Leaderboard

With raglan nats already organized I thought that would be a good target to aim to get this done by. Parked motorbikes at the back of the garage to avoid distractions for now Ordered a few bits for it this week, fingers crossed rockauto solves my brake caliper issue. and fitted a wastegate this weekend. I think the next step is put the engine in the hole and start making exhaust and intercooler piping

The better half and my self have been honing our skills of late. Thats right boss. Hours of hard yards have been put in out in the garage. You all know it and have no doubt also spent many hours doing it. .... Standing there with a beverage staring at an old jalopy, talkn shit and do'in sweet fek all. But seriously what have we been up to other than throwing back jars and chin wagging you say whilst dressed in trendy garage attire. Well ladies and gentlemen wait no longer for here is yet another riveting update to cover the little bit of work we actually did. Radiator all plumbed up. the finned metal hoses bend and hold shape well. like how its kinda central in the engine bay. Replaced the hose clamps that came with it with stronger jobbies as I couldn't be feked with hoses blowing off and coolant going everywhere. Moved on to hooking up the column shift to the trans. Using an IDIDIT GM/700R4 universal shift kit. Thinking being since im using an IDIDIT column it would all just be bolt on. Well that was the theory anyway. Basically it would work fine if I was LHD. the instructions are nice and simple and kit straight forward and well made. Would just bolt in. Being RHD its all opposite though and naturally the American brand dosnt included any instructions and when I contacted support I got no help and basically told me to fek off. LHD shifting would pull the cable out as it moves from park through the gears. RHD we push it in as we move through the gears from Park - 1st. Rejigging at the column is an easy fix. just throw the car in park pull out the cable and hook it up (As pictured). Basically doing opposite as instructed. The bracket that fits to the trans had to be bent so the tab that holds the cable pointed upwards not downwards. Then an extension made up for it. Reason being that the shift arm on the trans is made to point downwards and pull through the gears. Since im pushing through the gears it had to be mounted up top. So the bracket that holds the cable in place had to also point up. Simple enough I know but thought since IDIDIT support and engineers where about as useless as tits on a bull I would flick it up encase any other Kiwis or RHD owners needed a bit of help. Shifts easy though the gears. Clicks from Park to 1st. Ordered a heap of fittings for the fuel system. But before I start hooking all that guff up it was deemed time to finally finish up the gas tank thats mentioned in a previous post. Its made to nestle up nice and happy in this rather large hole that was cut in the boot/trunks floor. Its hard to tell but the hole has been braced up fro the underside so when its all together the floor will be sandwiched and nice and sturdy. Since the lid was still off it seemed a good time to put together the in tank fuel pump. Overkill to be sure since its only driving a few carbs and not fuel injection. But it has good reviews and is supposed to be pretty quiet so I was like mehhh seems easy enough and should be "hook it up and forget about it". Its an Aeromotive Phantom in-tank carb setup. Basically meaning it has a regulator (pictured there front center) that drops the 320psi pump down to 15psi. Also has its return blocked with a removable cap. Comes with pre-filter pictured along with that sponge tube that you cut a tad higher than your tank and acts as a filter and a baffle. Also put together the Dakota Digital universal sender. As with all there stuff its a nice bit of kit with simple instructions. Has the ability to fit in a huge range of depth tanks and works with many gauges. Anyway lid all TIGed up. Thanks lads at Kirk Irrigation for that by the way. Also got them to attach the filler neck and drain. Holes added before assembly to make life easier. Then the sender and pump just all dropped on in to place. Under the car it sits up nice. tucked just above the lowest part of the chassis. Should be no scrub line issues. Also still has a nice amount of clearance from exhaust - its why its an odd T shape. Up top it is about level with the lip of the opening. Will have a floor mounted above it latter down the track. The rest of the other bits of the fuel filler neck still to attach pictured above. Also pictured is the cradle to hold the battery box that we wiped up to hold it all nice and secure on the right side. Just using a standard marine battery box. Fits up nice in the back fender as shown. Can vent it through the floor. Will have a panel to hide it from view down the track. The battery only just fits in whats good i guess - no slipping about. The big bugger should power everything I need and flick over the engine no worries. Looking at either welding cable or 1guage wire to carry the current up the front. earths all over the place of course. So picture the above with panels. sides to hide the battery and tool kit along with fuel neck that will live on the other side. floor to protect the tank then front panel to hide the airtank and amp whilst also adding sound deadening to the shut up those two pumps. Now getting back to my original comments in this post. That being the standing staring at the car. Maybe moving something a fraction taking a drink and repeating the process. Side pipes seemed like a good excuse to practice this. We had to go through the process of draining a few cans to use to hold the pipes in place first of course. Sacrifices we make aye. Note the said cans are crimpled in the middle otherwise they are much to high to suit the air out stance with the pipes. Front grill also seemed like a good excuse. Pondering a 1950 Buick grill. Middle section should fit in well once pushed back but its overall width is wider than the car. Dont really want to cut the chrome as it is so nice so I guess if we use it we may need to flair the guards a bit. Already planned to do this a bit to get better wheel travel for steering when air out but hmm I think this is something a few more brews and staring might require. All this is much down the track of course. Tiki - such a great helper. You got a wire he will attack it. Drop a nut and he will soon have it flying across the garage floor ending up down the side of some thing out of reach or under some other heavy obstacle. Told him I would stuff him is such a pose if he keeps annoying me. Guess he is happy with that idea as the little shit hasn't stopped.

I had a lot of issues with the printer. Clogging, warping, delaminating, poor quality 10kg of material wasted and 3 weeks changing parameters but learnt a lot and got it sorted. Now I need to figure out if I can recycle this stuff!

Well today the car passed the compliance recheck and I now have 12 months REG and 6 months WOF. Thanks to those that have helped me during the build. Now it’s time to relax and enjoy the old sled. Beer o’clock for me I will be parked up at chrome this weekend weather permitting. Come say hi.

Was at a compliance center today and they had a pair of seats they had taken out of a Prius of all things... anyway I asked if they were for sale and now I own them. Head rests are a bit big, but they are very tidy with no rips and the foams in the base are good. I put one in the car and it looks like they are going to be very easy to fit, if I swap a couple of brackets side to side, the inside will bolt in with some doubler plates, and the outer will bolt on to the bench seat mounts. They even have a pump up lumbar thing so I can take old man @sheepers for a ride and his vertebrae will be suitably supported

Just thought I would update this just so it didn't disappear into the nevernever, but then realised I had actually made progress since I last posted on this thread. So firstly my excuses for not doing much... Got hit by a drunk driver, (he was speeding, no license, no WOF/reg since 2008, etc, real winner), lost control and crossed the centre line at well over 100kmh. Hit us and we did a barrel roll (at least one, not quite sure). Mum and our little dog were in the passenger seat, were mostly fine (Mum headbutted the window) but luckily avoided worse through sheer luck (it didn't actually land on her side at the front, went driver front, passenger rear, etc) and Mum held the dog as we went over so she came out unscathed. I however fractured my spine (roof came down to say hi to my head), luckily nothing too major as far as spinal injuries go (compression wedge fracture in my thoracic spine, loss of about 35% height on one side of one of the vertebra), but meant that I couldn't lift anything for what turned out to be about 3 1/2 months. Stupid thing was I was also reaaaallllly gutted about losing the van too (I know "it's just a vehicle, they're replacable, bla bla") but it was a 92 4WD 1KZ-TE Hiace Supercustom, and was fucking awesome. In really good nick, only 200,000kms on it (not a lot for one of them). Only had it about 5 months. Anywho, have mostly recovered from that (happened mid March), and then the other thing that has eaten my time is the tiny house in the background. Been working on it off and on, a lot of off while I did my study etc, for about 3 1/2 years, and it's finally almost done, move in in August is the goal. Will share photos in another thread at some point once it's finished and looks less like a building site. On to the ute, before the accident, I had actually made some progress and taken a few photos, so here goes: Bought adjustable arms for the rear, RAW shocks, Dobinson 4" lift springs, as well as an adjustable panhard rod, all roughly set up until I get the engine properly mounted and the front done so I can measure the angle on the output of the gearbox to get them equal. Sat the body on, and the shortened tray. Need to lower the cross bar to the height of the piece of timber that's clamped on there. Body is just sitting on the pieces of timber at the moment, but that puts it at the right height for everything to fit Mocked the front end up, tacked together the shs rad support so that I could mount up the radiator and intercooler (which is probably to small, will likely get on same thickness and width, just taller and notch the bumper so it sits in, then holesaw the front for airflow. Have done a bunch of research, small jobs, bits and pieces etc, since then, but not a lot. Once the container is done in the coming month, this will start getting time and money thrown at it again. I desperately need to get some paint on it soon (probably just primer until I have everything properly mounted and can do the bodywork), as the fine rust film on it is getting less fine, and it is a Datsun. A big part of going forward with this is getting the engine (RB25/30DET) so that will require some financing, hopefully in the form of selling my Mitsubishi Challenger. If anyone knows of one, preferably a runner as I don't want to do a refresh on it (for the sake of time/expense) at this stage, let me know. Also need to order some parts from Superior Engineering in 'Straya, so that is gonna cost some money too. Let me know what you think in the discussion thread: Cheers, Hayden.

I am practically a farmer so I need a truck. Made sure my Tetanus shots were up to date and got this. But I really don’t need another project. Wow, I suck at this. Mean tractor grips though, so WIN.

Got another throttle body adapter plate made in ali this time, thanks to @Stu . Plus some more throttles, which still need more mods, but done enough for test fitting. Been working through some clearance issues. chopped up and shortened water outlet as fouls on the front throttle, it welded horrible because old cast ali, but should be good enough. alternator is in the way, think have a solution sorted with a smaller alt and modding the bottom water pipe so it sits closer to the block. Blah, pictures:

So... a change in the place i took this for a WOF meant it had a bit more of a thorough inspection. It didn't fail but he mentioned that some rust in the passengers floor would need attention soon. So some investigation happened. Turned out that hiding under the sound deadening was a little more serious than anticipated. Likely a leaking windscreen caused this. Out with the cutting disc and I had at it! And then glued it all back together Grind, Sand, and Prime - phone was left in the house so no pics except after And finally a renewal of paint and anti-chip coating. A nice tidy up for it.

We never got onto the interior, got a bit side tracked with my mazda. But after hunting off and on for some other wheels, a mate spotted these on facebook. Stoked with the fitment, and best of all, Rebekah agrees with me that it needs more low, so I've been given the go ahead to go down another inch and a half. After a morning at the hotrod breakfast, she now wants a small front chin spoiler/air dam.

How it looks now. All 50 shades of white. Needs a battery then can take it for its first proper drive.

With the welder out for SLEEEK's floor repair, i figured also fixing the other quarter window on the racer was probably long overdue. Some BS repairs from the past that were 90% bog. Repair the inner bit and the reinforcement. Fill other rust holes. Measure and make the outer bits. Glue it up. and 200% betterer...

Actually, i did buy some floor pans! Kinda progress..

Time to cut some holes for valve seat inserts. We have a Sunnen VGS for all our head work. First picture is setting up the tool cutter to cut the hole. We are looking for between 3-5 tho crush. Once holes are cut just hammer the inserts in. Then turned down a intake valve and a exhaust so had something to check valve spacing and clearance of the side of the bore. I detopped the inserts in the VGS and then surfaced the head. I didn't get a picture of it in the surface grinder as there's pictures of that previously. Here's the valves. And a shot of the head bolted on to the block looking into the bore to see how much clearance the valves have off the side of the bore.

So fast forward nearly 2 months and took it first test this morning. So much fun. Massive props to @Geophy who helped out with pretty much everything. Still need to tidy things up and sort wiring, but yeh, so stoked to have it ridable. Was being a bitch so didn't do a high speed run but goes plenty fast enough for what I want

Outer pattern prints complete.

Connected the battery and the spark plug leads that i had removed to test something on the ute with, and it fired right up! Hopefully a good sign. Video below is the second start and first drive out of the shed for two years. Went well, but the rear brakes are binding which suuuuuuuuux as this was the last thing i did. Might just need a drive. No road drive due to the 2 of 4 doors missing or not closing and a loose bonnet Good opportunity to hose out the shed too! Somehow it looks even smaller with nothing in it! Made a new metal board rack for the back wall from the old clothesline bars that came in the back of the van, much stronger and can now easily fit 12 instead of 9ish max All the primer spots are areas that i have picked scabs or chopped out rust. None of them look like they have blown out again, so thats nice. Still a few to sort out, including the front passenger door. Front just needs a paint. Both doors on this side need a lot of work or swapping. Engine bay still looks nice (this is after a wash, blast with the air gun and lashings of WD40) Swapped the new welder over to 0.6mm wire (new roller came in - thanks AliExpress!) from the 0.8 i used on the exhaust and turned it right down to melt in a few patches on the front passenger door Goes pretty good, but its tricky to avoid the blow throughs on this old thin steel - i dont think the amps go quite as low as my old one even tho they both say 30A min, i think my old one was 'optimistic' even tho its actually more useful to be able to go lower on thin stuff. I have also (finally) replaced the liner and torch on the old one so i might fire it up and see - i probably should anyway to make sure its ok before selling it (or keeping it!) Happy this is making some progress again.

AMAZING AUSTIN FACT #1: The Austin 7 was the first production car to have the controls as we know them today. I.e Clutch -> Brake -> Accelerator etc. AMAZING AUSTIN FACT #2: I learnt this one the other night while pulling apart one of the doors to have a look at its rust... Austin 7's have a wooden frame! The wooden frame thing was a bit of a shock. Here I was one minute looking at the door thinking it should be a pretty easy rust fix, then pulling off the door card off the next minute and finding that it was actually going to be a very challenging rot fix... My skills at steam forming ash timber are fairly limited, and while there are companies in the UK that manufacture the parts, I'm too tight to spend that kind of money. So my loose plan at this stage is to replicate the ash wood parts by cutting and laminating ply. Worth a try anyway.

Slowly but surely

Spent another day machining stuff. Finished tapered tubes. Machined more off the back of trumpets, as was pointless weight. Made some bosses to make a new vac chamber which sits on the under side of the throttles. Cant use plastic bmw one (in bottom picture) since have moved the throttles closer together

Another year, another wof and year's reg.. Ready for her annual road trip all the way to hamner and back..

today i drove took the car for a decent drive, first drive since power steering install. fuck me, its a different car. the old steering box was fucked which didnt help but man its a different car, both in carparks and on the motorway. so much better! and during the night time i decided i wasnt happy with the sub box i made yesterday so i made another one today. its much better, sub faces forward instead of sideways and the box fits into the car better. the internal volume is closer to what i was trying for as well. every body's a winner! 2019-07-28_04-20-39 by sheepers, on Flickr

I'm happy with the valve size. So I cut seats into the new valve inserts. I cut all the seats as close to the same height as possible. Al my work mate had done some research into the best seat angles, and we used a radius throat cutter profile. Once they are all cut to the right depth and right size to get the 45degree seating where we want it on the valve face we are ready to synchro seat the seats with the stone gear. We believe this gives a good sealing finish on the seats. I didn't get any pictures of this, but basically you face the valve seat grinding stone on the valve facer to get the same exact angle. Here's a picture of me stoning the seat. You can see the seats are polished up. I now check to see if they are seating the whole width on the valve face. I didn't get a picture of this. But we use a engineers blue to wipe on the valve the put the valve into the head and push the valve onto the seat and look to see if the engineers blue makes full contact from the valve to the seat. So the valve and seats are done. So I need some valve springs so I went down to Kennelly Cams to see PK and Adam. They have a good selection of springs in stock. This is also where I got my cam reground. So running the FE Mazda valves I need to use a different valve spring retainer to the stock xflow item. I looked at using the FE retainers but unfortunately that was going to make my spring install height to tight. The spring install height is the measurement from the spring seat on the head to the valve spring retainer. Stock xflow is around 33mm. So that's what I'm trying to get close to. So Al grabbed a Toyota 1kz retainer and we took a measurement and they looked like they would do the job with a bit of turning in the lathe. You can see the spring isn't sitting in the right spot. So I made a arbor to spin the retainers in the lathe Finished retainers sitting on the spring.

Andrew kept having issues with filling his filter with mud, so I decided to put filter in the frame. bribed @MikeDodd to laser cut me some manifold spacers, I cut the frame and welded a intake tube into place. Silicon hump joiner to connect carb to that, and works pretty well. Airflow should be fine, as isn’t totally sealed, - will make a side cover with vents to close the side and keep mud out Made a terriable high exhaust.

"Straight through" Holley NH carb's share many parts with the economy version carb'. Same basic thing, but the economy version had more restriction. I'd be tempted to smooth the venturi a little, as it has a rough finish, but don't want to mess it up. I'll choose to believe that rust pitting help the mixture. So i filled in some pitting around the rim of the bowl seal with an epoxy. Used white metal normally used for engine bearings to build up work throttle shafts. Drilled small holes in the broken castings and poured white metal into them to build up the areas where casting had broken off. Built up the worn nut with more white metal. First i tried to replace the bronze throttle link with chunks cut from a worn bronze bushing, that turned out to be fragile. So i riveted and soldered, with more white metal (more resilient to vibration than solder due to no lead content) copper strips. I choose to believe i have improved this carb's condition compared to when i found it.