kws

Yeah, as I have discussed with you before, I didn't bid the first time around, but did the second time. I had a similar experience to you the first time around, where they refused to bid on it because "its not a Works, they never came out in that colour and it doesn't have the interior" and it got to the point they called me and argued over the phone about it until I could prove via the chassis number it was actually a Works, just in the Type 2 blue, and with seat covers on the Recaros. I honestly got the feeling they don't actually know what they're talking about when it comes to compliance requirements, or specifics of vehicles, but are more than happy to try and turn you away if its easier for them. I guess if it was an easy to import, high grade, low KM car, it would've been fine, but as soon as it gets a little bit different with mods or rust, they just fall over. I don't think they were trying to stiff me, just that they were a bit useless. They were very apologetic along the way, and did what they could to try and remedy the situation, and tbh if I had the refund when they originally said i would, i wouldn't be so salty about it all, but having to chase them to the point of threatening legal action was a bit shit.

This is the one I got, the "7inch 2 32GB carplay" one specifically. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005259929995.html?channel=twinner  It's not perfect, but for what I paid it seems to do what I want. I haven't had a decent chance to live with it yet, so my opinion could change.

With no real service history, I wanted to give the car a good going over before driving it too much more. The plan this weekend was to change the engine oil and filter, gearbox oil, install a headunit, and swap out the illegal fog lamp bulbs. I started with the fog lamp bulbs, since it was raining outside and it was easier to do this before the car got wet warming it up for the oil change. As part of the compliance inspection, the front fog lamps were disconnected. I had a quick look and noted they were LEDs, which isn't allowed (scatters the beam in a reflector lamp and is blinding to others), so I presumed that's all it was. I was wrong. I plugged the LEDs in and switched them on. Woah! They cast a very "green apple" shade of green. Definitely not legal. I grabbed a pair of "white" H16 halogen bulbs to replace them. Since the front of my guard liners are currently missing their clips, it's quite easy to peel the liner back to access the back of the fog lamp, even with the wheel on. Much better, now I can actually use the fog lamps if I want After a quick drive around the block a couple of times to warm the engine up, I lifted the car on Quickjacks and got to work The underside is remarkably clean, although thankfully it was grimy so hasn't been recently cleaned to hide anything. Not a drop or misting of liquid where it shouldn't be. I should say, having been under the car now, the undersealing work the panebeater did was very good. They undersealed and then painted it all body colour, it's a very tidy job. The engine oil is very easy to change. The sump plug and filter are just right there I drained the old oil out and removed the filter. According to the sticker on the door, the old oil was about 1000km old, so wasn't bad but was a little dark. I don't know when 1000km ago was in time though, maybe 2021, but IIRC they do dates differently in Japan. I imagine it's had a lot of cold starts moving it around during import and compliance. I refilled with 2.6L of Castrol 5W40 full synthetic and moved on to the gearbox oil. Draining was easy, the plug is right on the bottom of the box The fill plug though was a real pain. It was very tight, and I had limited space. It's above the axle, hidden above this rib on the gearbox casing. Always loosen/remove the fill plug before draining the box, just in case you can't get it open. I managed to get just enough leverage on it using my floppy head ratchet and a 3/8th square adaptor (to move the ratchet away from the gearbox). I tried the normal ratchet and an extension and couldn't get it. With the filler opened, I drained the old fluid out. The level was bang on, so that was good, but the fluid was looking quite dark The new fluid had a more clear-yellow/green look to it Also good was no chunks came out and the magnet had minimal sludge on it. Because the gearbox has a Cusco plate LSD in it, I had to use special oil with LSD additives, so the LSD wouldn't excessively wear, or cause drivability issues when cold. In this case, I thought it best to just spend the money and get the proper Cusco oil. The gearbox uses 2.3L. I had noticed the LSD was a right grump when it was cold. Chattering, clunking and binding when turning. I'm hoping new fluid will lessen these issues. I know they're pretty normal for a plate type LSD, so might have to just get used to racecar life. Refilling was done, like all my gearbox oil changes, with the pump bottle of goodness. So easy to use, and with the dual-action pump, quick. I filled the box until it started to run out, waited for it to stop and then plugged it back up again. Both plugs had some thread sealer applied. There were a couple of items I wanted to check under the bonnet while I was there. Firstly, I removed a coil pack and spark plug to check it. It's an HKS M40XL high performance plug. The condition of the tip didn't look bad, but the corona stain on the ceramic was very dark indicating it was probably either quite old or had a hard life (maybe both) I also checked the air filter, which had been replaced with an HKS panel filter It wasn't too dirty, but I'm not a fan of HKS filters. This side, the dirty side, is a fabric sheet. The other side, on the turbo inlet, is foam. As they get older the foam can break down and get sucked into the turbo/engine which can cause failure. This filter seemed ok, but the foam was starting to age. I have another Blitz panel filter on order to replace it. With those checks done, I removed the intercooler water sprayer setup as it wasn't connected and wouldn't be needed when I fit the larger intercooler. I removed the hose all the way to the boot, which is where the bottle used to be fitted. I also found both battery terminals barely finger-tight, so sorted that. The last thing to do while the car was in the air, was to finish removing the door decals on the RH side. This was painstakingly done with a heatgun and gently picking the letters off one by one with my thumbnails. I had to be careful not to dig into and damage the underlying Works decal these were stuck on top of. The Works decals are quite interesting, the black section is patterned and textured. You can also see the letters had faded into it, but it's barely noticeable in person. With that done, and the car lowered to the ground, it was time to warm the oil up and circulate the gearbox oil. Unfortunately this is where it all went a bit wrong. Immediately out of the drive the car was misfiring. Back into the garage, I removed the coil I had checked, refitted it and tried again. This time the car was running great; I warmed it up and it was boosting a solid 14PSI happily. And then it started to misfire under load, now you can hear it breaking up just by revving it to about 4000rpm. I suspect it's sparkplugs and/or coils (since it's the only thing I touched that could cause a misfire), so have a new set of HKS spark plug on the way and some new uprated ZC33S coil packs to replace the stock ones, but they have to be shipped from Japan. So in the meantime, I worked on a couple of other things. First, I checked the rear washer jet. Turning the wiper stalk to activate the washer resulted in the pump making the right noises, but nothing on the glass. Interesting. I checked everywhere to make sure the hose wasn't disconnected somewhere and pouring into the car, since I believe the previous owner had been using the wiper stalk to trigger the intercooler pump. No leaks were found, so I just kept the stalk turned. Sure enough, after about 20 seconds of whirring, I hear the PSHHP PSHHP of air coming out of the rear washer jet, followed by a steady stream of fluid. I guess it's been a very long time since it was last used and it had to prime the hoses. With no wiper, all it did was make a mess down the back of the car, but at least now I know it works, so when the wiper arrives it will be one less thing to fix. Tinted glass = zero visibility when the glass is dirty, so having a wiper is a no-brainer. Next on the list was to fill the big gap in the dash with a headunit. I love how this car sounds, but man you hear a lot of other noises when you don't have music playing in the background. I had imported a replacement surround, radio brackets and an adaptor harness from Japan. The first step is to yank the old surround out. It's just clipped in around its perimeter, and without a radio installed, I could just grab it and pull. The factory plugs were still present, which was excellent. I was also replacing the surround as the owner in Japan had cut this one to mount the Defi dash in it, and it had two screw holes from the visor. The chosen headunit was a cheap $80 (on sale) Android unit from Aliexpress. The main reason for this was so I could run TorquePro on it natively, when on the track, and keep my phone free for Racechrono. When I had the Jazz on the track I wanted to keep an eye on coolant temps, but with no temp gauge I had to rely on TorquePro, but couldn't display that alongside Racechrono, so this should sort that issue. Mounting it was easy, until I realised that the unit was so short it only had one set of mounting holes. I discover what this means later. Having previously soldered the adaptor harness to the headunit harness, I plugged it in and installed the headunit. And pressed the start button to give it power It booted right up, and since I had previously bench-tested the unit and updated it, the wireless Android Auto kicked into life Not bad for $80! I then went to fit the surround and noticed the headunit was sunken way into the dash. It seems because it only has one set of mounting holes I couldn't move it forward far enough on the brackets. To fix this I used washers on the mounting screws to space the whole thing forward, which helped a lot. The unit also includes its own GPS antenna, which I routed across the dash and up near the windscreen The main interface is nice and clear. Just usual Android things. If I cared, the FM radio does actually work too. Seems I need to work out the time and date though... Torque connects well to a BT OBD2 device connected to the car Plenty of customisation to be had. Hard to miss a nice big easy-to-read number though. That should do the trick nicely. The final thing to look at was the horn. I wanted to test it and see what it sounds like since the Japanese owner fitted some Bosch "Rally Evolution" horns and they appear to still be fitted. I pressed the horn pad on the steering wheel. Nothing. Key on maybe? nothing. Hmmm.... The steering column shrouds had to be removed again for a look. Everything on the column was connected, nothing looked out of place. I knew from my searching that the horn wire was the pink wire on this plug I grounded it with a test light, and sure enough, just about shite myself at how loud the horn was! Well, that works then. The issue must be in the horn pad. The only way to access it is to remove the airbag. Using a 10mm spanner I removed the negative terminal from the battery and set about removing the airbag. There are three small holes behind the spokes (one on either side and one at the bottom), which I pushed a long hex key into, which pressed on a release clip and popped the airbag forward That'll be the issue then, the horn pad isn't connected to the clock spring. There should be a plug with a single wire on it in the plug next to the yellow wire. That single wire should go to a terminal on the horn pad. Using my multimeter on continuity, and staying well away from any yellow airbag wiring, I checked the continuity between the pink wire on the column, and the pins in the plug in the steering wheel. The first pin was the horn pin, it had continuity to the pink wire. I made a little jumper harness using a pair of insulated spade terminals I plugged both ends in, plugged the airbag in and pushed the horn pad home with a click. I reconnected the battery, and suddenly we had a horn on demand. Excellent. The previous owner swapped steering wheels before I got the car, so I suspect he must have forgotten to refit that plug when he did it. And that's about as far as I can go since the car isn't drivable. I have put it on Quickjacks again since I need to have the tires replaced on Tuesday, and will just send the wheels in instead of the car. I'm hoping the spark plugs show up quickly, so I can swap those and see if it fixes it. I really hope it does.

So, we left off with me giving up on importing an Alto. Where to from here then? I nearly gave up on Altos. The whole importing thing had really stressed me out, and the constant rollcoaster of emotions involved in it just did my head in. I started looking at other cars, but absolutely nothing interested me... except an Alto Works. In the time I had been trying to import an Alto, I had heard of one that had been brought into the country earlier in the year, with the intention to be a track car for the owner. He never got around to doing anything with it, so asked on a Facebook group I'm part of if anyone was interested in it, and posted these photos Phwoar, what an angry looking little car! Obviously it had had a life in Japan, being fitted with a bolt in cage, no carpets, obviously lowered and on nice wheels. Under the bonnet were some visible goodies too. Hold on a sec, that engine bay looks familiar.... Sure enough, using my Google searching powers I managed to dig up where I had seen the engine bay photo before; a Minkara Carview blog from the previous Japanese owner! The most interesting bit though? It was a legit JDM trackday car. I even found the owner's Youtube channel, which has many videos of the car fanging around tight little tracks in Japan Along with finding out it was a track car, I also found out all the mods the owner in Japan had done to it. Now, I didn't know what was still fitted to the car and what had been removed, but I knew two important things it still had; a Cusco 1-way LSD in the gearbox, and a Cadcars 3685MAX 85hp upgrade kit, including an HKS FCON piggyback computer and HKS EVC6 boost controller. It also had adjustable suspension, wider 15" alloys, full exhaust, the front lip and rear spoiler, carbon blade on the bonnet and some bigger intakes under the bonnet. (It also still has the Cusco front swaybar, discovered after purchase) It was missing its factory Recaro front seats and anything resembling a rear seat though, which wasn't ideal. You can see in the above interior photos it has some billy basic Alto seats fitted in the front. Anyway, I got in touch with the seller in NZ, and found out he was in the process of having the car complied for road use in NZ since it would be easier to sell on the road, than as a track-only car. As part of that process, the cage had to go. It wouldn't meet NZ cage standards, and couldn't be used in a normal road car. To make the process easier, and not have to certify the car (an extra process and expense, limiting me from further changes to the car), the owner swapped back to standard Works KYB shocks and springs and some wheels he had from another Alto. Yes, the owner had privately imported three Altos, a Turbo RS and two Works (this one and an AGS "automated manual" one). After quite a bit of discussion, I agreed to buy the car, with some conditions. It needed to be complied and on the road. It needed to have the full Works Recaro interior, a stock airbag steering wheel, and had to be on standard suspension and Works wheels. With some jiggery-pokery involving his other two Altos, and one that was being wrecked local to him (a real low spec poverty one), he managed to get this one into the spec I needed, and still have two other complete Altos, albeit missing some of the Works bits from one. The car went in, and failed its inspection. The cage holes needed to be welded up by a panelbeater and signed off by a repair certifier. Not a problem, it was booked in for the work to be done, and we waited. And waited. And more waiting. Eventually we heard from the compliance shop that the work had been done, and it was all ready to go, but they had been waiting on the one and only repair certifier down there to actually give it the big tick, and he had been away on unplanned leave. After a couple of weeks, the car was finally signed off, it had a new WOF and just needed to be registered and have plates fitted in order to drive it on the road (A task left up to me to keep costs down). As it turns out, as part of the work at the panelbeaters, the underside of the car had been completely sandblasted and undersealed... and guess what, it cost about $2,000. I believe on this car it wasn't done because of rust, but because they had to protect multiple areas on the underside where it had been welded, so was easiest to just do the whole underside. Once back the seller changed to the stock wheels. The car looked much better on the stock 15" alloys (even if I don't like black wheels; they suit it). The tires on these are stuffed, which is why they weren't fitted during compliance. The seller also fitted the Recaro interior front and rear (the rear fabric matches), and a stock Alto (not Works) airbag steering wheel. A truck was booked. They sent the biggest one they had. An anxious wait over the weekend and I had the call, it was 10 mins away. I wait outside, expecting to see a delivery truck with the car on the back. No, I hear this angry little growl coming up the drive, and sure enough, it's the Alto. The guy gets out and apologises, he had to drive it the 10 mins from the depot because the Alto was too small for their local delivery trucks. He loves it though. I park it up, have a quick look over it and take some initial photos First impressions; it's small, but also very spacious. The Recaros are more comfortable than expected and fit my wide frame fine. The gearshift is divine, it's almost rifle bolt action. It makes great noises and pulls like crazy on boost (and it's not even at its full boost currently). It's not all perfect. Everything is covered in dust from the panel shop. Its everywhere. There are some areas where the paint isn't perfect, and the dash has some random screw holes and things from various track based gubbins being used. It's not an open road car, at all. At 100kph, it's pulling just shy of 4000rpm. Sure, it's on boost instantly, but that little 3 cylinder 600cc engine is just whirring away constantly. There are kits to replace 5th gear, and lower the rpm to about 3000rpm, so I'll probably look into that at some point. The LSD is brutal. It's a clutch type Cusco Type RS 1-Way unit. When cold, it knocks, it binds, it thumps. It's quiet and smooth when warm though, so I have some new Cusco oil to change shortly. The way it works is making me rethink how I drive and corner though. When on the throttle, the diff will relentlessly pull you around the corner. The steering feels heavy, but where you point the wheel is where you are going, no exceptions. The moment you come off throttle though, the front end suddenly darts to the inside of the corner as the differential unlocks and allows a speed difference between wheels. I can't wait to see what it's like exiting a corner on the track. I have already started removing the decals on the bonnet and along the Works side stripes. It was a shopping list of some things the car no longer had, and I wanted the nice clean stripe instead. Stickers were the previous owners thing, not mine. There's plenty to do. Parts are constantly arriving from Japan for it. Being a 2016 car, and so modern, parts are ridiculously plentiful and readily available for it. I'm used to having to hunt around for scraps years after the cars stopped being popular, but currently, anything I want, I can get. This weekend it'll get a full oil service, since I don't have any real service history, and it'll get a couple of the goodies that have already arrived from Japan fitted. It's not the stock, 4WD one I was planning on, but I love it. *Parked next to my colleagues Honda S660. One of few cars that makes the Alto look giant.

Mainly because they eventually came through with the refund, so feel mean completely blasting them. If you wanted to Import Your Car, it wouldn't be hard to work out who it is.

Well, here it is, the culmination of months of trying to import a car. Months ago, I heard through Facebook about an estate sale auction that was happening a couple of hours north of where I live. There were a few cars there, including some cool MG and Healey classics, but only one really caught my eye; a little 1990 Suzuki Alto Works nugget. I've always loved Altos, and here was one that was small, manual and turbocharged. It had been off the road for at least 11 years or so, and the rego was on hold. There were no keys, the condition was unknown and they could not confirm it ran. Excellent, my sort of car then! Long story short, I took some time off work, borrowed a truck that could tow a trailer, and made a trip up the line to see if I could win the car, with a plan to bring a trailer back the next day if I won it. We get there, and there it is, in all its glory. Look at that little face, what a nugget. I'm not sure how long it had been up on the blocks, but it was certainly in "barn find" condition, dust and all. It's clear that it hadn't been touched in a long time. The interior was.... disgusting. Everything was covered in dirt, or mould. On the plus side, it still had all the original features, like the cool seats and steering wheel with WORKS horn button. How good is the dash cluster though The little F6A twin cam 660cc turbo engine would love to rev all the way to the 7500rpm redline. The car had been converted to manual, and wasn't quite in showroom condition, with peeling paint, the horrible interior, and a large dent in the front RH guard, which had slightly damaged the door and bent the hinges Worst of all though it had rust in both sills, and the rear boot seal lip was just crunchy flakes at this point. Still, I wanted it. I found the keys to it (on the keyring for the Wagon R next to the Alto), but didn't try to start it. Long story short, the bidding started at about $200, and there were a handful of us bidding on it. Suddenly it was jumping up in hundreds, and only two of us were left bidding, in the thousands now. I had a firm budget in mind but the guy I was bidding against was there to win. Not once did he drop his hand. I hit my limit, and bowed out. I later heard from someone else there, that the winner had wanted an Alto Works as a garage ornament for years, and was prepared to pay whatever it took to secure it. It was not to be. Hopefully he got what he wanted, and it sees the road again one day. So, I did what any reasonable person does and began to obsess over Alto Works. Old ones were cool, but had the inherent issues of being old, and harder to keep on the road. I knew of the newer HA36S models from 2015, and although I always loved how they looked with their angry face, I had never seen one in NZ and didn't think I could afford one. But as it turned out, between the sale of the Yaris, and Lucas, I suddenly had a healthy looking bank account. The next problem was the fact that as far as I could tell, when I started this process, there were none in NZ. I had been curious about the importing process and buying from auction in Japan, so got in touch with an importing broker, who agreed I should be able to get what I want, with the budget I have. The HA36S Alto Works comes in a few variants (including the Turbo RS, which is more common but didn't come in manual and is a bit less "hard core"). I wanted manual, not black or red, and preferably 4WD. I bid on a few cars at auction in Japan and just kept falling flat. Despite watching auctions for a bit before I could afford to jump in, the prices were suddenly thousands of dollars more than I was expecting. Not only that though, 4WD ones were proving rare, particularly ones that weren't from the snowy northern regions. After bidding on a couple of dozen cars, and missing out (one, a nice blue 2wd one, by only a few hundred dollars, which ended up being imported by another Kiwi and now lives locally), I finally had one on the hook. It was 4WD, manual, wasn't from the north, in silver, and had good KMs. It was grade 4, and had minimal damage marks on the sheet. It looked nice in the photos, but Japanese auctions are very limited in the info and photos they provide unless you can get an inspection. In this case, it had a couple of exterior photos, and an interior one. No underside or engine bay. I did spot and liked the slightly wider flares, and aftermarket muffler though. I liked it. I contacted the importers, who translated the auction sheet and gave me some bad news. It had underbody coating, and some rust. Not to worry though, in their own words, "for around $2000 trade rust repair will be carried out under the supervision of the repair certifier and come with a repair certificate. It will be sandblasted and rust treated and painted black. Rust repair is in fact a good thing, your car will be protected from future rust and will pass every WOF for a long future". Sounds good, but to be sure, I ordered an inspection at my cost. In the mean time, knowing that it'd only be a couple of grand to have it blasted and coated, I submitted my bid, factoring that repair work into my bid. It was all the specs I wanted. The auction came and went, and I heard nothing, and no inspection results were provided. Guessing I had lost it, I went to bed that night and forgot about it. I woke up the next morning to two emails. One, at 10:51PM "YOU WON A CAR TODAY!" and a second, at 11:03PM, the inspection result with photos from the inspection. Handy. Well then, I had an Alto! I was excited. I looked over the inspection photos, and noticed some spots of rust I would rather weren't there, like in the bottom of one of the doors and around the engine bay But other than that, nothing really concerned me. The underside had been undersealed and there was still some rust in the seams, but nothing a couple of grand of repair work couldn't fix This is where it started to go pear shaped. I got an email from the importer, asking "are you sure you want to import the car, we don't know how bad the rust is and the rust work costs could be higher". Based on the photos, I was still confident it wasn't that bad. Heck, I could've fixed most of it in an afternoon with a wire brush and some rust killer. Also, I had agreed to buy the car already, I didn't know at this point rejecting it was even an option. I said to continue. The invoice for the car comes through, and I pay promptly. Yay, I'm getting an Alto! Three days later, I get another email. This is where the scaremongering really kicked up a notch. They had "spoken to compliance" and would need the engine removed to repair the rust, plus sand blast, plus repair cert $$$$$. "Good thing the car will be protected from any future rust" he continues to say. Suddenly the repair work was being quoted at approx $5000. Well, I own it now. I've paid. What other choice do I have? About two weeks of radio silence later, I get an email from the boss. It failed border check and has been flagged for rust. That was expected, they fail any signs of underbody rust. The advice was to abort, and send the car back to auction, otherwise the potential repair costs were now "$8000++". That's a lot of money for a car that was already going to be $15,000 landed, on the road. I weighed up my options. I could import it and risk the costs. Or lose my $1000 deposit, get a refund and either try again, or find a different sort of car. I chose the latter. I rejected the car, and asked for a refund. That was the end of that car He agreed to refund my money, less the deposit, by the end of the week. Happy days. The money didn't arrive. I wasn't too worried though, I could use that money to bid on another car; so I was still looking, and bidding in the mean time. I was advised to stick to higher grades like 4.5, and to avoid anything that mentioned rust. In order to be sure, they wanted to get an inspection on any car before I could place a bid. The funny thing is, now they could suddenly get an inspection to me before the auction closed, unlike the one I won. I found a nice looking blue one. It was manual, 4WD, 67,000km and grade 4.5. It sounds like a winner, so got them to get an inspection with the intention to throw big money at it. The auction sheet said nothing about rust. I actually found this car later listed on Beforward (another importing site), listed in the north, in Hokkaido. Not a good start. The inspection came through quickly, well before the auction time. Externally, it looked very nice. The drivers seat was worse for wear. The bolsters were squished, and the fabric looked very worn and gross. Surprising for 67,000km. But worst of all. Rust. It wasn't as bad as the one I won, but it was there. It was on suspension components, on the sills and worst of all, coming out in the seams in the engine bay. Clear signs of having spent time in the snow. Keep in mind, this was a grade 4.5, with no rust noted on the auction sheet! I decided not to bid on that one, I couldn't take the risk again. There were a couple more, but only one that was really notable, made me very angry, and was the nail in the coffin of my importing experience. Manual, 4WD, silver, completely stock standard, 117,000km on the clock. It was the spec and condition I wanted, in the Ks I could afford. It was a grade 4. I wanted it. I asked for an inspection, and sure enough, it came through with plenty of time to spare. And it looked GOOOOOD. It was spotless. New AD09R tires all around, the underside was clean, no sign of rust, the interior was nice. The body even had minimal dents and marks. Someone had looked after this one. I was very excited. It was perfect. Nothing could stop me now. I placed a very generous bid on it, to make sure I would win it. I didn't win it. It sold for well under my top bid. It went for less than my last one. Why did I lose it? Because they chose not to bid on it, based on the recommendation from the person in Japan bidding on the car. Why? because of this dent in the rear quarter panel. Apparently that would "need a repair cert" to import. I threw my toys at that point. There is no way a dent you can barely see would stop that car being imported. My closest guess is they forgot to place my bid. I was angry. On top of that, I still hadn't got my refund. Twenty two days after I was told it would be refunded by the end of the week, after me asking repeatedly, I received a partial payment of about a third of my money, with an excuse that "Japan was holding the money from him" but he could "manage it next week". Next week came and went. Just shy of a month later, after a rather terse email, I received anther partial payment of less than half of what was left and yet another excuse, about the car having not sold (not that that was ever a condition or term of the refund, that's what the deposit is for), but that it would be sorted. Two weeks later, and my patience was done. I threatened court action to recover the remaining money. I was sick of the broken promises and deadlines. Two days later, I had the rest of my refund, in full. I know it's not the norm, but the whole auction and importing thing just left me feeling really bitter. If I didn't know two people now who have used their service (albeit at least in one case, not completely smoothly either), I would've wondered if it were a scam of some sort. The auction system itself seems to be broken and the auction grades mean nothing. A grade 5 is as close to a new car as a used car can be, so a 4.5 should be near new with some minor marks. Grade 4 should still be very good, with a couple of slightly bigger marks. So why were the grade 4 and 4.5s so junk? I have heard reports of corruption in the system too, where sellers have paid for higher grades, but I don't know how true that is. Long story short, I was left $1000 out of pocket, with no car to show for it, and a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm very glad I could even get a refund; although the Terms on their site allow for it, I still wouldn't have been that surprised if they tried to decline the refund, or wait for the car to sell first. Don't worry though, not all is lost. I gave up on importing, but I didn't give up on an Alto Works.

Looking good. Let me know if you need any genuine part numbers, I have a copy of the parts book here, albeit in Japanese. Im pretty sure I can guess where you live, since you went passed my colleagues place in your dashcam video #stalker Regarding the broken exhaust mount, looks like a pretty generic rubber exhaust bobbin. The issue there is they aren't really designed to be used in that sideways sort of loading, so you'll probably keep breaking them. Might be worth seeing if there is another option you can put together. My nugget should be here this week. Hopefully I'll see yours around.

I'm stoked for you man, what a cool wee car and an awesome colour. Still a little dark you outbid me though The aftermarket on these things is incredible. Almost anything you can think of, so ill be watching closely how you get on.

Don't count on it

I've been pushing forward with the Marina this week, spending a couple of days after work finishing up some of the bodywork. I started by finishing the LH rear quarter window frame; sanding out the filler, and then priming and painting the frame. The colour match in the rattle cans is pretty good really. This little corner has come a long way since it was a gaping hole With the frame painted, I test-fitted some spare door seal I had from the TVR, and to my surprise it's a perfect fit, so I will use that. I still need to cut and join the front edge, but otherwise it's a good fit. I test fitted the window and it and seems to fit well, but I have a lot of work to do to the window before it can be fitted. It spent many years out in a field. With that success, I moved on to the rear valance. I'm sick of working on this, so smoothed back the filler, primed and painted it. It's still fairly wobbly, but it's solid and hidden under the bumper for the most part. It looks good at 20ft away, anyway. I undersealed the back of the fuel tank and filler pipe, to hide them. The plate was also refitted; would you be surprised to find the two holes that were previously used, and that I had been working around, aren't spaced correctly and I had to slot the plate holes for it to fit with the new rivnuts in the original holes? I was both surprised and annoyed. I should've just welded them up and drilled new ones. I'll drill two new ones for the inner pair of holes on the plate so I don't have to slot the personalised plate when I put it on the Marina. Unfortunately the number plate bulb holder broke at some point, so I'm working on a replacement that should be a bit more reliable than the original that grounds by touching the mounting bracket it's on. With the bodywork at a point I was happy with, I moved on to the last thing I needed to do before I could finally get the car off the stands; sort the rear suspension. Even though I had sorted the brakes, I hadn't touched the rear suspension at all. I knew one side was missing a bump stop, and everything else was just a bit tired. I purchased a 1 inch lowering block set to suit a Capri, Escort, Anglia etc, and some escort poly spring pads. The bump stops are a good pair of used UK spec bump stops. Speaking of bump stops, it's interesting to note the UK ones are shorter than the Aus spec ones, and have a slightly different shape. The shorter ones are better for a lowered car anyway. I removed the rather random collection of nuts on the bottom of the original U bolts Which meant everything started to come apart In hindsight, I would undo and remove the shock from the bottom spring plate, just so there is more movement in it come time to reassemble. The old spring pads were in good shape. They appear to already be poly, not rubber, so may have been replaced before. A nice little collection of bits, less the top plate (still stuck on the axle, but can be removed with a couple of taps of a hammer). The plates appear to be galvanised which would explain why they were in excellent shape under the dirt I did a test fit with the new blocks, but found reusing the old spring pads wouldn't work because the thicker U bolts would bind on them (the old, thinner bolts had moulded into them). Speaking of thicker U bolts, one thing you do need to do is open the bolts in all the mounting plates out a bit, as the holes are a tad too small. I opened them out to the 12mm step on my step drill. A clamp helps squeeze the U bolt together and fit it through the holes as they come a little too spread apart All fitted together, with the replacement bump stop, new spring pads, U bolts and 1 inch lowering block. It took a lot of mucking around with the jack and a ratchet strap to get the axle to line up on the spring holes/pins, as the axle wanted to rotate forward and move backwards, and needed to be pulled forward again; this was made harder on this side because of the forward link on the top of the axle. The other side went a lot quicker and easier since I had worked out the secret formula on the first side. The main reason I was doing this, was because of the missing bump stop, which would be a WOF failure. Here it is, with the new parts and a bump stop I did have to go around with the angle grinder afterwards and just nip the ends off the U bolts as they were a bit long for my liking. I reinstalled the wheels, cleaned the glass, lowered it off the stands and finally got to see how it looked. In the garage, it looked awesome. The obvious thing to do now was to see what it looked like out in the cold light of day. After a few goes to get the old inertia start to stop kicking back out, it started without too much fuss and settled into a nice idle. The benefits of an electric fuel pump filling the carb bowl without needing to crank over and over. There are about two years between these two photos, and hours upon hours of work The lowered front is the obvious difference, but the rear is subtly lower, the whole lower quarter panel ahead of the wheel has been remade, and the complete outer sill has been replaced. Lowering it has made a huge difference in how it looks, and I love it. I genuinely think it's one of the coolest looking cars I have owned.

Pretty common with old switches. I used a fibreglass brush to clean the contacts, and then smothered them in dielectric grease. You could test this by unplugging the switch and shorting the wires in the connector (simulating pressing the switch and see if it operates). Check which is your switched positive with a test light first.

Could you cut the old pressed in pipe flush, run a pipe thread tap down it and use an off the shelf fitting? Those sort of pressed-in pipes can usually be yanked out after heating the housing for a bit

Just quickly, before moving on, a quick update on the rear quarter panel I left in filler last time. After much sanding, this is where it is. It needs some touching up, but I'm much happier with it. Finally, something other than bodywork. You're sick of reading about it, I'm sick of doing and writing about it. In a change of scenery, I moved to the front suspension to sort out an issue this Marina had. Say what you will about the Marina suspension, well no not that; it's not been pulled from the Minor, but anyway, it's very simple. This simplicity works both ways. It's easy to work on and adjust, but it's also simple in how it operates which can cause some compromises in ride comfort and handling. One way it's delightfully simple is that it uses a pair of torsion bars in the front suspension instead of traditional springs. These operate as a spring by twisting a spring steel rod along its length. As it always wants to try to unwind, it causes a springing effect. These have one simple benefit for car weirdos like me; they can be adjusted without special tools, on the car (for the most part), and without any legal headaches. This makes the ride height adjustable. At the back of the torsion bar, which is about half way down the length of the car, is a trim adjuster. This is used to adjust the fine height of the car. These are usually set about half way in their travel, so the ride can be altered higher or lower by a certain amount (usually an inch or two either way). Coarse adjustment is done by moving the arm by one or more splines on the shaft, one spline is one inch in adjustment. Mine is pretty ugly because it's 50 years old, and covered in thick underseal, but the basics can be seen. The orange arrow is the torsion bar, this is heading off towards the front of the car to meet the lower front suspension arm. The blue arrow is a locking bolt, this will need to be loosened (not removed) to adjust the arm, and the green arrow is the actual adjuster (which presses against a thick steel "bucket" so it doesn't dig into the floor pan). The adjuster works but moving the lever up and down, causing more or less twist in the torsion bar. So, the issue the Marina had. Well, just look at it It was very nose-up. As it turns out, according to the workshop manual, it should be 14.6-15" (37-38cm) when measured from the center of the front wheel dust cap to the arch lip. This is how mine was sitting, up to a full inch too high. I noticed this when I reassembled the front suspension after its rebuild. I was careful not to move the lower arm on the splines, so it wasn't me that threw it out of whack, but the suspension was so high that the top arm was pressed firmly against the droop stop when at rest. This is not good for ride quality. It's quite a large gap It's visible in the delivery photos too, even if the tire is a bit flat on the top. To correct this was quite simple really. Well, mostly. To actually fix the issue I would ideally need to disassemble the suspension and turn the lower arm one spline on the torsion bar to set the adjuster in the middle again, but because I don't want to do that all over again, I wire brushed off the adjuster, loosened the locking bolt and wound the adjuster bolt out. Loosening the bolt lowers the car as it takes tension off the torsion bar. I started with the RH side due to easier access and lowered it until the bucket on the top of the adjuster bolt was no longer captive, and wound it back in until it was. It got it about spot on for what I had in mind, about an inch lower than the lowest stock spec. It looked pretty good, so I moved to the other side. Unfortunately this adjuster wasn't in the middle of its travel, so it bottomed out about here. A smidge more than half an inch lower than stock. To be fair, this actually looked really good too, even though it wasn't quite as low. I wound the RH side up to level it out and ended up with this Compared to what it was, it's a decent difference. Should improve handling too, both by being lower, but also not having the top arm resting on the droop stop anymore. Pretty good result on the front. I do have a set of one-inch lowering blocks for the rear, but I want to see what it looks like on the ground again before I decide to lower the rear or not. I think I will, but we'll see. I'm hoping to get through a lot more work over the coming holiday period and have the car ready for a WOF early next year. It's way behind schedule, but it's slowly getting there.

Thanks @locost_bryan that's exactly what I needed. That's different to the weird two-piece seals the donor car had (which in hindsight I should've grabbed for a sample) but look to be exactly what I was thinking of fitting, definitely gives me something to work off.

Thanks for the advice. I'm just pissed off i was reassured before bidding that it would be fine with a sandblast and underseal, and then once i won it they started coming back saying its $$$$$++++ instead, without anyone actually looking at it and me having to take their word for it. Regardless, from what I'm hearing it sounds like NZTA is being a nightmare with rust, especially if its been flagged (which it has), so have rejected the car and sending it back to auction in japan. Absolutely gutted, but it is what it is.

Since ive been digging around the hell hole that is entry certification, here's the acid wash deets https://www.repaircert.nz/media/2022/10/Technical-Bulletin_02-2022_Acid-Wash.pdf

.

Agreed. Almost sounds like he was of the opinion that it was an old car that no one would care about, so rather than put his name to it, it should be scrapped. I hate that attitude, my wife got it a lot with her Alto years ago and I'll no doubt encounter it with the Marina at some point.

Winter sucks. Not only is it cold and dark, but it also makes working in the garage a somewhat unappealing prospect. That, and having other projects on the go, caused a bit of a slowdown with the Marina. But finally, Lucas is gone, so no more time needed to be spent there, and we're in spring now, so it's getting warmer and lighter. With that in mind, I took some time off work to finally dedicate some time to the Marina, as it's been so good just sitting there waiting, while everything else gets the attention. First though, let's step back in time to June, which was the last time I worked on the Marina. To finish off the door opening area of the sill I used a thin skim of filler just to even out the low spots where the plug welds are, and to tidy up the front edge of the sill where it meets the guard The window opening also got a skim of filler to smooth out the work I had done there. That rear curve was a real pain to do. You may have also spotted in that first photo that the floor pans were also seam-sealed. I did this to both the top, and under the car. It's not the tidiest; it's brush on and the goal was to get a good coating and not worry too much about how it looks since it will be covered by carpet anyway. Once that was done, since I had managed to acquire a new bottle of gas for my welder, I got stuck into the rear valance again. As some context, I started this valance way back in January. To get to the valance I first had to remove the tow bar. I don't really want this car to be towing anything, so it's unlikely this will go back on again. I'd previously removed the wiring and holes for that, too. It looks like Old Mate took a few tries drilling the holes before getting it right... But it came off after a bit of a fight This gave me clear access to the valance. A quick whip over with the strippy wheel, and this is what I had. Damn. It's pretty well contained to the LH side though Amongst the rust there are also some old holes for what I presume were a different screw pattern number plate. They will get filled too. I started cutting And found a couple of spots where the inner panel was rusted through too, so out that came To be replaced with a couple of bits of nice fresh new metal, all folded up to suit With the inner ground back, The first section of the outer went in. This little filler section was mainly to keep the upper section and lower lip in place so I didn't lose the profile. The real patching started with this random little hole off to the side Which extended into filling the rest of the gaping hole with new metal It's not the prettiest, and to be honest the primer makes it look worse than it is, but its nothing a skim of bog won't tidy up later And that's about where I ran out of welding gas. So, six months later, more gas in hand, I got back into it. With a fresh new perspective, I cut the rest of the lower lip off (it wasn't going to survive) and a new lower section was welded in place. This was also plug welded to the inner section I had previously replaced. A couple of smaller holes on the RH side got the filling treatment I folded this section up, stuck it in place with some magnets And metal glued in I cut out and welded up the other smaller patches, and once it was ground back a coat of epoxy primer protected it I would've loved to have a new valance panel like the Brits have, but the shipping cost would be prohibitive, and they just aren't available here. Instead, we'll make do with what we have. And that brings us up to date. Three months later, here we are. The first job of the day for yesterday was to cut the rear quarter panel up again, as I just wasn't happy with it. When I originally welded the new section in, I didn't leave enough of a gap, and when I welded it it resulted in a pointed high spot where the two panels met. I tried to hammer it out, and made it better, but just moved that metal to somewhere else in the panel. I also wasn't happy with the gap between one small section of the quarter, and where it met the sill. The gap was larger than the rest of the panel. I tried to fix this with filler, but I wasn't happy. So I cut it. I cut the bottom section out to fix the gap, and the big vertical cut released a lot of tension in the panel, allowing me to hammer it back into alignment. Opening this up also allowed me to tweak the arch section of the panel, which always sat slightly recessed from the sill. Once it was all welded back in, it was much better. Theres still a lot of finishing work to be done, but I wont be contending with a massive high peak in the middle and a deep low at the end I also completely finished the sill. There were some plug welds missing from the end, and I had to make and weld in a plate on the back of the sill to join it to the inner sill. I seam sealed the gap, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done until after using filler, but oh well With that done, the next goal was to finally refit the passengers door. It has been off the car since December last year. It's almost a car again The panel gap between the door and the new sill isn't perfect, It's a little tight at the front of the door, but it's not touching, so it's good enough. The door does need to come back a bit, but it's maxed out on its adjustment. Looking at photos, it's always been like that, so I'll need to shim the hinges, or slot the mounting holes a bit. That's a job for another time. It does open and close lovely though, even with a test door seal in place. The final task for the day was to give all the areas I had welded and seam-sealed a top coat of enamel paint. The floors were coated top and bottom Yes, I would have rather had satin or matte, but they only had gloss. The carpet will cover it, and the underside will be undersealed anyway. I also did the little strengthening ribs in the rear too, since this is where any water is likely to pool if it did get in. The rear inner boot pocket I fixed got coated too. This will likely get over-coated in yellow at some point With one full day's work under my belt, I went into day two with a list of things I wanted to try to get done. The first was to cut out and fix the seal lip on the boot opening. Most of this came off with the seal when I removed it. I had been putting this job off as it looked complex, but it ended up being a lot easier than expected, just really time consuming. I started by cutting out a small section and welding a patch in, just as a proof of concept, but it worked well, so off we went I worked my way along, using scraps from the work bench. Measure the scrap against the body, cut the rust out, clean up and weld in. And keep moving, patch by patch I left the scrap bigger than I needed, so I could trim it size afterwards There was one small spot where the actual vertical panel had a pinhole in it, so that was carefully cut out and a patch welded in there too This corner section was interesting. I hand-shaped the replacement section until it perfectly matched the profile of the original, and then cut and welded it in. The final section was welded in. Many hours later. Yeah, there are still a couple of frilly areas, but it's all under the seal and they were pretty solid otherwise, so I'm not worried. After some touching up with the grinder, it all got a coat of epoxy primer After spending so much time fixing that, I moved on to one of the other jobs I hate, filler. The valance didn't need too much, but the quarter is a bit wobbly and might need a couple of goes. I'll sand it back tomorrow and see how good I can get it. It's not something I look forward to. This has been a huge boost towards having the car on the road again. Other than some cosmetic work, like fixing the dent/rust in the boot lid, and fixing the heater box, this signals a huge milestone; all the welding is done.

if the pin is hollow, I have heard of people threading them internally and using a screw screwed into the pin to reassemble (not on gauges, but something else I can't recall). I agree with Bryan that it looks like a pin that has the end flared out holding it together

Yeah the door settings are nothing more than a ballpark for you to set the machine to and then alter the settings to suit yourself. Dont take them as gospel, sometimes they will be perfect, but often not. When i find a really good setting for what I'm doing, i print it on a Dymo label and stick it to the top of my machine. I only have, and need, a couple of settings since all I'm doing is panel work (but my memory is shocking) IMO, you are doing yourself a disservice by trying to learn all these different thicknesses and settings all at once. Just practice on what you're actually going to be using, and get the settings really well dialled in for that.

that sounds good, its the reason i didn't put mine on an oil pressure switch or the likes, as I want to prime the fuel system before starting as my car sits for a bit between starts.

I was under the impression that SuperFlex in the Uk sources some bushes from SuperPro Aus, hence the P/N crossovers

Yeah my pump is wired to run all the time with key on, but is quiet enough I'm not bothered by it on my car. The inertia switch is my safety in case I put the car on its roof or something.

Id appreciate that, and a measurement of the height of the "bulb" the glass squishes would help too. Mk3 onwards Mini could be a good option too, as you say