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Starter motor time. I had bought a Subaru leone 1.8 starter from the fella I'd got the gearboxes and 1.8 ring gear from. Made sense to use all the same bits. Only thing I'd have to do was move the mounting face for the starter forwards towards the engine to suit the new ring gear position on my home made flywheel... Easy as I thought and I had it all planned out. I shall start at dawn! However that's not what happened once I got a friendly query from a fella about the starter motor turning the engine the wrong way. Oh yeah. Bugger. Of course it will do that. Yay. So after a few ideas and suggestions from various folk I had a few options. My first option was to mount the Subaru starter on the front of the bellhousing adaptor, facing backwards. Essentially turn it 180 degrees and it would spin the Honda engine in the required anti-clockwise direction I needed. But would it fit? Yes it does... It wouldn't be too tricky to mount and on extension the pinion almost lined up perfectly with the ring gear. It sat down in place quite low too. So this solution was a strong contender. But it had a couple of weaknesses that meant it went to the back burner. One: the ring gear would need turning around so the leads shaped into the teeth faced the pinion. Turning it round and having the pinion strike it from the opposite side then meant that the step I had machined into the flywheel would have been on the wrong side and the gear could potentially work off over time. I was reluctant about the idea I could add a few welds, as some folk will do, because it adds stress risers, could affect the balance. I really didn't want to muck about with the ring gear. Two: having a fairly large ugly starter motor plonked right there on the top of the motor was something I never had in my minds pictures of how I wanted the engine bay to look. It would be right where I might want some linkages for the itbs, possibly a centrally mounted plenum between the itbs and there was also going to be some water pipes around that area too. So back to the other options- the main one being to look for a suitable Honda starter that's mounted from the gearbox side or a starter from any standard clockwise rotating engine that mounts from the front. The pinion had to have the same pitch and ideally the same tooth count. I did some research and it seemed that all the Japanese cars of this era all shared the same pinion pitch and were all around the 9 or 10 teeth. This was handy indeed. Off to the wreckers then... I went through the various shelves of starters, starting with Honda and found a possible candidate within a couple of minutes. Feeling pretty satisfied with my find I still double checked the other shelves just in case there was something even better but eventually I was spotted skipping out of the door happy with my Honda Civic/accord starter. Back home I looked at my booty. Subaru one is on the left... They were so close but not close enough. The Honda item has a smaller diameter 'locating spigot' that centralises it in the hole on the mounting face of the bell housing. This was a better turnout than it being bigger than the hole though! I would machine the hole in the plate to suit the new starter, which I was going to have to do for the original plan using the Subaru one anyway. The holes for the starter mounting bolts, that go through the bell housing into the engine, were 5mm closer at about 115mm and they were also offset to one side, not in line with the starters centreline. This was handy though because I could then have separate bolts holding the bell housing and room to turn the Honda starter about its axis, having the solenoid positioned in the least obstructive way. A plan was forming in my head. I took some measurements, did some scribbles and it all looked like it should work ok... I had already bought a hefty bit of 12mm plate for the Subaru starter repositioning and luckily it was still going to work with the new starter. I swapped the 4 jaw chuck onto the lathe and set it up. Drilled a big hole... Bored the hole out to suit the Honda starter spigot... Marked and drilled holes to suit... Recessed and spot faced one of the holes for the bellhousing to the engine bolts that just happened to slightly clash with a bit of the starter casting. So I now had a plate that the starter fitted neatly into, with not a hint of slop. The bolt holes lined up perfectly with the bellhousing bolt holes so lining the starter up the correct distance out from the ring gear. Now I need to move the face of this plate closer to the engine... So I cut a big lump of alloy from the bellhousing with a grinder and a hacksaw... This allowed me to move the plate closer and let the pinion fully engage with the ring gear... I tested the fit of the starter... The height was good but I wanted it to be perfectly parallel to the face of the flywheel so I really had to mill it. Luckily I was just able to squeeze the gearbox into a position on the mill that allowed me to face it perfectly... I must have some pretty honed hacksaw skills because I only needed to skim off about .75mm to get it flat. Sweet. Now I bolted the plate in place, then the starter and tested it... Oh I forgot to mention that once I had decided I was going to use a starter mounted in the original position I popped a hole through the adaptor plate in line with the starter pinion. This was to allow me to check the pinion mesh... I was super happy with the mesh so I marked the excess on the plate to be trimmed off and gave it a hair cut in the bandsaw... I also milled out the back of the plate where it just clashed with the rivets and pressings on the outer edge clutch pressure plate. Bolted it back in and welded it up, taking lots of care to avoid any chance of movement or warping. It went well.. Added some little filler plates to tie it in neatly and gave it a tickle with a flap disc... Bolted the starter back in, stood back and admired it all, really happy that one of the trickier jobs had been completed and that the starter was sitting in there very neatly and tucked away nicely, no higher than the top of the bellhousing... Next step was to make a cover for the 'front' of the engine, adding a connecting link between the oil filter outlet and the main oil way into the engine, a filling point for the sump, a dipstick and allocations for engine mounts to suit a cross member. Still lots of work to do but I'm getting closer...

Had a bit of a cockup When I pulled the motor out of the white car and stored it, I put a rag in the dizzy hole to stop shit getting in there Being so long ago, I forgot how big it was I also forgot to remove it when I set the rockers It appears the oil pump drive went om nom nom on the rag . It was quite hard to get out and it was a bit chewed When I got it out there was one bit missing out of the rag that I could not find . I mucked around for ages with the vacuum down the dizzy hole and got a bit of fluff out I deemed getting the rag out to be an essential service so went to work and got my snake camera and grabby thing, found the offending bit of rag hiding in the sump next to the oil pump and did a doctor spec cottonectomy Phew

And that’s my last day on it, back to reality next week. brother still has a wee list of holes to fill but she’s bloody close! Diff back in, wheels on and rollin! rear valence almost dialled Hard to scale but that’s a big pile of cast-off Chrysler

Just in from alexandra.. drivers floor pan, tunnel section and more firewall patches.. By my calculations, that’s all the main fucking holes filled, we have a god damn shell again!! Still some hours of checking it over, finishing spot welds and the usual completion stuff then we wait for the repair certifier to give us an inspection appointment

Ahhh man, big success today! I got the car together enough to go for a run up the road. There are some big holes in the firewall currently from aircon stuff. So it's open to the engine bay. And when you go full throttle the intake noise in the cabin is so friggen loud that I think I need ear plugs. All of the loom and sensors are working well, new intake manifold with flipped throttles worked out perfect with SCP10 cable. LSD is doing LSD things! No single wheel peels anymore! The new gearbox is a little notchy into 2nd gear but its much much better than the other one. It's all a big relief, gearbox issues are/were main thing I was afraid would go wrong at this stage. Also not a peep out of the alternator! no more squeals. Hallelujah. I took it to the weigh bridge again. 830kg with half a tank of gas. Happy with that! Still on the heavy ROH wheels. So it's looking good to getting somewhere near my 820kg target for drags etc once I've swapped wheels. Swapping drivers seat for a bucket seat would probably be next easy win for some weight savings. Maybe eat a few less pies? Nah. Lots of small jobs to finish off but pretty relieved to have no major issues at this stage.

Fuck yes- after something like 9 1/2 years its finally got some colour on it, just a home job in the garage, but it's not seen so thought I'd just hit it. Majorly stoked

Still the daily driver with barely any issues! The auto trans is the main one still. Chucked the 3rd trans in after 2019 drag day. It's a bit slow changing from 2nd to 3rd and still seems to burn out if giving it some. Also has the same issue as before when you thrash it, it goes into limp mode so stays in 3rd. Bought a 300zx and ripped the 5 speed manual gearbox out of that to eventually throw in, just waiting for the Starlet to be back on the road. Drove it up to Beach hop 2020 and took out the best under 25 award! Dump of pics from the travels. Have been trying to do a bit of maintenance recently, fixing up some annoying things. At the start of the year the steering rack bushes basically disappeared, so I machined up some aluminium ones. They worked good but got sick of the vibrations at 100km/h, so put some poly bushes in. Next was the 4-link rose joints making knocking noises over every little bump. I had them on the chassis side of the 4-link bars and poly ones at the diff end, so swapped them around, and that quietened it down. The front tyres were down to the canvas on the inner edge, hoping most of that was just caused from the loose steering rack. Got some new tyres on and repainted the whitewalls. Made them a bit wider and more proportionate front and rear. The steering makes a horrible groaning at low speed turning occasionally too. Hopefully it's the bearing in the column, otherwise I have a new powersteering pump sitting there, but that's a front clip off job so that can wait until the manual swap.

The following day (Those were Saturday's updates above), I set about getting my Hayashis out and giving them a wee spritz with the metal polish to bring back the brightness. Then, fit them up I needed some slip on spacers for these (and some other 13s) to clear the calipers, on wheels with very flat spoke faces and 3-piece bolts it JUST tags the edge of the caliper. No biggy, John van Beek (he with the badassiest Cedric of ever) whipped up some hubcentric spacers for me, I will organise a grub screw and threaded hole in the hub to secure these, just in case I wish to cert later. For now they're perfectly safe, and fit like a glove. 20210919_114316-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr On with the Streets! 13x7 -6 offset for those playing at home. So with the spacer on the front, we are effectively a 7J -11 offset, pretty hefty for a standard Starlet guard but with the 175/60 it just covers the tread. 20210919_131430-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Realistically it's probably a little tight, although with a test drive it showed no serious signs of rubbing. But to be sure I found some +7 offset 13x7s on Yahoo for next to nothing (rare to find these days with the way prices have gone) so used buy now through Jesse Streeter to get the ball rolling on those. But here's how it's looking on the Streets. I reckon it just looks so good on 13s, they visually lower and lengthen the proportions of the car. Really enjoy just looking at it, at the mo. 20210919_114754-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210919_115151-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210919_130445-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Last job on Sunday was securely mounting the rear speakers. The TS-X9 are one of the top-end Pioneer units of the day, these and the TS-X11 both used cast alloy housings are are absolute nuggets. They sound amazing too - I've had these hooked up to my home amp inside, and for their tiny size, the results are unbelievable. These ones I've had stashed away for a while now, so I knocked up some large plates to bolt through the parcel tray to the speaker to prevent them going anywhere, and also spread the load across the old wooden parcel tray material. It's some sort of almost cardboard crap - I should really make something more sturdy. This still flexes and bounces around a little bit when driving so it may need some sort of additional bracing moving forward. Looks hot though/ 20210919_151048-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr None of it is wired yet - although that won't be too long. Thanks for looking. Even though we're locked at home I'm very chuffed with the car and it's got me in a good mood.

Still making progress on this thing. Have been a bit slack at taking detailed progress photos. Engine was dropped in a while ago. Radiator and overflow bottle finished up too. Fuel lines are done as well as the brake and clutch lines, they bleed up perfectly! Built the exhaust too. Went with a twin 2" stainless system and made the muffler as well. It's now fully welded and mounted properly. Swapped to the SSR MkII's Have put the original loom back in and hooked up most things again. Need to reroute the wiper motor plug, rewire the dash to suit the tacho cluster and redo all the wiring that runs through the front guards so it can be tucked away. Then I need to figure out how to wire up the engine with the Link ecu!

I had been meaning to do this for a while but procrastinated a lot like everything and it wasn't until the break between jobs that I had more time and finally got a window of opportunity with the weather.. Most people on here are aware of my love for a livery and I decided to make one for the Roadster inspired by the R100 and so out came the masking tape... then out came the rattle-can blue paint... Then all I needed was the rest of the stickers to make it work so a quick message to Brent and things were underway... Nek minit.

Better post some progress for @RUNAMUCK Painted the boot floor Made alloy panel to fill hole for wiper motor New plugs, cleaned and fitted the plug leads Painted and fitted master cylinder Mounted fuel pressure reg Recycled some pushlock hose fittings It's been a bit hard to get things done, have to only do activities I have parts in stock for

Talked with Michael Anderson from the Bugatti Club Australia a few months back. Good guy to talk to. Heres a copy of the article for those interested. Originally published in The Bugatti Bulletin Vol 73, August 2021. Reproduced with the kind permission of Bugatti Club Australia Inc.

Put the 2" blocks in, rolled the rear guards and fitted the rear pair of brx Never before seen footage of the crusty tailgate. Looks a lot worse than it is due some usefull person touching the whole tailgate up with paint applied with a brush

So I got another jalopy, I was searching for a decent triumph sedan when I saw this Lada for sale on marketplace. I thought "Hell, I haven't seen one of those for years!" so promptly went and got it to ensure I wouldn't miss out on the soviet driving experience. My impressions of the car are that it is great - for a car from 1970, by the time this one was made in 89' it was woefully obsolete. I understand they kept making them until 2010 in russia, and 2012 in egypt! The car had been in one family from new, and had been outside most of the time - very little rust and the interior is fine, but the paint was sunbleached to almost white from its original dark beige. I am rather enamored with its factory tool kit, with the tools all stamped cccp. I scoured the oxidation off a bit of the paint and found a good match, repainted it in the driveway, now just need to paint the windowframes black, swap the tyres onto a sweet set of fiat ward rims I found, then have some sweet proletarian adventures.

So as I was looking for a side marker lamp for the Pacific kit on my RX-7, this C3 Corvette was offered to me for a price I couldn't turn down. I figure I could sit on it for a few years and possibly bring it back to Australia or New Zealand and sell it for a nice little profit. It looks to have been in Ontario its whole life, but so glad none of the previous owners opted to winter drive it as there is no rust anywhere on the chassis or birdcage. At some point the original L-48 engine was removed in favour of a 333hp 4 bolt mains/Vortec head crate engine, still with Rochester Quadrajet & cast exhaust manifolds though It has a whack '80s/'90s cloth retrimmed interior which I am not so sure about keeping just yet, and the glass T-tops are cracked so I need to get replacements for them My wishlist is to fit aluminium high comp heads, a TH200-4R trans to replace the TH350, headers and a composite rear leaf spring. Right now it needs rear wheel bearings and the brakes having a good going over.

Back on track! When you have a waterjet on site, rooted shackles are no problem! order number workshop the middle of the rear panel is holey so they waterjetted a profile for the pullmax and hooked into it! made a full length piece but wasn’t worth the potential hassle as it’s a w shape so just chopped bits out. the underside piece was shit so replaced with disruptions and great difficulty here’s a wee bit where ya feet go I made yesterday raised this portion wrongly stamped in the Chang 1/4 The dumb floor was too small in all directions so trying to transcribe it.

Finally got around to doing two little jobs, oil change and flushed out the rusty old water from the radiator. Found a little bit of rot in the front drivers chassis rail, so will expect a fail on at least this, hopefully it’s not more than what it appears. (pic is from under the car looking up) Took it for a quick drive to put some petrol in and added some air to the tyres. It has a little hesitation at low revs, so will be troubleshooting that issue over the next little while, starting with ignition stuff. The extra engine bay stuff like AC, power steering, exhaust air pump etc really clutter up the engine bay and make even simple jobs take way longer than I’m used to!

So while i had the trans out as i couldn't use the car i decided to tackle some rust the car had. My wof inspector had mentioned it a few times and thought i better fix it after him being nice and giving it two prior wofs as it was. 2nd inspection i put some insolation tape over the holes after i had poked around with a screwdriver haha. I was also lucky that this rust was never noticed while the car was complied or had the repair cert done. I knew it was there but kept my mouth shut. Ah no bondo bob has been in here. I cleaned up the bottom pieces with a portable sandblaster and applied a few layers of crc zinc it well that would be why its rusty. full of dust and dirt that at some point has been wet or had moisture in it. also cut a piece out of the inner wheel well. i had previously when the car had been blasted and painted of the underside i applied a small layer of bog over the pinholes and blended it back in with black paint. I firstly made the curved bit to keep a guide of the shape and location and welded that in. I then cut the outer piece out and made a replacement. This piece was made with 5 different bits all welded into one patch. Also made a new piece for here with 2 bits and curving it to suit the wheel well shape. Then applied a small layer of bog to keep it looking nice. sanded and painted area black to hide all the sins. Then i became bondo bobs brother The reason why this got bogged back up is because at some point the car has had a hit in the passengers rear quarter one big enough that had required the chassis to be repaired when i got the car. im not keen on removing the rear quarter of the car to get the body lines good as the rest of the car isn't that perfect either. So body filler was used to get the door and quarter lines looking good. Sanding and shaping the bog actually took me more time than the metalwork that was done. Gave it a shot of primer. You will also notice that i have prepared and primered a wheel also. Will get into detail with that in next post. Gave the primer a sand and shot of paint. Ended up happy with the result. i knew i was never with my skillset able to blend it in without being noticeable but once the sill trim and door is closed its not too noticeable. better living everyone

i ordered a new intercooler ages ago but it was coming from auz and they went into lockdown right when i ordered it so it took 3 months instead of 3 weeks. anywho it turned up and i went about making it fit. its wider but not as high as the one that was on the car. a quick note about the intercooler that was on the car. its an R32 GTR intercooler that i put on the car about 2007 and it has been through hell and back and it took it all. it stoved the side of Spencer's soarer in, its taken literally hundreds of hits into curbs and driveways and fucking all manner of shit and its never had a leak or a broken tube or anything. this thing needs a place in the hall of fame. so yea, new intercooler will flow WAY better than the old one and the dyno will tell the story. i made a new bracket thing to hold the cooler and it had two mounting holes on the bottom but because i cant use the top ones i thought id add two more to the bottom just because. i only had a small piece of square aluminium so i made it round and welded them on. 3the new intercooler sits about 30mm higher than the old one too so thats a good. at some point imma make a front air dam for this thing. 2021-09-25_06-12-31 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-25_06-11-50 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-25_06-11-58 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-26_05-10-21 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-26_05-10-43 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-25_06-12-12 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-09-26_05-10-37 by sheepers, on Flickr

recently purchased a car that I know I'll be keeping for many many years. it's been a long standing goal of mine to own a B body mopar, so to own this is beyond words this is the project log of my 1968 Dodge Coronet Deluxe, a true California survivor car. the car spent much of its life baking away in the San Diego heat, driven here and there by its elderly owners until it came over here, in 2006 ish. whilst never complied, it's a credit to the previous owner, who went through all of the essentials and gave everything a freshen up. Covid allowing, I am aiming to have it on the road this side of Christmas. as it stands, it's a base model '68, with the original 318 and 904 auto. Runs super nicely, and receipts show the motor was rebuilt (standard spec) in 2000. Photos are of how it looked upon purchase cheers!

Well then, I've been tinkering away. The car was booked in for a WOF check on 19/08, and cert inspection on 27/08. As we all know, everything got fucked up again cos of the Cov, so none of that even happened. What I did do prior, was get the engine bay in a state ready to cert. Basically, LVVTA rules require the crankcase vent to be routed back into the intake, and my catch can setup/open trumpets was not going to work I'd always intended to run my big ITG filter over top of the trumpets, and the cert man confirmed it was OK to run a cam cover vent straight into the filter backing plate. I have spare cam covers to allow for this, and the net result was as below. Unfortunately, some bad measuring on my part meant the filter won't fit around the trumpets in situ - meaning I either need to put 50mm trumpets in, or just run without. For the cert purpose I chose to just run without. 20210918_105417-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Anyway, I never got a cert, or a check, or fucking anything because diseases and shit. I'm still at home, not working, not earning, not happy. But I went and got the car anyway, and made some changes with a view to heading out and finally taking some proper photos with my real camera instead of the phone. First thing I did was install the Pioneer tape deck with the mounting kit. This thing is wonderful, it's hands down the rarest, weirdest most interesting 'off the shelf' part this car has on it, in my view. Everything fit perfectly, clipped and bolted in to where it needed to. 20210918_131215-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr For the most aesthetic photos, I figured it was best with the blue cam covers, open trumpets and catch can lines reinstated. I'd ordered some TecArts trumpets way back in March, these finally arrived in June from Japan and I took the opportunity to fit them up. 20210918_164209-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210918_165815-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210918_165822-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr These are 100mm long vs the 75mm we tuned on, have that great looking 'merged' bellmouth look to them. I'm smitten. It's also louder. Gave the interior a bit of a spruce up. Painted the kick panels and some other plastic trim, using an SEM product specifically designed for refinishing plastics. Custom matched by Carcolors on the shore. It's epic stuff! Overall the interior has come up well, it's a really nice light, airy place to be, kind of the vibe I wanted it to have. Black interiors are dime a dozen - it's nice to choose something different and actually have it come together. 20210918_170929-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210918_170940 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20210918_171300-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Final wipe down, and it was ready to tuck under its cover for the night. Nice to just have a cold drink and stare at it for a bit. 20210918_175516-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

so after a road test revealed a few things. ive lost alot of steering lock due to the wheel touching the inner lip on the gaurd. i will be getting a metal expert to roll the lip on the front gaurds. the rear only rubs on extreme angles but hasn't on a bumpy highway drive. in terms of steering lock it means i can only go around big roundabouts but it scrapes haha so now that it means i go round the block than around the roundabout i may do down to a 235 width tyre but will wait until the gaurd is rolled. a couple of days after picking up from the trans shop i did a bolt check and a wash and went for a drive. went to whakatane for some mainies and back the next day you will notice the car is still a tad higher in the front than rear. its not so noticable in person unless looking so will keep it this way. quite stoked with the colour and fitment combo. first trip in this involved someone at the gas station coming for a perv at the wheels and asked a few questions about them. also vehicle handles a huge amount better now less of a boat feel. gave me a huge amount more confidence in driving it around corners too. but should really upgrade the rear shocks to something stiffer and a good wheel alignment too yes you can tell me now how ive ruined my barry car

I got some different mirrors. These are "sport" mirrors. They were standard on 454SS trucks , with the powerful bathurst winning two hundred and thirty horsepower 7.4 litre engine coupled to a 3 speed automatic transmission. These were well known as being extremely fuel efficient, Toyota copied the fuel injection system for the first gen prius and were not able to get the same economy on petrol as the SS I have a theory that the SS's incredibly low fuel consumption is because of the small mirrors so I'm expecting to get a result where my 350 actually makes petrol go back into the tank. Also now I can't see behind me as good but I don't care because I'm not living in the past maaaaan

So yeah, kinda stopped taking pictures of things like wiring and the like. But fully rewired the bike. And installed an aftermarket regulator rectifier on the back of the oldschool generator. Also managed to get it running. What a cunt. Jesus, i've kicked over a few bikes in my time. But nothing as cunty as this. It can't be cos of the compression ratio, as these are like 8.5:1 or something. My japanese 4 cylinders kick over easy as. So must be the ratio or something. I'm not a small unit, and i can jump on the pedal only to bounce off due to it being on compression stroke. Mental. I gave the tank a quick satin black to get it complied. I have a full AMF sticker set in brown and orange to decorate the tank. So once its complied, i'll gloss the tank and pop the stickers on. Here is as it currently stands. I'm trying to get it complied in the next few weeks. Just chasing some paperwork misery. So will see how it goes. Once its complied, i don't know whether to cut it up straight away. Or enjoy it as is. Likely the latter, as riding it around the hood was a blast. Not only did i feel like a crim, it was actually really pleasant to ride. Will update my compliance process in detail as it unfolds.

I got to alex about 4:30 and brother had spent most of the day on it so I snapped some pics quickly one side zipped up and quarter being welded on, other side not far behind!

After years of being apart of this forum and benefitting from its community I've decided to post up a project build. This is my Girlfriends 1983 Toyota Hiace Camper van, with a pop top roof. Running an 18r engine. She bought it about a year ago and it ran sweet for a summer, then started breaking down. The compression is down on two cylinders. We will drop the engine out after lockdown. Open her up and get an engine rebuilder to tell us exactly what it needs. Currently we are working on getting through the mountain of rust that is throughout this poor thing. We are getting there hahah The jack point on the passenger side is the worst rust we have found so far. You could knock it and rust would fall to the ground. So we've cut it out and started fabricating a new one

Good day had heres that channel I spoke of last night. This wee channel sits under the parcel tray and out to the edge of the boot. Wasn’t too bad till I hit it with the blaster and the bottom became Braille. Bro amalgamated the rear rail fell out, took some of the torsion support and floor with it I replaced the lower arm bushes and the radius rod bushes and lubed everything up while it was apart. Like a penis, I left the tin of paint in chch I intended to coat all this suspension stuff while it was apart! I got some black zinc in the tight places and I’ll get the rest at a later date.

Redesigned the manifold to be a little bit stronger, better clearance on some areas, and easier to wrap with carbon with some bigger radius on things. Ahh and flips the throttles the other way up. Then it took about 3 days to print, had a bit of warping that needed fixing but turned out okay. Test fits good Take some space age materials and smoosh it on there like a cave man: Then trim it up and sand the mounting faces on a piece of glass with some 220 grit. Nearly good to go, still some sharp edges to take care of with the dremel. Carbon splinters are nasty! Also I'm making a new loom because I had managed to create independent disasters on both sides of the firewall. Tried to get the heater box out and had to pull bloody everything out to get it! But now it's gonna be much easier to make a nice loom. Will be good practice for some better projects later, this loom is nice and simple because there's not too much going on. Aircon stuff is about 10kg worth of junk.

Another glacial update - motor is nearly done at the reconditioners, should have it back soon for reassembly In the meantime, I got all that really complicated sound deadening done around the drivers footwell. SO many shapes to get around.

Hi all. long time no posts. Been some big adventures in George the bus since may. 1st little event out of town was to beach hop. day one at Waihi. supporting my new Westfalia sticker on the front of the pop top. cooked myself a nice feed by myself later that night, good thing having everything on board with me. Day two was at Thames and spent the day walking around with these two mates. day three i had a flat tyre so just chilled out around town while waiting to get that repaired. day four was main cruise and got no photos of the day but had some one snap a good side on. and you can also now see the new sign writing on the side of the bus, something little to brake up the stripes a bit and give it a bit of retro style. next trip was down to kapiti for vw nationals, first family trip with Tayla and @Mrs 64valiant made a few stops on our way down, stopping in at Ohakune for the night and catching up with @oftensideways and his family and getting those token new zealand photos didnt really have to many issues along the way other than just leaking gas from somewhere around the tank. and from here ive just been using it as a daily. other than eating a muffler in under 3 months it had been really good daily. the muffler is a empi single quiet pack exhaust and better suited for a beetle but i just made it work for the bus. it was hanging down a bit and had slowly worn its way through the muffler. so i brought a new one and cut the two of them up and modified them so i had a bit more clearance here in this image below you can see the new one dips down straight away from the flange. so i cut the old one up and done come calculations that it'd work if i made it straight then i cut the good muffler off and rotated it a few degrees and tac welded that in its place sent that home and then test fitted it again and adjusted the last tip on the end to be in a better position as well. call that a success. doesn't scrape as bad going in and out of drive ways now. next issue has been most recently and the engine hade been rattling a bit, didnt know where it was coming from. thought it was from the oil cooler tin wear. so u wedged a peace of timber in there to stop it from rattling well that didn't stop it from rattling now did it. mentioned it to a mate while he was visiting from the gate and he said i should take the fan belt off and that would help eliminate the issue... and yup it sounded great with out a fan belt on. so i thought i better fix it been it will be the fan and thats a pretty simple job. so proceeded to strip the engine down i got it to this stage and i tapped the tin wear.... she was rattling like no tomorrow. ment the fins inside were not tac welded any more. soooo yup, engine was required to be removed so i could take the shroud off. once it was off i shot around to the vdub shoppes home and he welded them up for me. now that the engine is completely out lets do some other things while we are here. fuel tank removed and sender unit seal replaced, over flow lines replaces and hose clamped on and i also gave the earth wire a clean going from the sender to the body, check out how fast this needle moves now now thats back in and running better than brand new time to carry on with the engine. ive been wanting to upgrade the carb for a while give it a bit more power by allowing the engine to breath so while i was at the vdub shoppe i grabbed a few other things i already had the manifold from buying a few od parts here and there so a 32/36 empi copy was a good option. also replaced the oil seals on the oil cooler while the tin wear was apart. plenty more to update you all on but that shull do it for today. when i log back on at 2300 i shall continue to update this thread with whats been going on. hopefully you have enjoyed reading

Mean! We have chassis rail and torsion bar crossmember. Stuck the suspension back in so it can go on the ground and lose the bracing for floor replacement soon. Part way through the boot floor at the end of the day. I have no rhythm so it’s my fault we buggered up the hump and we had to chop it out and make separately to cover the high portion of the tank.

Me and a mate built this at Uni as part of the design stuff for a competition, we didn't actually win on the day due to the way the results were calculated but we went twice as far as any other entry and i think they still use it as an example... Firstly, this is how it works, the basic setup. The red is a bit of 5mm polyurethane, all else is aluminium; Then you pump air in which seals the barrel and fills the outer. Once it is pressurised you remove the pump, the valve actually has nothing in it so the removal acts as the trigger; When the valve is removed the pressure on the polyurethane seals the valve/inlet and all the air rushes out, pushing whatever is in the barrel with it. And as promised, a video of it in action and some fucking dodgy editing for lols.

so oil seals done and oil cooler bolted back down. time to clean up the intake and parts so i can assemble the engine. a sweet before hand hit the tubes with a wire wheel and then a scotch bright from under the kitchen sink and after hit the intake manifold with a scotch bright as well to clean it up. ideally i wanted o get it vapor blasted but no one was open and i really wanted to get it back together so this will do for this time round. gave the twin port intakes a quick scotch bright as well. and after started to get a little bit over the top with my cleaning and cleaned the external of the fuel pump and alternator and then started to assemble the engine. had mentioned in a group chat that id like to hide the wires a bunch more and would like some spark plug wire holders to clean up. @flyingbrick said he had some anodized pink ones i could have, a quick flick of black paint and look good again. now i could try make the carb fit. turns out it liked to touch the alternator so i had old mate @Geophy make me a 10mm spacer giving me that little bit of room i needed it needed a bit of fine tuning to match my average tolerances but very good!!!!! fast turn around as per normal. boom that on and looking good with the tolerances i needed. now it was to make the linkage for the accelerator. had me thinking for a bit as its backwards to pulling how my previous one was. again we chatted about it and @Kimjon had a few good ideas which prompted me to end up making the final design. i had shot to the vdub shoppe to grab some other parts and i got this which had a big rod in the middle of it for adjusting. i didn't need it to adjust and a bunch shorter so i just welded it together and made it none adjustable. next i needed something to leaver the top and bottom, i had previously cut down a spanner so i drilled three holes in that. the accelerator cable will go in the bottom hole and the thingy i modified above will go on the top and will pivot on the center hole. make it look something like this as you can see i have also made a bracket off the bottom of the carb that has a small bolt with a couple of nuts on it so the cut down spanner can pivot on. actually here is a video of it working. the top image you can see I've put a spring on the back side to help with some resistance and making sure it pulls back to idle. with this all done i chucked the engine back in and fired it up. and fuck me i was pissed. engine still making a fucken rattle! so again i removed the fan belt, yup the fan was un balanced and causing some racket, so guess what i did. engine back apart. i wasn't so happy to have this apart. but again a quick visit to the vdub shoppe and a new one purchased also found my gen strap was a bit sad and had a big crack in it. hit that with the welder and grinder that fixed and time to chuck that back together All done, I managed to paint the engine bay cleaned up a few other things including some loose wires. here is what it looked like before hand psych, only kidding! thing was running like a bitch, so took it out to vdub shoppe to get paul to give me a hand tuning it. was pinking really bad and was maxing out the timing so i put a stronger spring rate in it. now its running at around 30-32 degrees. no more pinking and running really good, Paul also made it a it richer to try fix the down low stutter i was having. ive also repaired the coil bracket. welded that back together and painted it black, had already repaired the other side a while ago. also swapped out my J pipes for some vintage speed steeped down pipes keeping the heat away from the heads. here you can see the difference with them stepped down. put them on and had an issue with the exhaust gasket been to large which must be designed for bigger ported heads. you can see here these are stepped and the gasket wasn't sealing against the head. so standard exhaust gasket fixed that issue. welded up my bump stop brackets haven't put them in yet been to lazy. might try put them in next few weeks when i have some time off. and my favorite mod/addition i have done is putting in the front bunk bed that goes over the front seats for Tayla for camping. pretty happy with been able to steel that from a mate as he doesn't use that in his bus. That's that for tonight's post. kept me occupied for a hour or so. if you want to yarn about it head on over to the chat fred.

Lots of stuff happening, Got a few packages turn up from Azhar at PAC, Random rubbers, centre console, gear shift surround and RHD stereo surround all nice new and shiny, new RHD headlights and a heap of other miscellaneous bits. Ordered some new full height polished hexes for the BBS RS, New BBS centre caps and new chrome hardware so that all turned up so i dummied a rear wheel up. Lips have gone to polisher for the rears and need to decide centre colours before i assemble. Found this photo of when i test fit the 2 x 8" wides on one side (they are going on the front) and the above is a 9" wide to go on the rear. Fits perfect with the 4x114.3 diff (photo is a 8" on rear with a 4x110 to 4x114.3 adaptor spacer) Nice milspec engine loom being made up so thats already to go and the body loom being made up as well. Doors, guards and nose cone have been stripped to bare metal and epoxied, some minor steel repairs to be done this weekend too. then they are ready for panel beating. Grabbing the bonnet and boot to go to painter for prep this weekend too. Going to see progress on the body at fab on Sunday so no doubt will have more updates after that.

I think this thread is due an update. Let's do it multi-part. If you look at the top of this page, you'll see where I got to with trying to have my tail light surrounds vacuum metalised. A bit of a stalemate in trying to find somewhere to restore the chrome on them. I ended up deciding to look in Aussie and found a place called A Class Metal Finishers, south of Adelaide, who said they could rechrome the ABS plastic. No one I could find in NZ told me that they could do this, or if they could, that they could guarantee it would work. A Class said no problem. I sent over 2 sets of surrounds, they chose the best ones and put them through a full rechroming process, similar to what would have been done at the factory. And I am very happy with the result. These pictures do not do them justice. I actually think these might be better than from the factory - they feel about 25% heavier than the ones I sent away! Now they just need to be repainted in the right places and I'll be ready to start cleaning up the lenses and other bits of the tail lights.

Owning this car is great. It never uses any fuel because its in my garage on stands all its life. I think I filled its tank twice since the last update. The gearbox pilot bush started to chatter so the box has been out and in. Steering wheel frame broke so that's been off for repair. Engine revs now like it should so I tend to rev it more necessitating construction of a crank case breather. I have no photos of these fixes but I assure you that they have are completed. Anyway. This has been a bit battered body wise the entire time I've owned it. When I got it in +/- 2005 it had been a daily driver, caravan tower, take rubbish to the tip car. It had always been garaged but old Johnny had been struggling to steer it and took out the letter box and gate post in the time not long before I brought it off him. Its always been a little bit rusty in the bottoms of the front guards and the bottoms of the rear quarters, I've always intended to fix this stuff, get the battle scars out of the front guards, fix the holes from a long broken rear view mirror etc. now with lockdown giving me time to complete a number of more pressing projects I've taken the plunge and got stuck into this. I have some repair sections for the rear quarters that I made at tech about 6 months after I got the car, cant rush into things. Crusty quarters. Ill just put a patch in the bottom of the guard, that's all I'll have to do. Nope, end of the sill is rotten and the frame. Pretty happy with progress so far. I've rust killed everything, and blown 50 years worth of detritus out of the sill. Once the rust killer is dry I'll PA10 it all then weld the piece in place. Then it will be time to start on the guard frame and bottom,

Good Morning, and welcome to another day of cars I have wanted to own for ages, but have been too scared to, until now. It should come as no surprise to any of my regulars that I am somewhat a fan of Rovers. Generally unloved and kinda forgotten about (or remembered only as "the car grandad had), Rover has always been a bit all over the place as a company, but they could push out some great cars when they needed to. When you think about Rovers, you probably think leather, wood, big engines, soft ride and luxury... not Honda. Honda? What have they got to do with anything? Well, back in the late 70s BL teamed up with Honda to expand their range and help reduce platform development costs. A few years later, and a few "successful" platforms, the R8 was developed. The R8 was a platform that was jointly developed with Honda, who on their side, turned it into the Concerto. Rover took the platform and made the 200, and 400 series cars. Initially in liftback and sedan form, but the platform also spawned the coupe, convertible and touring too. Of course, Rover couldn't leave well enough alone, and instead of the double-wishbone front suspension the JDM cars have, the European Concerto and Rover use McPherson strut in the front. Apparently this was at Rovers request, as it has longer suspension travel for a smoother ride, is cheaper to produce and easier to package. Honda obviously didn't agree with this, as for years all their JDM cars had double-wishbone up front, including the JDM version of the Concerto. The rear of course was pure Honda, with a multi-link independent rear. Among a bunch of other engines available in the 200 were the 1.6L SOHC and DOHC ZC/D-series Honda engines, the infamous K series (no BHG jokes pls), and the T series Turbo engine. The T series is the focus of my attention here. A coupe with a 200HP 2L twin-cam turbocharged engine, a manual gearbox and a super aggressive and agricultural torsen LSD (marketed as "traction control") sounds like a winning recipe to me. This was a genuine, tested and proven, record-breaking 150MPH (240KPH) car. The coupe was developed after a few years of the R8 platform being around. The name Tomcat comes from the codename used during that development, and is such a cool name. It was originally going to be marketed as a sporty MG, with even the concepts wearing MG badges, but somehow found its way into the ranks of the Rover lineup instead. So that brings us to today, where after waiting a couple of weeks that felt like an eternity, the truck with my new car on it arrived. A 1994 Rover 220 Turbo in Tahiti Blue. It arrived with a dead battery (Which was a surprise to me, I was told it had no battery), but swapping to the battery from the Marina and much to my surprise, it fired on the first turn of the key and settled into a smooth idle. No smoke, no hesitation, no roughness. A quick drive around the block, and it ran and drove smooth. The engine revved well, and made all the right noises, but seemed to have no urgency. I suspect there is a lack of boost. I was told when I purchased the car that it ran but ran badly and would hesitate, bog down and run like a bag of diddles. I'm yet to see that. It is low on fuel though, with a dicky battery, which won't help. I'd also doubt it's been run on 98 as it should. Being me, I did preemptively purchase a few service items, so will be going through the ignition system to refresh that, just in case it was a weak spark that had been causing issues. I will also get my old boost gauge temporarily hooked in and see what the turbo system is doing. I have everything needed to build a diagnostic cable for the car too. Since it doesn't use OBD1 or two, it has its own diagnostic terminal under the bonnet that taps into the MEMS ECU system, and although cables can be purchased, it's easy enough to make one. The car isn't perfect, it's far from it really. The paint is pretty good everywhere except the bonnet, which has peeling clearcoat, but overall the car has seen a lot of sun and various rubber and plastics have perished, peeled, cracked or shrunk. It will come up nice with a clean though, and looks nice from afar. Of course the first thing I did was pop the T-Tops... The interior is the same. It's filthy and some of the seat stitching has blown out due to the leather shrinking, but it's all saveable. I'm looking forward to getting some conditioner into the leather. The AC has had the pipes removed, and unfortunately the compressor outlet has just been left open to the elements for who knows how long, so that is probably ruined. Apparently the engine has had the head gasket done, but with all the oil leaks and various scum everywhere, it's hard to tell what's been done and what was porkies. We will see in time what happens with the engine I guess. Hopefully it doesn't overheat, and I can get it boosting as it should. It does make a hell of a noise though, with a straight-through exhaust to the stock rear muffler, plus the pod filter hanging off the nose of the turbo. It's all growls and whooshes. I'm looking forward to giving it a decent thrash. The other major issue is the boot, which is stuck shut. You can turn the key and pull the release all you want, but it doesn't move. On most cars this wouldn't be an issue, just fold the seats down and climb into the boot. Unfortuanately in Rovers wisdom, they put the only release for the seat backs inside the boot >_< I'll need to do some digging on that one. I don't need to use the boot, but I wouldn't sleep knowing it was broken. There is a lot to do on this car, and I feel it will be a source of pain for a while, but once it's going as it should it will be quite rewarding to drive. These are getting to be very rare cars in turbo form, even in the UK, so saving one is a good thing. Plus, it looks bloody good.

So yeah, many years ago I met this cool dude called Chris. He lives in Christchurch. Apparently he was a born loser, but I liked him anyway. It turned out he was a bit of a badass, and was into the devils bikes. He had an Ironhead Harley. A handsome dude with a handsome bike. I was in love. Every time I'd call in and visit Chris, id have to pop into his shed and sit on his Ironhead chop. It was just the coolest thing. I knew I had to have one. Fast forward a few years, and an auto bid on a friday night. And I had purchased this non running, broken gearbox, POS. Yay, just what I need. More projects. But I enjoy self inflicted misery. So yeah, cool one. nice. Took my shitter of a ute all the way from Wellington to Wellsford to pickup this turd. Had my dad rolling up with me. We share a love of misery, projects and motorcycles. So both were equally excited at the prospect of acquiring another non running project. Both of us never thought we'd see the day when either of us would buy a Harley! Low and behold, April 2021, I became a Harley owner. Who would have thought. Made it all the way home. What a mish. We stayed in cambridge. But boy, a lot of driving in a turd of a ute. A relief to have it back in the garage. I'm sure the Harley would appreciate its new stable, adorned with French vehicle memorabilia, and sharing its space with and Italian stallion Laverda, a Miata, and some of japans finest 2 strokes!

I have quite a few fucks to give, but I would just rather do almost anything else but prepping for paint. I think its the visible progress to time ratio - i have a series of steps in my head for a given task and i think i tend to see them equally (they all get one line on the list?) and because this one step just takes flippin aaaages it grinds my gears. So anyway, got to the point where the diminishing returns of sanding yet another coat of filler met my level of fucks. Masked up. Basically only repainting the sill area, as the paint above the body line is mostly original but a bit patchy, and still has the pink stripes so i was hoping to sort of fade it in and cover up some of the worst bits from the bottom up. The front and rear lower bits have been painted before. I was worried the rattle can primer i used might react with the gun paint. Not enough to sand it off tho, hah. Primered And de masked (i may hate sanding, but goddam i love peeling of masking!) Nioce The paint is a few years old and while i stirred it pretty good i think it was a bit thick and should have put extra thinners in it as it wasnt spraying very well at all. I went over it with some thinners at the end which smoothed it out a lot in most places except here. I also put a texture line to match the factory 'tide mark' on the sills using primer with a very low pressure just sort of spitting bumps on it. Windscreen ready to go back in And done, just need to install the filler strip and this beastie can go back outside and go back to 'work' (ie going to the dump once a month or so) . Fired up first pop too.

With the Ute sorted, its back outside and the cars are shuffled back inside. Back to the Van. Dropped the rear axle for a cleaning up before refurbishing the brakes/new lines etc. This is the underside of the van - i know it looks like shit, but it's mostly flaky underseal/paint, dirt, 50 yo dry grease and surface rust. All the rails are solid and unbent, the floor is a bit saggy but thats from being loaded, not rust. Ill try popping that up a bit with a bit of wood on the jack under the thin cross members. I think ill clean up and brush repaint in the factory grey mainly around all the mounting points and areas that will be hard to access with the diff back in the way so it doesn't look too restored/fixed before i sort out a repair cert, and the rest ill give a tickle with the wire bush while the diff out and just brunox or something to hold it steady. Diff oil was actually not too bad, and given the amount of oil on the outside, there was a surprising amount still on the inside. Ill replace the diff pinion and outer axle oil seals too once i get them off and note the specs to order them from the bearing place. Only one broken fastener, which was one of the captive nuts for the sway bar mount so ill need to cut the floor to weld that back in. Always very impressed with the quality of Fiats fasteners, they very are rarely the issue irrespective of the state of the crap they hold together. These have an axle/hub setup like a beetle or kombi with the drum and hub as one unit, held onto the splined axle shaft with a big fuggentight castellated nut. Pass side rear brakes where already disassembled when i got the van, which requires removal of the hub and drum, and that hub slid off nicely. I suspect a leaky axle seal was probably the cause of the original brake issue but as a bonus it kept the spines well lubed on that side! The driver side on the other hand was pretty dang tight. The spline and hub rusted together. The man in the book has a special tool but i dont, so cobbled this up. It was stuck on pretty good! But eventually it popped off. Reference photos for drum reassembly below also show everything inside the drum is present and correct, which is as expected as the handbrake worked pretty good before, interestingly also has fairly low wear. Crusty spline will need some cleanup but a blast with brake cleaner already made a big difference. Ill probably replace the wheel bearing on this side while im in there 4x150 steel hub with integrated bearing, aluminium with steel lined drum. Brake surfaces are like new, no appreciable wear or scoring, the pass side is slightly worse, but still very good.

This made my day! I had the radiator at the shop to see if they could stop it weeping along the bottom. They filled that and then found the whole core was pinholed. Because this was the ‘big’ radiator, they struggled to find a suitable core and would have to make one. $780+ Im sure this isn’t the correct radiator for my car anyway due to how it was mounted. I asked on the Facebook groups and a guy 30mins away had one he replaced with an alloy rad when doing engine conversion. $50!! Super stoked! Always Wanted to stay original. Will drop it into radiator shop and get the mounts re-attached and then I’ll tidy it up.

Went and checked on progress on the weekend. Guards, doors and nose cone have been baremetalled, epoxied and had some minor steel work done so those are ready for paint prep. Have dropped the bonnet and boot to the painter to bare metal as well. Body has had a few bits and pieces done on it fab wise. Still lots to do but all the parts are there now more or less to get things sorted. Has a dummy motor and my FC gearbox sitting in the hole ready for gearbox mounts to be built.

Couldn't help myself. Needed to ditch those heavy cast iron leak prone calipers and replace all the brake lines anyway. Splashed out a little more for the 6 pistons up front (even though they visually look like a 4 pot). I need to replace the rear leaf spring and sort out the play in the rear wheel bearings before I can swap them on.

While the tail light surrounds were happening, I sent my inlet manifold over to a dude in Tasmania who modifies the stock rails with custom plenums, for a very good price. I guess I could have had this done locally but he had a bit of a production line going and it ended up cheaper this way. Plus, I think it's good to support people in the Gemini community. I don't have a before picture, but essentially I sent him this (excuse the stolen image): and received this in return: It's nicer than I expected. The plenum to runner transition is fully smoothed out on the inside and looks great. While I'm here, I want to run boost by gear and was trying to figure out the best way to get a speed signal into the ECU. I could have built some kind of trigger system at the rear hubs, but that seemed like a bit of a pain. Taking it from the gearbox seemed to be a way better option, especially as I'm already running some wiring for the reverse sensor anyway. The problem was that I also need to keep the cable for my speedo. This was one of those moments when you know what you need but just can't find it, even though it MUST be out there somewhere. I'd seen adapters for converting speedo cables to a signal for an electronic speedo, but needed one that still enabled the cable to be used. Fortunately, after some searching I came across the Brantz gearbox sensor, which fits between the box and the cable, and sends off a pulse. Pretty cool! Anyway, here's Wonderwall some pics :

Da truck floor is all but finished! And I forgot to take a photo! Cock move! Here’s a patch under the rear seat, there was some rust and it got mangled when we took the old spring mounts out. And I got the floor out and in, fit magic REALLY wish they had stock of the LH side when I ordered it. They had to supply pieces and they sucked. The front was a home-made looking piece that didn’t reach the edges of my rust, and the rear was actually in good shape so unrequired. Would have loved to have two nice pans and would have been half the work to fit

I just can't help myself, I needed to dig further into the Tomcat and see what was happening. So the issue I had was although the car was running OK on the one drive I took it on around the block, it ran really flat and there was no boost. I had read about the diagnostic tools available for the MEMS 1.6 ECU, and it was quite limited. I could either spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated scan tool for it, or make a cable myself and use the free software available. The choice was obvious, DIY. Three parts are needed, Housing - 571-172201-1Pins x3 - 571-170280-1-LPFTDI USB Cable - 895-TTL-232R-5V-WE Some crimping and soldering later, we had a proof-of-concept cable. Once the cable was assembled, and the drivers are installed, it is just a matter of plugging into the car and opening the software. In this case in using the fantastic piece of free software, MEMSFCR. I reconnected the battery, set the COM port on the software, started the car and the software connected with no issues. A quick check of the error codes and showed that I had one, the O2 sensor was reading out of spec. I changed over to the dials screen, and sure enough, the O2 sensor reading was off the scale And the short term fuel trim was trying to pull a large amount of fuel out But what bothered me was the MAP sensor reading. I noticed the needle pegged at 96KPA and sat there, even if the engine was revved. That's not right. This was also where I noticed the car was running like a bag of rubbish, popping and farting when giving it throttle. So I shut the car off and started hunting. Clearly there was an issue with the map sensor, so let's check that first. On the MEMS 1.6 units, the map sensor is inside the ECU and fed via a vacuum hose. Well, clearly I didn't get the memo, but it seems we have advanced to wireless map sensors now. In that image, the hose (orange arrow) should be connected to the black hose nipple (green arrow), but instead, it's hanging free, causing a vacuum leak and not feeding any data to the sensor. I removed the unreliable wireless connection and reverted to good old plugging it in. I fired the car back up, connected the diagnostics and instantly the car was already running better. Much smoother at idle and revved cleanly. The diagnostics were all suddenly back within range now too, with the O2 sensor, MAP sensor and Fuel Trim all perfectly within range. The MAP sensor was now changing with the throttle position as it should. The amount of detail and information that can come through those three pins was quite astounding. It was a bit late at night to take the car for a test drive, so I waited until this morning. Before heading out though I needed to fix another minor issue. My Wife has noticed yesterday when I parked the car in the garage that the taillights appeared to be on when the car was running, but the headlights were off. Turns out yes, there were lights lit, but they were actually the brake lights (although the high stop light wasn't working, as shown in the above photo). The switch on the brake pedal is adjustable, so a quick couple of turns of the switch, and the lights were back to working properly, but I still had no high stop light. Regardless, I embarked on a sneaky trip to the nearest petrol station with the sweet high octane fuel. 40 litres of 98 went into the tank, which in a tank that takes 55L from dry, means it was quite low. The pump certainly sounds a lot happier now. No idea what swill was in the tank, but I bet it wasn't 98. And the result? Well, we certainly have a lot of torque steer now, which also means we have boost again. I need to get a boost gauge on the car to see what we are actually getting, but I suspect it's not the full 12PSI and it does taper off quite quickly, so a smoke and boost leak test is on the cards. The main thing is that it runs really well, drives smoothly, and makes great noises. The temp stays steady, and the fans came on as they should. The brakes need a good looking over as they are spongy and have a bit of a wobble. One thing I knew I needed to fix before trying for a WOF check was the high stop light that wasn't working. They aren't the greatest designed light, and it was an afterthought slapped onto the boot lid of the JDM cars, as the UK cars never had one. It was made by L.E Perei, who appears to make lights for... trailers. Two screws hold the lens on, and then the actual light unit slots into the housing. Inside the boot are the two wires, with bullet connectors attached. Disconnect them, and pull the light unit out through the boot lid. All bulb holders and bulbs were present, one was removed before the photo was taken. The reflector was filthy, so that got a clean, but putting power to the wires resulted in no light from the bulbs. On the back of the unit is a basic circuit board that links all the bulbs in parallel. The bulbs work by just touching the contacts of the bulb holder onto the metal strips on the circuit. I tested all the bulbs one by one to make sure they worked, cleaned the contact areas up with the fibreglass brush, and fitted the bulbs back into the unit. A couple of bulbs only worked after some wiggling, but I got all of them working. The unit got refitted, and a bottle of oil was placed on the brake pedal to test. Aww yeah, look at that vacuumed carpet I reassembled the light, slammed the boot closed a couple of times to latch, and bam, suddenly only 4/5 bulbs worked. Oh well, good enough for a wof. Thinking of the substandard design, I'm going to look for a nice surface mount LED board to fit into a 3D printed housing that works inside the existing light. Do away with that rubbish circuit board completely. Speaking of slamming the boot, this is why it needs to be. My catch looks like this But it should look like this, with a plastic section on the catch, which would change how far the striker needs to go into the catch to latch it. The orange arrow shows what is missing. So I need a new boot catch. Yay. Until then, it's slammy slam time. That is where I'm at for now. I still need to reassemble the back seat, and then work on sealing everything that could leak so the car can live outside again.

I've been working away on cleaning the interior up while I wait for my rust dude to free up. The tan interior was bombed with a black spray can. A good way to strip the paint without damaging anything is brake fluid. Takes a a little patience but works. Also, got a sweet new steering wheel. Couple before and afters...

Game on... I've owned and patched rusty cars in the past, but never one actually worth a fair deal of coin, kicking off with this resto, I was more than aware it was going to take a good measure of thought before launching past the point of no return, aka cutting discs. A few weeks back I was trawling You Tube trying to find a half decent video of the type of repairs I knew were ahead. Between shite camera work and people who shouldn't be near a spanner (or a tin of bog) I found this guy: Nothing new, and i'm sure a technique i've seen before but the timing was on point, with a stack of mdf offcuts from house renos I set to it Remember this rot? I traced a pattern from the "good" side, flipped it, traced and jigsawed from a kitchen offcut, few taps later, my first non-flat panel. In place And compared to the not so rusty side Small amount of trimming before final fitment, but far better than I was ever expecting from a first attempt! Holding some motivation, I set into removing the car from the rotisserie to get at the bumper mounts, made the largest patch first and copied that for the other side All are now soaking in epoxy ready to get glued on later in the week. Looking at the pictures, I think I have brushed the primer on a bit thick, but not so concerned (yet), there was so much crap between the layers, paint is better than rust and this is better treatment than it ever got 50 years ago! I also did some more modifications to the rotisserie while it was off, the alignment between nut and threaded rod was pretty terrible making lifting difficult, i'm in the unfortunate spot that it needs to be raised and lowered to get out of the workshop, new mods should speed that up! Best part of the weekend is I'm now comfortable with the bulk of steps required to get the known rust out, hopefully the motivation hangs around!

Had a shit as sleep so today was a proper mission. spine of both quarters is welded and ground, didn’t move too much with the tig. this is drivers side behind the end cap above tail lamp Progress shot. rear parcel tray, tulip panel and window corners being gutted out. brother fanged out a new piece for parcel tray dropdown.. it rotted as the piece above rusted. he also made that bit which is a C section same profile (not pictured) here’s a throwback reminder. I fluffed around with the corners, pretty crazy shapes involved and 3 layers.