NickJ

I looked at that but the chance of hitting a void when boring out put me off, using a 1700 crank sounds interesting but they are very thin on the ground here and for the cost to import one a twin cam build would be within budget, just rebuilding the engine with the basics right (balanced internals & matched compression/cam/carb combo) is quite appealing

You seem to be right, not much space in there, downdrafts will be the way to go, at least the manifold will be simpler than the one I had to build for the Niva! quite likely need the vfts bonnet scoop to make them fit! Start a build thread and do it, then I can avoid your mistakes!

not as dodgy as it could have been, thank god for google translate!

Well got the wof and celebrated with a big drive up the Hopkins, for those of you not familiar with the south island you head to lake Ohau, drive past the skifield turn off and from there the road turns to a track with vehicle access almost all the way to the main devide, its a great spot, our plan was for a spot of hunting but the weather played against us, snow to the valley floor and a nasty southerly, we made it to the ridgeline but the temps didn't allow us to hang out too long! For the trip I finished off a longstanding mission, a plywood platform in the back to keep my gear organised, also has a compartment for the second battery to calm my fear of returning from a mission in the hills to a flat battery! not quite wired up yet but its there with jumper leads attached if needed! This mudhole claimed the niva, with armfulls of river stones and my high lift I managed to dig myself out, all alone because the plan was to meet a mate up there late in the evening, I made the call to drive out and wait for him, saving further troubles and of course we both drove back in without incident! I also had the first test of the light bar, its the best thing ever for night trips, perfect view of the dark track ahead. Happy Niva Stoked as I replaced the bald tyre with another mud grip, going cheap could have been a disaster! I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the engine, in low first she happily idled across rough sections and had enough poke to get off the idle and climb out of creekbeds. Back in the city she's been dormant but I take her out to the farm now and then, until last week I left her to warm up and got distracted by a phone call, with a change of plans she never left the house and sat for a few days, when I tried to start her up again, no dice, not a pop, thinking it would be the points I pulled out the distributor and gave it a tickle but still no life, checking the plugs they had a solid layer of carbon! idiot! so quickly stealing the 2105 plugs she roared into life, lesson learnt, choke is wholesale pouring in fuel and should only be used to start, not idle!

Yip, thats where it ended its journey, Chch pick-a-part

Yay, thats like, just over the road, 10speed to the meet it is!

The VFTS body kit is quite attractive to me, very 131r like (dream car)

Thats not a hijack, thats motivation! the twin cam sure looks like it should be there, did you have to fabricate mounts? I have the sway bar for the niva sitting there, i'll have a measure up and if they'r the same i'll put doubling up on the to do list. This guys recipe is interesting, being that a good TC is getting harder to find its quite a tempting option (I still have the Niva's original engine tucked away) http://www.lada.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11097&sid=64bc316f74ec00f2a41411adcabee91b

Awesome, i'm impressed you took the effort to take film pictures! even with smartphones i'm still too lazy to take decent shots!

Shannon had a collection too but i'll happily accept any parts you need taken away! guess a drive out your way will be in order too once shes on the road. looking forward to a cruise, i've only driven it round the block and to my place, suspense!!!

I had the wof guy moan about my mud tyres and that the rims also needed a cert, lame because they are the ones fitted when originally sold in NZ and so have been there for every wof since, also same make & size tyre that went through the cert process! because the cert guy just put OE in all the boxes wof guy said the rims need to be changed, thankfully another wof guy told him to mellow out and not worry about it and I got my wof. Is it worth the hassle making sure that all the fields are filled out in on the cert plate? and is there any central record of the vehicle fitment at the time of cert inspection if it came to an argument?

yeah, would be cool to see how you made it work, I guess its not too different to doing the niva? I just like to see them for interest Just measured up the springs, Fronts, Niva is 16mm (15.6) 2105 14mm (13.6) Rears look the same but i've just had a shower so will get in trouble with the boss if I crawl under to get a proper measurement & count coils! I'll have a closer check next time i'm working on them

I'm heavily considering sourcing some raised springs for the Niva then sacrificing its springs to lower the 2105, planning a morning at pick a part armed with calipers and a tape measure to see whats around, HQ front springs are the way i'm told, just not sure how easy they are to find, guess that means they'd work for the sedan too? Reading your build thread I'll have a look for some shorter bump stops/ copy the shorten trick. Only site I could find that showed how they lowered one they had removed the springs, pretty sure that doesn't fly with the wof man here, + i'm not keen on moving mounts/geometry to make it all work, as of now the sills are 300mm above the deck, if I can drop 100 off it will still make a mighty difference.

Do you have any pics? would love to see them!

That would be an ideal rim, happy thoughts that some turn up for a silly price.... With the two Ladas parked up next to each other the twin cam seems wasted in the Niva, its awfully tempting to swap the engines over! Last night with a beer in hand I had a crazy idea to drop all the springs and dump it onto the stops to see what max low is, just like VG's experience the bloody springs are massively compressed to fit in, no luck at all, i'll have to get a spring compressor onto the job! on the positive side some sort of improved low should be possible, the hunt for springs begins!

Not keen on chopping/certing at this stage, smaller tyres might be the way I remember reading that a while back and had it in my head there was more than chopped springs involved, thanks for making me have a re-read, feeling a tad more positive about making it work, maybe sort some raised springs for the niva and chop the standards it has now

Had Photoshop running so gave a quick chop, looking at the layout of the suspension I think that would be as low as it could go, and most likely on the stops, really need to learn Russian to work out how they do it! edit-added pic of low

Few more checks today, my original Niva engine ran rough the whole time I had it eventually we found the timing chain had jumped a tooth, being I have already found the carb needs a birthday I'm no longer paranoid but I figured i'll check the timing just because, and I get to have a look at the condition of the engine, it all looks amazing in there! (dot should line up with the post, rotates ccw) Cam timing is just behind, not sure if I can be bothered shifting to the next slot to see if it improves, static advance was bang on 10degBTDC, so thats all gravy. Pulled the steering idler out after a small battle with the bolts, bush measures up as 21mm, shaft 19.6mm, that explains the wobble! also the grease inside was dry and took some scrubbing to free up. From the Niva i've found these seem to wear the lower bush and not the top, in the past i've swapped them over to get more life, as i'm ordering a bunch from overseas i'll just replace the lot. Pulled the instrument cluster to get this gauge out, has what looks like mould inside, was hoping I could pop it open for a cheaky clean, sadly it looks like they're sealed, only bonus was half the warning lamp bulbs were missing, add a few bulbs to the growing shopping list... Also took the bonnet off, makes for easy work!

Wow look at that! He has a few other ladas in his collection, this one looks alot like the one I scored an alternator from at pick a part a few months back 1990 Lada Samara 1500 by Stephen Trinder, on Flickr

All good, I'd be pretty happy if 195s would fit in there without hassles, don't want to go too wide, keen to keep the steering light & easy

I used to drive an old passenger bus up to cardrona during the winter, it had kero heaters in the back we topped up each day, they put out an epic amount of heat

I now have a sports car and a utility vehicle, by communist standards i'm getting a bit too wealthy for the common good. I'm keeping an eye out for steelies but the only ones I found after a quick rumage at pick a part looked fwd offset, no way can I spoil the prestige of a lada by fitting 4x100 and wobble bolts there was a nice looking set of 13s a few weeks back but they were still skinny as, what tyre width did you run on the 2104 ladaspeed?

Discussion of the build //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49396-nickjs-1989-lada-2105/

I'm going to be sleeping on the couch for a while for buying this but hey, Lada lyfe! As uni is a touch busy progress will be slow, I plan to have her back on the road in 6 months when the Niva wof runs out, then daily it as the Niva is relatively expensive around town. With help from ajg193 we picked up the car on sunday and drove it home leaking plenty of water on the way. Once home I got stuck into making a list of issues, water leak being pretty high up there, stripping back the air filter the heater pipes became a likely target; Somehow plastic fittings have found a way in and broken, easy as to fix that! With the air filter off, another issue made itself known, the vacuum secondary doesn't look like its opened for a while, easy few ponies to rein in there; Added to that, one choke linkage is missing and the other is broken meaning the choke butterfly hasn't moved for a while either, manually holding it back she fired into life first pop, bonus! The running gear seems to be in great order, even with the issues it seems to drive ok, after a tune & tickle I have high hopes. Hardest of all will be the panel work, there are alot of dents all over, mainly the passengers side, this is the part i'm really keen for, will be good to learn a bit of panel bashing! Worst of the damage; A whole new guard is 40usd so if I fail miserably, I'll just import a new one! I'd really love a touch of low and some wider rims but 4x98 is not so common and the amount of low needed is most likely in cert territory, time will tell........ Discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49397-nickjs-1989-lada-2105/

2 brits, an asian and a ruskie walk into a bar......... With snow on the side of the road and a stiff southerly it was such a pity the hiltop had ran out of all tap beers except for stout.