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painted. 2021-02-14_11-35-37 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-35-02 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-34-53 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-34-46 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-34-38 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-34-31 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-14_11-34-17 by sheepers, on Flickr

20210129_194419-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Toyota Fest later this morning. Can't sleep. Too amped. Finishing touches to the detailing this evening, then I sat and looked at it for a bit. Man, I am super into this thing.

Yesterday afternoon I got to make use of the truck when we helped the neighbours do the hay. Every year we and a few other local farmers help them out with the hay and then we all get pissed and eat way more food than one should. Always a grand afternoon out Its been noted that flat deck farm utes suitable for hay are getting less common around these parts so they are super stoked we now have this truck...

Many years ago, about 14 years or so, I bought a car off a friend so I could learn to drive and get myself to work. It cost me $400 with reg and wof, and was awesome. That car was a 1976 Morris Marina 1.8 SUPER. It was green ("Spanish Olive"), and it was damn near immaculate at the time. The only issue was that it drank about as much oil as it did petrol and the second gear synchro was slow. I thrashed that for a while, but eventually the Japanese bug bit and I sold it when I picked up a dirt cheap N/A BFMR Familia. I sold it to a young kid who wanted it to learn in like I did, bu

Got the underseal done, used some tintable bed liner so it should be super durable. Came out so nice! Have been slowly assembling things that won't get in the way later. Installed a whole bunch of Kilmat pretty much everywhere I could. Once it's rollable again, going to try and take it in and get some new carpet installed throughout. Painted a bunch of stuff black this weekend. Not pictured is the sway bar, steering and control arms, steering rack and the new radiator support piece. Dropped the diff off to Geartech and

Need a ute to carry moulds for the engine project. So I got a 67 El Camino. Picked it up in Tucson and drove it back to CA without too much stress. Has the original 327 with camel hump heads and a modern (/80s) 700r4 trans. Ton of things to sort to make it a daily. Like it doesnt run very well! Timing feels off or vac advance isnt working. Carb seems way too big. It looks good from a distance but dont let the fool you!

Got the front crossmember back from sandblasting. The bottom had a few scrapes and dents in it, so made up a skid pate type thing and welded that on. Also while I was there, added a bunch of stitch welds around the whole crossmember. Sprayed some 2k black over it and few other things. Slowly assembling a bunch of things. Diff with new seals and assembled back together and then lifted in to place. Hopefully one of the last lots of zinc plating back. The 4 round bits and top right brackets are for a front brake upgrade (two sets

Long time no update. Wanted to try some stuff with the extractors, decided would be better off to make another set that will bolt in same place rather than mod current ones. made these pipes which have a very small taper down so can run a stepped section. port too big to run straight pipe. made a collector. idea was to try cut down the big open space where the 4 pipes connect. this is about how they will go. awaiting the flange and will need a few tweaks here and there. but all pipes are within 10mm of each other as it sits. other than the wor

More little jobs completed on the TK over the last week in between other stuff (like apparently one has to earn money to pay for mortgages etc = boring! ) The battery cradles needed attention. In fact they needed removing full stop. They were both right in the way of getting easy access to the passenger side of the engine. Plus they were a bit higgledy piggledy (thanks to Hannah's mum for teaching me such delightful technical words) because the truck was originally 12V and then later converted to 24v to suit the mighty Nissan donk and hence two separate cradles were in place...

There's been a 2012 Toyota Aqua 1NZFXE engine on Trademe for $520 a while... 50,000km old, but says it doesnt include any extras just sold as bare block essentially. It's been relisted lots of times over, so I figured it might have been picked dry of parts since the pictures were taken. The only thing I really need that might have been taken was the water pump. But even if it wasnt there, still a decent price for a low km engine I guess. Since it was for sale from a wrecker near my work office in Auckland, I thought I'd pop my head in while I was up there yesterday and see what's le

The idle is proving to be a little problematic on this car, it lopes away like it's got some stupid set of cams in it - but will work through this after Toyota fest this weekend, it's otherwise behaving itself well. Treated the car to it's first detail in over a decade, and maybe the first time I have ever hit it with some polish. First stage results below, wash and a hand cut (machine would have been much better, but you know). Paint isn't bad for a 14 year old respray done in a carport, it could be flatter but I know much more about what nice paint is now than I did then. 20210126_

I brought a bucket-list car! With money to burn from the Datsun 1200 sale, I was watching the market like a hawk. Lots of O.K stuff, lots of stuff that’s 5k darer than it should be, nothing really grabbed me. I had a flurry on a 180b SSS but timing was crook, I looked at the black Chrysler Windsor sedan on trademe with lust (should have got that one perhaps!). We spend 3.5 days at muscle car madness every year and I knew there had to be something interesting for sale out there. there wasn’t. on Saturday morning I spotted an auction for this 1970 coronet, freshly imported, i

Back track to day 1 of official Galaxie ownership.. Mike got her going for a trip around the block the day before, but unfortunately on the morning of picking up she decided not to play ball.. thankfully my trailer has an electric winch, and with I bit of finesse we managed to squeeze her onto the trailer.. damn this thing is big! Here is where she stayed for a day or two while I cleared the garage out enough for her to (hopefully) fit.. decided to give her a wash at the same time and she came up nice.. a buff of the paint I reckon would make a huge difference but I’ve never done th

Guess fucking what? Today i did more sanding!!! Fuckin big whoop. Only a few bits left to do now. She's looking pretty good tbh.

much better. after i took the photo i fucked around with the passengers side and got it sitting a lot better. 2021-01-26_08-21-42 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-01-26_08-21-49 by sheepers, on Flickr

Well, in a shock turn of events this arrived today. Didn't even know it had been picked up until Brent messaged me saying he was a couple hours away from delivery. Wasn't expecting it until the end of the week. Once again Brent from Classic Towing is a legend. Laid the bed of the truck flat down my steep driveway and winched the car straight into the garage. Its going to be a TON of work, but it seems like a decent solid base to start with. Found the re-rego documents from 1995 in the car, and its been owned by the family since at least then. "Movers of fine automobiles" - Damn

Heading to Toyota Festival tomorrow to pest around at the trackday. Gonna be good! I'm gonna take my GPS along, as I've got my suspicions that this thing might actually be faster than the Carina through some of the tighter corners. So since I've had all of this going on, and seeing how parts are cheap etc etc and I've been trying to make my other car as light as possible. I must admit I've had some sick thoughts about changing motor in the carina. A beams 3SGE motor is ~160kg. A 1NZ motor is ~87kg. That's just an absolutely incredible difference. So figure with a downsiz

mirrors. or more accurately, the things i forgot about and needed to sort out before i finish sand the car. and while we're on the topic. mirrors. or more accurately, the things i took off the guards and put on the doors. "oh no, it hasn't got guard mirrors it cant be Japanese you've ruined it" the guard mirrors are a fucking massive pain in the arse which you'd know if you ever had to live with them. the whole head moves, not just the mirror so as soon as someone walks by the car in a carpark you can no longer see. which necessitates yet another 5 min

Got my new front end in for a test fit, Then a mate bought round some 15" SSR Longchamps so gave them a test fit. 15x8's on the front, and 15x8 on the rear with a 20mm adaptor and stock width diff (my diffs 20mm narrower) so will be able to run a fair bit more dish Pretty happy with how they look!

had a long day wet sanding and now im super fucked but i got a bit done. first is some pics of how i tape the sandpaper together to fit the long board. the rest is the car about 3/4 sanded. 2021-02-06_05-31-06 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-06_05-31-14 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-06_05-31-21 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-06_05-31-30 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-06_05-31-40 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-06_05-31-54 by sheepers, on Flickr

I've got a bit of downtime until the next race meeting, so took a chance to get some long awaited fabrication work done. I highly recommend Nick at SAFE Engineering in Palmy for anyone who needs automotive fab work / roll cages / other small engineering jobs taken care of. I've been needing to update my harness mounts since the rules changed a little while ago. Nick added a fresh bar to wrap the belts around and keep the harness on a good angle for my new neck restraint. While he was at it, I got him to add jacking points to the sides of the car. The vertical tube goes through the

Slow 3 weeks but at this exciting time I was waiting until girlface is around to experience milestones with. In the mean time... I got the old busted fella out, found an almost-there replacement bolt and cut+filed it down to size, which technically puts me on one of the starting rungs of the "could fabricate engine from scratch" ladder. It was a relief to finally have a screw extractor work for me instead of deposit hardened steel in a critical area. It then worked for me again removing a nearby busted screw in the ECI. Am I jinxing myself? Thanks to @ProZac's old E

Update time! Took the corona for a wof and it just failed on minor shit horn not working, wiper blades worn and rear tyres stick out further than guards so pretty happy with that. Then not long after a 18rgeu supercharger kit came up on Facebook that a mate of mine sent me the link, turns out it's out of Josh's car (blowncorona) here on oldschool! The deal was too good to pass up so I snapped at it and just want to say a massive thanks to the guys who helped get it up here via wagnats I really appreciate that! Sc12 supercharge

I’ve got the flu so it ruined my long weekend plans. I managed a few wee low-key jobs though. blasted the bumper mounts and rust converted, wire wheeled inside the bumper and rust converted too. blasted the bonnet spring and painted cause it because easy access. pulled the rear side markers out pulled a drum off to determine what brakes I had, will do front shortly have made lists comparing prices for repair panels and rails so just waiting on previous owner to tell me what he has on order so I don’t double up.

so today i sanded that first coat of primer with 220 and they both came up pretty good so i put a final coat of primer on them. with that done all the priming for the whole car is done (in theory) so i started wet sanding. the wet sanding is going pretty well so far. im sure i wont be saying that by the end but whatever, lets get it done so we can finally get some colour on this thing! 2021-02-01_04-02-30 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-01_04-02-24 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-01_04-02-18 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-01_04-02-

Got the door back on, lined up and glass in. (back door is ajar) To get the window out, you need to remove the quarter window first. Installation is reverse of removal. Of course, I forgot this, but got there.

Woooow, long time. Looking forward to moving this to new shed and getting stuck into the rest of the floor/chassis repairs. She gets put on a trailer this Wednesday, many excite!

haven't had the best luck with my cars just recently. the brand new link dash i got for my v8 fucked out. the rear gearbox seal in the blue car keeps leaking and it turns out to be the rear bushing that the drive shaft goes into. the box has only done about 3000Ks max so that's a bit shit. its also a motor out job to fix it. i have been working on the crown but didn't really take any pictures. until today. ive been working on the back bumper, trying to get it to line up with the body better, and its better, but its a long way from perfect. its just so bent and fucke

Thinner layer of filler, a few days later this time sand, bog, repeat... Close enough for 10 days before Wagnats and seal her up with epoxy primer It will need a bit more work, but at least it’s good enough to go out of the shed.

Got the bitch home, just over 2600km later (after small tyre conversion to kms, odo shows 3200ish) Big ups to @Goatfor coming for a roadtrip with me on the way up and then back to Welly. Only one minor hiccup, it was raining from Dunedin south and a gust of air from a passing truck lifted the wiper up past the pillar and then popped it off the ball mount so I had to bodge it back together in the rain on the side of the road but no harm, no foul. Cheers again urrywun for the güd toimz

Oh yea fuck I forgot to post this. It's an American sales brochure which clearly shows how even toyota knew how much better the car was without guard mirrors.

3d printed some mock strut bottoms to check clearance, and heights. Then cut up some 4mm wall thickness pipe and milled out the adjuster dial, and plug weld holes. (first time using a mill in 9 years) \ The 3d printed bottoms showed that the rear bush needed to be offset to allow for clearance for the upper control arm. 4 jaw chuck on the lathe made quick work of that. Matt Tig welded the base together for me. And then I tacked them all together for their first trial fitment. Just need some wooden bushings to centre the b

I had limited time to finish the panel work, so got it to a level that looked OK, gave it a lick of paint and threw this back together. The door is pretty wrinkly, so I don't think I'll fix it... Fibreglass doors will be happening soon... Spent my birthday at the racetrack. I had a cold, so was off the pace a wee bit, but managed consisted 1.17's all day long. The consistency paid off and I came away with a win in the final race! I did a terrible job with my camera and didn't have any charge in the batteries, so here's the only vid that worked. I qualified on P2 against some m

Well it went off to the beaters on Friday for the repair cert inspection. There’s only 3 to choose from. 2 in one company. He said he wasn’t interested in any long term projects as he’s semi retired and will retire fully in December.. Said I need to look at the economics of repair. That was the whole email, lol. Mate, your the one charging $515 for an inspection! and I don’t fuck around, Im invested at 3 months turnaround once parts arrive! His co-worker is retiring too so that’s that for Hesson & Bowry. it’s not all doom and gloom, the beater is applying to becom

Boring up date on this turd Got the shits with stock ecu being a turd, and installed a g4x atom. wired it in to stock loom leaving the stock plugs in place as well. so could plug stock ecu back in. went something like this: had it running with basic tune in a day. then a while to get the alpha n tune and cold start, a/c idle up's with the stock isc to work nice. tbh i got lazy and never finished it properly and only has a road tune on it that spend an hour or 2 on. still, drives way better than stock ecu an uses quite a bit less gas. somewhere along the line i

Have a half day slot booked every weekend to smash some work on the Commy. Ended up spending the last few weekend slots fucking around with moving lockup shit around. But it's all in good shape now and managed to get some more progress this morning. Stripped the rest of the interior out. Stupid me should have done this before painting the floor (I forgot to take out the sound deadining from under the back seat) At least I now have full access for rewiring the interior. Going to spend a couple of days cleaning, vaccuming and tidying up the interior before doing anything more in there. Ne

Since I already had the clear coat I decided to re-do the hazy rear marker lamps too. Helped! and some stance inspiration

Warrant looming again soon, been watching this bubble in the corner growing. Today was the day. The inner was pretty heavily pitted so whacked a quick easy patch in happy with that. another wee hole up top, I’ve never had this trim piece off this lower guard blew out when I did the first repairs on the inner side when we got the car. I never bothered doing it justice cause I thought I’d replace the whole bottom one day. Still on board with this thinking so cleaned up, rust converted and slammed a patch in. It would have simmered away slowly

So here i was minding my own business. Then while driving through fielding I see this extremely sexy little mini dump truck on the side of the road for sale. Me being me and having a liking to cool handy little things I thought I have to have it. Rung the man turns out he was a elderly gentleman who had the mighty tipper truck since it was imported and used it for his nursery business, but with covid and age getting in the way he decided to sell this jem. We got to chatting about life different toys dogs etc etc, then he offered it to me for an amazing price. A few spe

Hi team. Its been a long time since the last post. Just thought I'd let you know most of this is back together and i have maybe 5 things left to do before i can drive it. Life has been a bit busy but i'll write up a detailed post when i have a few extra free minutes. keep safe

What more is there to say? It's not even the weekend yet and already the achievement is unlocked. I popped down to the garage this morning not so much to work on the car, but to test the theory that adding a ground to the starter might help. It didn't, but having the battery in the car again also allowed me to check clearance for the battery and order the Marina its own one. NS60SMF, the same as the TVR but with the terminals swapped. After cranking a few times the poor jump pack just couldn't keep up, so I resorted to hooking the Corolla up with jump leads and giving it a boost.

That week (the week before Kumeu) I decided to get my mechanic mate to run it through for a WOF.. he managed to score the least sympathetic old car guy at the workshop, but that was all good as it meant the car got a good going over (sorta). He failed it on a worn LF steering ball joint, LF wheel bearing play, and LR axle seal leak. Bit bummed to say the least but my mechanic mate said “she’ll be right” so I took the car to Kumeu and had a blast! This was the first time I was able to take an old car to the show and drive through all the crowds and park up on the field, and went

Bought this cheap outdoor furniture at the red shed several years ago. Thought the kids would have stuck their feet through the plastic basket stuff by now. But it still looks mint! The frame however must have been made from old vws and morris minors. Most people would chuck it away, but I'm making a stand on single use furniture. They all weirdly had rusted out in the same spot, so chop chop, zap zap, grindy grindy, and... Done. Still need to do the two seater.

Keen for a photodump-a-thon like last year?

Back track to Day 2 & 3 of Galaxie ownership.. getting her running.. My best mate is a Ford know it all (knows more than me anyway) so he helped me out a lot with getting her running.. we went through all the basics.. Pertonics was fitted but I read that they can get stuffed if you bugger around with them so I erred on the side of caution and took it out and went back to points.. bought all the stuff for a full service including new points, plugs, oil, and all the stop leak options I could find cos she leaks a little here and there. I discovered the earth cable from the back of

I had a fiddle with the indicators last nite and found a broken cancelling cam so added one to rockauto cart. Pulled what’s left of the fuel tank out, totally roached. Even the sender is just a blob of rust! also found another 3 dead bees/wasps inside the steering column..it’s a sign it needs to be a super bee clone!

so i finally finished the back bumper and got it ready for a coat of primer. on to the front bumper. the front was too wide and has been fucked with plenty in the past. the chrome bit was a cunt to get on because the holes were so far out. so after a bit of pissing about it became clear that i needed to cut 10mm out of the middle of the bumper and leave the chrome bit alone and it should all work much better. so thats what i did. i havent had a chance to bolt it all up and check everything but just holding it in place it looks pretty much bang on.

So checking out new motor. Has water cooled egr valve and water cooled crank case vent tube. Guess they try do everything possible to stop knock or misfire with a big egr amount. Interesting stuff, that, can fuck right off. The electric waterpump arrangement looks easy to wire up, 4 pin plug with two big and two small wires. Will be 12v, earth, then i suspect pwm input and maybe a return signal or just voltage for pwm perhaps. It looks like it would be easy to retrofit a mechanical pump setup or vice versa. Id like to keep the ewp for nerdy reasons but i suspect mechan