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Bit of a mockup

well then, many happenings have been happening. firstly my good Mate Adam strapped it down to his dyno and he had a go at tuning it. the fuel pump died and it was making 15PSI which is way to much for a poor little M122. so i pulled the fuel pump out and replaced it with a walbro GSS341 and i made a bigger pulley for the supercharger. while i was at it i put the colder thermostat in it. put it all back together and this morning i went back to Adam's dyno for another go. everything was working so we set about basic setup, this is where i discovered that id set the timing wrong and it was retarded by 15 degrees. dont know how id fucked that up but i had. explains a lot.............. so anywho with the timing right things progressed well and the thing made power without getting hot so thats solved. pics/video can tell the rest of the story. EDIT - flickr is being a dick and wont upload any pictures. it made 250RWKW and the torque is literaly a straight line at 280 foot pounds. but youtube is working so heres the vid,

It's off the rotisserie for now! Needed to sort out the driveshaft which require the engine and gearbox to go back in. Got the axles sent away to be shortened and resplined by 105mm a side. That meant I should make an attempt at swapping the Altezza LSD and the 4.1 CWP into the diff head. No pics because I didn't really know what I was doing. But for those that are interested I ended up using the LSD side bearings and swapped the Estima pinion bearings onto the 4.1 pinion. The Altezza pinion bearings where thicker which made the pinion gear hit the diff case. I couldn't get the wear pattern right because I didn't have any shims other than the two that were already on the pinions. Got it close enough for the time being, will buy some shims or give it to someone else to finish off. Decided to run Coil-on-plugs instead of the dizzy relocation kit, mostly just to keep the engine bay looking simple and clean. Got a set of 1NZ coils, I'm thinking of casting up an adapter plate for them. Got the SQ engineering down-pull throttle linkage installed and got the accelerator cable shortened to suit. Made a vacuum block off plate, since I hope none of that stuff is needed anymore. Also at some stage I filled all the unneeded holes in the front radiator panel. Modded the accelerator pedal so it sits a bit closer to the other pedals, as before it was way off to the right. Two-piece driveshaft all mounted now too! Think I got the angles sorted after spending far too long trying to work it all out. It's an Altezza driveshaft with the front half shortened (yes I know the front section u-joint phasing is 90° out). In this photo you can also notice the sills have been strengthened (somehow missed that update somewhere). Used some 3mm angle and welded it the full length and ground back, so it's now really straight! Then boxed it back up to the floor, to try and stop dirt and moisture getting stuck in behind. Makes lifting the car along there way nicer! This is the centre bearing support mount, much thought was also put into this! Hopefully it's fine being welded to the seatbelt mounts haha. Still needs some doubler plates welded on to the other side of the tunnel.

Much success! Got a VIN, Wof and Reg today! All ticked off and ready to roll. Now time for a few mods, Artillieries, whitewalls, hub caps and beauty rings Split manifold and exhaust Fit the Fulton Visor Lower Then she be ready for summer cruising.

Pretty well detailed now. Bearings, seals, cam timing, compression ratio all realistic. Now need to do waterpump, oil pump and drive to supercharger. Dont have drawings for any of that though so need to wait until the Bugatti Trust is open again.

Done! I took my kids around the hills last night and it blew their minds! They can't remember a time when it wasn't stuck in the garage so it was pretty cool. Big thanks to all you folks on here, you've been a huge help with advice/parts/motivation! Future plans are to finish tidying up the little bits of rust, throw in a 3.9 rear end that @Barnz.NZ helped me out with, maybe pop on some fender mirrors and debate if she should go low... But for now its time to eat up some miles!

heres the pics that i couldnt post yesterday. 2020-06-22_07-55-31 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-06-22_07-55-58 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-06-22_07-56-05 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-06-22_07-56-12 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-06-22_07-56-22 by sheepers, on Flickr

Filled in the tops of the sills, few smaller holes and a larger gap in the front footwells to fill. Cut the front cross member/radiator support off the ls400. As i have ordered a aluminium 1954 Chevrolet radiator to fit in. and took some time to start fitting the fenders and bonnet. Picked up some mazda 3 wheels. 15x6 50p with 195/65 tyres. Old man has some 54 belair caps that fit them, or i will get some moon discs. Front wheels are still not tucked under as much as i would like. But with the guards pumped out a bit, some adjustable upper and lower control arms, and potentially changing the offset of the front wheels ~10mm. It should be fine.

Woo hoo. Got this going over lock down. Put a new set of Eagle HT leads on as the old ones were tracking. Dropped the car off at the dyno shop on Sunday night, the drive there was a bit fraught. The car backfired into the intake and shot the caps off a couple of vacuum ports, I pulled the overflow hose off the radiator and plugged the hose tails with it on the side of the road, called it good and carried on. Was worried all yesterday. But. Good news. All went well! Gary adjusted things to 231.8 hp at about 4700 rpm and 274 ft lbs at 4700 rpm, Has max torque from about 3000 to 4700. It's 30 hp more than previous. The G3 works awesomely. Apparently it has ended up with a very unusual advance curve feels like it works well though, very well. Apparently there is about %20 driveline loss with a dyno like this so my 231 hp eguates to about 275 flywheel hp, on par with an E48 Charger! but with a 4/1bbl carb and sausage cooking gas! Anyway heres some pics of a couple of graphs. Apparently the hub dyno wouldn't fit into my low wheel arches with out the body being jacked up which caused the dyno to rattle a bit. I'm told thats why the line is a bit wobbly. Wobbly lines or not, it goes really really well now. Smooth, powerful, and lots of torque. Super pleased. The yellow line is the shit original "rebuilt motor" Red is the re rebuilt motor and Link G3 looking after timing.

After all manner of little set backs (and, to be honest, cock ups due to me not really knowing what I'm doing) I was starting to feel like this job was never going to be done and then all of a sudden, here we are. I have a blue car again. Managed to surprise myself by getting around the whole car with no major issues. The colour looks crazy different in bright light versus shade, it's very cool, I like it. The finish is a bit orange peely but I prefer fixing that to runs and there should be plenty of clear for me to cut that back and remove dust specks and whatnot to end up with a fairly nice, shiney, garage paint job. It's far from perfect but heaps better than it was beforehand, so for a first ever attempt I'm going to take that as a win. Once it has had a little time to fully harden I will cut it back, buff and polish it up and then reassemble with the many restored and NOS parts I have been working away on gathering for the last couple of years.

Right, babies 2 weeks old now so can continue playing with this thing. Worked our I’m still not getting full throttle. It goes well but not as fast as it should. Had a look at the accelerator pedal, found the problem. FUCK OFF, seriously?! Never have I spoken a truer word..... Made a nice new one and gave it more pedal travel. Guess what, full throttle now actually makes power, real power! Wheel spinning, ear grinning neck turning power. I’m a happy man.

And Im back, actually been doing a bit of work on this. Previous plans have led to abject failure, so have taken a deep plunge to do this right, once (although cheaped out on gearbox a bit) Have started selling off most of the engine bits and gearbox shown in previous posts here, and Im sure I will be left with a pile that will be added to the cupboard of broken dreams.. If anyone needs a new T3/T4 turbo, eboost 2 , tubosmart wastegate and bov... all for sale and more, listing in FS sooon. I have bought a Mendeola 2D box with a vertigate shifter, pro ringed, spool set up. Not new, but the previous owner put 980hp to the wheels through it, so it should hold up. Also bought a new engine, it is 3 months away, basic specs are 90 stroke x 109.5 bore , G42-1450 turbo, methanol injected (8 injector set up). Going away from any thoughts of street driven to dedicated drag car. Pic is similar to what it is, without the mount and inlet/exhaust going the other way for a rear engined set up. There is potential for a lot more HP than I think I will be able to put through the chassis I have. Longer term a tube frame chassis may be the go. I started this thread 7 years ago..... pre death is now the goal...

12 inch stockies on for a change, rides like shit but it’s ‘lively’

Lower hinge area is a double skinned piece Inner reinforcing section first Then the outer part

Bit of a sad update on my little wagon. Its soon going to a new home I'll miss this wee car. Its been great fun, tootles along fine, goes hard for what it is and has been bloody reliable too. However I have not been using much due to that slutty little minx of an Imp taking my fancy. Now if I had to choose one car that was to be the only car to keep for ever and we didn't have the old hiace van then I would probably keep the Viva, modify the fuck out of it as I had planned and make the most of its usability. But I have a van for usability and little Impy the minx is just such a hoot to drive on twisty roads (and will hopefully soon be very much more so but that is another story....) so the wagon has to go - because I am not Barry enough to be a car hoarder and I don't like seeing cars fester. So the wagon found a new home quite quickly. Its going to a fella up north who has just retired from being a fireman (funny that - because my other Viva went to a Fireman and I am also a 'part time' fireman.... @RUNAMUCK you have been warned. I see an old Vauxhall in your future ) The fella getting it already has a few Vivas so he knows them well. Wagons are a pretty rare thing so not surprised it got snapped up quick. Anyway. I stole the Turbos from it. I have been eyeing them up since the Imp came to me with my old widened Viva steels that didn't actually fit the imp properly. So a plan was hatched way back then. I re-painted the steels and had the tyres from the turbos swapped over. I had a spare set of stainless hubcaps I have been saving. On with them and wow ! I reckon it looks bloody superb but then I always did love the widened steels on my other Viva. I also nicked the Recaros from the Viva because they really suit the Imp better (little spoilt brat of a car) and the Mx5 seats were bolted back into the Viva. Its been a fantastic journey and I'm sure the story has entertained many of you along the way. But we only have one life and well... things move on. I do really hope that the next owner looks after this little wagon and it continues on being good at what it is- an unpretentious useful little daily classic I'm off to watch a movie and have a cry. You can send me happy thoughts and discuss what Viva Bart will be getting here....

Just picked up this old girl off a mate of mine who had owned it for about 12 years. It's going to be a hell of a lot of work to get it legal ago. He built it as a bit of a skid hack and not alot else. Has a 2l in with with a bit of head work and a cam in it with a 5 speed box. Has been c notched which I'm not sire of i will continue down that route or hunt down a factory chassis . I've got the grill and head light surrounds to throw back on which should make it looks a bit tidier Anyway on to the pics

So true to word I finished trimming and cleaning the ends of the chassis rails. I plan to trim these tabs off and replace them with some facing outwards instead. That will let me get inside the rail to clean it out properly and get some good rust preventative paint in there before the valence gets welded on. Before that though, I decided to make up the valence panel itself. I had planned to make a cardboard template to base my replacement panel off, but then I realised that if I just tacked the original panel back together it would make a perfectly good template itself. I had sliced it in half to get better access to the spot welds for removal but that was nothing the welder couldn't sort out. Finally, with the "template" back in one piece, I cut out some material and took it to a workmate's to borrow his swaging jenny. In a perfect world you'd make the whole panel out of one piece and reap all the mad cred for your panel beating skills. I realised though that I don't actually have anyone that I need to impress and it makes no sense doing something the hard way when the easy way reaps essentially the same result (cough cough sump cough cough). Also there was the fact that the swaging jenny's throat wasn't deep enough to reach the center of the panel if it was in one piece. So it came to be that the panel would be made in a total of three parts. I used the jenny to raise the long edges of each of the rectangular swages that run vertically up the panel. While I was there I also borrowed the sheet metal brake to put in the two flanges on the top and bottom, as well as the slight horizontal kink in the swages, about 25mm from the top flange. All the stretching and folding left the panel with some considerable internal stresses which gave it a fairly substantial twist along its length. Rather than trying to hard to correct it at this stage, I carried on forming each of the features in the hope this would help to relieve some of the stress and help straighten everything out. To finish each swage, I hand formed each end with a hammer and dolly, while using the vice as something of a stand-in anvil. I know that's one of the cardinal sins of vice ownership but I don't really have a lot of choice. They're not perfect and there is some bruising from being a bit overzealous with the hammer but it's good enough for the girls I go out with and it wont be visible when everything is painted and undersealed. These alone were enough to take the majority of the twist out. Next it needed a bend in the top flange to follow the original panel shape. The flange itself is around 25mm wide in the centre where the bend needs to be. That would be a fairly ambitious shrink even if I did have access to a shrinker/stretcher, and now without it's even more so. Happily one of the rear door catch bolts wants to exist in the same place as this centre shrink so by adding a cutout to go around the factory captive nut, similar to the factory panel, I made hand shrinking the flange much more doable. So the top flange is bent slightly while the bottom remains straight to weld to the outer rear valence. The top flange front edge was also trimmed parallel to the vertical section meaning the outer edges are narrower than the center. Looks pretty good so far. The last thing that needs doing to this centre section is the addition of the water drain points in the lower flange. The panel gets some speed holes from factory and wiring penetration points, all of which will love to scoop up water. Without some way to let this water back out you end up with a substantial rust trap. Ford knew this, hence there are these water drain points in the factory panel that I am going to attempt to recreate. Making my life easier again, rather than trying to form these points completely with a hammer and dolly and deal with mind bending shrinking and stretching, I opted to chain drill out the space above where the flange will be moved up into, then weld it back up once the desired shape was achieved. I don't think I got any photos of the welds but suffice to say I'm still getting my eye back in after the extended break. Nothing a grinder and paint can't fix though. That meant the centre section is more or less complete. But there are still the two outer pieces that need filling in. Starting with the driver's side due to its more simple shape. This one I did start with a cardboard template before having a go at the steel. It has a tricky double bend where the two folds are in opposite directions but overlap each other which the cardboard doesn't really conform to very well. This translated to similar problems with the steel and as such I didn't take many photos as I battled to fettle the panel into shape. Eventually though, I got the end piece tacked in place on the end of the centre section and fully welded up. Finally I gave it another test fit. I also folded the lower edge over to match the centre section but I guess I missed the photo of that. It ended up fitting really nice and tight up against the chassis rail and where the flange would be on the outer edge so I'm quite pleased with the result. Moving to the other end, the shape required is quite similar but the panel behind it is a bit different. On the passenger side lies the spare wheel well which had a flange on the rearmost edge for the rear valence to weld to. When I went to start working on the shape of the last piece of the inner valence, I realised just how poor of a state the wheel well panel was in. Being completely honest I fell down a rabbit hole and completely forgot about the rear valence for a while. The first thing I noticed was the signs of weld penetration from a patch panel on the inside. Next was the panel tacked on the outside, presumably covering a rust hole. So switching over to the inside of the wheel well, I hit it with a wire wheel to knock off a lot of the rust and shitty underseal and have a proper look at what I'm dealing with. Which wasn't pretty. There's at least two patches on the tub, one on the outer skin, one on the bottom, and one coming partially up the inner side of the wheel well. So rather than try to unpick everything and try to repair it, I threw a new slitting disk on the grinder and ran it next to the lower seam and bing bang boom, Yeah that's not going to go back together very easily. In any case, here's the panel I'm going to need to recreate somehow: Can you count the layers of patches? This one might be a palmside jobbie yet, but they only have the saloon version available so I might has well have a go myself first since an off the shelf panel will need modifying anyway. She's gonna be a pretty big job. If you made it through that, thanks for reading my typically over explained and lengthy post. Be sure to pipe up in the discussion thread if you have anything you'd like to add. Cheers.

The final piece of the puzzle for getting the interior finished was the gear and hand brake boots. The old ones were worn out, torn and manky. I couldn't refit them, they're letting the team down. Old Gross Stuff From day one I wasn't really happy with the boots and knew I was going to have to do something about them. The shift boot in particular just looks gross, all loose and full of splits and holes. The top of it didn't seem to fit either. And the hand brake boot was old and hard, with a big split down the back. Not to mention it was glued to some of the worst looking carpet in the car So I knew what I had to do. I could hardly just buy these off the shelf, so it was up to me to make replacements. Singing Machine The first step was to decide on a sewing machine and obtain one. We were lucky enough to use our Airpoints to get this, so didn't cost us any "real" money. Its a Singer Heavy Duty 4411 Its still a consumer machine, but its meant to be gruntier than your average dinky little white plastic thing. At the advice of my sewing pro Sister in Law, I also purchased a teflon coated plastic foot, some "leather" needles and heavy-duty dark blue thread. These items are highly recommended when sewing vinyl as its quite thick and hard, but will also stick to a metal foot if used. Automotive upholstery grade vinyl was obtained from Trademe cheap, as someone that had redone their interior had some leftover. This was perfect as it was dark blue and cheap. I did some initial practice on an offcut of the vinyl, just to see what the machine could do. It seems as long as I get the settings right, it actually does pretty well through multiple layers. Its been probably 20+ years since I last touched a sewing machine, but hey, I still kinda know what to do. Grotty Tracing In order to make copies of the old pieces I needed to unpick all the existing stitching and flatten them out for tracing around. I started with the hand brake boot as I thought this would be easier as there are only a couple of stitches. It was pretty gross. To be fair, most of it is old contact adhesive (why there is so much INSIDE the boot, well, who even knows?) This is the template I made on brown paper. I flattened the original out as much as possible, including the folded over edges. I then traced this onto vinyl, cut it out and whacked a needle through it a few times. The trial fit actually came out looking pretty decent The shift boot was more complex. For a start, it was all one piece, not four panels stitched together. This is the one real join, the rest are all just "fake" stitches. Eww, grotty. This resulted in a weird looking template Which I decided was too hard, so turned it into four panels, two short and two long (as the recess in the center console is rectangular). In hindsight I would make these from scratch instead of tracing the original, as it ended up with those weird looking shapes. Stitch Up With the templates traced up and cut out of the vinyl, it was time to get sewing. The trick here was to sew the inside seam of the two pieces, to join them together, and then stitch the outside to reinforce them, and give it a nice external stitch like the original had. If I didn't do that external stitch, you just get this ugly fold With all four sides stitched, and only a couple of issues (probably user error), it was time to trial fit The top didn't look right, so I tried folding it over and attaching it to the rubber boot under the shift boot It was better, although still needed some tweaking at the top. Unfortunately, the new vinyl is thicker than the old stuff so appears bulkier. It also needs a lot of free and loose material as the throw of the shifter is so long into 4th gear that the boot gets quite tight when shifted. This was an issue with the original boot too. A little bit of tweaking at the top and we had an OK result. I was planning on remaking it, but tbh its OK as it is and I would probably make it worse if I did it again All that was left to do was to staple the boot to the underside of the console, glue the carpet and board to the handbrake boot and install it all. One note is that the handbrake boot cannot be attached to the console, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to install it all in one go (or it appears that way anyway, the old one shows no signs of being attached previously). Jobs a good 'un.

Spent the morning cleaning up the last couple bits to put the subframe together, had the sexy @Steelies and his good lady Ms Steelies call in and say hi, then @LoveChild made a surprise visit soon after. Bloody nice of y'all. Decided I need a bunch of gold passivated bolts to make it all look pretty so compiled the bolts I need to buy and hopefully I can find them all this week. Anyhow after doing all those bits and pieces I got onto the bit I was not looking forward to which was to clean up the shitty looking brake calipers and mounts. Broke them down to the individual components and proceeded to wire brush the living shit out of them. I was going to vapour blast them but I'm happy with the outcome especially at the low low cost of 90 minutes of elbow grease and this before and after doesn't really do the justice of how much nicer they look now. So anyhow after a morning of filth and grime, I went to Ms Steelies coffee shop and rewarded myself with the finest coffee in Wellington (Coolsville in Hataitai for those who care) and currently kicking back in my tracksuit pants and hoodie in front of the heat-pump pretending its an open fire. Enjoying a windless but brisk Wellington winter afternoon listening to podcasts with my pussy giving me the stink eye. Your pal, Dave

Hi, Thanks everyone for the advice. Pics of my car below. Currently sitting on the wharf in New Jersey awaiting to be shipped. So hopefully I will be able to get it here and certified to enjoy this up coming summer cruising. Cheers

Well that all worked out well, better than I hoped it would to be honest. On to phase two of this project. As I said previously I want to get this running on LPG. I love LPG, and here's why. It's frugal, clean, and old engines love running on it. Sadly the filling network is slowly shrinking but I'm going to take the chance and convert anyway. So here's what I have. One 80 liter tank I picked up off trade me. it's a good volume and an OK size for the boot. It takes up a bit of room but this isn't a car I'd use for boot space. I've had the tank re tested and it's good to go for another ten years. I've clocked the fittings round to where I want them and put 20l in it at the local LPG pump. I want to do the filler like the VG filler. The original filler cap grafted onto the LPG filler cap mounted in the factory spot. Next I'll use this Impco L model regulator in the engine bay, it's the one I had on the VG first off so I know it works. And on the motor an Impco 425 gas carb. These are cool, basically a very large one barrel CV carb that meters LPG vapor. they are designed to fit a Holley 4bbl air cleaner and to bolt straight to the throttle plate of a Holley 4bbl carb. I have the throttle plate from an old 600 Vacuum secondary. Someone has drilled the throttle butterflies in the past but I've soldered the holes up and it's ready to use. I've cleaned the rust off the throttle butterflies since this photo. So there we go, all the elements of a half decent LPG conversion. I have a few odds and ends coming from Australia to tie it all together. So join me as I convert my car to run on a fuel that died with the 80s! Edit: Head over here for a sharn, and a cup of tea. I'll put the jug on now.

Well that VHT was a fail. came out sandy brown despite the cap being pretty lush and yellow..spewing. Quick dash to Mega and I got some more stuff as nothing suitable at work or repco BRO! Not even close, looked like arts n crafts time sans macaroni elbows. Wasnt about to go and get a $40 can of hammer-rite gold cause it was suggested it was a lighter gold and it’s a bit of a gamble/Jew. SEND IT. Actually looks great in person. The back is smooth yet the front is stippled so it calmed it down nicely, and the shadow effect from inner of spokes helps. Gonna let them sit inside overnite and smash some clear tomorrow. Fine print on VHT wheel clear says 7 DAYS to cure. god damn it. Let’s hope it’s hardy AF.

It runs, going to Ellerslie to have a burger and celebrate with people who understand!!!!!

Things recently happened as I remember them: 1) Another devil spawn produced 2) CRX bought, dismantled, found epic cancer that had shit repairs on the firewall (See: Actually held together by bog). Not mad just disappointed 3) Tried to put the CRX's B series into N360, that took ages, tried to cut the least as possible so I could change direction if needed. It does fit, but the cost is the hubs would have to be moved out quite some way, and thus the car would be about a foot wider than factory. Cool, but not something I want to do this time round. 4) Bought a Honda Jazz to try transfer everything over, which was always plan A, but when a B series presents itself for almost no money, you give it a go Said Jaaaazzzz. Been in a frontal, but still does skids (Y)

So I swapped out the ancient genuine Toyota pads that obviously weren't up to the job with some Ferodo's and also changed the brake fluid to something a bit overkill. The brakes were completely different after that, so much better. They were able to bring the old boat to a stand still from 100kph in under 4 seconds consistently, and cert man was happy. I've been filling time waiting for the plate by making up new brackets to fit my old Cressida visor and throwing on some clip on white walls for the complete sleeper look! Hopefully the cert plate will arrive any day now and then I'll be hitting the road for some quality road trips!

Gear lever in position. Gear lever Moved 190mm forward on gearbox, mount was cut off and the selector shaft shortened then mount welded back on. Means no need for loose linkage system to move the lever forward which should keep the nice gear change feel the box is known for. Can see it's quite a long way forward compared to original position. Nice lightweight panel to cover access hole. Engine sitting back in with front tubs done. Heaps of room around intake to have fun later on. Rear tubs in, the coil over mounts have been raised as well as I was running out of adjustment on the shocks. They have come up awesome, so tidy, Brent is doing an amazing job.

Link to discussion thread Thought I might share this with the oldschool community. I did attempt to attend an old school track day in Taupo right back at the start when I brought this car but had a shattered wind screen in Waiouru which prevented me from attending. So quick run down. Car is a 73 Ke20 2 door sedan which was aussie built. Check out the youtube clip of the cars first build below. SR20DET, roll cage, paint was all completed in Australia. Since I brought it I have overhauled most of the car, had some fun but now it is time for my version two with reliability in mind. Will start this with progress pics to date and take it from there. Original Build video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h35kYINEhaw From the drive home. This is how I brought it. First show. Now the strip and rebuild Stripped every bit of wiring from the car, all panels from doors forward removed. I have taken the entire fuel system out and will focus on the wiring aspect first then for a mix of all things to finish it the way I wanted.

The EJ Holden moves under its own power, probably for the first time since 1994 and possibly 1990. Managed to get round to my mates place about half a k away and back. Found a water leak from it looks like the lower radiator hose. The brakes have a reasonable amount of travel and need a good shove but work OK. I'm going to have another go at adjusting up the rear brakes tomorrow. The steering isn't too heavy, not power steering but not bad. Lots of little but time consuming things to do. The electric fan is on all the time, I suspect the temperature sender has died, it's buried under the throttle body so that has to come out to check the sender. I installed my new H4 semi sealed beam headlights. They are flatter than the old fully sealed beams but worth it for the brightness. Lots still to do but massive step forward. I think this car is going to be lots of fun.

New Exhaust out through the sill to get it clear of the ground as I kept knocking it. Fuel/surge tank boxed in for a cover. Most of the bits back on. Wheel base has gone from 1300mm to 1400mm (standard AE86) so will be interesting to feel the difference. Fab work should be finished this week.

The final part of the interior job was to recondition a few of the switches. The window, panel and headlight switches all needed an overhaul. It was pretty obvious just by looking at the window switches why they needed a strip down and clean It's no surprise that the windows were a tad slow, and the connectors had taken a real beating with excessive resistance melting the plastic around a couple of the pins. A sure sign of bad contact. I decided to start with one of the window switches. These were filthy, having soaked up any fluff and muck that has been in the center console for years. Start by removing the top casing from the bottom, using a small screwdriver to unhook the clips on each side. Before I removed it, I marked the top of the switch so I could refit the casing in the same orientation. With the top casing off you can see the switch guts Using that same small screwdriver carefully lever the toggle legs off their pins and lift the toggle up off the base. Take care, as under the toggle are two small plastic spring loaded pogo pins. Don't let these ping away. After a quick wipe down to remove the dust and dirt, this is what we have Make sure to note which way the metal strips go as they aren't all the same. These are the little pogo pins in the toggle. They should face the other way with the spring going first into the toggle. Remove the strips and inspect the contacts. Mine were coated in old dry grease and corrosion I took the time to clean both the contacts and the strips and then using fine sandpaper give them all a good polish The outer casing was given a good degrease and clean inside and out The holes the pogo pins go into in the toggle had to be scraped out as old grease had solidified in there too. The pogo pins didn't escape the cleaning, they carefully had all the grease removed. They needed it. Once everything was clean it was time to reassemble. The strips and contacts got a thin coating of dielectric grease, as did the pogo pins and the toggle was refitted to the base. The casing was reinstalled and we were ready to go. The action was now quite nice and solid. The muck in it previously must have been dampening the feel. The other window switch wasn't any better, so that got the same treatment. Next was the panel light brightness switch. Unfortunately, this was in a pretty sorry state, with cracks and missing plastic in various places. Thankfully with switch doesn't get a lot of use. The contacts and strips in this were disgusting Everything got cleaned up as much as possible The cracks in the casing were glued up, and it was refitted. The headlight switch was the last one I wasn't to overhaul. The connector was in very bad shape, so I wanted to be sure the switch wasn't causing it. Looking at how clean the switch was, I suspect it was recently replaced with a New Old Stock item. This was mostly just old congealed grease. All that got cleaned out and the contacts polished And that's the switches done. Easy to strip down and clean, with minimal moving parts. They are quite a reliable design, but let down by not having the housing a bit better sealed, and the old grease drying out. Before I could refit the center console and switches I had to do some quick repairs to the connectors on a couple of the switches. The headlight switch, in particular, had an issue with one terminal falling out as the plastic had melted from around the pin. I had obtained replacement plugs from Minispares (Part PM03) as they sell a kit to replace the connectors for the Classic Mini hazard light switch. The plug isn't identical, as it's missing the locking tabs the TVR has, but it's a nice tight fit regardless and shouldn't fall out. The kit comes with new pins too, but as my pins were OK I chose to reuse the existing ones in the new housings. Using a small flat blade I pushed the locking tabs on each side of the pin in and slipped it out the back of the housing. Flip the tabs back out again, and into the new housing it goes. The big white plug is the old one, the black one is the new one. The only other one I needed to replace was the blower fan switch, as for some reason this didn't even have a plug at all, just bare terminals stuck on the pins and wrapped in tape! Bodge city. This was as easy as just transferring the pins into the housing in the correct order The center console went in next, and it was finally time to refit the switches into their freshly wrinkle-painted panel The radio blank needs to be stuck in, but it looks good with the rest of the console The switch panel looks a damn sight better than the old peeling and rusty look The windows are still slow, I'll need to get in there and clean and grease the runners as I did for my SD1 (same regulator), but the blower fan and headlight switches work more reliably, and it appears I've gained a new full brightness setting on my dash lights. All in all a good achievement, even just to know the switches will keep working for a bit longer.

Since a majority of the engine is modeled and most patterns have been printed I am going to move on to the car (since I dont have a workshop at the moment to do casting). The Ol' man has offered to have a go at making a chassis. I just need to provide him with tooling. The first approach is to try and make it using the original method. Which was to form sheetmetal over a mandrel to produce a C channel type chassis rail. The mandrel is out being manufactured now.

I managed to fit 3 of the new tyres last night. Stupidly I left the 4th wheel at home as I had separated it from the rest to sort tyre sizes a while ago. So I bolted on one of the originals just to be able to put it on the ground. The GN tyres look pretty lo-pro and sporty on it, but I don't think they look kosher enough for when it comes to on-road-inspection time.

Took the truck for its first major drive on the weekend did a 40km return trip out to Waihi Beach and she run flawlessly! Have had the Artilleries rebarreled as after sandblasting they had a heap of holes in the barrels. Wheel and Frame in Cambrdige rebarreled them with 7 inch barrels instead of 5.5 they were factory. Centres were riveted in from factory so they drilled these out and welded the centres into new barrels. Mate lined up to paint these this week then the whitewalls can go on!

Did some more digging. Managed to make it a bit better with hammer and dolly. Weld up the holes. Power file

fuck man, i did like a million skids on the way home from the dyno.

So after selling my old ke35 in Nz around 9 years ago I’d always pondered getting another one. This one popped up on gumtree over here for $7500 and after a quick phonecall to the owner I pulled the trigger and bought it sight unseen. It has a few minor rust spots that he sent me photos of and a rebuilt small port 4age with 264 cams, wolf ecu and extractors backed up by a t50 gearbox. Fingers crossed it’s half as good as the photos make it out. Future plans I’m undecided. Originally I was thinking slam on 13” work equips, ssr’s or equivalent but depending on cleanliness I may just tidy up the rust spots and lower and keep as is. Should be in my possession around the 30th of June.

Keeping on theme with the left-hand side... Rear quarter has taken a hit at some point and been "dent-pullered" out, and smoothed over. So i un-stitched all the mess and started again. Due to me being a muppet - lots happened and no pics got taken!! So.. many hours of hammer and dolly, welding etc. etc. Still have the rear valance to straighten, lengthen, and reattach..

3 Link done. Required driveshaft length has turned out to be 898mm so any plans for a 2 piece are out the window as there's not enough space for it, it would be just all fittings. On the flip side does mean less weight slightly and no need to mount a center bearing.

smashed some progress, on this today, thanks heaps to @Mitch.W for doing almost all the work while i stood around, talked shit and drunk beer. Mitch spent ages on the tig and fabbed up this lush new subframe on the bike. thicker rear stays in the same spot as the stock one but the thicker pipe looks way better. a nice flat frame with a wee kink at the end that all ties in nice and level with the tank to give a lush flat backbone to the bike. I cut the mounts off the swingarm for the shocks are remounted them on the inside of the swingarm to narrow the shocks up which also helped heaps with the bikes aesthetic. Nice wee tank mount, unfortunately theI cheapo chinese CG tank isnt level so the left side drops below frame, might grab a Jap CG tank if one ever pops up. m super stoked how it all turned out and cant wait to make a seat base for it. I might still shorten the rear guard out as i dont know if i like it out that far but will see once the seats sorted.

Wanted a reliable wof/reg do anything dualsport adventure bike. Kinda wanted a dr650 but totally failed and bought an 04 ktm 525exc instead. Its pretty much as per standard except for ohlins steering dampener. Hopefully can get it road legal but even If that fails I'll still be super happy. It's probably gutless to some, but for me it's just intoxicating- and now that I know how great the current knobbies are, it seems a shame to put road legal rubber on. 61hp and 112kg dry, so goes a bit better than a dr650 at 37hp and 160kg (from memory) So far I have bought a cool dual sport helmet, some decent boots, handle bar control switches, a cush rear sprocket, factory indicators from a ktm Duke, some t6 aluminium to make a new side stand, a folding aluminium ramp, a center stand lift thing and a pair of pirelli mt21 tires (road legal) Here's some pics from the past week, thanks to @64valiant for assisting with pickup, driving and providing clear and correct directional information.

Progress is happening on the rust!! WooT!! Also went to do finally assembly on subframe today and had a bit of a hiccup with some nuts and washers, even though I gave the nut and washers to the guy to match, he still got them wrong, cue RAGE QUIT. (probably exacerbated by cunt of a job it is to get the lower suspension arms in, 4 things have to line up and they don't) But at least I got the brakes back together.

What's the last pic of? I cant see anything Also lol at @piazzanoob plate. Sounds like something my dad says. Good to see the galaxie is mobile again

Made some progress on the outside of the big corner job above Welds got a bit hot and bowed out a bit, so I dug some more bog out. Bit of a mess under there.

Getting the car ready for paint I decided I needed to address the rear guards. I have never done anything like this before, Ive always outsourced any welding work but reckon its time i learn. Purchased a very simple small mig welder after some advice from knowledgeable friends and have been practicing on some flat bar today using .6mm wire and argon/CO².

I found the 4th wheel and fitted it last night Also picked up the head from being hot tank dipped and fitted it with the new gasket. For my own future reference: 360 in.lbs is about 30 ft.lbs, but the internet suggest using 20 ft.lbs so as not to strip old studs out of the cylinders. Next up I'm going to whip out the engine and electrics and give the whole chassis a steam clean. I've had enough of working on such a sticky greasy thing.

This arrived today! I always wanted a really nice wooden steering wheel for a classic and after uming and ahing over a nardi I decided to go with this momo Indy. I think it looks the part. A shame the rest of the interior doesn’t match yet. also found some inspiration for what I would like to do with wheels and jdm lip.

The sparky attacked it today and tidied up spaghetti junction. Got everything sorted really nicely and I finished off the bits I needed to. with some fresh fuel and a hint of brake clean in the air filter she sparked into life with a fairly distinctive Bridgeport brap. Once I’ve fitted the gauges and run the wiring well wrap the wires nicely. got to take it up the road very quickly, seemed to be running well. will drive it home tomorrow night and take it for a wof check on Saturday. It currently has a green sticker so will have to go to somewhere like vtnz. Yay.

Even @Yowzer puttered up in his shitty grey Tiida through the fog with his lights off at 55kph on the open road to Auckland

Hack-oss-ka-nundrum. As we know, KY had an overwhelming fit of Good Cuntary and sorted me a new boot badge from Japan after I gorilla'd mine. To be fair, it was epoxied on so I didn't really stand a chance. First thing I noticed was that the new one had four mounting pins where as the old one was held on with double sided tape & glue. I assumed it was just an old badge that had got damaged so cleaned the old glue,etc off the boot to find the holes. No holes.... I had a check from behind, as well as i could through the holes in the frame and there is sign that they've been welded up or anything. All very strange. It looks like it's an earlier boot lid, but even then most of them seem to have a badge, even the 4 cylinder cars. Never mind, guess I just bite the bullet and drill holes in it. The badge just clicks in blind ( if I get the drill size right) which maybe explains why the original one got broken in the past as I can't see how you'd not break it trying to get it off. Better get me some brave pills and a decent ruler. Gulp.

Brent is working away at a great pace. Here's a good shot of how far over the engine is to the left. Struts swapped left to right, bottom arms modified and tied back to the chassis, instead of the stock starlet swaybar which goes forward. Driveshaft tunnel tided up. We are going to have to move the gear lever 190mm forward to get it into the right position (more info on that later). Beginnings of rear changes, 3 link going in. The whole axle is being moved back 50mm and tubs going in the rear, so quite a bit more cutting to go...