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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

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

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

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

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

Been using the car a bit and one of the few modern things I miss is central locking. I'd bought a kit years ago but never put it in as it was a bit cheap looking, so shouted myself a new high-torque kit from Bluewire (Aus) that is supposed to be great for classic cars... And pulled a rear door card off, looks like back in the day I'd used masking/insul tape and almost gladwrap-spec plastic sheet as a moisture/dust barrier... So thought I'd do it properly, scraping off all the old mastic and cleaning things up first... And pulled the door mechanism out. Also wanted to free thing

One thing I love about buying old and neglected cars is getting all the electrics working again. The Marina is no different. Much like the Mini and the TVR there were a few things that weren't working. None of the lights work, the wiper motor is disconnected, the washer motor doesn't work and the horn is silent. Basically, anything that is electric, didn't work. Before jumping into the wiring I had to fix one thing thats been bugging me. The boot latch and lock. When the car arrived the boot was tied down with string because the boot lock had been removed and was missing. As it

After picking up the new battery, I couldn't help myself. It still cranks the engine fairly slowly, but after starting it a couple of times with Start Ya Bastard, it started to run on its own fuel. Not only that, but after a cough and splutter, it now runs as smooth as a modern engine. It's amazing. It even starts easily and runs with no choke. The oil pressure and charge lights are off, indicating good oil pressure and the alternator is even charging. I'm well chuffed. So much more work to be done, but knowing the engine seems to be in good shape is a huge

Today has been the first real day of work on the Marina. I got some important prep work out of the way, and had a good look around under the car. The first task on the list for today was to remove what was left of the interior and give it a vacuum out. I had to wait for the muck to dry first, and now that it was nice and dry I donned my gloves and mask and went to work. The boot got completely stripped. The carpet was old house carpet and was rotting. Thankfully the metal under it is in good shape. Cleaning the boot also showed where the rust is. The worst rust in the rear gu

A some more. This shit takes fucking ages. It took me literally four hours of going from engine to bandsaw to sander to wire wheel to grinder to welder to sand blaster to wire wheel to engine to bandsaw to sander to welder over and over and over just to make this small bit.

Put discs on as it had scary braking. Same old story, get in to install the discs etc and find the ball joints are gone. I get new ball joints and when I get to the 2nd side I find the upright is flogged out (scary). So I do all ball joints and uprights. Then when installing the new booster find that the proportioning valve is in a completely different place with different sized fittings. So replace all the brake lines!

Struts are all welded up, thanks to my brother Matt for the excellent work They Passed their non destructive test at Stork in New Plymouth, And are now Painted, assembled and installed. The Front Raised and Compressed. The Rear, Raised and Compressed. Appears to be clearance. Will check again when I have some Air pressure in there. At its lowest point. It appears to be 10mm to the sill in the rear. And 20mm to the sill in the front. But I also discovered this Problem now things are going back together. Not 100% sure on h

Semi kinda mildly wag nats related

after fucking AGES of pissing about making various spacers and brackets and all sorts of other shit i have finally got the drivers door mirror sitting where i want it. yay. 2021-02-24_07-19-57 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-24_07-19-49 by sheepers, on Flickr 2021-02-24_07-19-39 by sheepers, on Flickr

Yeah so I think it took about 6 weeks for me to plan and get this past the wife - then my breaking my wrist and my fear of doing it again really sealed the deal for me personally. Seemed like I'd never get another chance to own something this cool. Guy from bike shop turned up with this And took away these Bit sad but I had nobody local who wanted to do ADV riding and it was a bit too punishing on the open road for my liking. So yeah, swapped two bikes for one. Have only ridden it for maybe 6 minutes in total, hurts like hell with the arm, b

Motivation is still strong so carried on tonight! Ignition system I looked at coil on plug options, yaris, r35 gtr but in the end decided on individual coils from nzefi these have internal ignitors in each coil. Decided to mount it on the rocker cover. Brought some spark plug terminals and shortened my ignition leads. Then started on fuel system. Turns out the injectors I bought are bigger than what I was lead to believe.. 550cc high impedance. See how they go. It's not going to be a daily driver.

Throttle positioning sensor! The one that was being used was a Bosch variable tps out of a BMW e series so I went to pickapart and grabbed one! I had to flip the throttle body housing as the accelerator cable bracket fouled with the bonnet tensioner bracket I was able to carefully trim the tensioner bracket back a bit and new insert for the spring to sit in. There was a grub screw on end of throttle body where the D went into the tps so I rotated it around 180 degrees as well now everything shuts properly. Hooked up the speedo cable whil

Also here are two terrible photos of the bottom of Matahina Dam. Sploosh. IMG_20210208_125236_1 by John Bell, on Flickr IMG_20210208_125232 by John Bell, on Flickr

Oh no, I just doomed myself. I've been looking at the primer on all the panels and thinking "hmm, it look really thin and appears to just be over the original paint". Well, I touched a scrap of wet and dry 800 grit to one bit and the primer basically wiped off So for the next 5 mins I continued on with said little scrap of 800 grit.... Theres certainly some mint Bold As Brass under there. There are also some small stone chips, and some thin filler. I think the PO used filler to plug the stone chips and then just rattle-canned primer over the lot. There is a white

The tape mark on the dash was from the boss being on 90 demerit points, he drove around for a year with the date on a piece of masking tape, when most of the points came back off his license haha

Tiny bit of rust on the firewall I fixed up Filled in all of the extra 'speed holes' And shot some epoxy, not super concerned on the finish for the interior, its all going to be covered by sound deadening and marine carpet. Got epoxy onto my dog leg repairs so I could fit these panels, rather happy with the result Bit of a tidy up and then we can get some colour going...

Crikey, I'm late to the wake, but that sure was a stunning Wagnats. Wonderful times, with wonderful people.

That's doesn't look like a KTM? Did I miss something?

Went digging in this corner and fuck me it's rust all the way down. Was hoping just to have to repair a couple of sections, but a lot was beyond help. Gonna have to walk away and have a beer and a reset, bit of head scratching coming up

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

Looks like a nice place to sink. I must have put these bits in the general jetboat thread, the other week we travelled from Thornton boat ramp up the Rangataiki river through Edgecumbe and TeTeko to the bottom of the Matahina dam. 8-2-21 by John Bell, on Flickr VID_20210208_141549_exported_18697_1612755261877_2 by John Bell, on Flickr That was nice.

Rigged up a trial run last night, looks like it will go ok, lots of clearance for the window and nice straight line operation with a simple bend in the connecting rod. The supplied bracket was too flimsy though and bent at the indentations of the door panel when I tightened the screws, meaning the plunger fouled against the edge... So made up a sturdier alloy bracket to fix that at lunchtime today, bar was thick enough to tap the csk mounting scews. Tried operating it with a small 12V battery from one of the kids toys, but didn't have enough grunt to lock/unlock. Hopefully a better test s

I managed to get the fuel system all finished and tested. I want to put in a efi fuel filter right before the fuel rail so I by passed it for testing purposes and just ran the feed straight to the fuel pressure reg 5/16 EFI fuel hose all round and new hose clamps all round. I used the original carb fuel line as the return so only needed to run 1 new fuel line to engine bay which is nice considering the price of EFI hose... Surge tank set up as follows. Lift pump from fuel tank to surge return fuel line to surg

I visited Treesus five times. All with different combinations of people, or by myself. Each visit was different and special in its own way. It's a Totara, which I estimate to be at least 600 years old. It's seen a few more Wagnats than we have.

I got this today, it’s a 660cc hoe engine, might of found another one to,

Hahaha. Yeah the way I see it- could have sped on the ktm, and could even speed in the Triton, but with the odd exception in very remote locations, I'm kinda past that and have been for a long while. I think iv had one ticket in the past ten years and that was for 102 with a trailer LOL. Mostly just wanted it "just because". Pretty much a tick off the bucket list. And because Ghost Rider. Edit. On a more serious note, REALLY looking forward to chewing some kms to visit friends and family around nz

I hope for your license's sake your wrist heals with less rotating travel than before lol I dont think I'd be able to own something that could do 2x the speed limit without cracking a sweat

Clint pls

Did a bit more.

So got a wof then I rewarded myself with a blue tooth radio set up in the glove box (rangi as but works) and some soundstream speakers Hidden behind the old 80s hi tech covers

I'm planning to retain the spindles and arms and will replace the vacuum system with a dual speed electric motor. As a Starter for Ten I thought I'd give the HiAce unit out of donor van number one a try as I'd already pulled it out a few weeks back before that van met its untimely demise. Looking closely at the HiAce wiper motor I noticed that it has 4 wires feeding it. First step is to figure out what each wire does, so I grabbed the spaghetti that is number ones old wiring harness and proceeded to separate out the wiper and windscreen washer wires. Attached to some of the wiper wi

Let's take the long way. It's better to pull over than drive home.

Have a swig love: That's better. The Royal Couple:

Mt Everest. No Bizzo this year (respect to that man), but a swell journey. To those who don't know, I received guidance from the universe that we needed to drink vinegar up the hill at Vinegar Hill. So, we polished off a bottle of DYC's finest apple cider vinegar. Results varied, but the hike, picnic and experience were A1. Hayhole drank the Lion's share, but took it like a reflective gazing champ.

Bridge party. I was blown away (figuratively, thanks to the safety rope), that we had 21 people partying the sun down. Rosé and Peach bomb; lost jandals and Michael Jackson; tail dragging @Brimmy and sheweeing. Magic.

I had to Google that to get that image above. Work phone... Just waiting for my boss to email me concerning breaching of my code of conduct.

Id invest the $$$$$ into a decent bike specific radar detector cause even when you pull out to pass a couple of cars a quick squirt on the throttle on a busa is well past loosing license territory

Weld a morris crank handle on for a familiar way of doing it?

Picture montage inbound: Flash paint booth set up for satin black paint magic!! Now wooden blocks, hoping the rectangle shape will prevent the helmets twisting on the blocks, plus the inlet square tube will stop the block twisting on the stand...well thats the theory. Test fitting, rough enough... Finish product: And installed on the wall: If you've noticed the deer heads etc, you appreciate im having a little fun with the heads (helmets) on the wall theme. But its also a good way t