resulted in 5 more subscribers to my youtube channel last night, that's 5 more people primed to be disappointed with the lack of proper content, yay. The mention is mostly surprise that something with such a low level internet presence and no direct link to the vids did so well ha. I am pretty shit at social media, I'm just too old to care. Also I'm in the midst of various chunky changes to the truck, should be sorted by the weekend, I'll post some pics then. Also I made so much boost the intercooler piping blew off,

We have start up Not without a couple of issues. First of all was fuel leak which was a banjo for cold start injector I hadn't tightened properly. I also left the supercharger/aircon idler pulley nut loose after tensioning belt and it came loose and met with the fan (lucky I have more in the garage which I nearly binned) Somehow alternator belt has massive slack after I definitely tightened it, have done it back up and locked everything off and seems ok. Need to install the braces from blower to block before first driver especially as one of th

Another great days boating with @johnnyfive and @keltik. We did the Waimana and upper Whakatane river, and had a go at this little stream, Was surprised I made it that far tbh. Did a little bit of damage to the boat, but nothing major. Keltiks vid of the incident, It was quite a ride. All in all a good hoon, would hoon again, A++.

I did say things would slow down First target in my sights has been to fix up the tank and its bits and bobs, and get the rear side of the fuel system 100% sorted. The tank has surface rust inside, and a fair bit of deposited rust from the pickup tubing and gauge level rusting away. Most people I talked to told me not to worry about it, just clean it out and be done with it, but... that just doesn't sit well with me. Rust must perish! My tool for the job is a POR-15 tank sealing kit. There's a bunch of guides online but they all seem to differ somewhat or have missing bits o

Been doing some excavation, attacking the bog patches with a stripping wheel to free what lurks behind them. First the ugly forehead lump above the windscreen. Looks like it was driven into something, and very roughly but also hardly tapped out. Pretty easy access from the back too so some tappy tap should tidy up a lot. Stoked there are no rusty holes tho! Then the area between the wheels on the passenger side. Jeepers! Front of the sliding door looks good under the protective 10mm layer of wob Back half not so much, and reveals the deep din

46mm hks boost gauge fitted in place of the cigarette lighter

Have been collecting parts for slammage, got some new belltech spindles and 3" lower springs. Called into a workshop and a guy there had bought a C10 and wasn't going to use a lot of parts on it so I got some spring mount plates and axle flip brackets , and set of 15x8 factory earlier model steelies for $100 so that was a good score, gives me another wheel option, I'll get them powdercoated silver and hopefully the stock 98 center caps work I like this one , it has later model van center caps though

I tacked the top of the panel under the windscreen, then bolted the fenders and bonnet back on so I could see where the scuttle panel needed to sit for the bonnet to look right. When I got the bonnet sitting flush with the fenders and measuring square from the back of the cab, I welded some tabs in to hold the position. Then I ran out of welding wire which I cant get where I live so bit of a down buzz but still pretty happy with the result. Everything lines up still which is awesome.

BH 2020 another pic from FB

My panel beater is slowly chipping away. The first update came at the 3 month mark, just when I was beginning to think it must have fallen into the Inangahua River. Dent roughed out Also, dirtiest job first-blasting the engine bay. Glad I opted to have this done, as the corrosion under the paint was getting a good foothold. He also fabbed up a new repair section for the chin panel.

A while back I came across an L18 in pieces on marketplace, turns out the guy had started a build which got put in the back of the shed for 20 years and forgotten about, I quickly took possession and promptly forgot about it too! Late last night with the aid of 40% off spring compressor from Supercheap I stripped the head down, cleaned up the pieces and sorted them into an identical container to the L20b head. Both will be dropped off for a decent clean and hardness test, I will then crack test them both to figure out a build plan for the new EFI motor. Both heads have the sa

Reminds me of that story where one of the F1 teams (or whatever) came up with a new front wing or front duct or something that made them go faster. Every time the car came into the pits, the team would throw covers over the rear of the car as a distraction So everyone kept trying to peek under there and figure out what was different. But no one looked at the front Excuse me if this is an absolutely awful paraphrasing

I think the dimpled thing is bullshit, because the point of golfball dimples it is to reduce the flow seperation at the rear of the ball as the air flows around it. So less drag. The only place on a port that I think you could get anything similar would be on the short side radius of a particularly gross port. Or if you are reducing the boundary layer, then you're increasing the effective area of the port. So it would make a big port worse, but an undersized port potentially flow a smidge better. But I'm sure I remember reading stuff about it being useless essentially. Most of what

Didn't get to the brakes today, got busy with the "rear end". Anyway, made this as I found my hose stash. Tube is a tight fit and given it shouldn't really be under any pressure due to open end i'm hoping it doesn't leak. Will bleed it in car and just rag underneath it.