igor

Love how that POS 80" started near enough straight away after sitting so long. I'm a Ford man but I'll give Holden a point for that.

As others have said it sounds like it's running way too rich. Nothing helpful to add though. Good luck with it.

Quite like the new colour combination. Doesn't look silly at all.

The good thing about AA is that it is on the driver not the vehicle. I used this to advantage once back in the '80s when my boss's almost new L300 shit the cam belt. I called them first then called him to tell him what I'd done and he was all "but I'm not a member". Didn't matter cos I am and have been since the day I got my licence. Serviceman took a look, listened to the symptoms, decided it was fucked and towed it in to dealership it came from. Sweet.

Best thing is the longer one keeps the membership current the cheaper it gets. Having been a member since 1983 I get a huge discount on my annual subscription and a guaranteed no claims bonus for life on AA insurance even if I have a claim.

Sounds like school camp. Children to bed early, parents on the piss till all hours.

Strong Brothers used to be the go to place for Mini and other A series bits in Aucks in the '80s and '90s. They still got that stuff?

Cool barrel nose. Was filling my XC at BP in Invers one night many years ago and a larger one of those came in. An actual truck rather than a pickup. Got talking to the guy as one does and the subject of fuel consumption came up. He reckoned single figures if it was working hard. Was a sweet truck though.

My good 1/2 inch drive Imperial ones live in their own case. Late FIL's toytown 3/8 1/4 drive combo set likewise. Remaining unfucked ones from other old toytown sets just lie around on the bench or loose on the shelf in the tool cupboard. Need to get a good 1/2 drive metric set and some 3/4 drive stuff for the big nuts on the tractor but not likely to have money for that anytime soon. Fucked sockets make good spacers for elderly person grab rails in the house but that's a story for the house thread.

Do it David. You just need to. That car deserves it.

Landlord sounds like a complete cunt. You must have been desperate for a house to accept that shit. Think I would have told him to fuck off. I know Chch is a tight market since the earthquakes but garages are for cars and cars leak oil. It's just the nature of the beast. He needs to suck it up and start living in the real world. 

...with quad tyres for traction off road.

Thought cert plate died with rego?

I thought this too but I'd be very happy to be wrong.

C'mon Seedy, Herbie goes to Monte Carlo is a classic.

Got away with reusing a head gasket on a mate's 3.6 XR coon once. In the absence of a new gasket we applied paint thickly to the mating faces of the head and the block and slapped it together while the paint was wet. Was only a quick survival job on a motor with around 250,000 miles on it though and definitely not to be recommended.

Fine Old Roaring Dinosaur

What Ky said if for no other reason than ease of swapping. The 1600 would be a better option for those potential purchasers who care about retaining semi originality too.

Cheers for that guys.

Looks tidy. All original nana spec, not buggered by someone who thought they were fixing it up.

I don't think I've seen a Skoda driving around since the '80s or early '90s. One of our scout leaders had one in the '70s and then a guy I worked with in the '80s had a couple but I never saw them run cos he always drove his PB Vauxhall. He did reckon they were very hard to kill though. There was a Sabre that I used to see regularly in Whangarei back in the day. Rather liked the look of that. I thought it had more style than the later ones but each to their own. Good to see that they are not extinct anyway. Used to have a VHS tape of classic crashes from Scandinavian rallying. It was full of Skodas, Saabs, and old Volvos going hard so yes they did rally them.

Purely an interest question as I have no money for any of my bike projects for the foreseeable future. My Raleigh 20 that I bought when I was a student in Dunners in '99 still has the original white tyres. They still held air last time I used it but they're pretty cracked. Anyone know if they are still available anywhere? I've purchased 20 x 1 3/8 tubes this century but they took a bit of finding.

I think I have an incomplete one of those among my bike junk. Now I know what it is. Lucky to get the tyres. 

Re dodgy wiring causing random shorts, does the trailer cable happen to pass close to the exhaust? Might be worth checking. One of my EA coons had a similar issue on a family holiday once. It broke the tail pipe off the back of the third muffler somewhere in North Canterbury on the afternoon of Good Friday. We drove on from Cheviot with the windows down for fresh air just in case it was sucking fumes back in. Lost the dashboard lights somewhere in the lower half of the North Island, carried on. Desert road at night unable to see the speedo, still with windows down. Taupo for breakfast, so far so good. Day time again, don't need dashboard lights now. Stopped for juice at Hamilton and no indicators or brake lights working either. Drove on to Northland without indicators or brake lights cos Easter weekend and nothing was open. Described symptoms to ex wife's new husband who'd done his time at the local Ford garage and without even seeing the car he identified the problem having seen it before more than once at his old work. Heat from the broken exhaust had melted the trailer cable and blown multiple fuses. We had just enough functional circuits left for the car to start and run.

Have you considered the old school method with a rip saw? Will take a while but not impossible. Can remember grandfather hand ripping demolition rimu 6x2s to get 3x2s for the purlins on the shed we were building. One does some strange things when one has plenty of time but little money.

House truck drag racing? Might be worth a watch. Do you measure the ETs with a stopwatch or a calendar?

I'd be inclined to make a prototype out of cardboard and figure out all the bends and which ones to do first before starting to cut steel.