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Last night at Nightspeed. Suuuper busy, but it was really awesome to see a big crowd at the drags, lots of spectators too. Was a cool atmosphere. So first run, set the hoosiers to around 20psi which is very high, but wanted to start out conservative. Ran a 14.092 @ 100.21 mph with a 2.33 60ft. So first run and I've beaten the Carina by every single metric. What the hell! But so stoked! I was convinced at this point that I'd get a 13 tonight. Second run we dropped the pressures a bit, launch wasnt so good and I ran a 14.1 with a higher 60ft. At this point I figured I'd probably cursed myself saying I'll get a 13. Looking at the logs of both runs, the motor was bogging a bit when I was trying to roll into the throttle and clutch. So third run, set a launch limiter at 5500rpm. Full throttle sitting on line, dump the clutch. And holy fucken shit. No wheel hop no big spinning, just felt like stretching out and releasing a rubber band. It felt so much faster than my first run, I crossed the line realizing it must be a 13. Absolutely fucking stoked beyond belief Get my time slip and was blown away 13.83 @ 99.6 mph with a 2.1 60ft Was in about 5000 out of 100 fizz mode, it was so cool. I didnt get any more runs, because it was incredibly busy and was already 10.30pm or so by the time they started the eliminations. But it's incredible to think that it could still possibly go faster yet. Even just doing that time was incredible. It felt like it could have easily launched another 500rpm or 1000rpm higher and hooked up good. Will be back!

Been printing some tail light plates to adapt the lexus bulb holders to the 54 chevy tail light. This would be version 3 or 4. In PETG and handles the heat fine. Also Made some sheet metal caps to cover up the loom and main 50mm2 battery cable. Will be carpeted over eventually. Still need to extend it up a bit further beside the rear seat. Finally found the confidence to attack some of the many wire looms too. This one was stereo, air conditioning, trunk release, cd changer etc etc etc. This pic is from halfway through, with some stuff already removed. All done and wrapped up. (more was removed since this photo) What had been removed. In the trunk, i made a battery floor and shelf to hold the Viair compressor. Stainless strap down the front to hold the battery in. That matches the fuel and air tanks.

Whoa, the throttle bodies on these things are a..... thing. I got the above jigsaw all back together. Turns out I'd lost one of the plastic spring bushes, and the flange on the other was cracking off, so I grabbed an off cut of acetal from work and turned up a couple of new ones. That let me get the thing reassembled. I took a heap of photos of how everything came apart, so getting it back together wasn't too much of an issue. Kinda fiddly in spots, but follow your nose and it goes back together reasonably easily. The throttle shaft seals still seemed pliable and plump, so I didn't replace them... Time will tell if that comes around to bite me in the ass. Ideally I'd like to go with some sort of e-throttle setup in the future. There wasn't actually a complete throttle body with the car when I got it, so I purchased this one secondhand, and it was pretty filthy: But, it was complete, and moved smoothly :-). After stripping, blasting everything (lots of careful masking involved), kind of a pain in the ass.... Much better. But holy crap, there are a lot of adjustments on these things! There are threads all over the internets of people having problems setting these up, so I thought I'd better develop a plan to follow. Not saying the plan is a 100% way to go, but I need something to follow so I can go through a process and collect data, and iterate from there. Going to write this plan out here so I can refer back to it later when I've forgotten all this again. The first screw I've set is screw A. This is the stop that the single butterfly stops against. This single butterfly feeds the primary intake ports. As it's in the name, these port are the primary ones, so they're used all the time, along with the primary injectors always delivering fuel. My initial setting for this is that the primary butterfly stops against this when it is fully closed. After aligning the throttle blade, and thread locking the screws in place, I let the throttle close as far as it can against the housing. I then advanced this screw till it was just in contact, then about 1/10th of a turn more. This should mean the throttle blade is never eating the throttle body housing, but closes as much as possible. Screws B and C adjust the cold start warmup system. You can see the two black pipes in this picture. Coolant flows through these, which warms up and extends the wax pellet push-rod screw B is pushing against. Unfortunately they're a little corroded on the outside, but there is still heaps of metal there. Will always run anticorrosive coolant in this, so should progress any further. This wax pellet rod extends as the coolant gets hotter, and retracts as when things cool down. This screw is threaded into a cammed bracket, which has three marks on the cam (one of them is obscured by the red oval I've drawn, but its there). The FSM has specs for the relative positions of the roller on the bracket screw C threads into (we'll get to this one in a minute) and the cam at different temperatures. The upper most (in my picture) mark should be central on the roller at -20degC, the next one down at 0degC, the next one down at 25degC, and finally off the lower edge of the cam at 60 degC. It's pretty hot in my office today, so I've adjusted screw B such that the roller is lined up with the third mark. Screw C adjusts how much effect this cam actually has on the throttle blade position. As you screw this in more and more, it opens the throttle blade more and more, as long as the roller is contacting the cam. I suspect the final setting for this will be such that the roller separates from the cam just as it is passing over the lower edge, with without a sudden jump in its movement. Currently, I've set it so the roller is only *just* touching the cam at this 25degC position, for reasons that will hopefully become clear :-). Cold start systems are important, but they're only ever going to work properly if the base idle speed with the engine at normal operating temp is setup correctly. The throttle obviously has adjustments for this as well. Screw D is called the Air Adjust Screw (AAS), and screw E is called the Throttle Adjust Screw (TAS). Screw D has a tapered end on it and fits into a matched tapered orifice. This orifice is connected across either side of the primary throttle blade, so as you back the screw out, it allows more and more air to bypass the throttle blade. Screw E is the stop for the the secondary throttle blades, and sets their closed position. In practice, these screws have the same effect on the idle, in that they will let more air into the engine. There is a slight difference though, as at idle the ECU wont be using the secondary injectors, so adjusting the idle with screw E will let more air into the engine via the secondary ports, but this wont have any fuel injected with it. This wont be an issue though, as at idle things are happening very slowly, and there is heaps of time for the charge to mix in the combustion chamber as it whizzes around to the other side of the motor to make brap brap noises. Reading the FSM, what I can parse out is that you use screw E to broadly set the normal operating temp idle speed, and then screw D to fine tune it. I've set screw E in the same way I set screw A, such that the secondary throttle blades fully close to within a bee's dick of the throttle body housing. I've wound screw D all the way in, so there should be no air bypassing the primary throttle. The last adjustment is the damper dashpot, F. This is a damper the throttle closes against. It's hard to push in, but extends with no effort. Lots of bump damping, no rebound damping. This needs to be set with the motor at normal operating temp, and such that the throttle breaks contact with the plunger at an engine speed of 2600 - 3000 rpm. Obviously this will need the engine running properly at N.O.T. To setup, so I've wound it out so it doesn't contact the throttle at all. Reading through that, there might seem like some odd decisions, as I've essentially set the throttle up in such a way to ensure the thing isn't going to idle. It's going to have almost no air bypassing the throttle, will starve and die. This is for a reason however, and comes back to how I like to tune a setup. First thing is to get the engine firing and running, probably with some throttle manually applied. Then I can get it up to temperature, check for leaks, fires, all those things. With the engine up to temp I can use screws D and E to set the normal operating temp idle. It's really important this is done without the cold start system having any effect whatsoever, as if it is, when you go to set the cold start up, your normal idle setting will also be effected, and you'll end up chasing your tail. Now, the FD also has an ECU control idle air solenoid which can allow varying amounts of air to bypass the throttle, but for all this initial mechanical setup, I'll keep this unplugged to eliminate it. AFAIK the ECU only uses it to idle up the motor when the A/C, power steering, or alternator are loading things up. There is also the TPS to think about. The FD TPS is a little odd in that it has two analogue output channels, narrow range and full range. Talking to Ray (arghx), it sounds like this is a throwback to the FC3S days, and probably something to do with Mazda re-using existing code in the FD ECUs. Total speculation, but having been an engineer on a few evolving projects, this is totally something that would happen. The FSM has specs on setting this up. With the throttle closed, adjust it so the narrow-range signal is between 0.75V and 1.25V, and the full range signal is between 0.1V - 0.7V. I powered up the TPS from my bench supply and set it thusly. Strats: Stock ECU initially, to get things running, proof the rest of the system, and ensure it doesn't burst into flames. It's a 'known quantity' as such. Make the thing run, will need the throttle manually opened to keep running. Get it up to normal operating temp Make sure everything is functioning like it should. No error codes from the ECU, so no limp modes or anything (exception to this is the idle control solenoid, but I can trick the ECU into thinking this is fine with a resistor in its place). Adjust the warm idle speed to just below target (~750RPM) with screw E Adjust the warm idle speed to the final target with screw D. Adjust dashpot F so the the throttle breaks away from the plunger at an engine speed of 2600RPM. Turn the thing off, go inside and have many whiskies. Recover from hangover. Remember: You're old now, this might take a couple of days. With the thing dead stone cold, try to start it with no throttle applied. Expectation is that it will not start. Advance screw C 1 turn, try again. Repeat this procedure till the engine starts with no manual throttle opening. Idle speed should be higher than warm idle target. Allow the engine to warm up, idle should reduce gradually as it does and the wax pellet rod extends. Iterate from here. The only screw that should need adjusting at this point is screw C. Hopefully I can pull that off. In other news, most of the supplies needed to build the EM (main engine) harness have shown up! Huzzah! I'm going full ham-spec on this. The car doesn't need it at all... But I've built lots of high-tier harnesses before for other people, and I really want something totally schmick for my own car for once. M22759/32 throughout, twisted, DR25 sheathed, booted, sealed.. All the good things. As much as can be with using OEM automotive connectors also. I've designed it with lots of extras in mind down the road, as I don't want to have to build another one for this car, ever. When I want to change out the ECU for something other than the stock one or a power FC I can just make adaptor harnesses at the ECU end, nice and easy. Just got through the design process for the layering, built a test section for the main core to make sure it was going to lay up nice, looks lovely :-). Progress is progress?

Yeah, after my second run I had a sinking feeling I had some beginners luck and I wasnt going to dip into a 13. I was praying for like a 13.999999 haha. But then when it hooked up like that I just knew. Man it was awesome. And yeah, my last run was the fastest and I only got 3, so it's potentially not even tapped out as it is. Still just blows my mind that it's even possible for a 1500cc NA setup to do anywhere near that sort of time. Also just like my first time going on a track with semi slicks. It goes to show just how important the right tyre is. See people spending $$$$$$ on their car but then on the wrong tyre for the job. Cheapest way to go fast. Especially when you borrow them from @Stu haha I just had a look through logs from my fast run. Looks like after dumping the clutch the rpm falls to minimum of 4500, which is great as below that is the area I really need to avoid. So I'm 100% keen to go back and try a higher launch rpm. And now super keen to get the exhaust done.

Well that was easy. The fucking main hinge is metal-on-metal in these things! Now both bushed. Drilled out the flogged end and pushed these in, trimmed off the excess + lubed up and it’s feeling lush. Dealt to some pitting along the bottom of the door while it was off the car and any crust from door jamb joins.

Next step in the puzzle was to sort out a clutch release system. I had a couple of options that could work. I could use the stock Subaru fork but it was not ideal for two reasons ; 1: It would need a the release bearing carrier adapting to take a larger diameter bearing that would suit the Honda pressure plate fingers. 2: Its pivot location, being a centre mounted fulcrum point, would require a slave cylinder that pushed it towards the front of the car. This is because originally the Leone the transmission came from uses a clutch cable. I'd being using a hydraulic slave and it would have to be mounted up high, over the engine. Probably clash with the underside of the parcel shelf and would definitely look ugly there. Option two was to use the Ford Mundano concentric slave cylinder I have had stashed away for ages, acquired with the Duratec engine I was going to fit into the Viva wagon many moons ago. This certainly seemed the most sensible option because it fitted into the location almost perfectly... The pipes even pop out through the Subaru release fork hole like it was made for it... But it was still going to require a little work. First off is that it has a flat bearing face, made to suit curved diaphragm spring ends. It was also too small in diameter to suit the fingers. So a lump of steel was plucked from the store... There was just enough room between the bearing face and the 'slidey hub' bit that the bearing hydraulics slide in and out on for me to machine a locating stub onto the bit of steel... With that being a perfect fitting locating point the other side was machined with a radialised face to suit the flat fingers. The end result looks like this.. This will be stuck in place onto the release bearing face with something like loctite 601. It cant go anywhere anyway. Next issue was fixing this whole unit in place and making sure its dead square to the input shaft centre line. Luckily the units bore was larger that the stub/shaft?* that the Subaru release bearing carrier slides on by about 2mm. It also so happened that when pushed on as far as it would go it allowed for just the right amount of movement of the release bearing, plus a bit to spare. So I machined a thin sleeve with a lip at one end to suit.. This I made a nice snug fit onto the stub/shaft thing and the Mundano assembly slides in place snug, thus making sure it all remains square. I assembled the lot together and checked it all with the transmission bolted in place. Looks good.. The initial throw of the release bearing will be adjusted at the pedal, which will now require me to either use the Mundano master cylinder (plastic..yuck) or machine/ sleeve my Imp one (actually the same as a landrover/most trailer brakes out there..) to suit. I'll look at that when I get to it. Next step is to bolt the assembly in place. The Leone box has splines cast in around the stub base... ..but luckily enough room between them to glue some blocks in place so I machined some alloy down to suit.. Because I knew the assembly was perfectly straight and in line I just needed to give enough clearance on the blocks to allow for some epoxy. I drilled and tapped the blocks to suit, mixed up some of my favourite JB weld and filled the chosen cavities then slide it back in place. Then let it set overnight.. The next day I tried the original Mundano rubber boot for the pipe exit. It almost fitted. I sliced 5mm out of its width and it was sorted. Not perfect looking but it works and cant be seen once the engine is in place anyway... Phew. Done. At this point I really did have a feeling like I had made it past the trickiest bits of the engine work required. But for some possible baffles around the oil pump pick up and maybe an anti surge plate (not that the Goldwing engine has any as stock) I think all the required mods to the engine are done. I felt like having a cold beer. So I did. Then pondered the next jobs to do. Which was to look at where I would run my cooling pipes and finalise the position of the oil filler tube.. In order to properly work through some routing ideas I had to plonk the heads back on. With them in place I might as well have some fun, bolt the transmission on and stand back with my beer and gaze at it all. I took some pics. I'm pretty bloody happy with it how it looks and I really did get a mojo boost looking at it sitting there as a complete unit waiting to go in... Its so neat and compact for a flat six.. Man I'm looking forward to having this setup in the back of my Imp! What's nice to think about is that while there's still a big load of work to do these next jobs will be super fun. I'm especially looking forward to making the ITB arrangement to suit and doing my best to create a really clean looking engine bay.

Epoxied, seam sealed and Raptor'd underneath. Over the moon to have hit this milestone after so much welding!

Right after my last post I had an op to repair my ACL and knee cartilage so I wasn't able to do anything for a while - add to that a lockdown - so by the time I was able to get into it again, I couldn't get the repair certifier to sign off on the work so it just sat there taunting me for months......until now She's fully seam sealed along where the new floor and roof went on, and a few of the other new patch panels. Once it's cured I'll go over the it with the underseal again and get her off the spit.

Once again, a while between updates but progress has been made. I set about building the lay shaft carrier assembly to replace my plywood mock-up and made the drive belt tensioner assembly. I very intentionally over engineered this stuff because I don’t want it to flex and kick the belts off randomly. Still got to get a steel shaft made up with keyways machined in it. It’s a bit of a creative way to drive the little blower but it looks like the belt drive system will all line up nicely and should be plenty noisy when running……….

Few more pics of putting it back together. I’m now a master at brake pipes after a few stuff ups

Yeah I agree with this, using NOS and you lose some the masochistic charm of NA tuning. Yeah, its just such an incredible difference I dont think I'd want to do it on street tyres again. With the semi slicks you can choose between wheel hop, bog, or spin up. Then it wont stop spinning unless you back right out of it. On these its like a magic carpet ride! Even if rpm is higher it just keeps on propelling you forward. So good! On this car the sound deadening isnt actually stuck to the chassis, its just a thick slab of matting that goes between the carpet and the body. So you literally just lift it out. Then bam 20kg gone! I like some of your other ideas here but reality is I've only got a fairly shoestring budget for this project from here onwards. I'd like to get the carina going again this year. So for the moment I'm just gonna get an exhaust done when I can then worry about whatever else later. And just get some more runs done! And get to a trackday hopefully, which is where I was expecting this car would shine more than the drags.

Realized i never put these photos up on here almost a year ago. decided to give some aliexpress gauges ago. Visually they look great. Time will tell if they are any good. Although it seems its not to hard to be better then expensive American branded gauges. Yet to decide what finish the boss kit and dash insert will end up being. Thinking shot blasted or tumbled. Not likely to be polished. Also picked up some titanium bolts for the steering wheel. Mostly due to the shape and finish on them. Heaps of other progress has been happening too since the last update. Mostly electrical stuff that isn't too fun to photograph.

Fitted up the TE37, finally. The tyres are Lakesea Gredge 07RS semi slicks, a re-branded Zestino that's a 140TW DOT rated semi. They were meant to be Zestino, but the local distro got sent an incorrect batch of 205/45/16 only with the Lakesea branding. Subsequently, these were specialled off at $50 per tyre, which I decided was a no-brainer to get the TE's shod in some rubber. I like the look, although I think I prefer it best on the RG still. DC2R Phone (63)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr DC2R Phone (64)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr The classic Honda driveway exit pose. DC2R Phone (60)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Tonight's mission was mounting the caster bar brackets/ bumper irons. Got them all mounted and trial fitted the front 1/4 bumpers. Actually fitted up quite nicely so they can stay on. Also managed to get some satin black onto the front panel behind the grille.

Back to reality, more rust……. More CAD…….. Making progress…. Angle iron bender….how I love working with 16 gauge Zintex….. Looks like it fits……… You can never have enough clamps…… Big heavy welds… And some etch primer…….. Port side - worst side looking good; time to flip the old girl over and rip into starboard.

So my partner and I enjoy camping, its great exploring and finding new spots etc. But due to the large number of kids we have somehow acquired, there seems to be a not small mountain of shit that needs to be associated with taking them away anywhere. Gone are the days of just chucking the swag in the back of the car and splitting 10mins after getting the idea to go somewhere. These days its more like "lets spend the next 24-48hours stripping the house and packing the car to the roof till there's literally breathing space only", and its been seen for all passengers to have bags or cookers or boxes of shit on the knees when driving anywhere. And there's also the required clean up afterwards, including storing tents and chilly bins and crap under the house where's its not quite tall enough to stand up. It usually takes me a good 10 steps to straighten my spine out enough to stand upright after crawling out of said under house void. Last year we semi remedied the situation by stealing the in-laws trailer. Its a pretty well built generic box trailer that we've been using while landscaping etc So for summer 20/21 we loaded it up to the gunnels with gear, threw a tarp and cargo next over, and hoped that nothing fell out. Its worked reasonably well but we still managed to have too much shit and the car was still pretty full. It was super handy though, and at one point we had to change camp sites so instead of taking the tent down we threw it on the back and towed to the new site much to the amusement of other campers. Anyway, late last year I decided that our setup was still dumb and that I'd close the trailer in and make it actually work. The whole idea is that it all needed to be removable so the sides etc can come back off and the it can be reverted to tip dump duties etc. Luckily the trailer has the vertical square tubing in the corners that you can see in the top photo so I figured I could make sides that slot into those, then make the ends and top slot into the sides. Here's the loose drawing: Then got to work: Its a bit hard to tell from the photos but the ends have welded on plates with key ways so they slot onto fixings in the longer sides and tighten up. Basically loosen the bolts and then lift the end up and it will pull out for flat packing. The roof has 32x32mm SHS down inside the 40x40mm SHS corner uprights so it can be removed too. I picked up some hinges, door seal, and lockable latches from UES and started to make doors and clad the thing. I was fortunate to be given a couple of fucking huge solar panels for free so slammed one on the top to run the electrics. And this is pretty much what it ended up like. I also got a couple of lockable drawer slides and made up a support frame that runs across the trailer and supports 2x 12v fridge/freezers Ive got. One of them is a very old Waeco which we use as a freezer so put that at the back and the newer unit on the front as a fridge. I bought a solar charge controller from Jaycar, and mounted up a switch board, inverter, washdown pump and large AGM battery that I'd be given, along with some LED lights inside. End result looks like this: So this year we had all our shit thrown into the trailer which took half the time, and hardly anything in the car. It has been a total game changer and now we leave all the gear in it ready to go for next time. We've been a few places so far and looking forward to using it as often as possible. Its pretty much glamping now. Next step is to make a enclosure that fits on the draw bar that holds a couple of 25litre water tanks and houses the water pump rather than pulling it out when we need it, and make a triangle shaped board that a collapsible sink can go it. I'm also going to put a flood light on the front over the sink and possibly look at a retractable awning rather than taking the gazebo. #glamping

Chev is off to get painted next weekend so spent a day removing as many bits as possible while still keeping it legalish to drive to painter 2 side windows and tail lights are 8 screws so I'll do that when it gets there Found some greeblies hiding under a door rubber so it's off to tin tricks @RXFORD this week for him to once again fix my panel related problems, what a top gentleman

when digging through the bucket of bits that came with the black car ... found a set of badges with tabs and nuts still attached. . found a the full set +1 extra of the Jesus handles. got them in .. found all the hardware for the doors and earned the rear cards and got them all back together

Well its been awhile since I've posted on old school. Since my last thread with the Chevy camper van build up we've moved back into NZ, bought a mini lifestyle block in Taupo and put a house and shop on it, we've also spent way too much time working. I've gotten quite good at Barry tasks like lawn mowing and fixing fences, so no car projects as boring things have taken over my life now. We've also gotten a dog! Anyways this one is another (off) white Chevy, a 2005, which is a bit too new and full of computer fandangles to be considered Old School but I figured you guys might appreciate it anyways. So long story short, I was watching a listing on TradeMe but not really seriously thinking about buying a project, and it ended on the 30th of December, which is really a stupid time to end an auction. I got a fixed price offer that morning while I was driving up to see Mr. Jackson in Waiuku for New Years shenanigans (I don't know your internet name, damn I'm a shite friend). When I arrived him and @Testament gave me a quick pep talk/beer and we left for Auckland to go have a look at it. It was good for what it was and I was able to work out a deal for even less than the fixed price because the owners wanted it gone. Anyways it arrived yesterday, since it took a bit of time to organize transport. She's big, weighing 3.7 tons and it just fits in the shed doors. A used but running 2005 Chevalier FTC-1320V! So for those who aren't familiar with this model, its a twin table vertical machining center, 15,000RPM, 3.7kW with a 16 tool ATC. This might be a bit of a slow thread as I collect parts, get the air system in the shop running so its on you guys to keep me motivated. PS I just epoxied the floors, my shop isn't usually this clean...everything is pushed down the other end, and then I'll put it all back and paint the last bay this weekend. The stuff from Regis Coatings in Christchurch turned out really good (Epotread 1000). We'll see how it holds up long term. Also if there is interest I could do a shop spam thread.

A few pics from drags, just in case your eyes havent been punished enough already

With the Tomcat finally on the ground again I could get around to doing some smaller jobs that I didn't have space to do before. The first was to replace the door switch on the RH side, again. I replaced both door switches when I first got the car as both had broken and the interior light didn't work. Unfortunately the same night the gearbox gave up, I opened the door and a piece of plastic fell on the ground and the switch was missing its lever again. Nuts. Old photo as an example. Thankfully Pick a Part still had a Rover 45 in the yard, so I grabbed a couple of original Rover door switches from that, but whilst I was there I had a look at a Honda Concero (the platform brother of the Rover 200) they had and noticed it had a different style of door switch, in the same location and a similar design. The Rover ones look like this; All plastic design. Broken on the right. The Honda one has a metal base with a slightly different plastic lever that has a more gentle radius on the 90 degree bend the Rover one usually breaks at. The underside is more or less the same, and its retained in the same manner It was easy to fit, slots right into place. And the interior light works a treat The best thing is that the Honda switches are also used on the 1st gen RD series CRV, which are a dime a dozen at wrecking yards (Pick a Part currently has 9 on the yard), unlike Rovers (zero on the yard). The next small but satisfying fix was to replace the brake light switch. I looked into an issue with the brake lights back when I first got the car, and I tried to adjust the switch, which did work for a bit, but was really touchy and often left the lights stuck on. I picked up a generic Tridon switch, TBS041, which was listed for a Honda Civic, which has the same thread, plug and design. The switch is tucked up under the dash, in an almost inaccessible spot above the pedals. I removed the panel under the dash, which gave me a little more room to work with but still meant contorting myself into the footwell. It lives here, screwed into a bracket above the brake pedal. There is a lock nut which you need to loosen first There is also a connector on the end you need to unplug so you can rotate the switch and remove it. Before installing the replacement I plugged it in and tested it The new switch is slightly different to the original one, but is close enough. The old one had an original label dating to 1994, so it had never been replaced. It's just a matter of screwing it into the bracket until the button is depressed, but don't screw it in hard against the bracket or you'll probably break it. I wound it in until the button was just completely depressed and then backed it off a turn. Use the lock nut to lock it in place. Check the lights work, and bam, jobs a good'un. The final job I had wanted to do was to install a boost gauge so I could check the turbo system was working correctly. I picked up a cheap second hand electronic Prosport boost gauge (I've used the brand before and like the style) and set about installing it. The electronic gauges have a remote pressure sender, which is mounted in the engine bay. This has a wire that has to go into the cabin to send the data to the gauge. I started by running said wire into the cabin. This turned out to be really easy, as there was an unused grommet in the firewall, which lead into the cabin. When you remove the grommet, behind it there is a pre-cut section of insulation on the inside. A quick poke with a screwdriver removed this The hole in the firewall comes out up to the left of the clutch pedal, which is very easy to access inside the car. I poked a hole carefully in the grommet and fed the cable through And refitted to the firewall I mounted the sender on an unused stud mounted on the firewall The boost reference hose was run to an unused vacuum takeoff point on the manifold With the sender plugged in, that was that part of the job done Moving to the inside of the car I found and tapped into a switched power feed under the dash, and ran the ground to the bolt securing the fuse box. The gauge pod was then carefully placed and stuck down. I used fabric tape on the wires so they wouldn't look shite. The wires are tucked into the gap down the edge of the dash and cant be seen. The view more or less from the drivers seat. It's tucked down quite low but is in line of sight for the driver. It's not too obtrusive. Could look worse. I did want a boost gauge that had a smaller scale so it'd use more of the gauge dial, since these cars are quite low boost (around 10psi), but it was hard to find a good one that was less than a 30psi scale. On a closed road in Mexico, I can now confirm the turbo system is working spot on. I'm seeing about 9psi in the first two gears and 11psi in the rest, which is expected for this system. Boost comes on really quickly and holds all the way through with minimal drop-off. The car doesn't feel fast as such. In first it's pretty hectic, but second onwards it just gains speed quickly with little fuss (other than the noise). I feel like that's a Rover thing, and without torque steer and being thrown into hedges it's all kind of a bit civilised. I have booked a WOF inspection for the end of the month, and will see how we go from there. Hopefully it's a pass and then I will be able to drive the car on the road legally and work on fixing some of the other issues.

*cough* NOS *cough*

@RXFORD is a fuckin legend , sorted it out and did a lovely job off to the painter tomorrow Been a busy week, got home and a couple of deliveries had arrived, one of which was the exhaust for the bike so that should keep me occupied for a bit

Can’t wait to fire this thing up. Added a trailer plug for the front wiring so we can pull the front whenever we need to.

Nearly there. Think I'm going to need to spend some time on real cars for a while, this fiddly stuff will drive you potty.

Making good progress. Pedal box ordered this week after discussions with LVVTA and my certifier- will need to get the brake pedal remade but otherwise should be good. Seats are in, new seat guides in the trans tunnel made. Just need to make doubler plates for under the floor now. Spent some more time on the engine, new oil pick up, sump and dipstick assembly fitted, new cambelt and water pump fitted and painted the cam cover. Spent some time sanding and polishing the exhaust manifold too. Also added the accessory drive assembly. The Retroford stuff isn’t cheap but you get what you pay for, everything fits nicely and is really well made. Have also seam sealed and painted the floor pan, in hind sight probably should have sprayed it but not too many people will see it.

maaaaaaaan what a mission sorting the roof lining out .the edges are all ripped and brittle. but I got there in the end ...shit loads of spray adhesive.. and then a coat of black to make it all one colour. it's not mint but is is so much better. then thought I would put the carpet back in and rear seat as well as parcel shelf....looks good with all the cream on cream action and some chocolate brown.....even got the neat lines and parishes lined up.

New exhaust for a 10 second car?

I've got some mk5 Giha seatbelts for the old girl. and doing the rears ..there are holes in the Parcel shelf . but I made top plates and doubler plates. I went 80mmx800m and 5mm thick . I put them in with 2 rivets in opposite corners. cut out a section of the Parcel shelf tray and mounted them..the top plates helped space them up a wee bit as well so they work smoothly. even git the factory mk5 covers so they got cleaned and went in.... only held in but 1 screw ...but look cleaner. all the lower mounts for the seatbelts and buckles are all there and just have bungs to remove. al the rear seat base is held in with 2 PK screw so I drilled it out and waked some rivnuts in there. got the rear speakers mounted...some more clips for the Parcel shelf.. the seat back and base properly mounted and the seatbelts in place......I'm very happy with how it's coming along.

Had a helper installing the trans cooler. Had no room up front so thought I would tuck it away but hopefully still gets enough air flow.

It’s been a busy end to the year and a quick start to the new one. managed a little trip down to Horopito to pick up a few bits and a drivers side glass which was great. got most of the wiring connected ready for the sparky to check it all over before I tidy it up and throw it all up behind the dash.

Dunno if this is worth the dredge but pics of kit I will hopefully have in a couple of weeks. / not in baby shit brown though...... / TOTP

Yay - rear bumper brackets, need to be bent back into shape but brackets none the less. Also need to find those chrome dome bolts etc to attach the bumper as all i have a a bucket of jap nuts and bolts

I dont recall those tyres dropping trap speed at low pressure. well not significantly anyway. 10psi and 8k launch should get it moving. need to run less in them than if it were a rwd 13.8 is pretty impressive, but should go at least 13.6 i recon

Got an hour on it this evening. Interior is now on the exterior and cage is ready for a bit of a clean up & some paint. Gold flake is looking favourite. Haven't heard from the fibreglass bloke yet. That is my update, sue me.

I made a dumb cart! This car has no wheels. The proper wheels are a long way away, so it needs some temporary wheels. Especially because Panel McPanelbeaters will need to be able to move it around. After looking at a bunch of vids I decided to lazily over-engineer a cart out of wood, with two arms to attach it at the back where some of the rear suspension subframe bolts in, and just wedges between the front frame rails to give it some lateral stability. I got some annoyingly expensive M12 bolts with 1.25mm pitch long enough to be able to through some of mitre10's finest framing wood and test fitted them with the help of girlface: Turned on my granddad's old circular saw, put it down and used a hand saw instead, did some shitty drilling and screwing and measuring attempts, and after evolving the original plan a bunch I came out the other end with a cart! Three of the bolts even line up! It's a small cart and the footprint looks quite narrow but it's technically not far from where the jack stands would go anyway, and is quite sturdy. Most of the weight is in the back of the car too, so the cart is located quite far back. For the wheels I selected some nice big 100kg fellas with locks. The finest cheapest that mitre10 had to offer. I hear that the bigger the wheel the easier it is to move it around and the less susceptible it is to bumps. The weight capacity of 100kg per wheel or 400kg~ for the distributed load should be plenty, given that I can lift the front half by myself and the back half with a hand. So of course one breaks the first time it hit uneven concrete. This is also with me moving it by lifting the car from the front end, so there's even less weight on the wheel than normal. Nope, doesn't matter. As soon as it snagged on the crappy concrete while trying to rotate it crumpled faster than a hollow easter egg in the hands of a fat kid. Fortunately the mitre10 service desk guy didn't put up a fight and I got my money back. Then splurged on some smaller but 125kg wheels that looked and felt a lot sturdier. Non-locking but I was already paying significantly more for them. So that's that job sorted, and while I'm still trying to locate some new front frame rails the panelbois will at least be able to move it into their shop and get a start on it. I can sit in it and have girlface push me around, so I'd say we're probably over 70% done with the project now.

420 hours and 69 seconds to go!

Well that's a bit better. Truespoke Supremes in 14x7 reverse offset. Cost a f'n fortune to get here but I'm impatient.

Thought the bonnet was straight

New Year came around real quick, the view from the batch is still as good as it gets. The fishing however was not all that was promised…….. 1st & only fish on New Years day went back for a 2nd chance!

Started to make up a template for a neutral safety switch for the shifter. The B & M shifter I have is the very first model they made 60 series with a gate shift pattern but no safety switch Just going to add a couple of dimples in the right places to activate the micro switch.

Failed wof inspection on some rust, front left shock knocking, brakes too soft and handbrake to improve. Had the privilege of using a mates hoist and his labour, he made a start on the rust while I sorted the brakes. New rear wheel cylinders courtesy of @bigfoot , also noticed some bent stuff inside the drum which explains why handbrake wouldn't self adjust. Note the bent over edge stopping handbrake from working properly. We straightened both items out and happy days. after removing the front strut It was apparent there was a spacer missing allowing the insert to move within the strut housing causing the noise so we made a spacer from some steel. Problem solved

Full 90s/00s mini truck paint job plz

I managed to get a good price on a piece that I've wanted for a while. HKS IPM (Injector pluse monitor) has and adjustable alarm you can set to a specific Injector duty % In short - flashing lights and buzzing sounds. Perfect interior accessory. I'm thinking this will replace either the additional Injector Controller or Boost controller in the glovebox panel. I'm needing to remake the panel as there are a few things I want to change

A few more jobs ticked off on the chaly over the past few days. A big hurdle was the wiring as I'm pretty shit at it but getting better, with the help of my dad we got there. I had to cut down the side stand considerably, the footpegs will be changed for Anderson style pegs I had to put an adjuster on the clutch lever as I've routed the cable through the frame and can't access the inline adjuster. New chain, rear sprocket and chain adjusters mounted too. @dvsdev.chaly on Instagram 3d printed me a fuel tap handle which is awesome

So bit the bullet and brought this engine of an older fella on trademe. 1500cc block with a GT head on it, double valve springs, apparently has a cam, set of extractors and a rebuilt carb. I also scored a Mk1 4 speed floor shift with driveshaft and other associated bits. He has spares so once back together I can raid him if needed. The escort engine in it will be sold off once the new engine is in, mostly for bolt raiding etc if i need to. Cortina Nats - here we come