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Back on the chain gang ! Yep. I'm back into this project. Its been a hectic busy last few months. Well for me, but others would probably laugh at my work levels. The last update was in September and both Hannah and I were pretty busy building a custom coffee cart for a customer. It was a fair old mission not helped by that pesky lockdown stalling a load of stuff ordered, including some double glazed window materials from Auckland. We put in some hard efforts to get the thing built and ready in time for the agreed date and managed it with a 2am finish on the last day before delivery. I was well chuffed with the cart we built and the customer is soooo happy with her new cafe ! All fully insulated, huge windows that roll away into the walls, loads of stainless benching and a lovely outside wood framing we made using Eucalyptus timber then oiled. Here's some pics of the build... Phew. Check that one off the whiteboard of jobs. Loads more work to chip through and we are now onto the steel framework for a local ladies housetruck. So I am going to do my best to just put down the tools, lock my bicycles away so I cant be tempted to just go riding and instead do more on this engine swap. Most recent bits I have done are as follows. I wanted to finish off the oil system. The internal stuff from the pick up to the pump and filter was sorted. Now I needed to get the oil from the filter to the engine. Luckily, well I kind of planned around it, there is a hole left where gear selector shaft went. This was ideal to pass a pipe back from the filter block outlet towards the front/belt end of the engine. But it needed to be bigger with some clearance. One big drill bit later... next up was a plate to cover the front. What used to be here was a cast front cover, much deeper obviously because I have lopped off a huge chunk of engine casing. It housed the oil filter, now moved to the side. Instead of that I now needed a flat plate of thick alloy that will serve several things. The engine mounts, most likely typical compression bobbins, will be mounted off it. There has to be a way to get the oil from the pipe coming from the filter block to head back into the main oil feed hole higher in the block. Finally I need somewhere to put oil into the engine and also to check the oil level. I started with a plate of alloy I roughly cut to size. Drilled it to suit the holes in the block that the old front cover mounted to. I then drilled a hole in it to suit the oil feed pipe. This was a hole perfectly located to make sure the pipe would line up with the filter transfer block nice and square. Because I'm using the O rings that Honda used throughout the original system. There is a small tolerance for being out of square with these but I might as well get it as close as I can. I then needed to make a bolt on block that would take the oil from this pipe end and direct it through another hole in the plate which locates right over another O ring sealed port into the engines main oil way, just as the original front cover did. I started with some more chunks of alloy and made a thousands of teeny tiny chunks of alloy with the tablesaw... One of the blocks was then milled out to suit the pipe outlet and oilway inlet sizes. I also used a tiny little slot drill to add a groove to help keep the sealant in place.. Flipped it over and took more material away. Added some cooling grooves. But really.. come on. They were more just so it looked a bit nicer than just being a lump of alloy. Why not.. Clamped it down onto the front plate and drilled mounting holes... There's a nice amount of room to still use the original honda cooling hose if I want but I may well do something else when I get to that bit- depends on my cross member design and engine mounts etc.. Next up was how to get oil in place! I needed a filler point. The original filler and dipstick are in the wrong spot and kind of chopped out. I could have made a dipstick to suit the now chopped down dipstick housing but that's at the rear/flywheel end of the engine. With the engine turned round 180 degrees that puts it under the parcel shelf and would mean reaching over what ever induction setup I use (cough*ITBS*cough) so that's not cricket. A filler tube, right at the front, but actually now the back, of the engine with a combined dipstick under the cap made more sense. I rummaged through my collection of alloy.. Playtime in the lathe... and out popped this... ..into which oil will pour as such.... Now I needed some more bits to hold it in the right place so I made these flanges to suit more pipe. Once I know what I'm doing with the cooling pipes etc I'll cut the pipe to suit and epoxy it into the flanges. I ideally need the main large flange to bolt over a hole below the oil level height - which I have roughly worked out allowing for about 4.5 litres thereabouts. This pipe and cap will be right there, on view, easy to get to at the engine bay opening. The two smaller flanges are so I can remove the upright pipe to allow for the cambelt covers to be removed, or so its not there liable for getting damaged when removing and moving the engine about. I did think about being super silly and adding a sight glass to the pipe. Or use some thin glass or plastic tube. I then even thought about being really silly and adding an led light into the pipe to light up the oil. But oil does not stay honey clean does it. So a neat little dipstick under the cap will do. Lastly I needed to bolt the sump cover in place. I had to think carefully about bolt placement for sealing purposes and get the bolts square. This sump plate is going to have to be sealed well because there is no usual high sided sump like most cars. Hence I built it rigid to help against flex. Good quality sealant will be the order of the day* To get the bolt holes square I had to do this... Impy sat outside looking in at his new heart being crafted (said like some car obsessed bloke who anthropomorphises his cars)... Well then. That's it. Crikey. Another wall of text. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings. I promise I'll put more effort into working on this (but it is summer after all..) *It will leak. Its a British car. Its destined to leak.

Next step in the puzzle was to sort out a clutch release system. I had a couple of options that could work. I could use the stock Subaru fork but it was not ideal for two reasons ; 1: It would need a the release bearing carrier adapting to take a larger diameter bearing that would suit the Honda pressure plate fingers. 2: Its pivot location, being a centre mounted fulcrum point, would require a slave cylinder that pushed it towards the front of the car. This is because originally the Leone the transmission came from uses a clutch cable. I'd being using a hydraulic slave and it would have to be mounted up high, over the engine. Probably clash with the underside of the parcel shelf and would definitely look ugly there. Option two was to use the Ford Mundano concentric slave cylinder I have had stashed away for ages, acquired with the Duratec engine I was going to fit into the Viva wagon many moons ago. This certainly seemed the most sensible option because it fitted into the location almost perfectly... The pipes even pop out through the Subaru release fork hole like it was made for it... But it was still going to require a little work. First off is that it has a flat bearing face, made to suit curved diaphragm spring ends. It was also too small in diameter to suit the fingers. So a lump of steel was plucked from the store... There was just enough room between the bearing face and the 'slidey hub' bit that the bearing hydraulics slide in and out on for me to machine a locating stub onto the bit of steel... With that being a perfect fitting locating point the other side was machined with a radialised face to suit the flat fingers. The end result looks like this.. This will be stuck in place onto the release bearing face with something like loctite 601. It cant go anywhere anyway. Next issue was fixing this whole unit in place and making sure its dead square to the input shaft centre line. Luckily the units bore was larger that the stub/shaft?* that the Subaru release bearing carrier slides on by about 2mm. It also so happened that when pushed on as far as it would go it allowed for just the right amount of movement of the release bearing, plus a bit to spare. So I machined a thin sleeve with a lip at one end to suit.. This I made a nice snug fit onto the stub/shaft thing and the Mundano assembly slides in place snug, thus making sure it all remains square. I assembled the lot together and checked it all with the transmission bolted in place. Looks good.. The initial throw of the release bearing will be adjusted at the pedal, which will now require me to either use the Mundano master cylinder (plastic..yuck) or machine/ sleeve my Imp one (actually the same as a landrover/most trailer brakes out there..) to suit. I'll look at that when I get to it. Next step is to bolt the assembly in place. The Leone box has splines cast in around the stub base... ..but luckily enough room between them to glue some blocks in place so I machined some alloy down to suit.. Because I knew the assembly was perfectly straight and in line I just needed to give enough clearance on the blocks to allow for some epoxy. I drilled and tapped the blocks to suit, mixed up some of my favourite JB weld and filled the chosen cavities then slide it back in place. Then let it set overnight.. The next day I tried the original Mundano rubber boot for the pipe exit. It almost fitted. I sliced 5mm out of its width and it was sorted. Not perfect looking but it works and cant be seen once the engine is in place anyway... Phew. Done. At this point I really did have a feeling like I had made it past the trickiest bits of the engine work required. But for some possible baffles around the oil pump pick up and maybe an anti surge plate (not that the Goldwing engine has any as stock) I think all the required mods to the engine are done. I felt like having a cold beer. So I did. Then pondered the next jobs to do. Which was to look at where I would run my cooling pipes and finalise the position of the oil filler tube.. In order to properly work through some routing ideas I had to plonk the heads back on. With them in place I might as well have some fun, bolt the transmission on and stand back with my beer and gaze at it all. I took some pics. I'm pretty bloody happy with it how it looks and I really did get a mojo boost looking at it sitting there as a complete unit waiting to go in... Its so neat and compact for a flat six.. Man I'm looking forward to having this setup in the back of my Imp! What's nice to think about is that while there's still a big load of work to do these next jobs will be super fun. I'm especially looking forward to making the ITB arrangement to suit and doing my best to create a really clean looking engine bay.

Last night at Nightspeed. Suuuper busy, but it was really awesome to see a big crowd at the drags, lots of spectators too. Was a cool atmosphere. So first run, set the hoosiers to around 20psi which is very high, but wanted to start out conservative. Ran a 14.092 @ 100.21 mph with a 2.33 60ft. So first run and I've beaten the Carina by every single metric. What the hell! But so stoked! I was convinced at this point that I'd get a 13 tonight. Second run we dropped the pressures a bit, launch wasnt so good and I ran a 14.1 with a higher 60ft. At this point I figured I'd probably cursed myself saying I'll get a 13. Looking at the logs of both runs, the motor was bogging a bit when I was trying to roll into the throttle and clutch. So third run, set a launch limiter at 5500rpm. Full throttle sitting on line, dump the clutch. And holy fucken shit. No wheel hop no big spinning, just felt like stretching out and releasing a rubber band. It felt so much faster than my first run, I crossed the line realizing it must be a 13. Absolutely fucking stoked beyond belief Get my time slip and was blown away 13.83 @ 99.6 mph with a 2.1 60ft Was in about 5000 out of 100 fizz mode, it was so cool. I didnt get any more runs, because it was incredibly busy and was already 10.30pm or so by the time they started the eliminations. But it's incredible to think that it could still possibly go faster yet. Even just doing that time was incredible. It felt like it could have easily launched another 500rpm or 1000rpm higher and hooked up good. Will be back!

I've found this thing great as a daily! It's easy to drive through town, gets parks easy, uses almost no fuel, seats 4 adults and is also good for runs to Bunnings. The problem with driving it daily is you have to watch out for the other muppets out there. I had a Tiida give me a little nudge in the rear in town. He must have known I couldn't catch him because he took off the other way never to be seen again. Fortunately Classic Cover were great and it was all sorted through work without any probs. It was also a good excuse to cut and polish the paint to see how good it could get. It came up better than I was expecting! Although I'm aware I'd better not get the car looking too nice, this thing is too much fun to park up in a shed again. Next winter the engine may come out for some oil leaks, a shuddering clutch and refit that crank handle, but for now we are just going to drive it and keep fixing any issues that pop up.

Well that's a bit better. Truespoke Supremes in 14x7 reverse offset. Cost a f'n fortune to get here but I'm impatient.

As a disclaimer to this oncoming story, and this entire thread - Despite my overwhelming enthusiasm for the absolutely mundane. Yes. Yes I am indeed aware that in objective terms this is not a very fast car by any metric. My work wagon is probably quicker. That's fine. It's not breaking any world records. That's fine. It looks like a melted M&M. Thats fine. And so on. The hilarity and joy from this car though comes from the disparity between expectations and execution. High expectations are very rarely met. Low expectations are easy to exceed. Being an incredibly common, dreary, budget car that's commonly auto and mostly 1300cc or 1000cc. Almost everyone in NZ has had enough exposure to a Vitz/Echo/Yaris/equivilent shitbox to form a fairly robust opinion of how much they suck. I myself drove this car completely standard for about 8 years. So I know. I really do. So to exceed this expectation even by a little, is really good fun. I mean, when I went to the Toyota Festival the guy at the gate was reluctant to let me in when I said I was going to drive it on the track. Haha! Classic. So anyway. My partner has been fostering a kitten, and a local young "car guy" expressed some interest in rehoming it. (Someone I'd previously taken for a drive in the Echo in its current state) After some negotiation I agreed to drive over to his house to drop it off. I drive to park around the back of his house, and there's lots of cars there and a bunch of teenagers looking at me as I pull in. I get out of a Toyota Echo, with a kitten in a crate, wearing some raggedy shit because I'd just been doing some yard work around the house. So not a first impression that screams "Car person" so much as "low tide mark on the poverty line". The guy I knew says to one of the other onlookers: "He brought the Echo! Ohhhh you should race Dave hahahaha" His friend looks the car up and down, and says "Ummm no" with a look of thinly veiled insult. Insulted at the prospect that his car was in any way comparable to something as lame as that. Then he says to me "Dave, he's got a beams Celica" Me: "Nice! Cool." So we go have a quick look at it. Then he says back to his friend: "No really, you should race Dave haha" Then his friend started looking a bit more suspicious, but not quite sure of the situation. I explained that I didnt want to race anyone- just here to drop off a kitten. I think from his perspective, we appeared equally embarrassed and confused by the situation. As in, geez it would be embarassing for me, some weirdo cat man who'd probably not driven fast before to try race a celica and get smoked. Then also why would he waste his time racing an echo? I reiterated that I didnt want to race anyone, but if he wanted to come for a drive, he's welcome. He still didnt seem that keen, but his mates egged him on saying he should. Surprisingly, after being told it had a prius motor in it, with a massive 1500cc big block. He hadnt gained any further enthusiasm. The bonnet stayed shut. So he gets in, and we go down the road a bit like he's about to get Barryed to within an inch of his life. (This part was probably accurate) I keep the revs super low, and drive like uhhh... how you drive an Echo. It just sounds like a standard car while you're driving along normally. I make some chit chat about general car stuff. He starts telling me about projects he wants to do and so on while we amble a bit further out of town. We get to a backroad and I check the mirrors and stop. Foot flat, revs go up, and launch control activates. Dump the clutch. First gear was gratuitously wheel spinny, for a laugh rather than getting anywhere too quickly. Squeals a bit into 2nd. Then we run through a few gears and a few upcoming corners at full noise. "What the fuck! What the actual fuck!" "What the fuck!" "I'm not racing this thing!" "How the... what... jesus" Anyone whos met me in person can vouch for my absolutely punchable smug looking face, at this point I was easily smug level 100/100. Then I go drop him back off and all his mates are having a giggle while he just looks a bit bewildered hahaha. "What the hell. A prius motor. What the hell." And we all have a laugh about it. The end. Also, video as requested

Big thanks to @Stu for lending some drag tyres for Nightspeed this Friday. Super excited! More than I have been about car events in a long time. Full fizz! Replacement waterpump turned up today. Awesome.

Well that's probably sorted. I adjusted the tappets today then went for a decent drive, it feels pretty stout even at 9psi. It's heaps quieter and smoother, plus the 2000rpm clatter is gone. I forgot to mention that I stripped all my sets of rockers, chose the best set and got the valve faces cleaned up, this means it is a shitload easier to adjust now. I haven't red lined it yet but it is clearly much happier to rev with that cam than it was before. The clutch and gears feel a lot better too. I fixed a vac leak so that might help somewhat too. There is a slow oil leak from somewhere, but this could well be remnants of the half liter or so I managed to spill all over it like a cunt while changing the oil. The leak is not bad, if it's real then maybe its the new turbo feed pipe. I'll give it a once over in the next couple of days and tighten everything. So yea, I'm still a bit wary in case I fucked something up, but it basically looks sorted.

Summer 20/21 - We didn't do a lot bar finishing body work and getting it all back in primer and painting the engine bay. We also put the motor in temporarily and painted all the front crossmember and suspension parts. Also started a new ITB manifold for it. Summer 21/22 - We did a final guide coat and block sand, then got it painted. Pretty happy considering we painted it all outside, over 3 days. It was probably too hot and too breezy making it a little orange peeley. Feels good to finally have it painted.

Okay soooo, DTech in Tauranga offered me some dyno time before the drags, see if we could squeeze a bit more out of it. Much to my surprise, it gained around 6hp over my road tune... By leaning it out considerably! It turns out that because my exhaust is so absolutely 100% miserably shit, the exhaust pressure is so high that it's skewing the wideband results. So my rock solid 12.8:1 on my sensor was actually reading around 11:1 at the tail pipe on the dyno sensor. So we leaned it out and picked up power straight away. Then some minor fiddling with ignition and cam timing gave some minor results, but the fuel was the money maker. Ended up with 141 whp @ 7700rpm. Stoked! Absolutely cannot wait for Friday now. Also it was so god damn loud in the dyno room you could feel the intake pulses hitting into you. lordy. This thing is going to slap dicks once its got a good exhaust on it.

What a treat!

Yep yep. I chucked that shit back together, tidying further as I went along. The engine loom in particular was a mess so I spent half a day reorganising that into a semblance of tidy. Having stripped the loom I realised there were two plugs the same and I hadn't noted where they went, fortunately I had noted the wire colours when doing the original wiring so it was easy to work out. I thought about a new clutch but the one I had been running was some HD thing and still had plenty of meat, back in it goes. I decided to lift from the rear this time as there was less weight and an actually decent lift point under the towbar. I also stropped it so it couldn't move off the forks. This was way more intelligent than what I did getting it out. Then just dropped it down over the top and lifted it up into place. At that point I gave up taking pics as it looked exactly like every other shot of the engine in the truck and started bolting shit back on. The assembly was laborious not only because there is a lot of shit to bolt on, but it was made a bit more tiresome due to the 28deg days we have been having. I have been constantly coated in sweat. Fortunately we have a pool and I have been making good use of it.... I replaced the fuel filter while I was in there, then once it was all ready I pumped 5 liters of oil into the engine using a priming unit that my engine man had lent me, this was great peace of mind, although I did discover a growing pool of oil under the truck, exsanguinating out of a not actually attached turbo drain. I sorted that out, resumed the priming then filled up with water. I gave it a bit of a crank and it nearly caught without any effort, so i cracked a couple of the injectors and it started right up! Oil light went out nice and quick. I then spent the next 15 minutes moving it around the rev range and checking for leaks, there didn't appear to be any, yay. It is also not pissing out any of the varieties of smoke, I will take that as another positive sign. I then went for a short and then a slightly longer drive, again all seems well. It isn't quite as lively at 9psi as it was at 15psi, but I will crank the fuel a bit to get it spooling up.. I'll check the fluids tomorrow then have another spin, the swap out the oil and filters. And probably make a catch can as I have some bits of stainless and some fitting lying around. All in all its pretty positive....

Yay 2022. Putting stuff back on. First up, hydraulic lines. Usually the first thing installed at the factory for the same reason im doing them first, its much easier with everything out the way. Also the reason for painting the driver side wheel well and master cylinder mount even tho there is still a big hole in the floor and rust in all the doors. I had picked up plated cunifer line, 6m of 1/4" (for feed from the reservoirs and the clutch line) and 26m of 3/16" for all the brake lines. This is the brake and clutch master cylinder, where 6 lines, 4x 1/4" (3 inlets and one clutch outlet) and 2x 3/16" (Front and rear brake circuit outlets, which both split off L & R elsewhere): Woops, wrong photo! Here it is: Basic process was use the original lines as a template to start with (leaving them a bit long both ends) fit up on the van a million times and finally cut to length and flare. Then cut off the flare, put the line nut on, and flare again... This is the front brakes, single line from the master then splitting at the T to the right (short) and left (long) Feed lines from the reservoirs: Getting closer... Now has - New Clutch Master - resleeved Brake Master, - all new plated cunifer lines - refurbished OEM line nuts (I got new nuts but they are a bit different and didnt clamp the lines in the fittings, so i couldnt use them) Still need to clamp these all down but pretty happy: Other New brake related bits from the fiat parts bin, -pressure switch for the brake lights (if the OEM one does not work) and - clips for the reservoirs: Reservoirs all fitted up too. Will put a bubble flare on the feed lines to make a better seal i think. This all ended up taking waaaaaay longer than i thought, and im not quite done yet, but at least its all laid in and plumbed up and i can start putting the suspension back in.

Took it to Keith Stewart to go on the dyno to be run in and get a tune put on it. Had zero issues, made 120.6hp atw. Will get some km's on it and take in back for a fine tune, should still have another 1000 or so rpm in it I'd imagine! Made an aluminium sump bash guard and that finished off everything on the underside. Couldn't find any good bumper end caps, so I drew one up in solidworks and my brother 3D printed out a couple to take some moulds off, so then we could make some fibreglass ones. Pretty happy with how they turned out! Far tidier than the old warped and cracked factory plastic ones. Had the bumpers, grill, headlight surrounds and fender mirrors painted in a metallic grey very close to the factory colour. Installed some NOS park/indicator lights that I got ages ago and put the bonnet on. That basically finishes off the exterior! Cert next!

Been printing some tail light plates to adapt the lexus bulb holders to the 54 chevy tail light. This would be version 3 or 4. In PETG and handles the heat fine. Also Made some sheet metal caps to cover up the loom and main 50mm2 battery cable. Will be carpeted over eventually. Still need to extend it up a bit further beside the rear seat. Finally found the confidence to attack some of the many wire looms too. This one was stereo, air conditioning, trunk release, cd changer etc etc etc. This pic is from halfway through, with some stuff already removed. All done and wrapped up. (more was removed since this photo) What had been removed. In the trunk, i made a battery floor and shelf to hold the Viair compressor. Stainless strap down the front to hold the battery in. That matches the fuel and air tanks.

Dropped the head off at Rods Engine Services on the recommendation of @nzstato and very happy with ol' mate Rodney's work. Turned into a bit of a mare but Rodney sorted me out, all for a very reasonable price. Sidesharn follows: The first head i dropped off in November was the car one, as they both looked like poop, the van head had some corrosion around the exhaust ports, and the car one didnt. Rod sucked his teeth, and took the head, as well as a set of nos valves and new valve stems, and would see what he could do with the seats, i said no real rush but i would like to get it before xmas. he didnt get onto it until mid-December, and unfortunately it turned out the car head was cracked between the valves on 2 of the cylinders. DANG NM i said, i have another head that might work, or might be just as shit, so dropped the Van head back off the next day, and he thought this one would be much better. Got it back a week later, with a very lightest tickles of a skim (it very close to the valves), supply and fit new valve seats, fit my new guides and my new valves (that he resurfaced to remove the 'nos' surface patina rust) and he also installed them all after cleaning up the manky springs and collets etc along with holden o-rings valve stem guides. All for a very reasonable sum. Much recommendations for Rods Engine Services in Fox St, would give head again. Side sharn ends. TLTR:, 'spare' head was crap, original head from the van actually turned out to be a minter This is the exhaust port corrosion that made me chose the other head as the first candidate Its all inside the gasket tho, so not really an issue. I did a very light 'porting' tho really more of a slight smoothing as the exhaust manifold is a good match to the head already and seems to be made from tool steel. It also had a matching 'outie' of rust on the manifold which must have been galvanically corroding while it was sitting in mouse piss wet i guess? So, took the jumbo rubbish bag off the already assembled block to jam this back together and gave the gasket surfaces a good wipe down with wax and grease remover Plonk! Plus new water pump and thermostat. Water pump takes a late model Fiat 1500 water pump pulley ( as also used on lada ) rather than the heavy fixed fan, ill run an electric one, probably set up as a pusher (not much room in the bay, but lots in the radiator tunnel) Then installed the Valve gear (van set was better starting point) installed after selecting the best of the adjustment nuts, tappets and pushrods from from the car and van sets (plus a couple of odd bits from my 2300 spares), and then all valves adjusted to 0.2mm inlet and exhaust when opposite cylinder valves are 'balanced (about 9deg BTDC) basically certain the cam shaft lobes are as close to opposite the tappets as reasonable, without any useful timing marks (book uses a special tool (degree wheel) mounted to the flywheel, suggesting valve adjustment is an engine out job!) Inlet manifold with rebuilt Solex BIC (throttle shaft play is really quite bad tho) and the special 4:1 van exhaust manifold (that kicks the exhaust out a hole in the side of the engine bay into the drivers wheel well!) Dizzy and the sweet purple solid core wires i got cheap with some other odd fiat stuff from ebay, They have been run on the ute before i switched to electronic ignition And checking out all the hoses and stuff to see what i needed and what i dont and can go in the bin or storage. The car inlet allows a twin downdraft carb, and the car exhaust is a 4:2 like the twin cam with long secondaries in the exhaust, so there is room for some pretty solid performance gains just from that, but fitment is likely to be an issue (have found that the Weber DCD of which i have 3 in various states in the stash looks like the best candidate width wise so that may happen sooner than the exhaust, but ill worry about that much later. Need a few bits and pieces like a 11A0955 drive belt, and various hoses, but its basically ready to sling back in the hole, but the hole needs a bit more work first.

Long time no update. nothing really has happened to this thing other than being strapped the the dyno with various junk engines. Current one being a long rod 4age, 7a block, 4a crank custom rods, smallport pistons. modified bigport head with 193b cams. so yeh just a polished turd. has all the blot-on's off my good engine and the main reason i actually took the good engine out and put junker in, is this abomination Its something Ive wanted to do since forever ago. actually made some parts way back. but ran into issues and all got to hard basket. about 500 years past and attempted it again with a little help from a machinist friend. Intake cam pulley looks a little weird? Thats because its a vvt pulley off a 20v. They are just a simple on off 2 position deal. with 30 deg travel After some teething issues, managed to do some initial testing today The pink line is what it makes with my normal fixed timing. which is quite aggressively advanced. basically as much as can go, to gain all the midrange with minimal loss at peak. the downside is power drops fast after peak power Red line is with vvt on from start of run, which a touch more advance that what it normally runs. Then switches off a 7300 retarding intake cam 30 degrees little red line is a "stockish" bigport engine. for reference Great success? or did i just build a v8 that idles are 6000rpm

Finally got back to this. Revised the tooling a bit and tried a longer test piece. Came out usably OK I think. Quick squirt of zinc it just to remove the reflections. I haven't filled the holes in this test one, but they'll need to be done for the proper pieces.

Sooooo. There was an actual leak, but it wasn't the turbo feed, it was the new turbo drain where I had welded it into the sump. This is irritating as I was particularly careful when I did it, I MIG'd it then went over it with the TIG to be sure. Not sure enough I guess. I was prepping to drop the sump and have at it when that evil bastart @yoeddynz convinced me to try some JB weld, even if temporarily. He told me that most of his goldwing engine was actually JB weld, cunningly disguised as aluminium... So I went for it and much to my disappointment it actually worked and now there are no leaks. When it's time to do an oil change I will *probably* drop the sump and sort it then, but in the meantime I guess it will do. A pic of my shame....

Pinched the sealed beams off the Thames van for a quick test fit. Looks much better in my opinion than the flat lens modern LED lights that it came with. Now that I know that the mounts haven't been butchered I'll order some semi sealed units as a permanent replacement. I see you can now get LED globes in H4 format. Anyone had any experience with these ? Before and after shots:

A few hours rigging up some wiring this afternoon and I was able to get it fired up. Hyperpak was a breeze to wire up and just jigged up something temp for fuel pump. Hoping to spend the next couple days finalizing the wiring with the proper relays with an electric fan provision also.

Today in the big smoke of Nelson I met 'Old Roman'.... Nicknamed Dave by many of his friends this old boy was truly enthusiastic about his Yaris RS * He's owned it for quite a few years now and loves it to bits. It has a sunroof that slides into the roof - apparently quite rare. Dave is a very practical sort of bloke and values a certain amount of comfort as he fangs about the hills in his road cart. Dave has fitted sheepskin seat covers. "fuck the added weight" he said. "when you get to my age and have spent a whole lotta time sittin' at desk drawing graphs your posterior needs a bit of comfort" "Notice the sunroof- its very rare in these cars" Dave says again. Dave has had many offers to sell the number plate but its staying with the car! His brother also owns a Yaris "but its not an RS" Dave proudly exclaims with a wink. "its also got the slightly larger wheels fitted. Its a good car. I use it for all sorts of jobs and crikey it can haul a load when needed" Yep - Dave's Yaris RS is a bit rough around the edges, just like Dave. But its a good reliable friend to him and for driving fun it certainly offers him much entertainment - just like Dave does for us. "Did I mention the sunroof? It slides into the roof. Very rare!" Yes Dave. Yes you did. Thanks Dave *Dave might not be his real name. But he does also own two Triumph Heralds and a Riley Elf. ** Also thanks to @Roman I am now spotting fucking Yaris's (yari?) everywhere.

After getting the WOF and the bloody cheap rego we took it all over the place, slowly increasing the distance from home as breakdowns became less frequent. Over the last 6 months I've had to replace the intake gasket and carb needle & seat. The points burn out regularly, I think the New Old Stock condenser is too Old. The front dampener fell off and the crank handle fell out. Various other components have come loose so a regular tightening of everything was needed for the first wee while. The fuel sender float would slowly fill up with fuel, that took a few goes to plug up. Other than that i changed out all the fluids & adjusted the brakes a few times as they settled down. After all that we took it out to Oxford for the big snow they had. It did pretty well with the wife, 2 kids and the dog! It clapped out at 50mph with no issues. It was a bit sketchy coming home in the dark though, the 6 volt headlights don't do much. We took it out to Oxford a few times after that, and also dragged it up to Godley head. That one did stretch the thermo-syphon cooling system! The biggest cost came when the front tyres wore down. Turns out they were retreads from 1978, so they did pretty well. A pair set me back $400!

Whoa, the throttle bodies on these things are a..... thing. I got the above jigsaw all back together. Turns out I'd lost one of the plastic spring bushes, and the flange on the other was cracking off, so I grabbed an off cut of acetal from work and turned up a couple of new ones. That let me get the thing reassembled. I took a heap of photos of how everything came apart, so getting it back together wasn't too much of an issue. Kinda fiddly in spots, but follow your nose and it goes back together reasonably easily. The throttle shaft seals still seemed pliable and plump, so I didn't replace them... Time will tell if that comes around to bite me in the ass. Ideally I'd like to go with some sort of e-throttle setup in the future. There wasn't actually a complete throttle body with the car when I got it, so I purchased this one secondhand, and it was pretty filthy: But, it was complete, and moved smoothly :-). After stripping, blasting everything (lots of careful masking involved), kind of a pain in the ass.... Much better. But holy crap, there are a lot of adjustments on these things! There are threads all over the internets of people having problems setting these up, so I thought I'd better develop a plan to follow. Not saying the plan is a 100% way to go, but I need something to follow so I can go through a process and collect data, and iterate from there. Going to write this plan out here so I can refer back to it later when I've forgotten all this again. The first screw I've set is screw A. This is the stop that the single butterfly stops against. This single butterfly feeds the primary intake ports. As it's in the name, these port are the primary ones, so they're used all the time, along with the primary injectors always delivering fuel. My initial setting for this is that the primary butterfly stops against this when it is fully closed. After aligning the throttle blade, and thread locking the screws in place, I let the throttle close as far as it can against the housing. I then advanced this screw till it was just in contact, then about 1/10th of a turn more. This should mean the throttle blade is never eating the throttle body housing, but closes as much as possible. Screws B and C adjust the cold start warmup system. You can see the two black pipes in this picture. Coolant flows through these, which warms up and extends the wax pellet push-rod screw B is pushing against. Unfortunately they're a little corroded on the outside, but there is still heaps of metal there. Will always run anticorrosive coolant in this, so should progress any further. This wax pellet rod extends as the coolant gets hotter, and retracts as when things cool down. This screw is threaded into a cammed bracket, which has three marks on the cam (one of them is obscured by the red oval I've drawn, but its there). The FSM has specs for the relative positions of the roller on the bracket screw C threads into (we'll get to this one in a minute) and the cam at different temperatures. The upper most (in my picture) mark should be central on the roller at -20degC, the next one down at 0degC, the next one down at 25degC, and finally off the lower edge of the cam at 60 degC. It's pretty hot in my office today, so I've adjusted screw B such that the roller is lined up with the third mark. Screw C adjusts how much effect this cam actually has on the throttle blade position. As you screw this in more and more, it opens the throttle blade more and more, as long as the roller is contacting the cam. I suspect the final setting for this will be such that the roller separates from the cam just as it is passing over the lower edge, with without a sudden jump in its movement. Currently, I've set it so the roller is only *just* touching the cam at this 25degC position, for reasons that will hopefully become clear :-). Cold start systems are important, but they're only ever going to work properly if the base idle speed with the engine at normal operating temp is setup correctly. The throttle obviously has adjustments for this as well. Screw D is called the Air Adjust Screw (AAS), and screw E is called the Throttle Adjust Screw (TAS). Screw D has a tapered end on it and fits into a matched tapered orifice. This orifice is connected across either side of the primary throttle blade, so as you back the screw out, it allows more and more air to bypass the throttle blade. Screw E is the stop for the the secondary throttle blades, and sets their closed position. In practice, these screws have the same effect on the idle, in that they will let more air into the engine. There is a slight difference though, as at idle the ECU wont be using the secondary injectors, so adjusting the idle with screw E will let more air into the engine via the secondary ports, but this wont have any fuel injected with it. This wont be an issue though, as at idle things are happening very slowly, and there is heaps of time for the charge to mix in the combustion chamber as it whizzes around to the other side of the motor to make brap brap noises. Reading the FSM, what I can parse out is that you use screw E to broadly set the normal operating temp idle speed, and then screw D to fine tune it. I've set screw E in the same way I set screw A, such that the secondary throttle blades fully close to within a bee's dick of the throttle body housing. I've wound screw D all the way in, so there should be no air bypassing the primary throttle. The last adjustment is the damper dashpot, F. This is a damper the throttle closes against. It's hard to push in, but extends with no effort. Lots of bump damping, no rebound damping. This needs to be set with the motor at normal operating temp, and such that the throttle breaks contact with the plunger at an engine speed of 2600 - 3000 rpm. Obviously this will need the engine running properly at N.O.T. To setup, so I've wound it out so it doesn't contact the throttle at all. Reading through that, there might seem like some odd decisions, as I've essentially set the throttle up in such a way to ensure the thing isn't going to idle. It's going to have almost no air bypassing the throttle, will starve and die. This is for a reason however, and comes back to how I like to tune a setup. First thing is to get the engine firing and running, probably with some throttle manually applied. Then I can get it up to temperature, check for leaks, fires, all those things. With the engine up to temp I can use screws D and E to set the normal operating temp idle. It's really important this is done without the cold start system having any effect whatsoever, as if it is, when you go to set the cold start up, your normal idle setting will also be effected, and you'll end up chasing your tail. Now, the FD also has an ECU control idle air solenoid which can allow varying amounts of air to bypass the throttle, but for all this initial mechanical setup, I'll keep this unplugged to eliminate it. AFAIK the ECU only uses it to idle up the motor when the A/C, power steering, or alternator are loading things up. There is also the TPS to think about. The FD TPS is a little odd in that it has two analogue output channels, narrow range and full range. Talking to Ray (arghx), it sounds like this is a throwback to the FC3S days, and probably something to do with Mazda re-using existing code in the FD ECUs. Total speculation, but having been an engineer on a few evolving projects, this is totally something that would happen. The FSM has specs on setting this up. With the throttle closed, adjust it so the narrow-range signal is between 0.75V and 1.25V, and the full range signal is between 0.1V - 0.7V. I powered up the TPS from my bench supply and set it thusly. Strats: Stock ECU initially, to get things running, proof the rest of the system, and ensure it doesn't burst into flames. It's a 'known quantity' as such. Make the thing run, will need the throttle manually opened to keep running. Get it up to normal operating temp Make sure everything is functioning like it should. No error codes from the ECU, so no limp modes or anything (exception to this is the idle control solenoid, but I can trick the ECU into thinking this is fine with a resistor in its place). Adjust the warm idle speed to just below target (~750RPM) with screw E Adjust the warm idle speed to the final target with screw D. Adjust dashpot F so the the throttle breaks away from the plunger at an engine speed of 2600RPM. Turn the thing off, go inside and have many whiskies. Recover from hangover. Remember: You're old now, this might take a couple of days. With the thing dead stone cold, try to start it with no throttle applied. Expectation is that it will not start. Advance screw C 1 turn, try again. Repeat this procedure till the engine starts with no manual throttle opening. Idle speed should be higher than warm idle target. Allow the engine to warm up, idle should reduce gradually as it does and the wax pellet rod extends. Iterate from here. The only screw that should need adjusting at this point is screw C. Hopefully I can pull that off. In other news, most of the supplies needed to build the EM (main engine) harness have shown up! Huzzah! I'm going full ham-spec on this. The car doesn't need it at all... But I've built lots of high-tier harnesses before for other people, and I really want something totally schmick for my own car for once. M22759/32 throughout, twisted, DR25 sheathed, booted, sealed.. All the good things. As much as can be with using OEM automotive connectors also. I've designed it with lots of extras in mind down the road, as I don't want to have to build another one for this car, ever. When I want to change out the ECU for something other than the stock one or a power FC I can just make adaptor harnesses at the ECU end, nice and easy. Just got through the design process for the layering, built a test section for the main core to make sure it was going to lay up nice, looks lovely :-). Progress is progress?

Started on the frame rails over the Christmas break. Ended up using 50x50x2.5mm SHS. Should be plenty strong enough. Especially considering that I can lift the whole rear of the car by hand, with the diff removed. Finally decided on how to do the bends. Was going to get them bent, but have heard horror stories about bending square tube. The mitre cuts turned out pretty good, and both rails are exactly the same. Also plated the existing crossmember. This is tied into the original front leaf spring mounts underneath.

Well things have been all go to end 2021 on this. The couple of weeks before xmas the painter baremetalled the shell and last of the panels. Bolt on panels have been epoxied and all the steel work done. Xmas eve we put the shell in the booth and cleaned it up and blew some epoxy over it. Stoked there is only a couple of minor repairs required to the steel work, on the whole its a very good shell.

Came back a couple of days later for pickup. Thought mate was bringing his car trailer but he arrived with a recovery truck from work. Was handy - found brakes were seized on a rear wheel. Winch made short work of it, and was out in daylight after 15+ years. Was a nice moment following it home too - one of the previous owners’ mates was waiting at an intersection as it went past. We saw him do a double take and point it out to his dog in the passengers seat….

Well I think I have found the source of the clatter, I found this inside the rocker cover as I was cleaning things up; And the top of the tappet adjustment on the right has some wear marks on it, although it is hard to see in the pic. This feels about right for the sort of noise there was. It has only happened because I flipped the orientation of the cover so the oil fill was in a more useful position, ie it was covered by the dyna body central crossmember so wouldn't work, and it wasn't obvious that there would be an issue. I lined the bits up just now and it sticks out like a sore thumb lols. What a fucking dick. Well I was always going to put a rebuilt engine in there as the oil pressure in the old one wasn't all that, so sweet as.

Yeah, after my second run I had a sinking feeling I had some beginners luck and I wasnt going to dip into a 13. I was praying for like a 13.999999 haha. But then when it hooked up like that I just knew. Man it was awesome. And yeah, my last run was the fastest and I only got 3, so it's potentially not even tapped out as it is. Still just blows my mind that it's even possible for a 1500cc NA setup to do anywhere near that sort of time. Also just like my first time going on a track with semi slicks. It goes to show just how important the right tyre is. See people spending $$$$$$ on their car but then on the wrong tyre for the job. Cheapest way to go fast. Especially when you borrow them from @Stu haha I just had a look through logs from my fast run. Looks like after dumping the clutch the rpm falls to minimum of 4500, which is great as below that is the area I really need to avoid. So I'm 100% keen to go back and try a higher launch rpm. And now super keen to get the exhaust done.

For the first time since... September... the car has moved under its own power again.

Been cranking this, its surprisingly time consuming. I have been tidying a lot of stuff as i go along, ie I remade the turbo feed and drain to look less like a fudge and more like it was supposed to be there. Also I have a significant TD42 collection now. Also I steam cleaned and gave the box a lick of black zinc, its kindof like I have cared. I had a spare set of box mounts that were in better condition that the ones in there so I swapped them out. I also put a washer behind the clutch release lever arm pivot so it would release a bit more, It has always been slightly hard to get into the lower gears due to not quite enough clutch disengagement. I will be grumpy if it slips but can always make the slave mounting adjustable...

Went on a bit of a mission to Invercargill, to amongst other things, pick over this very crusty '76ish 127. Dude was very accommodating and showed me a couple of his other cars (Holdens), which were very nice, and he will be a good source of possible parts/info for a **possible future project**. these run a 900cc transverse mounted four pot, and are fwd, so totally unrelated to the van, but i thought there may be few bits worth grabbing. And so it was. A few interior bits, like rear vision mirror and visors for the van, the wipers are nice OEM supplier branded and will replace the mismatched aftermarket pair on the 125, horn for the van, a small radiator overflow tank for the van (none from factory, just weekly top-ups!), washer bag, and a single throat air filter housing (van one is missing) and a few other odds and sods. Like this pair of pretty good condition seats - mounts have the same basic dimensions and could bolt on with some mods, but are about 50mm higher, so that may rule them out unfortunately And took the fuel tank and filler as well - i think this will work just fine to get us rolling And the Air filter fits perfectly on the engine/carb, but it wont fit in the narrow van engine bay in that location, but will give me something to play with that will look and work better than a mad pod filter yo In other news, while loading the (other) van to head off for new years, a guy who lives around the corner and walks his dogs past our place, said "been meaning to catch you to say hello and ask about that Fiat Van in the driveway, where did you get it?". Turns out it his old work van! He was the workshop manager at Wiley's Garage in Tapanui (under Mr Falconer, RIP) , and he reckoned he put the Firestone mudflaps on in the very early '70s. Van was eventually replaced with a Holden 1 ton, which was an upgrade, but he said he took it all over southland and it was a pretty flash rig at the time!. Not fast tho! Anyway, took the scenic way back from Invercargill to pap a shot. Been thinking about what to do with the exterior, so a subtle Kylie's Garage Ltd logo in the font/style of the building might be the go

Better

Well. 'Murca didn't get back to me so I went with a UK sourced kit. Bugeye, stock-ish wing width & an engine cover with no air intake hump type thing. Should be here in a month. Gonna be simple 60's looking, not some thinly veiled, rear engined, tube framed Trophy Truck Anyhoo, afternoon in the shed. Sayonara shakotan... Wings off Swapped spindles back to stock. Standard right, dropped left. *edit* Just realised pic is upside down, I s'pose. That or I rolled it on the Baja 1000. Gained about 5 inches with the old rear tyres swapped to front. Will aim for a bit more profile to get it level. No suspension lift though. Surprisingly solid underneath, I'll tidy it all up & do the interior next. Gold roll cage, fur headlining and hopefully sort out the "filled" dash.

I made a dumb cart! This car has no wheels. The proper wheels are a long way away, so it needs some temporary wheels. Especially because Panel McPanelbeaters will need to be able to move it around. After looking at a bunch of vids I decided to lazily over-engineer a cart out of wood, with two arms to attach it at the back where some of the rear suspension subframe bolts in, and just wedges between the front frame rails to give it some lateral stability. I got some annoyingly expensive M12 bolts with 1.25mm pitch long enough to be able to through some of mitre10's finest framing wood and test fitted them with the help of girlface: Turned on my granddad's old circular saw, put it down and used a hand saw instead, did some shitty drilling and screwing and measuring attempts, and after evolving the original plan a bunch I came out the other end with a cart! Three of the bolts even line up! It's a small cart and the footprint looks quite narrow but it's technically not far from where the jack stands would go anyway, and is quite sturdy. Most of the weight is in the back of the car too, so the cart is located quite far back. For the wheels I selected some nice big 100kg fellas with locks. The finest cheapest that mitre10 had to offer. I hear that the bigger the wheel the easier it is to move it around and the less susceptible it is to bumps. The weight capacity of 100kg per wheel or 400kg~ for the distributed load should be plenty, given that I can lift the front half by myself and the back half with a hand. So of course one breaks the first time it hit uneven concrete. This is also with me moving it by lifting the car from the front end, so there's even less weight on the wheel than normal. Nope, doesn't matter. As soon as it snagged on the crappy concrete while trying to rotate it crumpled faster than a hollow easter egg in the hands of a fat kid. Fortunately the mitre10 service desk guy didn't put up a fight and I got my money back. Then splurged on some smaller but 125kg wheels that looked and felt a lot sturdier. Non-locking but I was already paying significantly more for them. So that's that job sorted, and while I'm still trying to locate some new front frame rails the panelbois will at least be able to move it into their shop and get a start on it. I can sit in it and have girlface push me around, so I'd say we're probably over 70% done with the project now.

It's come a long way since 2019. Since I last posted the chassis and body were separated, the chassis, suspension and axle components painted, the inside of the car painted, the headliner made and fitted (had to be fitted before the body and frame were reunited) and the body/chassis put back together. Interior panel work is largely complete. All in brushed aluminium with the rear 1/4 panels and the overhead console trimmed in metallic blue vinyl. Seats have also been trimmed in diamond-stitched blue vinyl. The wiring looms are mostly in place, only the engine loom needs finalising when the engine goes back in. Not long now, but unfortunately missed another Christmas deadline! Happy 2022 everyone!

Smashed out a catch can today... The bottom; The top; Sweet welds bro. Together and with some extra lovins; Tapped all the holes with a 1/8th BSP I found then attached the bits, including a sweet drain tap I found on an old air seperator; Then mounted it in a convenient hole; Not sure about the air fittings but if they leak I can get some right angled hydraulic fittings later. Not bad for shit I just had lying round (except the tube and the filter....) Also I warmed it up with a wee drive, then did an oil and filter change using Caltex Delo 400 MGX which all the cool TD42 kids use. And gave the fuel screw a quarter turn, its now hitting full boost at about 1800rpm.

Discussion here... As mentioned on another thread, I picked this up the other day. It was restored by a character by the name of Burt Williamson some time in the early 70's. He loved the thing and made a very detailed diary of all the little modifications and repairs he did on it. He then had the diary copied and bound for the other Austin boys to reference for their repairs, a true Barry. When he passed in the 80's my wife's Grandfather took it on and got a few thousand miles on it. When he passed in 2001 the family weren't sure what to do with it so it was parked up. That's when I said it's about time it was enjoyed, so I got the job of getting it back on the road. So 20 years after it was parked up, with air in the tyres from last century, I hooked up its little a-frame and dragged it across town. First was to give it a good clean. It was in really good condition from its dry storage, no real rust to speak of. The right side of the car took a little bit of UV so the rubber is a bit sad. The paint came up nicely after getting rid of the priceless barn find dust. So I'm slowly finding out more about these things. It's a '38 Austin 7 Ruby with the stronger 3 bearing crank & a 4 speed box. It even has syncros on 3 gears! The brakes are mechanical cable so no pesky hydraulics to overhaul. As you can see old Bert had thrown a few extras at her with indicators, a reverse light and an optimistic tow ball! Thankfully they had the presence of mind to keep the rego on hold all this time, so it's just a case of getting it running and get a WOF...

Gave the block a lick of paint so I can see the oil leaks better and started reassembly. I bought a parts washer a couple of months back so I have been cleaning and painting parts as i go along. I love this part.

Successful trip to Auckland today- mocked up for now but plenty of cleaning/painting to do!

Anyways…. Cut a long story short…. k drove it as is to get a road worthy from the local mechanic, then went on my merry way to get a set of plates and license it. turned out the orings the injector place I had overhaul my injectors supplied me were too small and I had a severe vacuum leak. Changed them, readjusted my secondary butterfly because it was off seated at idle and the old girl hasn’t missed a beat yet. 750ks, a couple of tanks of gas and lots of smiles has been had so far. almost time for oil change and a few more revs!!!

Well that was easy. The fucking main hinge is metal-on-metal in these things! Now both bushed. Drilled out the flogged end and pushed these in, trimmed off the excess + lubed up and it’s feeling lush. Dealt to some pitting along the bottom of the door while it was off the car and any crust from door jamb joins.

Bolting more stuff on, Suspension all back together, didnt need a spring compressor, just jacked up the lower arm till the top kingpin nut poked through, so thats good news for easy future altitude adjustment. Fiat parts bin allows new top quality russian poly bushes for the front swaybar, for picking up a few extra 10ths around Bathurst. Also got the steering box and gear shift in as well, got a helper for a couple of weeks Front half of the gear linkage in, the rod takes a totally bonkers path though the middle of the master cylinder box to a shaft to the other (ie LHD) side where the rear rod takes over. Fiat first gen Panda linkage bushes and clips are a perfect replacement and will also suit the 2300, and also very cheap so i bought enough for both vehicles Compared to the madness going on under the floor, the interior is pretty clean. Pedals back on and first time they are not at floor level. Ill clean up the accelerator pedal and mount it to the floor repair panel so it can be driven easily in the meantime. Dash and column back together, and with a seat, thats pretty much the entire interior, lol

Too legit to quit. Took it for a wee ride around the suburbs. Did some hills. Furthest I've ever ridden it. Seems to leak more oil than a brit bike... (Actually no, can confirm that brit bikes leak the most. They even leave oil pools when they don't have any oil in them!) Looks like its the base of the push rod tubes. Should be easy fix i hope. Want to pull the heads anyway to give them a birthday and remove the silver paint Atleast i know its pumping oil around. Hah Pleasure to ride, oodles of torque. Does 100k in 3rd. People treat you differently than they do on my triumph. hah. Feel like a crim. Clutch is like bench pressing 2000lbs with your fist. May need to look into making that a bit softer (and stop it from dragging so i can actually select neutral without stopping the engine). All in all, its great (for what it is), it is so unrefined compared to 70s jap bikes. But it sounds good, looks good and goes good. Plus all legal beagle now. One down 9 to go. Will ride it like this for the next year or two while i try get some more bikes on the road. Then this will go under the knife to build the dream.

The engine had a bit of work done 40 years ago, but only around 4000miles ago. After winding over on the crank handle it was obvious it only had compression on 3 cylinders. Luckily it was only down to a stuck valve. Next was fuel. The tank had a quarter of rotten gas so it came out and I gave it a thorough steam clean. The fuel pump diaphragm was stuffed so a new one went in. Then no spark due to stuffed points and condenser was sorted. After that and a new battery and she flicked into life pretty easily. After that it was just a case of cleaning some switch contacts, getting new keys cut, wiring up the generator correctly and getting a WOF sticker on.

An yesterday i picked it up from the booth and took it back to the panel/painters place so he can fit up panels and get stuck into it.

Hi all, This will be an intermittent/limited series as it’s not mine, but had a wee Christmas treat that was worth sharing. Travelled home for the break and the old man let slip he’d been offered a 1973 XA Falcon ute. A well-known daily driver in town with the previous owner, it’d been parked in a barn by his son in the mid 2000s, with the rego on hold. Old man has a matching set of an XR8 and XR6 ELs - he and current owner got talking and he offered it up. A day or two after arriving in town we went for a look to plan pickup:

Lots of dumb little shit done but not much photo worthy. I was doing more with the dash and washing the vents and discovered these wee knobs we polishable pot metal so I’ve given them a wee spruce up to brighten up..something. This morning I whipped the paint and surface rust off the roof and will get it into epoxy tomorrow.