kws

Probably all Lucas stuff in them too i guess?

The first step in getting Lucas back on the road was to address the one issue I knew of when buying the car; the lack of a working indicator stalk. The previous owner told me it was broken but didn't say how or why, so until the car arrived it was a bit of a mystery. I could see in the pre-purchase photos that the column shrouds and stalks were missing, but knew no more than that. Upon arrival, the car came with the stalks missing and the shrouds on the passengers seat. There was an icecream container in the back seat with the remnants of one switch, and what appeared to be quite a new, albeit incorrect side, indicator stalk assembly Assessing the stalks, the disassembled one was very likely the original broken one, so that's where I started. If you have been following my posts for a while you will know that I'm a big fan of fixing what I have, instead of just throwing new parts at a problem. This was no different. I could tell immediately that the high beam detent on the switch was broken, which would cause the high beam to fail to latch and stay on. The plastic piece that causes it to latch should be sticking up in the gap the arrow is pointing to. Now, I can't find it, so I may not have written about it, but I have done this job before. Not for the detent, but to fix a broken horn wire. 99.1% of the job is exactly the same, so I had an idea of what I was doing. The donor was the mint condition mirrored stalk. This is either from a different car that uses a similar switch but has the indicator on the RH side of the column, or is from a LHD. You can see that the stalk is upside when on the correct LH side and bent upwards. There were a couple of other differences too; the connector was the later "church window" style, which the car didn't use, and there was that random blue wire coming off it, which had no place to connect to. The first step is to VERY carefully remove the metal plate from the front of the switch. There are two small machine screws, and then it hooks in under two plastic tabs near the stalk. Once the plate is off you can see the gubbins that makes it all works. Be careful though, at the top and bottom are detent springs and plungers that can and will make a break for freedom. The top one should have a ball bearing under the spring, and the bottom one a plastic wedge. The white collar for cancelling the indicators just lifts out, and then so does the central mechanism that the stalk moves (the big black piece with the white arms on it). Be careful here as there is a copper roller, spring and plastic plunger in this section that will drop out. With all that removed, you are left with the rear housing and the stalk. It's interesting to note that the three long contacts for the indicators are mirrored on the opposite-handed stalk. The top holes are populated on one, and the bottom on the other. The detent needs to be released from the back casing, by carefully pulling back the piece of black plastic on the back that is holding it in place. It can take quite a bit of force to pull it out. Here it is removed and flipped upside down to show the notches it locks into fr high beam. That's the part missing from the broken one. Now its time to get serious and cut the two wires that run through the switch and into the stalk (one had purple and black, the other was purple and purple with a black trace, but it's obvious which two run to the middle of the stalk) and then the stalk can be removed. Now, I couldn't just swap the stalk over, since it was upside down and bent in the wrong direction, so I had to remove the detent piece and swap it to the existing stalk. To do this I needed to remove the little plastic block on the end. Be VERY careful with this as it is super easy to break those little round ears off and render it useless; DO NOT use those ears to support it when you drift out the shaft. I lightly held the stalk in some pliers on top of the vice, and used a punch to drift the stalk out through the block. Oh, and it helps to mark the position of the block beforehand, so you can have the stalk rotated the same (or it may not face quite forward). With the block removed, the detent piece just slides off and over the wires. Do the same to the good stalk, and swap the detent piece to the original stalk. Now line up the block with the marks you made, making sure the horn ground wire is tucked under the block and wraps over the top, and then gently tap it into place again. I gently held the stalk in the pliers, clamped in the vice and used a small hammer to tap it back into place. Congrats, you now have a good stalk, that isn't attached to anything. Give it a good clean, and let's reassemble. Reassembly is quite simply the reverse of disassembly. The only thing I had to change was to move the wiper contact over from the top hole down to the bottom hole in the central mechanism. I did give the contacts a quick clean, and lubricated everything with dielectric grease. The front plate can now be gently reinstalled, making sure it sits flush and the plungers haven't fallen out. Now flip it over, and solder the two wires back onto the harness. With the switch reassembled I could plug it in and test it. I got a bit cocky and reinstalled it first. And we have dash lights! Gosh, I love the green illumination in these cars. I was well chuffed. Until I wasn't. We had dash lights, park lights front and rear, and flash to pass, but no dip or high beams. Damn. I connected a known good bulb. No change. Tried a different headlight switch. No change. Located the dip beam relay and swapped it over with another. No change. So it was time to grab the test light and start probing around. I had traced the wiring diagram back and had an idea of where to start looking; starting with the headlight switch Lots of probing later I was led to this mess under the passengers side of the dash. Ugh. That bracket with all the relays on it should be bolted firmly to the firewall, not ziptied to a bracket. Not a good start. I traced a few wires back and ended up at that weird white relay in the foreground. Turns out it isn't a relay, it's a "diode pack" that all the power for the dip and high beams go through. And nothing was going through it. I could see some traces of corrosion on the casing, so pulled it out and removed the casing. Well shoot, that'll do it. It looks like it's been under the sea. You cant even identify the diodes on the board, it's just a mess of corrosion. I got out the can of contact cleaner, and the trusty old toothbrush and got to work, cleaning away as much of the muck as I could. I then used my multimeter to check I had continuity where needed. A couple of contacts were a bit iffy, so I have them a quick re-solder. I plugged it in, initially without the housing on it, for testing. I turned the ignition on and flicked the light switch. No change. Damn. I flicked it off and on again, and suddenly I was blinded, the test bulb was glowing brightly. I had headlights. A quick check also showed that I had high beams too. Everything was working. Headlights, park lights, tail lights, brake lights, plate lights and fog lights. I refit the housing and bolted the relays to the firewall as they should be. One of the two bolts on that bracket I swear is the worst bolt on an SD1 to get at. Cant fit a socket on it, and it's one flat at a time with an open ended spanner. Some quick jiggling of wires to refit all the column stalks, and refitting the steering wheel came next. It's starting to look more like a car now. Heck, I might finally be able to take it around the block tomorrow after work. Hype! I still need to refit the column shrouds, but that will come in due course. One other thing I noticed when I was messing around in the car, was that this sweet old Clarion radio still works perfectly, auto electric aerial and all. Awesome retro design. Shame the plastic surround was broken and someone has bodged it with bits of interlocking foam floor mat...

The series 1 build quality is pretty appalling, its amazing they even sold enough to make a series 2. I can understand the desire for the clean and pure S1 design, but the S2 is just a much nicer car inside and out (especially inside...).

Its no surprise to my wife or friends.... but here we go again

Here we go again. The SD1 sickness just gets into your blood and never leaves. I really regret selling Effie, but at the time I had no other choice as I still had Tess and she wasn't ready to sell, and we had just been kicked out of our rental so they could sell it, so had no parking for one SD1, let alone two. I managed to source a spot for Tess to stay until we settled on our house, but Effie had to be moved on. Tess wasn't quite the same, I never quite bonded with her the same and found that between the aftermarket cam and the manual box it didn't quite drive how I wanted an SD1 to drive. I feel the autobox and lazy low down torquey engine suit the style better. So here we are again. That desire for an SD1 didn't leave me, so once the Tomcat was sold, I started my search. I looked at what was available online, of which nothing was suitable (HAD to be a Series 2, and there were none at a reasonable price), and then began reaching out. I started with Nigel, or NP70 as it used to be called. It's been sitting outside, uncovered, untouched and unused since approx 2018. Allegedly it has a starting issue, which is why it was parked up. I contacted the owner and proposed buying the car and saving it, but unfortunately the owner wasn't having a bar of it and more or less said he'd get around to fixing it at some point and that was that. Of course, I checked with Effie's owner if he might sell, but he is dedicated to getting her back on the road and knows full well that selling her would be a regrettable mistake. Next was to try my luck with a comment I had seen on Facebook on an SD1 group. An NZ SD1 owner posted asking if it was worth exporting his Vanden Plas EFI back to the UK as he had tried to sell it in NZ with no luck, and the UK market for these cars is far hotter. This was back in December. I sent the guy a message and just asked if he was still looking to sell the EFI. Sure enough, he was. A few more messages were passed back and forth, a price was discussed, and some photos and a video were sent to indicate the condition. It looked nice enough in the photos and video, and did sound like it ran well. Being the bore that I am, I keep a database of all the injected SD1s I come across in NZ. This is one of the ones on that list (one of 10 VDP EFIs), and I had known about it for a number of years, since it was originally from around my region. I have a few photos of the car from when it was for sale the past couple of times, and had even seen the car in person about 5 years ago, and recall it looked quite tidy. Once we agreed on the deal, I once again booked in my preferred transporter (Brent at Classic Towing) and by some miracle, he managed to fit my collection in this weekend. The next day, today, after a solid effort by Brent, the car was delivered The engine took a few turns to get fired up from cold, but came to life easily enough and without any unusual noises or clouds of smoke. I warmed it up a bit while Brent undid the rest of the tie-downs, and then backed the car off the truck and into the drive. First impressions are a bit of a mixed bag. The paint looks good, but only because it had a blow over at some point, which is really obvious as there are masking lines and overspray everywhere you look. There are a couple of spots of rust that I have found, including some big bubbles in the sunroof panel, and some small blisters at the top corner of the windscreen. Otherwise, without having been under it, it appears to be quite solid. The interior looks in good condition, with no tears in the seats and it all seems to be complete. The obvious elephant in the room is the steering column being in bits, but that is due to a disclosed issue where the indicator stalk has failed, so the previous owner removed it for replacement (and had failed to source the replacement). Everything is really dirty though, so I will need to get the wetvac out and give it a going over. All the doors are really sticky and the catches need a real good slam to catch. The car has only been off the road for about a year, but obviously sitting hasn't been kind to it. The engine looks like a standard, albeit slightly neglected, EFI engine. It starts and runs well enough, and although the temp was low on the gauge, it didn't overheat sitting idle. There is a slight tapping from the engine, which I'm hoping is just an indication it needs an oil change. The obvious modifications/issues I have noticed are that there is an aftermarket electric fan on the radiator, which appears to be running at full speed whenever the key is turned ON. There is also an aftermarket cooler mounted in front of the radiator, for either the transmission or power steering, I haven't looked to see which yet. Someone has also messed with the ignition coil setup, as it has a Bosch GT40 coil and the electronic module for it is mounted to the AFM bracket on the strut top. Speaking of bodges, the breather system can't be working as intended. There should be an inlet filter on the LH valve cover, but instead, someone has blocked it off with a bit of hose and a bolt. I will need to look into refitting a filter to it. It might explain all the weeping oil around the engine. I haven't driven the car yet (as the steering wheel was barely held on and the adjustment clamp for the column was loose - oh, and no indicators), so I'm not sure what the suspension and brakes are up to, so that's some excitement yet to be had. It's a good basis for a car, with some foibles. I'm glad I bought it when I did, as it really needs the Tastes Like Petrol treatment to recover it back to its glorious self. There will be a ton more work to be done, so stay tuned. Also, why Lucas I hear you ask? Well, the obvious link is the Lucas electrics, but the more obscure reason was the little jumping spider the car came with. They're about the only spider I can happily live with. Discussion

They are definitely not cheap, but their work is second to none, imo. If you want it done once, and done right, you'll pay the premium.

Could you just split the outer CVs from an axle and whack them into the hubs? Same as above but no axle flailing about.

Its been a while, but i scrounged up some motivation and found some time where one of my other cars didnt need for for once, and cut the floor out of the drivers side. In hindsight, this is how i should've done the other side too. Maybe I will revisit that again one day.

Yeah i never jacked from the shell, always the subframes. So many people dent the shit out of the floor pans by jacking them wrong.

Does it have an auto choke/cold enrichment? Could that be sticking on when warm?

I'll stick with the 4 pot. The six makes a great noise, but it wouldn't fit in my car without significant work (mine is pre-025 firewall changes). Not to mention more weight over the front axle seems a bit scary!

The clutch was still playing up, so it was time to find out why. The work I did on the clutch hydraulics, and adding the missing bolt to the clutch pedal bracket, helped the clutch issues a bit, but it was far from perfect. It was drivable now, but the clutch still bit right off on the floor, had a really long engagement, almost no feel in the pedal and would drag if you didn't keep your foot planted on the pedal as hard as you could. Not to mention the engagement was a bit on the soft side. I ordered an OEM replacement Exedy clutch kit, a new clutch fork (pre-empting a potential failure point), new fork bushes, and bolts for the flywheel and clutch cover (you can probably reuse the cover bolts safely, but the flywheel bolts must be replaced each time). Last weekend I got stuck into removing the gearbox. The first job is to remove all the gubbins around the gearbox in the engine bay, so first the intake ducting comes out, then the coolant overflow bottle, followed by the battery and its hold down. Next, the battery support needs to come out. There are three 10mm bolts on the base, and then the ECU can be disconnected, The ECU can remain attached to the support. The ECU plugs have a latching lever to lock them into place. The shifter cables were next to go. These were a bit of a pain, and different to the videos I had seen of the UK cars. First, this clip needs to be removed (partly removed in photo). You need to lift the end the arrow is point to upwards to clear the locking piece, and then the clip can slide out, allowing you to lift the cap and cable off the shifter mechanism. The other cable just levered out. It has a soft plastic bushing inside it, which remained on the mechanism for me, so I levered that off and inserted it back into the cable. With the cables disconnected from the shifter mechanism, I needed to remove the cables from the gearbox. They are retained in this bracket. This seems to be where the JDM cars differ from the UKDM ones. The cables on the JDM cars are retained to the bracket via a pair of metal clips with tangs that stop the cable from coming out. I used a tiny flatblade screwdriver to press these tangs in so they were flush with the clip, and the cable could then be removed. I later bent the tangs back out before refitting. With everything up top sorted, the engine was supported by my engine support brace (which was a pain on the Swift, as the engine bay is very short, so it had to almost go on the slam panel and gave very little space to work up top). The axles were then removed, which was also a pain as the outer CVs were seized in the hubs and needed to be smashed out with a sledgehammer. Before the axles were removed I was sure to drain the old gearbox oil, which was very dark, stank and was about as viscous as water; far too thin. Finally, all the various (excessively tight) nuts and bolts around the gearbox, including the rear and LH mounts, were removed and the gearbox gently manhandled down to the ground, using my belly as support. With the gearbox out it was immediately obvious what the issue was The bellhousing was packed with old clutch dust, and the release fork and bearing barely moved by hand. It was all binding badly. The bearing was also really rumbly; no Bueno. I removed the clutch and flywheel next. Interestingly the clutch was already an Exedy, so either they are an OEM supplier, or the clutch has already been changed (from my research it appears it could have been the original OEM clutch plate; its slightly different to the aftermarket kit I got and the pressure plate has no markings) You can see in the photo above that the plate is heavily worn, and almost down to the rivets. There are no signs of the diagonal recesses in the friction material that they have when new. The flywheel had clumps of fibrous clutch material on it Whilst the surface the clutch plate runs on had some bad heat spotting During the week I sent the flywheel off to be machined, and it came back looking really nice I also took the time to knock out the old top bush and remove the clutch fork. There is a special tool to remove this bushing, but I don't have one. So I made do with what I had. The same job can be done with an old 5/8" spark plug socket, cut in half and the end with the square in it cut off. A section of pipe of the same OD would work too. Combine this with a hammer and punch And you can drive the seal and bush out This high-tech tool may scratch up the surface of the clutch fork, which I'm replacing anyway, but do this at your own risk. With the bushing removed, the clutch fork can then also be removed and after a clean, thoroughly inspected. Due to a bad design where the welding is only halfway around the rod, they are prone to cracking at the ends of the weld, causing many issues, since this is what translates the movement in the hydraulic system from your foot, to actually moving the release bearing and pressing on the clutch pressure plate (which takes a lot of force). Mine wasn't cracked and would probably be fine to reuse, but I wasn't taking the risk since I was already here. I had a replacement genuine part on hand, and it's good to see that Suzuki realised it was a flawed design and superseded it with a newer design that is fully welded. I can only really come up with a couple of conclusions as to how this issue happened. The obvious one is that over time the factory fitted grease that should be on all the pivot points, but is now completely missing, wore away and was replaced with high friction clutch dust. This issue was compounded by the leaking slave cylinder, and the flexing pedal bracket which failed to allow the clutch to fully disengage, which caused even more clutch dust, and just bound up the fork and bearing. The alternate theory is the same, except when the clutch was replaced, the mechanic failed to grease the pivot points and it's been operating dry this whole time. I don't know if the clutch was replaced, the car has no service history, so we can only speculate. I cleaned out the bellhousing, and cleaned the lower bush. It appeared ok and cleaned up well, so I chose to reuse it rather than try and work out how to remove it. The replacement fork had a new roll pin fitted both bushes were lubed up, and the new fork fitted I used the old bushing and another 5/8" spark plugs socket (complete this time) to drive the new bush in Followed by the new seal Lots of the fancy purple Exedy grease was used on the snout, input shaft and contact patches of the fork, and the new release bearing was fitted The clutch fork more or less flops about and takes no force to move, which is a huge difference from how it was before. While the gearbox was out, I took the opportunity to also replace the rear engine mount. There was some movement in the engine when coming on and off the throttle, and there would never be an easier time to get at the mount than now. The old one wasn't cracking or torn, but had slumped slightly due to the weight of the engine. Once that was loosely in place (it cant be fully installed until all the other bolts around it are tight, as it and the bracket that attaches to it are in the way) the freshly machined flywheel (with new bearing) was fitted. My paint pen is rubbish, but the marks on the new bolts indicate I have torqued them to spec. The new clutch getting ready to fit And here you can see the recesses that had been worn down on the old clutch. That's quite a lot of material to be missing from the plate The kit came with a spline type alignment tool but I prefer my old style universal one. It seems to be quite accurate. I tested the spline type one once the clutch was fitted and there was enough play in it that I could see it being annoying to use. Now the gearbox could finally go back on. I tried the reverse of removal and lifted the gearbox up onto my torso and tried to bench press it into place, but it was getting hung up somewhere and my lack of upper body strength was starting to show, so I moved on from that technique. The tried and true jack it up and slip it on technique was the winner here, after a few tries. I found that it was easiest if I used the support bar to lower that end of the engine down about as far as it would go, as this put it on a steep angle and gave me more room to fit the gearbox in. Eventually, after some wiggling, the input shaft found its way through the clutch and it all slid together nicely. All that was left was to do the reverse of disassembly. Install lots of annoying to get to bolts, line everything up, and refit all the gubbins. I made sure to clean and grease the splines on the outer CV joints when I refitted them so they come out easier next time. Don't forget to fill the gearbox with your favourite flavour of GL4 oil in about 75W90 weight. Mine is Penrite, it just tastes better (and is a lot thicker than what came out). Before I wrap up the clutch job, there are a few other things I was doing at the same time. One of them was to pull the front off the car and make it look far worse than before. The bumper comes off really easily. Four bolts and two clips up top above the grille, three bolts on the underside, a few clips for the front guard liners, and then a screw on each side in the wheel arch going into the bumper retainer. It then unclips from the retainers and basically falls off. There were two reasons for this work. One, was to replace (or in this case, fit) the ambient temp sensor as mine wasn't working, showing as a series of dashes on the temp display, and a lack of average fuel consumption display (it's a weird thing to be joined). I can't stand things that don't work. It should be here, attached to wires that should be coming out of this sleeve. The sensor clips into that oval hole. The wires are still there, thankfully, but either torn or cut off I grabbed a sensor and a section of the loom a while ago from Pick A Part, so set about joining a new plug onto the remains of the loom. I cut the sleeve back, and stripped back the wires The sensor just clips in And because I'm lazy, I used these solder joiner sleeve things. The wiring here isn't critical, and will be wrapped in tape, so should be ok. A final wrap in some loom tape, and zipped into the little zip tie fasteners, and it all plugged in nicely. A quick test with a jump pack balanced precariously in the engine bay, and we finally had an ambient temp display (and on the test drive the average consumption came to life too) The second task was to replace the headlights. Mine were very cloudy and very yellow. Didn't look too bad in photos but was horrible in person. They were also a bit dubious for the warrant check in a few months. I came across a pair of black housing halogen lights like mine on a local Facebook group, being sold due to upgrade, and they looked spotlessly clear, so I snapped them up. These were the old ones. They are worse in person. They are only three bolts each to remove And the replacements. It's not hard to see the difference. The only little quirk is that these are from an NZDM Swift Sport, which obviously didn't have electronic height control (via a dial, not automatic) as these didn't have the height control motors, and it looks like they couldn't be retrofitted. Not an issue though as they work fine as manual lights, and I hate the height control thing anyway as I never use it (designed for if you have a heavy load in the rear of the car, so you can dip the lights down further and not blind traffic). I'll get a blanking panel and pull the dial out of the dash at some point. The bumper was refitted (as were the wheels, and being lowered to the ground), and it looked like a car again. So, back to the clutch. With the car still up on the Quickjacks I checked that the clutch worked, and all the gears could be found, which they could, so on went the wheels and down onto the ground the car went. It was test drive time. The first drive was just a short one around the block to make sure everything worked and nothing fell off. It was a good start, as the clutch felt good right off the bat. The pedal had a nice spring to it, and a bite point was dead center in the travel. Full disengagement was obtained way before the pedal was fully pressed, so no chance of the clutch dragging anymore. The new rubber pedal stop cushion makes for a nice gentle stop, as opposed to the old one which was completely mashed by having to press the pedal right to the floor and then some. A quick spanner and leak check at home, and then another drive to get dinner. This time I covered a few more KM, and it's all working very well, as it should. It's taking a bit of getting used to as the clutch bites a lot firmer now, I didn't realise just how soft the old clutch engagement was; you could basically dump the clutch as quick as you wanted between gears. I still have 500km or so to bed the clutch in, so oh noooo, I will have to drive the car as much as possible and try and get the miles on it; what a shame. Even with the new clutch, mount, hydraulics etc, it still cost me less than it would for the next cheapest Swift Sport in this condition, mileage and year. I have a couple of modifications to fit soon, including a new rear muffler and some wider wheels. That'll come in the next instalment of Swifty fun times.

Like all good things, my ownership of the Tomcat wrapped up today. Long story short, after much back and forth, the Tomcat was sold to a collector in Australia who is looking to import this to Australia and add it to his rather sizeable collection of other Rovers. As he still resides in Aus currently, he managed to arrange for a friend to come to collect the car from me and store it until he can make the trip over to arrange the export. It's bittersweet really. I've put so much time, money and effort into this car, to take it from the hunk of junk it was when I got it (thanks previous owner), to the solid, reliable and mechanically sorted car it is today. It's still got a long way to go in terms of cosmetics and things like suspension, but the foundations are there for one of the best examples around; with a gearbox that is just a joy to use and a diff that pulls you around corners like understeer doesn't exist. On the flip side, I didn't get a chance to drive it much (I prefer to use the Swift, and the Honda is the daily) so it only came out occasionally, and I could really do with the space it was taking up on the drive. Hopefully the new owner gets a chance to put some decent miles on it, because it's only done something like 1000km since it was imported to NZ from Japan back in 2016 (says a lot about the condition before I got it then if no one drove it). It deserves to be used and driven hard, now that the gearbox can handle it! So, after a 2 hour bus trip for the chap collecting it, the car was picked up today I'm sad to see it go; the noises it made on boost were just so intoxicating. Nothing I have owned had quite the same sound. Once the suspension is sorted, that thing will be a real weapon, just chewing up corners flat out. I have put the feelers out for a potential new project, but no details will be revealed on that until I know the outcome (since it's likely a no), but we will see how it goes. In the meantime, I have two other cars that need my attention. Goodbye Tomcat

Pretty cooked (but not as bad as expected). It's off getting skimmed today.

Bunch of parts are en route to make this car better, but in the mean time I pulled the gearbox out to find out why the clutch was being a dick Ah, oodles of clutch dust in the bellhousing, and a clutch release lever and bearing that barely move. That wont help. And an aftermarket Exedy clutch that had been shredded to the point its almost at the rivets and the flywheel has piles of clutch fibers (not dust) on it. Im guessing this is from the previous owner trying to learn to drive in it with a clutch that doesnt completely disengage (due to the missing clutch pedal bracket bolt and the seized clutch release arm).

Ha, Melbar is exactly who i came here to recommend A+ have used them before and they do a top notch job.

Just a quick update to show where I'm at with the Marina. It's been slow progress, but don't worry, the Marina is slowly ticking along. Its been almost two months since I started the rust work, but I hit I big milestone today. I left off the last post with a hole still in the passengers side floor, and a grinder that had eaten all the batteries. The grinder issue I fixed by buying a corded Makita grinder and wow, that thing has so much more grunt. The little cordless Ryobi is great for its portability and compactness, but the Makita is the king of just ripping through steel. It's handy having both as I can chop and change depending on what work I'm doing. The hole in the floor? Well after everything getting in the way (life, cars, work etc) and the Marina being tucked off to the side for a few weeks untouched, I welded the section on the trans tunnel in yesterday after work. That was a real prick to make, since it bends in so many different directions. Its hard to tell in the photos but the floor slopes up towards the rear of the car, and also curves sharply up the trans tunnel. The real progress though, was today after work, where I did this That's the final patch on the passengers side floor done. I even seem to have the welder dialled in, and did some of my best welds on this patch. After hitting it with the grinder and some zinc-rich paint, we have a solid floor. It's looking a lot better than it was I have learned some really valuable lessons/skills doing this work. Firstly, is that the welder settings are crucial, and it takes a lot of experience to work out what setting is causing what issue. That feeling though, when you have it all dialled in and the welds come out good. Practising on some scrap steel of the same metal you are using for the repairs helps to dial in the welder to about where you need to be. I did find that ambient temps cause a lot of problems for me; when it's warm the welder is great but as the temps get lower I need to tweak the settings again to get more heat into the metal. Secondly, in hindsight, I wouldn't bother with all the little patches. On the drivers side, I'm going to do as large patches as possible, instead of making a patchwork quilt. It takes too long and there is more work in trying to get all the patches lined up. Thirdly, along with the last lesson, is to make the shapes as uniform as possible. Straight squares are good. I ended up cutting extra bits out of the floor just so I could make one big square patch, instead of two smaller ones or one unusual shaped patch. Lastly, and a tip I keep forgetting, is to cut/trim the car to match the patch, not the other way around. I spent so much time trying to get the patches to perfectly match the hole, when instead it all went a lot smoother and faster when I made the patch to the approx size and shape needed, but then trimmed the hole to match the patch. It's a lot easier than running back to the bench to grind a bit more off the patch. I still have a lot of work to do, but I plan to keep on plugging away at it. I will cut the drivers floor out soon and start working on that. I still have to do the LH B pillar and LH outer sill after that too. The next update will likely be once I have finished the drivers side, seam-sealed and then painted the floors. This car will be going for a WOF sometime this year, so I'm working towards that. Once the rust work is done there are a few more things to do and then it should be ready to give it a try.

Grind my gears when people get the wrong battery and you have to pull the cables real taught to make it fit.

Swift, The car for learners that can't drive. Not even the K11 suffers that fate, that's a real drivers car.

I got this from a young guy who used it to learn to drive in, but doubt he would've come all the way from Dannevirk to break down. I have no doubt between learning to drive, the pedal bracket bolt missing and the leaking slave, that the clutch had taken a beating, but it doesnt slip, and when it wasnt dragging it had a good bite point and worked well.

The L just indicates that the terminals are flipped, so negative is on the left instead of the right. Guess it's some real OCD shit, having the negatives mirrored.

Should've bought a K11. Gone from working clutch, to intermittently dragging clutch, to no clutch. Seems there is little to no clutch pressure now, despite bleeding multiple times. New master is on the way, hopefully have it sorted this weekend. Fingers crossed it's finally sorted, or it'll be time for a new clutch kit.

Should be as easy as it was to re-reg my Mini, since the rego comes up in carjam. I used a screenshot of carjam showing that the rego/chassis wasnt wanted by the police, had a purchase/sale agreement signed by the seller, and a stat dec signed by a JP to say I was the rightful and legal owner of the car. I also printed out the trademe listing I purchased the car from, but probably wasnt needed. The reuse of black plates thing is seperate to the actual re-rego, but also quite easy as outlined above. I just had to email a photo of both plates together (to show i had both) and a photo of the chassis number. Make sure you remind the people at the counter you are keeping the black plates; i was real close to them forgetting and putting white plates on my car. The hardest bit will be making the car actually pass the inspection, which at the end of the day is just a thorough WOF. I will say make sure you keep any receipts for any brake work/components you replace though, as you may have to fill out a Brake Declaration form, indicating what work you have done, and attach receipts to it. Awesome project though; I will be following it with interest. If it helps, i outlined the process when i re-rego'd my mini here, https://tasteslikepetrol.net/2018/11/project-snicket-re-registration/

I think i've heard somewhere that rally block tires arent allowed at some events because of the damage they do to the surface?

From my googling (honestly I don't know if I'm helping or not, I just have time up my sleeve and like a challenge) I have found the following. The car should run without the afm connected. It'll run rich, bit if it runs better with it disconnected you have a bad afm. The coolant temp sensor should read approx 220-270 ohm when at operating temp, and can be substituted for a correct value resistor for testing. Fuel pressure should be about 36psi, so maybe your regulator has packed a sad since it's way over that. Apparently it's common for the return hard pines to get crushed and dented under the car too. Maybe take the return line off at the regulator and run it into a gas can and see if the pressure changes? If you take the intake pipe off the throttle you should be able to see the two injectrs spraying a nice fine cone at idle, and should shut off completely when the engine is off. If they aren't spraying a cone and leak when the engine is off, no bueno.