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OK so I was thinking I was not far from painting the shell when I realised my repairs to the rear guard behind the drivers door had a slight bulge, maybe 5mm outwards in relation to the edge of the door shuts. A classic case of working up close and not standing back to look at the complete picture. It showed up worse when I sat the door in place. I thought I had taken a photo but alas no- trust me when I say it would have done my head in noting it each time I looked down the flank. This panel had been badly bashed in at some point we had popped it out. But obviously too far sadly I never realised until now. I tried beating it back in but no luck. It had been previously repaired by someone else and was full of lots of sharp dents. So this happened... Following that I did a super careful replacement of the steel, butt welded in, with very slow careful welding so not to warp anything. In pictures... It turned out great. I still needed a skim of filler to get it spot on but considering what it was like prior I'm happy with it now. It lines up really well with the door... I then gave this and most of the rest of the shell another coat in primer, smoothed it all back with 400. Oh yawn. Helps having beer and loud Reggae playing. Hannah just loved sanding... With the sanding done I then preceded to turn the workshop into something resembling a Smurf murder house. If there was a song to be played afterwards it would have been this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc We masked it all up and I painted the door jams, door backs, engine bay, interior, frunk, door bins etc. Next day, re- masked the shell and painted the rest. On the first days painting it was so hot at 34 degrees... The following day time I started as early as I could but it was still about 28. Luckily a very dry heat. Not fun in all the gear... I never really considered how far the blue mist would travel. It covered everything. Great fun. Now we have a blue floor which luckily is slowly going to wear off I think. I hope. After it was finished I shut the doors and let it bake in the oven that was the shed, drank a cold beer and went to the beach for a long swim. Here is a blue Imp. Its very similar to an original Imp colour I like so I went with this. Not sure of the name of the colour. Its very bright and changes from a mint blue to a aqua blue in different light. I'm so relieved to have finished the painting. It'll need a flat back to get rid of the orange peel and shine so it looks more like a original paint job. But I'm going to ignore that job until after the car is road legal. Enough body work and painting!!!! Its time to bring the other Imps inside and play musical chairs with all the various parts. Pick the nicest bits and reassemble one car from them all... It certainly is a fair bit better then when we first looked at this shell a year ago and I'm pretty stoked to be at this point in the restoration

Learnt a lot in the past month and a bit. Main thing being that you should probably lube your fuel injector o-rings when you go to put them back in. Got the engine running, was only running on half the cylinders. Discovered there was no fuel going to the rear half cylinders, so decided to pull out the injectors. Took them into town and put them on an injector tester and nothing happened. Was told they can gunk up after sitting for awhile. So went off back home and gave them a spray with some cleaner and smashed them on the ground until they started clicking freely again with power to them. Got them all sounding really good, so in they went (without any lube, thinking back it should of been something that should of come to mind, but I guess I was just in a rush to get it running!), as they went in they must of torn the o-rings. I got the intake and everything back on and together and we started it up again. Ran mint!! So turned it off to see how it would start again, flat battery. Chucked the charger on, and then decided we'd put the wheels on, piece it a bit more together and go for a drive up the driveway. By time we got it together and off the hoist, a few hours had past and so had a decent amount of fuel past the o-rings and into cylinder no.5. Cranked it over and it didn't want to start very easily, so gave it a few more attempts and finally started up with a lovely knocking noise! We thought maybe it was just something loose in the bellhousing, as when we first started it we quickly realised there were no bolts in the flex plate to the torque converter. Anyway drove it up and down the driveway and then back on to the hoist. Decided over Christmas we'd pull out the transmission to have a look in there, other than the weights on the flex plate being ripped off by the torque converter there was nothing that obvious. Started the engine without the trans in and it still had the knock, which was a disappointment. Our neighbours Tony and Jason, who are a bit more mechanically minded came over on Boxing day after hearing that it wasn't transmission related, and went over everything they could think of. Eventually after a good few hours we narrowed it down and decided to check how high each piston is coming up by sticking a threaded rod with a nut on it and turning the engine over by hand. Got around to cylinder no.5 and it was about 5-6mm lower than the rest. Was obvious at this stage that we had a bent rod that was caused by hydraulicing the engine with fuel. Out came the engine, onto a stand, flipped over and then pulled the sump off. It was pretty bent! The crank smashed up the bottom of the piston, but other than the rod and piston everything else looked good. The engine is now at the rebuilders and injectors have been professionally cleaned with new o-rings. The buggered o-rings on the injectors. Since I had awhile off work over Christmas and the engine debacle halted progress a bit, we decided it was a good time to sand out all the runs in the clearcoat and give it another couple of coats with some flatter clear since I wasn't quite happy with the last stuff I used. Used some PPG autothane clear with flattening base in it this time. Was way easier to spray, looks waaaaay better, a lot smoother and a more consistent flatness. Also the extra coats covered the rust up a bit more, as before it didn't seem to be covered well in the rusty areas. With the engine out it was a good time to go through and tidy up a few things. Made up some stainless heatshields that cover the wiring on one side and the fuel and brake lines on the other. Also wrapped some of the exhaust in heat wrap to try and help keep some heat away. Ignore the plastic cable ties, the ones that came with the wrap were too short, and I'll change them soon. After trying to drain the coolant I decided it'd much easier if there was a drain plug, rather than having to disconnect a hose and having it run straight onto a crossmember. Next thing to do was sort out the fuel filler. Turned out the u-bends I bought for the headers were the correct size I needed, so took one of them, cut it to fit and welded a breather pipe on the side. Made a stainless pipe that goes from the 1 5/8" u-bend to 2" on the tank. Also added some gas struts to the rear bed lift up part. Whilst under the rear end noticed the rear airbags were only mounted on the bottom with bolts and no washers. This was mostly because the mount was so close to the diff tube and the airbag mounting holes had quite a small PCD, you couldn't fit much else in there. Came up with these plates that mount to the airbags with a countersunk screw and then have the studs stick through the outer of the slotted hole in the diff mount. Heaps of room to get a nyloc nut and washer now. Was running out of stuff that I could think of to do, so my Dad made a start planing and fitting the Matai wood planks that I bought quite a while ago. Fitted in they looked a bit weird being natural, too bright or something. Had some Japanese stain lying around that we tried and I quite liked it. So went and wiped that all over it once it was fitting well. Then wiped over some Scandinavian oil and came it out really nice. Got the windows installed, he still needs to come back and finish them off. The front window stainless trim doesn't fit as well as I'd hope it would, sorta sticks out a bit, but we're sure it's in there properly. Probably a combination of the crappy re-pro rubber and trim not being 100% right to start with, as I've heard of a heap of people having troubles with windscreen rubbers not fitting nicely on these. Supposed to be taking this to Nats in less than 6 weeks hahaha

All patterns completed for the crankcase! Just finishing the runner system now. Then onto the sump

If all goes to plan I'll pay for this heap in a few days. The current owner is a good mate who gave up on the truck some time ago. He's offered it to me at a very fair price so I hacked it out of waist high thistles a couple of days ago, found enough wheels to get it in the air, and got the brakes un-seized enough to get it rolling...in a straight line. Hopefully I'll get an ignition key this week which will mean I can unlock the steering. I'll get some batteries and see if she'll run. I know little about diesel engines so this could be fun. She's a 6.5 turbo V8, and despite looking pretty haggard is quite sound in the body and chassis. One of the worst things is the wheel size - they're 16.5 inch. Those are 33x12.5x16.5 tyres on both the wheels you see. The truck makes otherwise big tyres seem small. I'm on an island where WoFs aren't a thing, but I have no tools except my carpentry gear with me so I will be at the mercy of others. So far people have all said I'm mad (the truck has a reputation as a bit of a lemon around here), but they've all offered me gear too. Nice.

Update. I hate paint prep. I could never be a car painter. Ugggghhh- so boring. Sand, fill, sand, fill, sand... luckily I have a belt sander... (Joke) Then cover the whole lot in white filler primer and spot all the bits I missed. FFS.... In between all the filling and sanding I did a few other bits. Just to take a break from sanding really but also because these jobs are ones I cant do once its painted. The engine lid (bonnet at back?) I'll be using is the fiberglass item from the race car. It fits OK and is very light plus its the much nicer looking sport item with extra vents. However it was fitted to the race car on pedestals and held down with sprung latches (I dont know the proper term for these so I just made some names up) I wanted it to fit like an original lid so I had glue some steel brackets to it. Plus it sat flat along the front edge so an extra bit of steel welded between the brackets with a curve set in would fix that issue. I welded some m6 bolts in so making captive studs. The job in photos... Brackets bolted to hinges and ready for glue.... Lid glued on and taped in place over night... It works! Yay... Now to hold it down with original style handles. I had a set of handles on one spare lid and some working latches on another. I cut things up, broke rusty bits, oiled this, wire brushed that, ground this, drilled that and other fettling until I had some working bits I could glue onto the F/glass lid. Photos of the process... Again leaving for a few hours until the glue set (which btw is Sellys 'The One' adhesive and sealer which is really good stuff for all sorts Of jobs I have found) and once I fitted the handles in place they worked a treat. Panel gaps are ok too for a F/glass lid... Part of the body prep was spraying Resene Industrial 440 epoxy primer over a few bare steel parts and the roof. I sprayed the fan assembly and radiator shroud while I was at it. Looked much better for some quick spraying and will be nice and durable... Then back to sanding. Finally I had it at a point where I could slap some primer on. It took a long time to sort the side out that had the massive cave in and dents. Its still not perfect and never will be. The bonnet too- given I had rebuilt most of the complicated front edge in steel I was not surprised that it needed a skim of filler and its still not perfect. Show car it wont be... Now this was to be the first time I have used 2 pack paint. I have previously painted cars in single pack acrylic (lacquer?) and they've come up OK but not very durable. Shane who owns the paint shop, Custom Colors, next door to where I used to work, gave me some advice and helped sort me out the right stuff for the job. This stuff is nasty and I was not going to risk breathing in vapours filled with all sorts of crap for the sake of painting an Imp. So I bought a decent full face mask and an air feed kit. I also splashed out and spent big monies on a Hvlp spray gun too! $60 at Supercheap in a sale. It'll do the job fine for the amount of work I'll be doing. I appreciate the lovelyness of all the Devilbiss and Iwata guns but not the $500 plus price tags. Also- big thanks goes out to the friendly helpful fella, Mort, at Patersons paint supplies in Nelson. So to the paint booth. Well actually to the workshop in which I had thrown some sheets over the pushbikes, strung some clothesline across the width from which hung some the doors and bonnet and shuffled things about so not to trip over whilst waddling about in my stormtrooper white coveralls making Darth Vader sounds from within my airfed mask. Its summer so I am pretty much always barefoot as is the way in NZ. However in order to not end up with primer covered tootsies I wore some old socks. I dusted everything down this morning and swept the place out, blew the car down. I opened the roller doors to an exact amount to allow just enough flow to pull the mist out (which did not work...) and preceded to very carefully and patiently clog my spray gun up. Some paint ended up on the car though. It was certainly a big lesson. This paint, a heavy primer, certainly goes off quick in the pot and at first I had not thinned it down enough. Combined with a 1.4mm tip size more suited for thinner top coats and I ended up making a mess of my bench as I frantically cleaned out the gun, tipped away one pot of paint, cursed a bit (a lot), turned the music up, and got back to spluttering my primer all over the place. I got there in the end, muttering to myself the whole time 'not to worry..its only the primer stage' and the car now looks resplendent in white. Amazing how a lovely coat of uniform colour makes something look so much neater. Also amazing how a lovely coat of primer shows up all the little pits, chips, dents, edges. Fcuk. On with the sanding. Luckily there is really only one part that I don't like which is on the horizontal swage line near the 'big dent job'. Its too flat and needs the edge building up with a bit more filler... But screw that for now. I cleaned the gun, turned the lights off and went out for a bike ride.

This gives you an idea of how the moulds/cores from these patterns will go together.

Currently enjoying a beer in kapiti, half way home with my new small project/daily. 1988 Toyota Crown TC24 Supercharger.

Oh boy! I have been super busy, going everywhere in my wagon so sorry for the lack of updates but here we go. So this last weekend I entered my car in the 4 and Rotary Nationals. I wasn't sure how well it would do because it is just my little Avenger wagon, up against all these wicked show cars. Going in to the event I thought maybe I had a shot at best V8, but that was all I was hoping for. At the prize giving they called out the best V8, which went to a V8 Silvia. So I figured I wasn't going to get any awards. Then they called out Best 1970-1989 in the Piston Class and it was my little wagon!!! Being super stoked with that I went up and got my trophy. Then they called out Best Piston Conversion and it was me again!! At this point my mind was well and truly blown because there was some seriously nice competition at the show. It was the first time I have entered any of my cars as a show car, and to win two awards was absolutely amazing. Here's a shot of the wagon at the show. I also went to Caffeine and Classics, and the Orewa beach show. So quite a busy weekend. Now jumping back in time a bit. Back in December I went to the Oldschool.co.nz drag day and had a total blast. I was doing 13.2 runs at 103.66MPH here is a onboard video Here is one of my time slips We had a nice little Avenger get together. My two Avengers and Billy was also drag his stock Avenger, sadly his diff did not like drag racing much and his spider gears broke Later in the day Hamish turned up in his Avenger Then we went and did some group photos For the dial your own racing I dialed in 13.2 but I missed a shift on the first run and didn't get through. Lots of rubber on the old back guard A few photos from Facebook at the drags. https://www.facebook.com/DCGPhotographyNZ/ And https://www.facebook.com/rotationals/ In other news, finally got round to Dynamatting the boot. And I'm going to Wagnats in a week so I will be camping in the back of the wagon so I tried out the "Bed Mode" it works really well. Tons of room for a twin airbed Went to the Kumeu hotrod show a couple of weeks ago and brought a sweet roof rack for when I go camping. I found it at the swap meet there, I went specifically looking for a roof rack and only found one and it was the perfect size!! So busy couple of weeks, off to leadfoot festival this weekend, then Wagnats camping in the wagon!! Discussion

Rear windows got removed today so we will be able to start welding the C pillar. Current situation is we are starting to weld up the holes and cutting out patches and wielding them up.

Loves a long weekend Managed to strip all the doors and get them epoxy primed. Blocked down the front 2 doors n bogged them. Still not dry so will leave overnight. Annnnd in other news, the shell has been painted!! Looks a million bucks! Should get all these doors ready by end of weekend n can drop off when i collect shell Heaps mean!

This is my Datsun Bluebird "de-rustification" project. This Bluebird is a U.S. specification 48 HP left hand drive 1961 PL310. It is the same as 1959 and 1960 310s. It is much different with respect to the drivetrain than late '61 through '64 models with the 60 hp engine, all synchro transmission and beefier rear axle components. I've swapped in most of the later model drivetrain though. The overall project been on and off again for years, decades actually. I have 44 years of my ownership history that I can present separately in a discussion thread along with this build activity. Previous historical "major" repairs included bumping out the roof panel in the late 70s due to a prior owner rollover accident. The rust work however is relatively new since early 2018. Photos. My earliest photo of the car is alongside the aqueduct in the California San Joaquin Valley in June 1975 and then Pullman, WA October 1975 . The latter photos are current covering the inner and outer sill panels fabrication, fit and weld work currently in progress. As time permits, I'll go back a year and begin describing the work and discoveries along the way to date and continue from there. https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60267-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

Having sold my Bedford van a few years back to fund an Australian Adventure, around the middle of last year the desire to own another crappy old British commercial vehicle returned with a vengeance. So the search began. Then one day last November whilst trolling the net I came across a listing for this. Hardly Ford's finest achievement, but quirky enough to pique my interest. In chatting to the owner I discovered that the van had already been through a bare metal restoration so the body is relatively mint with new rubbers fitted throughout. The upholstery has also been redone, the floor rhino lined and some tints chucked on the side windows. Mechanically it is still a virgin, running the original 1700 pre-crossflow motor that Ford borrowed from a late 50's Ford Consul. So basically a blank canvas and a really good starting point. After a bit of negotiation a deal was struck that culminated in a road trip yesterday to pick it up. Following an 11 hour road trip with a borrowed transporter and a short 15km drive under it's own steam it is now safely tucked up in my shed.

Useless local windscreen dudes never showed up, so me and the boy roped it in ourselves. the NZ made ARMOURFLOAT windscreen from the parts stash . Was actually pretty easy, especially with a new rubber and lot of dish soap. Except somehow the spreader trim is shorter now repairs - what repairs? Took it in again on Saturday, and Great Success! After that i dropped off the sidedraft manifold to @EURON8 for him to mod for me, and when i got home i played with the old DMS carb and some new aliexpress idle, air corrector and main jets to fill some holes in my collection. Seems to idle and transition much better now (slightly richer idle and main jet than before) but there is still a big flat spot at low rpm. Been half assedly progressing though the sandpaper grades cutting back my orange peel (sanding suuuuuuuxxxxx) and today i finally polished it. Grrr

Shit's in and runs! Vital Fluids for motor and box gobbled up and stayed inside, yay. Kiwi Engineering fixed the ring gear, Colliers (both in Levin) checked the balance, all G. Got choke bits from Weber Specialties and other stuff from around the place. Road test yet to happen, exhaust currently sitting on the ground etc. Wagnats coming up awfully fast.. Should have taken a before Pic, it was haggard in a few places

You can't avoid working on it if it's at your front door staring you in the face.

So, 10 months on from the first wof, we have loved using the wee ute, a couple of things have been changed. We got the windows tinted, it's a very small cab and gets bloody hot, and most importantly the height has been changed, not low enough for me, but Rebekah loves to remind me it's her ute, not mine. She now has the bug, and in the next month or so we will be getting the interior sorted.

The Imp is finally all painted, after first sorting out a bulge in a panel. It looks great and I'm stoked with the colour. I'll do a proper update soon. But in the meantime here's a quick peek at the colour. But which one is it?...

After all this I ended up never being able to get the megasquirt to be reliable, so a friend had a kjet setup which we put on, it ran awesome and i drove it like that for a couple of years. Did little bits and pieces including suspension and wheels. just drove it everywhere

Another bike ticked off the to do list. The XR250R from a page back that i started restoring is finally finished. just need to make a bit of a rear rack / fuel can mount for our 800km feilding - picton - molesworth - hamner - rainbow rd - lake tennyson - nelson - picton - feilding trip coming up next month. Im really happy with how this bike turned out, people bag 250s for being slow but this thing still pops wheelies pretty easily and with the 6 speed sits on 115km/h quite comfortably without revving high. She got a clean sheet wof this morning, although riding it this afternoon my horn stopped working ha, along with my USB charger. gunna try ride the shit out of it over the next couple of weeks to make sure its reliable for the south island adventure.

Guess what? Replacing the windscreen and doing the other things took longer than the weekend + week i anticipated! Rust in the windscreen aperture itself was just surface rust, but there were some other bits i missed or had got worse since last time, and i thought i may as well get them while the screen is out. In another shocker, the Roof/A-Pillar overlap bubbles went a bit deeper than initially appearing Outer patch ready to weld (already welded the patch on the inner skin, obviously) Not quite invisible, but solid metal and invisible/factory after a a skim of filler and some carefully applied seam sealer. Small patch in the drivers side gutter i missed last time And dug the ugly bathroom sealant off the windscreen motor mount to reveal some holes that got much bigger by the time i managed to get tools in the scuttle to cut off the brazing someone had blobbed it on with before. Had to jam a welding glove up under the dash to catch the hedgehogs and molten balls from falling on the carpet! EEEK! Bit of a fiddle to line it up and mark where it needed to fit and then tack it in place but its all solid and water proof now too, and the wipers still work!. Had some trouble with the rattle cans i used truing to keep the bog dry between literal storms But it turned out ok, thinners soaked rag pretty much wiped it right off, and cant tell once i got the 2 part ACV on there Ended up doing the roof, windscreen surround, scuttle tops of the doors and fenders and the sills as well as wafting the left overs at the bonnet. My cheap 1.4mm tip top coat gun is over due for replacement (sprayed 3 cars now! - 1.7mm primer gun seems ok still) so its well tidied up from the patchy look it had before but shes no show truck! Once that dried/it stopped raining i filled the cab gutters and pillers, and up the scuttle from the inside with Dinotrol (+ some Penetrol for luck) , glued up the headliner and blacked out a few bits and pieces. The windscreen i chose from storage (turns out i had 2!) is a NZ made one AUTOFLOAT with the NZS mark on it, and no chips. Thats now sitting in the hole in a brand new LadaPower sourced 2102 rubber waiting for the local glass cowboys to rope it in for me and install the spreader trim (i flippin hate windscreens - i cracked the old one even more popping it out and i dont want to crack this one)

I promised a zorst recording. I hoped to record some runs up to redline under load, but this will have to do for now. It already took me ages to edit out all the smoke. I think the exhaust sounds more like what you'd want from a car like this - payoff for the hassles and fuel economy. It's no lumpy V8 burble, and of course it would be more interesting with carbs and a manual transmission, but it'll do. Even if the auto sometimes keeps the engine at a steady maximum rasp up hills, which sounds like someone's cutting grass with a line trimmer... Also, gotta love that ultra refined starter motor, for sneaking out to the club late at night. =\ Pity that this plan..... ....wasn't going to work, but I'm happy enough with the result. I also ended up increasing the induction noise, because I decided to check the air filter and found this: The filter diameter seemed a bit big for the housing, leaving a gap of only a couple of mm as shown by the arrows. Despite appearances, the gap was pretty uniformly small the whole way around. Rather than think too hard about whether that total area could in fact be adequate for a whole 220 horsepower, I ordered a K&N filter which has a smaller diameter: I'm also now running this with the intake snorkel removed. Despite the long intake manifold etc, there's some decent induction noise at large throttle openings (kinda the whole point if I'm honest). I could have gone for a pod filter, but I read that it's important not to alter the airflow pattern through the type of airflow meter sitting right behind this filter housing. The changes I've made don't seem to have made the car run any worse. What else... I got some piping to suit the vents in my battery and carry any corrosive fumes outside the car, equivalent to the system the car apparently would have had when new: When I got the car, the RHS rear light was missing its internal divider so that the tail light bulb could illuminate the indicator and vice versa: That was stink, so I made up a temporary divider out of cardboard. It wasn't long before the cardboard started to warp: That looked pretty dumb, so I made a proper one out of metal, using the divider from the other side as a template. Here they are: Now it's sweet.

Good to be back working on this! Test fitted motor after mounts welded in all bolts up like it should. Motor n gearbox held by its own weight. Took a photo n pulled it out to sand firewall after i had dinged it getting motor in. Sanded. Epoxied all the rub thrus Smashed some more high build on ready to be scotched for paint. Now the roof im quite proud off it had quite a few little dings which i managed to tap n skim with bog. Was a struggle due to low roof in garage and using a 4 step ladder to reach using guide coat it would appear i didnt prime it too well in regards it was also abit orange peely. After 4 hours of wet sanding the roof up to 320 it is pretty bloody good Then started on rear quarters Guide coat After blocked back all guide coat sanded off and straighter than the blokes at family bar. Passenger side Same again looking pretty good. Picked up the paint And shell is being dropped off to painters tomorrow. Like i said because of lack of space i need this painted first so i can prep panels. Being a gloss 2k black im hoping itll all turn out alright and not notice difference in colour in the panels once all assembled. Have spoken to painter who reckons yea nah she'll be right mate no drama. In other news have ordered new carpets n underlay from autodec including boot carpet. Because autodec think all cars are size 14+ and not an 8 i will give them my orginial carpets to check n make sure they are same size as with my corona n sheepers ms65 itll end up being loose around tunnel n weird fitment under rear seats. Also booked in glass guy to put screens back in Does anyone no if you can buy the metal clips around windscreens, the ones held in with philips screws that the chrome slides into new? Saves me hunting around in all the boxes for where i put em! Will do some enquiring on monday non the less. Thanks for looking Much excite

Cool, done! Just waiting for x member and some 2pot calipers from an NA 4 stud stagea, skyline etc to start mounting, mod tunnel and front panel, maybe area above diff.

Trimmed up the spare dash fascia with some vinyl.. mounted and wired the gauges. Got the twin port oil fitting in for the oil temp and pressure gauges.. Waiting on a reducer for the water temp, should arrive tomorrow Then only need 1 terminal to wire the tachometer. Good timing as it needs to run to be able to move it to storage hopefully if I can find something local.