_Matt

Been dailying it for nearly 4 months now!

Awhile ago I took it to Napier and got Simon from Airride NZ to paint on some whitewalls. Looks so much better!

A couple weeks a go I drove it up to Auckland.
No issues, other than the speedo dying on the way up in Thames. Have been emailing Classic Instruments about the gauge, to see if they can find whats wrong. They have since stopped replying after I did some tests and they figured out it's completely dead. Not the first issue with it either. Have already sent it away to get fixed once, as the odometer wasn't working when I first got it. Not impressed, since they aren't exactly cheap!

Brought back an engine and gearbox, a couple storage boxes and a set of wheels from Auckland.

The Hoonigans also shared it on their Instagram. Some comments are pretty entertaining haha.

Have some bear-claw latches to install one day, as the doors are a pain to get closing properly, keep popping open and rattling.
Need to sort some electric solenoids to lock the doors first though.

Stripped most exterior stuff off, except for the doors.

Have cut off the a-pillar rain gutters after ajg193's suggestion, cleaned up all the rust underneath and plug welded them back on.

Found some spots of rust on the hatch after removing the window. Most of it is just surface rust.

Got carried away and stripped all the paint off the exterior side. Previously someone has stripped it and gone over all the rust spots and ground them out. Which I wasn't too happy about, but it seemed to have stopped it rusting further. Has a little patch welded in on the lower right as well.

This top bit, just below the water squirter had a few small holes.

Cut it out and made a patch to weld in, after I cleaned up the rust inside and painting it.

All welded and cleaned up.

Picked up a new engine! 4AGE 20V Blacktop!!!

And a J160 6 speed. It already has the SQ Engineering adapter plate. The clutch/pressure plate and starter is already set up ready to bolt the two together.

Pulled out the old 4K.

Empty and dirty engine bay.

Gave it a steam clean, came up heaps better.

Test fit of the J160, definitely going to need to pull out the grinder!

Laser cut out a 12mm stainless exhaust flange. Planning on building some high-rise headers at some stage.

Ordered some goodies from SQ Engineering. 

Bought some Cusco AE86 engine mounts. Also have an AE86 water pump set up and some other bits on the way.

Spotted in Thames

It made it in a few magazines recently.
Performance Car in the 4 & Rotary Jamboree section.

Petrolhead in the Beachhop section.

NZV8 Beachhop Edition.

And the recent NZV8 in the editorial.

Had the transmission pulled apart and the forward clutch was burnt out.
After waiting a month for the trans to be rebuilt and getting a price back, I decided my Dad could have the rebuilt one and I'd pull out the one that was bolted up to a dummy engine in one of his projects. It looked to be in good condition from the outside. Grabbed the bits I needed off my old one and swapped them over. Hooked it all up and put some new oil in. Went for a test drive and it goes way better than it has ever had!!

Has been my daily for the past few weeks (sorry neighbours! The 6-7am coldstarts with the compressors kicking in must get annoying haha), haven't had any major issues! Have done over 1000km in it since the new trans has been in.

Went out last weekend and took some decent photos of it.

I guess I finally got enough courage to fix the rest of the rust. Had plenty of spare time over Easter so thought I'd better do something and was sick of having a puddle on the floor each time it rained heavily.
The rust hole under the wiper motor was the worst of it, kept putting it off because of the location and how tight the space is to get at.

Ground the mounting plate off, the rust was a little worse than I thought it was gonna be.

Made a patch to fit and then cut a much bigger hole. Took a few attempts to get the patch the right shape.

All welded in, didn't come out too bad.

Got a rust cut from Olds Cool Autos as the wiper mount was a bit past it after I cut it off.

Carefully removed the lower skin and gave it all a sandblast.

Welded it in place after testing the wipers still worked properly. Had to pull out the mig welder for the first time in a few years since i couldn't get the rear plug welds with the tig. Mig does plug welds nicer any way.

The drivers door had quite a few holes on the bottom.

Also had some tiny holes on the outer skin in the front corner, was easier to just cut that whole piece out and make a new patch. 

Made a couple of patches for the inner skin and welded them in, then brushed on some paint.

Next made up the outer skin patch, welded that up and then hammered the edge over. The outside has a little distortion since I couldn't get a dolly in there properly to stretch the weld out, but nothing a light skim of bog won't fix.

Another few patches further down which finished off the rust in this door.

Was a good time to fill up the original side mirror mount holes. Cutting out 6mm diameter circles wasn't that easy!

Underneath the fuel cap was some more rust coming through.

Sanded it back and just the top needed replacing with new steel.

Rust killed it all after patching it and then seam sealed it back up.

Both A-pillars had some rust coming through, no holes though, so rust killed them.

Still need to fill the antenna holes.

Got the intake all done with a K&N filter, looks pretty good I think.

Took a guy for a drive that knows transmission things up the road and back and he reckoned the trans was sweet, shifting how it should, just the engine was massively down on power. Tried to diagnose the problem myself but I couldn't really figure much out. It was throwing error codes for the secondary throttle and knock sensors. Discovered the secondary throttle sensor was only used for traction control so I didn't need to worry about that one. Was hoping the knock sensors were just reading high because the timing was out, so I took it to Danny's Autos in Palmy to go on the dyno and see if they can tune it and figure out what's wrong.
They got it on the dyno, they were just bringing it up to speed and fuel started pissing out everywhere. One of the fuel hoses going up to the fuel rail split, don't know if it just happened or if it's been like that for awhile, but we never noticed any fuel in the valley before, where as there was heaps in it then.
So off came the intake and manifold to replace it. Whilst they had that off they had a look at the knock sensors and they had seen better days. The wiring pins were pretty corroded and the casings were cracked. They sourced some new OEM ones and chucked them in. They also found one of the breather hoses had a split, as well as one of the igniter modules was only firing 1 of 4 cylinders on that one side. So basically this has only been running on 5 cylinders all this time. Thought it didn't sound quite right haha.

The steering rack also decided to start leaking power steering fluid out of a place the fluid shouldn't be. Beach Hop was the next week and the rack had to be sent to Auckland to be rebuilt. Managed to get the engine back together and drive it home on the Tuesday night and pull out the rack to be sent off on Wednesday. Luckily they got around to rebuilding it fairly quick and sent off again so it arrived first thing on Friday morning. Got a different igniter module from the wreckers off a SR20 and it ran waaaaaay better!

Chucked the rack back in Friday morning and took it for a WOF, passed with flying colours, so went and got some rego and now it's all legal!!!!

On Friday/Saturday the fuel pump must of came out about a dozen times, half of which were on the side of the road. Went for a bit of a drive and the fuel pump kept dying for some reason, thought maybe the wiring in-tank was a bit dodgy, replaced it all and soldered every connector, that didn't make much difference. Discovered that if I gave the pump a good smack it would start back up pumping a bit more fuel or just die completely. Decided to get another fuel pump from Repco and chucked that in. Turns out the brand new "genuine" Walbro pump I got off ebay was shit. Went sooooo much better again!!

Took it to the 4 & Rotary Jamboree show and shine at Manfield on the Sunday and took home the Best Commercial Piston trophy.
Then on the Monday took it back into Danny's Autos to get dyno'd. Made 100kw at the wheels which I thought wasn't quite right (should be closer to 200kw?), but he reckoned it was running right and just the reading wasn't that accurate, he had trouble getting into 4th, kept changing down, so had to do it in third and that was maxing out the dyno's rolling speed. It had good consistent 02 sensor readings.

Took it up to Beach Hop on the Wednesday. Had no issues other than getting some brake fade through the windy bits between Waihi and Whangamata, we think there must of still been some air left in the lines. After that happened I was changing it manually between 2nd and 3rd gear through the windy bits, rather than just leaving it in drive as it engine brakes way more.

Survived all through Beach Hop, including going up to Whitianga, Kuaotuna and Onemana as well as cruising up and down the main street lots, the rear bumper took a few scrapes, I think it needs some titanium stripes underneath! I think it was one of the cars that got some of the most attention.

Managed to get all the way back down to Marton, then when I was overtaking up a hill, noticed smoke coming from under the dash, so quickly pulled over and checked it out. The transmission sump had either smoke or steam since it was raining coming off of it, also smelt very burnt and the oil was quite dark. My parents caught up and we decided to just keep driving. I then noticed it was revving at 3500rpm at 100km/h, where as it's usually around about 1800rpm. It was only changing from first into second gear and that's it, if I took my foot off the accelerator it would drop straight down to idle. It was a slow drive home from there at 70km/h.
Next couple of days I pulled the trans out, pulled off the sump and it had quite a bit of metallic build up at the bottom and just smelt very burnt.
I guess it's always been slipping, as to why it didn't make much power on the dyno.
Dropped it off today to get a quote on being rebuilt, so hopefully it's not too bad.

It used about $400 worth of petrol over Beach Hop, which I think worked out to be 15 l/100km.
After driving it for about 1200km I have decided the seat definitely needs redoing, it's way too hard, would also be nice to sit a bit lower and further back as well. Also the accelerator pedal has your foot at too much of an angle back, so gets sore rather quick. Shouldn't be too hard to fix as the seat changes should help and just modify the pedal a little.
Also the door latches + door seals are terrible, takes way too much effort to get them closing right.  A softer door seal might help, and you can get bear jaw latch kits that are basically a bolt in thing for these which might be the go when I have the spare money.

Decided I didn't like the stainless trim around the windows enough to keep it, so swapped in the standard one I had. Suits the style better anyway.

Then I could put the inner windscreen surrounds in, as well as the sun visors and rear view mirror, but I don't seem to have a photo of them.

Took the seat to the upholsterers and got some Mexican blankets put on. Will only be temporary until I can afford to get it done properly in leather or something.

Had the center dash panel straightened and polished up, as it was a bit warped. Then I polished up the glove box to match. Cut up some black vinyl strips and put them in the low spots, still need to do the glove box.

Got the engine back from being rebuilt. Was mint inside and no other damage other than the piston and conrod. Chucked it back in and assembled everything back together. Started first pop and ran very well!
So bolted together the whole front end and put the bonnet back on after a long time it's been off.

Made a new intake pipe to get in going in the opposite direction than the standard one.

Made a coolant overflow and power steering reservoir, they both seem to work pretty well so far.

Attached some peep mirrors onto the doors. I think they look good, although rubbish to see anything through.

Bought some tyres, ended up with BF Goodrich's, 205/65/15 front and 225/70/15 rear.

Apparently 15x8's with 225/60 tyres don't fit on the front of this without massively rubbing on the fenders. Managed to return the tyres and swap them for some 205/65's and got the wheels split and narrowed to 7" wide.

Had it through the cert check the past week and everything was good! Had a wheel alignment and that also went well. Just waiting on the cert plate now and then can take it for a WOF!
Drives really nice and smooth, although the transmission seems to be slipping. We think it has something to do with the secondary throttle sensor that doesn't seem to be working, so need to have a look at that.