grimlok

Engine crane liberated from it's hidden location. My mate George is the go to guy for moving big or heavy things. He also owes me a favour or 3. Fluke called this one in. I have to say. I've had a few mates chime in on this one already. My best mates Step Dad sussed a car trailer and a ute to get the donor here. And managed to pick up an engine crane. Might conduct one of those "lean by doing" weekend seminars in a quick and nasty engine swap with the bribe of warm beer and stale pizza.

I've had a few people say keep the flat deck. It really is a whole lot more practical in every way. Needs a new timber bed and sides. The frame is solid as a rock. Let's say I won't part with it any time soon. and we'll chuck it on the "Long term list" Finally said good bye to the last of my cortina stuff today. That was a little difficult. But reality is that it was too much for me to take on not being a welder, or a panel beater. Took advantage of Supercheap's Club Plus discount and saved almost 50% on a new trolly jack and axle stands. The Mrs has been having a fit at me working on cars using left over deck piles for the last wee while. So at the very least she will yell at me about 10% less than she used to. Ordered the 1/2" rattle gun too. Should be here before the weekend.

I'm into that idea. Got a couple of Milwaukee fuel powered things already. So it's just a skin I'd need rather than another charger and batteries. To be fair, the air rattle gun doesn't fit everywhere, and the hose can be a pain in the ass sometimes too. Might have to jam one on the credit card. It would pay for itself pretty quick smart. If I go AWOL, it's because the Mrs had finally had enough of me buying tools on the credit card and buried me in the garden. Make sure no one tells her how much I really paid for car parts.

Massive change of plans and a heap of ratshit weather saw us off to pick up the donor on the weekend. Description on Facebook was "Rusty, Burnt clutch, I'm keeping the flat deck, on hold. Bring your own wheels. No Rad, No glass" After talking to the guy, I only had to take 1 wheel, And he left the flat deck on because CBF. Got it back to mine and started stripping it in the back yard because despite the fact I have 3 car+ garage space. I actually have no room. And then proceeded to somehow funnel rain water straight into the carb (F%$K MY LIFE!) I'm tempted to keep the flat deck. I'd get far more use out of the flat deck than the well side. Would need cutting down. But that's actually not a big issue. Anyway. Supercheap are doing some club card deals on jack stands and trolly jacks, and I need some gaskets. Not that I ever need an excuse to spend money on tools. But my current axel stands are left over deck piles, and my trolly jack is at least as old as I am and leaking fluid. I could fix it. But NEW TOOLS. Got a mate with an "Engine crane in my 40ft container at work. Might need fluid, I've never used it. You want it?" Yes. Yes I do. Sure beats the endless chain in the carport. So stripped a heap of worthwhile things out of the donor. Belts, Bench seat, trim pieces, screws, Jesus handle for the drivers side etc. Full loom, tow bar. Diff and gearbox will be coming out too. Along with leafs and the rest of the suspension. Been trolling the mazda mini truck forums and a cortina downdraft weber with headers and HEI is the done thing on these there. Makes sense. Totally into the rebuild the original motor idea. Something I can do in the garage over the rest of the winter. then the donor motor only really needs to survive a few months (OK lets be honest, it's going to need to last longer than that, because budget and time always goes out the window.) My compressor is an hour away at my brothers place, so I'm tempted to get a battery rattle gun. Thoughts on Air rattle guns vs Battery ones? To keep or not to keep the flat deck... That is the question.

Used to be red. Because Red is faster. Pretty keen on swapping over to the Mazda front end, Saw the chrome Mazda grill on Tard me, and it seems to be just a bonnet swap to make the Mazda grill work. Will know more when I get the donor. And the bonnets have to come off anyway. Rained off work today. So was able to sus a few things. I currently don't have a car with a tow ball. So the first mission was sussing something that can tow a car trailer. And a car trailer. Luckily my brother to the rescue. Has a towbar on his Toyota work shitter. V6 3L Avalon. Not the ideal tow vehicle. But better than none. And booked a trailer with the boys at Tool Hire Taranaki for Tuesday arvo. (Gotta time in with my brother's shift work, my own work, and the owner of the donors work hours) Think I might prep and underbody seal the engine bay while the motor is out. Attempt to get another 30 years out of it. Not overly worried about looks. I quite like the idea of patina rust repairs going on because work ute. And if I do the engine bay now. I shouldn't have to touch it again. (famous last words)

Bluetooth heady. Because Priorities. Ripped the rad out. Not the original rad, Not even a courier rad. But plastic tanks and fairly new. So we'll keep that. Find a better way of attaching it. Because tec screws. But could be worse. Could have a blown head gas... Oh wait.

Got a line on a donor '88 b2000. Rusty as. fried clutch, no class, no wheels, no rad. Which is good, 'cause further inspection says the leafs are well over due for resetting/replacement. And here's the donor from facebook marketplace. So to do list now includes rear suspension, And frankly, might as well do the front while I'm at it. I'm just gonna end up doing in the future anyway. Might as well clean the chassis up and sort it all while I have the try off and have it in pieces. (We all know how this goes right) Do the brakes. Do the shocks. Rebuild the whole dammed thing. At least the suspension parts are relatively cheap and easily available compared to some of the cortina stuff.

Haha. Doh! Just when I thought I had gotten my head around the whole offset thing I prove my ignorance by getting it wrong. Got a line on a rusty flat deck Mazda b2000 with a running motor and a few other donor parts fairly local. Pretty keen to get into this one. Been a while since I did any real work on a car.

Discussion Thread:

Have at me guys. Tell me all the things I'm doing wrong. Laugh when I cock it up. And share a beer with me when I get her going!

Hey Team. Been AWOL quite a long time. Had some serious hickups in life that slowed me down and forced me to let go of my last project. a mk3 Ford Cortina. And frankly, I went through a pretty nasty period of depression. But you can't keep a good guy down. And you won't stop a grease monkey eventually getting covered in grease. Around a month ago, My Daily Driver 2000 Ford Mondeo slipped a tooth on the timing belt on the exhaust cam, and did some bendy valve stuff. A friend had this sitting in his hay shed taking up space. And Rather than try and rebuild the Mondeo motor (Which had only done 30,000k since I did a rebuild on it anyway) I jumped at the chance to get into something RWD, with a carb, and a tray. Repainted sometime in its past, But rather neglected of late. I saw this as a chance to tinker with something oldish again. Fresh Battery and some fuel and she fired right up. She didn't sound right, but she did start. Got her home running like a bag full of assholes. Popped the bonnet to find green alien blood pretty much pissing out the Number 4 exhaust. (Sigh... Headgasket) So.... List of things on the to do list... Head Gasket (Or just pull the motor and rebuild the whole thing, It's done 300,000+ k) The steering wheel is toast. The Fuel Sender is bung (This is pretty common in these from what I've read) The tray needs that water trap bedliner scrapped and a spray on liner done. The offset on those rims is FAR too positive. Add more tie down points. Fix the Fuel door Stupid little interior blanks with holes drilled in them need sorting Screws missing in the interior. Giant speaker holes in the door cards. Apply power steering (If I can find the stuff to do it) Headunit with bluetooth. Other minor cosmetic things. Sort the suspension. Answer every question/problem in life with "Just chuck it on the back of the ute" Create discussion thread.

Ever have one of those days where you have an epic post with photos and blood and awesomeness and dragons, and then the internet takes a giant shit and you lose the lot? Hello You... And Welcome to Starship Cortina. This week. Grinders suck. My thumbs hurt. My wrists ache. I'm still pulling wire bristles out of my dreads. There was some of this... Followed by some of this... (When they disintergrate they really actually do disintergrate huh?) Then there was some of this... Found some swiss cheese in the boot. And a small hole just breaking through in the tire well. still really happy with the condition of the car in general especially since now I figure all the rust is exposed. Remember how I stored all those bolts and shit together for future me... Took me 2 days find the box with all the bolt bags... Fail. Finding the missing seat runner nut right where it should be... WIN! Next on the cards is to do the panel beating on the underside. Being really anal retentive about it. There's a couple of dings to smooth out. And those couple of patches to do. Seaming up all the factory stuff and smoothing it all off. Ready for new seal next week.

December 2013.. Holy shitballs batman. Has it been that long? Ehem..... Hello You! And welcome... To Starship Cortina. A lot has happened in the last 18ish months... A plane disapeared. (Conspiracy? How the hell do you lose a whole f%$king plane?) I've almost rebuilt the entirety of the Girlfriends Shitty Nissan. (This isn't a thing against Nissan's. Just the girlfriends p10 Primera is a shitbox) And Starship Cortina hasn't moved an inch. Until now... ... Well. She still hasn't really moved an inch. But. I've made some progress. For a 40+ year old paint job. That blue stuff is sticking pretty well... I can feel a tiny bit of momentum building this week... Half an under body stripped. Having some thoughts on Diffs. Read about a worked 2L pinto sending 168rwhp into a 2L Cortina diff and getting diff chunks in his diff oil more than once in the last 12 months. I won't be putting a 170 horse through it. But... I don't really wanna stick with the ford diff if it's only goal in life is to fill my diff oil with diff chunks. (I HATE buying new diff oil. that shits expensive... Oh and so are diffs that aren't in chunks) Might have to have a measure with the tape. I'm sure I read somewhere that a 80s hilux diff isn't too much work to get in. Tune in next week when I'll have finished stripping the paint and strengthing up the shell. Berate me for my lazyness and sheer lack of ability to work on cars for the last year or so, And tell me all the reasons a hilux diff isn't the way to go: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/40329-grimmys-71-mk3-cortina-zetec/

So. Got the 1300 of slow into the work hack, Plumbed up, new fluids and filters. Bitch wouldn't fire. Got a couple hours sleep (Which is more than I've had any other night this week) and some fresh eyes on it this arvo. Had the firing order completely wrong. Gawd alone knows what monkey put those leads on at 5am (Yeah... it was me) Pulled the plugs and had nothing on no. 1 and no. 3. Swapped the leads, still nothing, changed the plugs round... still nothing... Finally ripped the dizzy cap off and let out the small water feature in the dizzy the rotor was swimming in. Blew it out, dumped some fuel down the carb... Boom. Into life. Got it up to temperature and let it idle. dunno how to embed video... http://s900.photobucket.com/user/grimlok_photos/media/MOV_0236.mp4.html She's got a miss and a fart under heavy load. She could prolly do with a proper tune anyway. So quickly do that in the am. But Managed to do an engine swap single handed in 4 evenings and still pull a 48 hour week the week before xmas so pretty happy with the outcome. </ThreadJack> Back on target now, Pulling the Mondeo into the workshop early next year to strip it down and of course continue with the rust work on the Cortina. I get bored of doing the same thing very quickly, Which is why I jump from doing a section of metal work to sussing some of the nuts and bolts. Should start comming together soon tho. Have an awesome Xmas everyone.

<Threadjack... Bitch!> So here's teh daily with the sunroof of awesome, without a motor... or gearbox, or several other things. I've owned 3 BF Familias in my time. My first car was a calf shit yellow '84 laser 5 door hatch, I had a white 5 door familia I blew the head on in '09, And this one. When I blew the head on the last one I swapped in an E3 1300 SOHC and 5 speed from an '85 laser sedan. This motor proved to be rock solid. Despite it's lack of any nutsacks what so ever. This motor was still going strong when the body started getting beyond repair about 18 months ago. Did the smart thing and kept the the old Mazda bucket for spares when I got my current daily 2 door '85 familia... Smashed about 3 litres of degreaser over this and it came up looking almost new again. Ran outta time to get to get an inlet mani gasket and oil pack. Thinking I might run a thinner oil for a week, Before dumping that and the filter for something a bit thicker just to give the motor a clean out on the theory that a thinner oil should breakdown any buildup in the oil journals and just free things up a bit. Before getting something thicker in there to lube it up (The ladies always love it when summink thicker gets in there to lube it up) Does this make sense or am I dreaming and there is a far better way to give it a quick clean out internally? Actually... What is your process on a quick swap? What do you renew? And what do you do to prime it? I've done sump gasket, water pump, thermostat and housing, Fanbelts, fuel filter, Plugs, and tranny fluid. Still gotta pick up an inlet manifold gasket Oil and a filter. Usual way I go about first start is pull the plugs and crank it off the starter till the oil pressure light goes off. This also gets the fuel pump going and gets the carby bowl full. From there put the plugs in, do skids, and win at life. All before Xmas.