kws

Same with some NZDM early 90s BMWs. No cats, no O2 sensors.

Well today has been somewhat bitter-sweet. Little Snicket has been moved onto a new owner. It was inevitable that I would sell the car, and the biggest factor was that since getting it road legal over a month ago, I have driven the car about 3 times. The Honda does all the daily work, and the BMW does all the other weekend work (its summer, I'm a big fan of air conditioning, which the Mini didn't have). It wasn't fair to Snicket to just sit outside, in all weather, not being driven. I'm sad to see it go, it was a cool little car and I put so much work into it, but the young guy that bought it is real into old cars, and is looking forward to enjoying actually using the Mini. His ownership is a trial by fire though, since right now he is on a ferry and about to drive the car back to Christchurch, over 400KM away! Easily the longest drive the car has made in at least 4-5 years, if not longer. Oh well, good bonding with the car I guess, fingers crossed it all goes smoothly. In order to get Snicket ready for the sale today, (I'm embarrassed to say) I gave it the first clean since I bought it. Actually came up pretty well. It's a shame I never got around to polishing the paint as I think it would have come up pretty well. Even the Honda got a wash, and that was WELL overdue for one (oops). After the wash my Wife and I cleaned all the windows, and noticed a tiny little baby praying mantis chilling on the roof. Somehow it hung on despite me earlier washing the car with some vigor, and lots of water. It turns out we forgot about the little guy and when we got back from a quick drive to fill the tank, sure enough it was still hanging onto the roof! I thought I should relocate it to the garden, but not before it gave me a fist bump and explored my hand So that's the end of this journey. Snicket has gone to a new home where it should get more use, and my hard work can be enjoyed. I'm just glad I saved it and put it back on the road instead of it ending up in a crusher and being reincarnated as a Chery or Ssangyong.

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/edwardstown/wheels-tyres-rims/performance-titan-17x7-5-wheels-suit-au-fg-ford-magna-380-camry/1065365516 HTH.

Is there any way to determine before buying them, if they are suitable for certifying? Is that something id have to ask my chosen certifier? Ill drill holes into my tunnel if i have to, but rather mount it to the bracket if possible.

Speaking of certs, is this sort of attachment for the seatbelt OK for cert as long as the bolt meets spec? It mounts to the base that bolts to the floor of the car, and the recaro sliders mount to that base.

Wouldnt it be an awesome world where you could opt for them to just not put the wheel details on the plate?

It'll say "OE F&R" or the likes for wheels

Looks like it has the JWL standard marking? usually means its a JDM-YO wheel. Probably doesnt help, but nothing else to go on with my minimal knowledge.

Yes. PM me if you know anything i should know

Is you put a whole engine/driveline swap into a lower spec car, does it need drive shaft hoops and stuff for cert? Example is taking a 328i BMW, and swapping EVERYTHING from a same year/model M3 into the 328i shell. Engine, driveline, suspension, interior, everything but body panels. I understand it needs a cert for increase in engine size etc, just wanted to know how strict it is since its all factory bolt in with no mods. Also, when getting said cert, if its on standard suspension, does it need to have the wheels noted on the cert or is there a way for the wheels to just not be listed? (looking at a car that has had all this done, and it currently has garish wheels on it and would want to return to stock which is a different size, but current owner would cert the car as is with the current wheels)

On this same topic, say your car had some sick juddies in it, and no other mods. You wanted to remove said sick juddies becuase you got old and had to hang your flat peak up, and revert to standard suspension. Could you just drill the rivets out of the plate and roll stock? What if you wanted to sell the car in future, could you reinstall sick juddies, rivet the plate back on and get mad cash selling to a flat peaker?

Can confirm diagnosing board issues is a total fuck around. My 0.4 Speeduino board had issues with the ground plane not being connected to certain pins on the board, so i spent ages tracing everything back and soldering in extra jumpers to fix it.

It's mentioned in the first post the check valve is in place and new. Still worth testing it's working properly or swapping out. OP, have you tested the booster with a vacuum pump to check it can hold a solid vacuum (not just a "by ear" or "feel" test)?

I'm not worried personally. I'm a big fan of seeing other people tinker no matter the setup. Nothing like some @Roman graphs and science to go over my head but impress me.

Tunerstudio is super easy to learn the basics, and for MS there are soooo many tutorials and forum posts that almost everything has been covered at some point. I'd say go for it, personally. Just as an aside, Speeduino is now available as a prebuilt board

Playing with, building and tuning my Speeduino was awesome. Grass Roots ECU at its best. Links are great, but more a chequebook setup than megasquirt etc. Nothing wrong with that but not really what diy is about. I have another Speeduino sitting here waiting for another project.

Fuel is easy, especially with auto tune, but getting ignition just right without a dyno/knock gear is a lot harder.

One thing i need to ask if youre buying an ECU, is what is the preferred ECU for your tuner? You dont want to end up with an ECU your tuner doesnt want to work with, unless you're prepared to travel or tune it yourself.

I can see no reason for this not work work, its basically exactly what a patch harness is. Just make sure everything goes to the correct pins and it should work.

Cant imagine you would get much cheaper than a 14point7 SLC Free or Spartan2 without it being rubbish?

Lots of mk1/2 bits floating around in the various NZ Facebook groups, if you aren't on there already. May need to make a post on there and ask.

I have used rods from Bunnings to stick a couple of bits of aluminium together, seem to recall they were flux cored but using proper flux might help. Needed heaps of heat though, so a decent torch. Scrub the area around it with a scotch pad until it's spotless.

Today was the day; Recheck day. Everything had been building up to today. All the work done, all the money spent, it all comes down to a pass or fail today. First thing I needed to do was get the alignment sorted. I had booked for an alignment first thing this morning, so that I would have ample time to get that done and still make it to my recheck booking. They got onto it straight away And within no time, I had this sheet in my hands Yes, that is 21.5mm total front toe, when it should be 1mm total! No wonder it was scrubbing the front tires hard. With that sorted, the car drives much nicer now, and the steering wheel is finally straight when driving. After the alignment I shot home and refitted the front carpet. Its torn and ugly, but looks better than the bare floors. Remember, I'm trying to make an impression so the inspector plays nice I hooned in for my appointment. This confirms my suspicion that the car doesn't really suit 100kph motorways. It gets to, and holds, that speed OK, but it's pulling almost 4000rpm and there is some tasty shaking at times. Need to check the wheels for balance, which I may do next week. I suspect it's out. I may even paint the wheels while I have them off as they are a bit rusty. Looks good just sitting there I went away and killed some time and when I returned, lo and behold, this happened For the first time since 2012, Snicket is road legal! With the standard black plates still! This was a car that when I got it, barely ran, had no brakes, had no lights, leaked oil a lot, various things were loose and missing, and had been used as a parts mule. Now it runs like a champ, it's great fun to drive, and best of all, it's a viable classic car again. Others would have just scrapped it and we would be short one more awesome classic Mini, but now it's actually worth investing time and money into, and being able to enjoy it. I drove home the back way, arm out the window, enjoying the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, whilst listening to the sweet sound of a 998cc A Series purring away. I couldn't help but stop and grab a couple of quick pictures It's a great little car, and though for what I have spent I could have purchased a tidier one that was already on the road, I wouldn't have been able to save this car.

My recheck is booked for Wednesday, so with limited time to get it all sorted, I got the Mini back together. We left off the steering rack reinstalled, waiting on a new tie rod end, and about to have my rear radius arms inspected and reconditioned. The tie rod end arrived, so that went in and for the first time I could spin the wheel lock to lock on my new steering rack. It's a bit notchy as it hasn't worn in, but has no play in it at all. Should be fun. Having the tie rod end installed also allowed me to remove the steering wheel and reposition it so it isn't crooked. During testing I confirmed the alignment is way off, but I'll try to get that sorted Wednesday morning. Now.... the arms. So, remember that VTNZ failed my rear arms on having "excessive play". I dropped the arms in to the local Mini specialist, P D Automotive, and intended to have them recondition the arms with new pins/bushes, and fit new brake cylinders. They gave me a call the next day and basically told me that VTNZ are talking out their backside, because the arms have had new pins fitted recently, and there is little to no wear and certainly no play in the pins. They gave the arms a quick clean, removed the old nylon cups and fitted the new wheel cylinders to them and I picked them up ready to refit. Before fitting the arms I needed to remove the old joints from the ends of the trumpet and fit new ones. Mine were well seized into the trumpets, but I used a long screwdriver (longer than the trumpet) down the middle of the trumpet to drift it out, by bashing the end of the screwdriver against the concrete floor. Not a glamorous way to do it, but it worked. Fitting the new ones was a bit harder. I cleaned the hole they fit into, and using copper grease and WD40, carefully bashed them into the trumpet with a dead blow hammer, padding it with a rag. Remove the nylon cup first. Refitting the radius arms isn't rocket surgery, the pin goes into a hole in the subframe, and into a bracket that gets bolted onto the outside of the subframe. The hardest bit is keeping the oil seal on each end in place over the thrust washer and arm, and not having it pop out. Having a cordless ratchet was amazing for this job, as I could hold the arm with one hand, start a bolt with the other hand and then spin the bolt in with the cordless ratchet. If you didn't have one (but you should have), a second person to hold the arm up would work too. It's not light. In went the trumpet with new joint and the old cone. I used copper grease on the face where the trumpet and cone meet, so they don't seize together. The shock holds everything in place by limiting travel of the arm. I'm using a pair of the cheaper oil filled KYB shocks. Still better than the failed old ones, but not as good as the more expensive gas shocks. To fit the shock, slip it onto the stud on the arm first, and then extend the shock up into the arch. Fit the washer and bush and guide it into the arch hole. Now, holding the shock up with one hand, use your other hand inside the boot to slip the other bush, washer and then nut on top. I did the top nut up as far as I could with my cordless ratchet, and then gave it a final tighten by hand, as you need a tiny spanner on the top of the shaft to keep it from spinning. Now that the arm was in place and being held by the shock, it was time to start refitting the brakes on this side. First the new hose went in. I transferred the locking nut and washer over from the old hose, with a good helping of copper grease on the threads. The hardline to the cylinder was fitted next. I found it easiest to fit it into the cylinder first, loosely, and then fit it to the hose. Doing it the other way around limits movement to align the smaller fitting on the cylinder. Keeping the hose lock nut loose so the hose and move around a bit helps too. Speaking of cylinders, here's a nice new one. I confirmed the old ones were buggered by trying to turn the piston with a screwdriver. Its easy on the new ones (has to be, so you can line the slots up with the shoes), but none of the old ones would turn. Next I removed, cleaned and greased the adjuster screw and blocks. It's a very simple system, which would work well, if it had the means to auto adjust, but since it doesn't, it needs almost constant manual adjustment. The system works by screwing the screw in and out to push the blocks out. If you wind the screw completely out, the blocks aren't pushing on the shoes But you can see as the blocks move up the taper, by screwing the screw in (the blocks are held in place and can only move in and out). This pushes the blocks out further, which pushes the shoes out and closer to the drum You can also see that the taper isn't just a cone, it's actually squared off, which means there is some fine adjustment by turning the screw just a little bit either way off the flat. Moving off the flat, the rounded edges push the blocks out further again. I refitted the adjuster, and moved to the other side to refit the arm. Before I could though, I had to clear some grot out of the subframe. It was a combination of grease, dirt, and who knows what else. I started with this. And using a couple of large screwdrivers and a shop vac, I chipped away at it I found some surface rust under it all, so a brushed it back and sprayed on some rust converter before refitting the arm. Refitting was the same as the other side, but a lot quicker this time. Refitting the hand brake cable spring to the back plate sucks, but can be done with some brute force. I repeated the cleaning and greasing of the adjuster on this side too before fitting. Next was to fit the new shoes. Make sure your hands/gloves are free from grease, and refit the same way they came off. Take note of where the springs hook into, and which way around the shoes go. Each shoe has a leading (longer gap from the end of the metal shoe to the friction lining) and trailing edge (short gap from edge to lining) which needs be fitted the correct way around. The green arrows indicate direction of travel for the wheel when driving forward. The orange arrows show where the leading edges should be on the shoes. And on goes the drum. The drums were in decent shape, so I gave them a degrease and clean and reused them. I probably should have given the insides a light sanding to help bed the shoes in, but too late now. The other side was the same process Next was bleeding all four brakes. I have explained this is a previous post so I followed the same instructions and got as much air out as I could myself, but found that I could only get it all out with a helper holding pressure on the pedal as I opened the valve. I took the car out for a quick drive and it did not feel good at all. I think it was a combination of the alignment being too far out, the wheel bearing being a little on the loose side, and the shoes bedding in and being out of adjustment. I went back into the garage and tended to everything I thought it could be, and the car was much better to drive. The alignment was obviously still well out, but I'll get it properly aligned to fix that. The rear was the biggest difference though, going over bumps before, the whole car would bounce back and forth, now the rear is solid and going over bumps isn't an issue. The steering feels very tight and very direct with the new rack. So, other than the alignment, we are ready for the recheck.

My Rover GM 3spd auto didn't have a drain bung. Very messy. Mercedes sucks the oil out at the dealership, but they still have drain bungs. Probably quicker to suck it out than to remove all the bloody under trays.