Kimjon

Brother is going out into business on his own. He brought a ridiculously huge van, big enough to human traffic at least 40 Russian brides in. He wants to transport his kitchen bench tops in it, so I've spent today making him this: And test fitting in the mega van: It's going to get painted, more 18mm plywood on the floor (under the carpet) and wood slats tech screwed to it for the tie downs to hold onto...but you get the idea. I'll leave that stuff for him to finish as it's just paint and screws and he's more than capable of doing that.

I feel I missed out on my education now

http://www.craftrunner.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=6349

Tadah!!!! Finished (well, 95%) my green/gold/black metallic goped. I haven't actually started it yet, as the missing 5% is the brakes and kill switch, which just needs a cable from a bike shop to finish...but not so safe without it. It's a sure sign of getting old when you're such a pussy you wont ride a wildly ported and untested motor without brakes. Meowwww...pussy...pussy... is all I can hear in my own sub consciousness. Meooooowwww...don't be a pussy!

Been so busy of late I've neglected my fun project pile. So decided to burn up a little time on this to move it a step closer: Basically done, just need a clutch to fit and then paint touch ups.

I emailed nzta when my impala was listed at 6 cylinder engine size, but was a V8. I took a photo of the chassis tag which had a "x" in it, which denotes factory V8 in Chevrolet's chassis code, as well as the details on how to decode the chassis numbers and they emailed back saying all done! Easy as that.

Let's call this stage 1. A starting point, has to start with ummmm...well....with something??? and this is that something. I've been building this car in my head for about 5 years now. It was going to be based on the piss-ute (that's why I brought it), but I soon lost the love for that vehicle after all that happened and everything about it brought me negative feelings towards it. This is a fresh start, with what I think is a sexier younger looking model, hopefully with more end game potential for me to make something really cool out of it. Stage 2 in the making...though it'll be sometime before anything actually happens.

Piss-ute is now gone...long live the new king!

Pewter is probably comparable to say die cast, as in a matchbox car. I think the material itself would be sweet as...just got to find a way of making the mould. Silicone is used by the more sophisticated user...it was just going to over complicate my use for it, been such a simple little object. For your needs, I'd say it's your only option? Have a YouTube search and see what pops up?

Post up your results. Can't see why it wouldn't work, and if first attempt doesn't get it...melt it black down and try again.

My impala was missing a knob. No one likes being knobless, so I thought I'd treat it to a brandnew knob! A Google search or two later and I was shocked at how expensive it was going to be, $30USD + $25USD postage!!! WTF!!! That's like $100DNZ. So I thought about turning one up one the lathe, but it would've looked too perfect. Then I remembered casting metal for small projects about 20 years ago when I was a student. So I thought I'd give it a go. I really wanted to capture the imperfections of the original. Original old parts have a certain amount of soul to them...new parts often don't. So here's how it went down: DIY sanding board. $2 cuttlefish from a pet store. It's that white shit you'll see budgies pecking at inside their prison cage of broken dreams and mental hell. I cut it into two halves, and then sanded each half flat. Next push in your original work piece as much as possible. Take it out, scrape away some of the indentation...repeat...repeat...repeat, until it's nicely sitting halfway in. Now match the otherside the same way. You'll need to cut a pouring funnel into the top, to get the metal in. And hard to see, but I cut 4 very small air vents on each half, to let the air out. Then I pinned the mould together to keep the alignment of the two halves squared away. Time to heat up metal. I'm using lead free pewter, same as jewelers use to make rings and necklaces etc. $14/100g online from a craft shop in Auckland. I only needed about 20g...but at that price, I thought I may make something else later? Melting it is as easy as it looks. A $2 shop ladle that I tweaked with a panel hammer to put a pouring spout into. And a blow tourch. Pouring the mould. Opening for the moment of truth...fuck yeah, nailed it first pop!!! Yeeee-fucking-ha!!! A quick tidy up, dremel a slot, buff up on the polishing wheel, scotchbright to dull it down a little to match the original patina...booyah! And what it's all about. Installed in the car. It competes me! I'm so happy with how its turned out.

The SS sold last night for 4.8K. Someone got a pretty sweet deal, as 3 to 4K will fix all the issues and then they will have a rock solid ute with nothing to worry about for another 200,000km. Beats paying 12k for one with 250,000km on the clock, which is on the brink of needing 3 to 4k spent on it in the very near future. Basically works out at 8k versus 16k...half price. But for me, I just want to move on and this was my way out of it. Now time to start thinking through all those ideas i have and making shit happen.

Poor old Mitch must be wondering what the fucks going on with his drift trike. Sadly not much, as my parts from Ebay never arrived. First time I've been let down by Ebay... but it's been 4 months...no parts! So I decided to do what I could with what I had: I adapted a brake caliper to fit the rear, just needed a narrower bracket to hold it. Recycled an old brake line that I found at a swap meet (completely packed full of shit). Blew it out with air, then a generous spray of brake cleaner...repeat... Then set up a lever I got of trademe for $20, and bled the system. Took a bit of bleeding, to the point I was wondering if the caliper was frozen in place...then pop! All is good in da hood, and brakes now working perfectly. I'll buy a clutch off trademe for triple the Ebay price and finish this thing next weekend.

Fault code was a red hearing. Pending code that went away. I'm still learning this OBD11 stuff...rookie mistake. I have the cam sensor and it can go with the ute if new owner wants it. I've already listed it on trademe today, time to move forwards with life.

It's not difficult fixing those issues that pop up. I've just lost the love for this ute. It's like been stuck in a bad relationship and all you want to do is get the fuck away from it. The ute brings me no joy in my life, unlike other projects cars I've worked on like my Series 1 RX7, or the time I put a 350chev with a 6/71 supercharger into a VK commodore, LT1 in a VN commodore, 1964 Impala...they were fun to do, in fact I'd burn the candle at both ends just to work on them. The ute has become meh...

Sort of, but still have all those sensors that are still required for the ecu to run the motor, crank angle, detonation, camshaft position, oil pressure, coil firing order, etc etc...all still required to run even a basic carburetor set up. . Honestly I've got to a point where I'm just over it. Going to sell the SS and get rid of it. I've been throwing money at it all the time to just keep it going. I think its because I'm the unlucky one to own it as it clocks over to the amount of k's where shit all goes bad at once. Hopefully the next guy who buys it enters with a better starting point than me, a more honest description of what's wrong, a much cheaper price and more enthusiasm to finish it. Going on trademe today...

Use a test light on battery positive and check earth. Could be bad earth.

I'm far to random for that, though I take the point. Maybe in the future when I do something super cool on a car. Here's another random thing to do. Sick of lose stuff in the boot, I finally got motivated to do something about it. The nutsert has to be one of the coolest things invented. However my gun is Chinese junk and is teetering on the edge of braking everytime I use it. Bolted in place. I put 4x little feet under it to raise it off the floor a little just in case the boot ever leaks, I didn't like the idea of a place for rust to form. I used 3x washers to go between the toolbox where the bolts go through to stop the bolts distorting the toolbox too much. Its rock solid now. Then I bent up a "J" hook on the manual bender, to hold the spare tyre where its supposed to go. And using a washer and wingnut secured it in place. Now I have a basic assortment of tools to get me out of a tricky situation on the side of the road, plus still enough room in the boot to hide at least 7 bodies, some moonshine, a shovel and a bag of lime. I'm happy, should provide minimum peace of mind for trips away.

Yeah, got that one wrong

Oh, you're right...just googled it. Not sure how I got that so wrong.

It is. But ls doesn't make it cool.

That's the only advantage the VN commodore had, was weight...or lack of. It was only a touch over 1300kg all up. My ss ute weighs 2200kg... I'm picking the extra weight is all shit that keeps you alive in an accident, so maybe not a bad thing. But kills power to weight ratio. The new build, or more me thinking out loud at the moment, involves a sbc into a newish commodore. With a few twists to make it interesting. I'm adding up the numbers at the moment and it's not looking to bad. Just hard to justify removing what's considered a better motor to put in old technology. But yeah...

Cars are for dicks! Well my mate flea who is a very talented mechanic/engineer always says this, and I'm beginning to agree with him now. I ran this process as per Holdens workshop procedure: I've gotta admit, it did recalibrate the idle and all looked promising for a short while. After all this is a big leap into a new world for me...technology. okay, its (OBD11) 30 year old technology, but I've only ever fixed motors with carburetors, not injectors...so it's new to me. Any electronic work was always happily palmed off to auto electricians in the past. However I'm trying to learn all aspects of cars these days so jumped in the deep end. On its first test drive it throws up a check engine light (again) after only 5 minutes use!!! Balls!!! Scanned it, fucking cam sensor is now dead! So that's just about every sensor replacement you can do on an ls1 now. Fuck old new cars and their shitty electronics. I'm starting to like the idea of that 173 and trimatic?

Now we're talking. Like the train of thought and where that's going. However having just spent more hours than I'd care to admit groveling around underneath the SS changing every fucking sensor the LS1 has to offer, after scanning it to find what DTC's where causing the check engine light to come on (pretty much everything), I'm hoping today it runs like it should for the first time I've had it.

My lt1 with a 6 speed manual drove like a V8 super car. Loved that motor, and with some extractors and a mafless tune...it hauled arse. Smoked any stock ls1 Commodores. A+++....Would definitely trade again Your hilux sounds like fun, maybe there's some unlocked potential yet to be unleashed? At minimum, it should do epic skids?