NickJ

Time for an update.... Flew up north to catch up with family as Christmas was a write off and dug out a 4 speed box to bring down, amazingly it weighed in at 28kg, so a quick round with a socket set and I had it down to two packages and Air New Zealand happily flew us home. With more time and a clear workbench I began to strip the box down to check on health, replace the seals and get prepared for swapping out, knowing there was a bit of rust from unknown years storage I flushed it out with kero and brakeclean only to find the rust was a little worse, somehow with a light scrub I was surprised to find shiney metal in important places. Next step, removing the input shaft & bearing which was not so nice And then this: Looks like the box has been run dry, the needle bearing between the input and output shafts has melted, only to ooze out and make this mess, that also explains the burnt looking mess on the inside of the casing! I'm quite impressed that all the needles still rotated but the nylon was very brittle and broke out easy with a screw driver, glad that I kept all the bearings from rebuilding the current box, although they aren't the best, they're not rusty!! That was all last week, with the day off I made the plan to spend the arvo sorting the box, hopefully swapping this week, pulling her out of the shed I got things ready, went in for lunch and came back out to find a small puddle under the back wheel. Not all bad, I have a spare seal, 30min should sort it, but nah, wheel off the ground and its obvious, bearing has gone poop, bloodly lucky it didn't happen up the Godley! Might be a few more weekends before she's a go again Here's a small teaser, so a mate at uni brought a 3d printer for shits & giggles, being the poor student $200 for trumpets that aren't even a theoretically efficient shape just don't fit the budget. So we made this, first iteration to see if we could actually print the darn thing, and for testing to see how it feels about living in a mist of 98......

How many teeth do you have to jump before things get messy? surely you could go a few before things get close?

So lessons learnt today; Setting up the twin carbs I was very aware of the linkages and needing to get it right to ensure WOT, I measured all the levers and cable pulls and fabricated parts to suit, in my rush to get it all running I didn't check that I did indeed have WOT, idiot! turns out i've only been a little over 1/2 throttle since the build, quick tighten of the throttle cable and there it is, a noticeable increase in power! Most worthy of the fabrication foibles thread..... Shitty shot, but that is all the throttle I've had and thought the performace as ok..... On a roll of fixing my own mistakes and having had the transfer case out to fix the gearbox I set about checking the shims that line the TC up to the gearbox, the car has always had a shudder on take off especially since I put the fiat engine in, i've lived with it, but it has always bugged me. The standard method to align everything is bung it in 3rd, TC to neutral and hold at 3-4k for a few minutes with all mounting nuts loose before nipping it all up, this generally gets 90% of vibration out but is never quite right, today I climbed under armed with a straight edge, square and ruler and set about the nerdy-method. This resulted in a few shims less in the TC and a washer in the front diff mount, driving around there are near to no vibrations, long overdue victory there! Last of all I had to give the dells some attention, with a quick tune I pulled the idle back a touch and have improved the slight hesitation from low revs, I'm pretty sure I've got a few jetting issues to iron out and a small air leak in #2 but that will all be sorted in time, I'm waiting on a few gadgets to help on the tuning side Love working on these carbs, just joy and simplicity, oh and the battery is only tied in for tuning with the normal position its impossible to access the adjustments Last of all the knock in the steering was found as play in the idler, I seem to chew through bushes so I'm going to pull that right out and check it for concentricity, I'm thinking that could be an issue, otherwise $20 for new bushes aint that bad.

That steel band around the donut, I thought it was to aid installation then cut off once in?

With hunting plans now a total mess I took the chance to head up the godley valley for a day, awesome road and good sights along the way, crossing the maccaulley at the start is alway nerve racking but with summer flows its barely up to the hubcaps, had to search out some deeper water to give the underside a proper wash! Light show Added to my woes there also seems to be bit of a knock coming from around the steering box, have to jack up the front end, crawl under and work that out before it gets worse

Drove past supercheap this morning and thought stuff it, lets try Azzurro's guibo tamer, for 20 bucks its the best thing ever for getting her free! gentle squeeze to get the right spot and the bolts glide out, thanks for that! Also found a 32mm long socket on the shelf, bugger it! I'm starting to like supercheap more than repco, they seem to be holding more stock of useful tools while repco seem to be moving away from stocking any tools at all.

Well my urgent call has turned to be not so urgent, we had planned to leave tonight to head out hunting, with the current weather we've decided to wait it out and try again tomorrow, fingers crossed the rivers go back down and we can get out for a walk! Also I messed up, after Mof's great help getting me a decent socket that worked I couldn't find a torque setting in my rush and so guessed from gearbox drawings and that its a M14 thread that I could give it death and be ok, what a silly mistake that was! while re-fitting the TC I found the gearbox didn't spin freely, back to my web-page copy folder for notes on niva gearboxes and sure enough there is a small note, 'torque to between 60-80Nm, careful to check for binding' bloody muppet! Not wanting to push my luck asking to use the socket again I called into repco on the way home and picked up a 32mm socket to do this: Cutty Cutty Insert scrap pipe here And a quick bit of hot glue So if anyone is rebuilding a lada gearbox and needs a deep 1/2 drive 32mm socket, give me a call!

Haha, Guibo, I've called it many colourful things but never something so comical. Thats tool is brilliant! in the past i've used a couple of hose clamps joined together but that was a pain, what i've found is that if I only release one side, ie 3 bolts, its possible to tweak the tips of each bolt back into the donut then evenly drive them home, this is why I took off the TC, I could easly rotate the donut to tap the bolts back in, if that makes any sense! As the nut is on a shaft that is near flush with the donut, it also made little difference to remove it from that side. Lifting all the wheels is a pain on a 4wd, I've found I can roll it back and forward enough while underneath to get the driveshaft bolts out, the bonus of ground clearance!

Lucky for me Mof was in the area and borrowed a 1 1/4 off him, all tight and hopefully she's go again many thanks to all @fault, nah the russians put a pesky shaft in there thats just long enough that a standard socket won't quite reach over! Cheers for the offer Bling, hopefully I have it sorted

Awesome! if you have 32mm? PM inbound

Just managed to borrow a puller to get the lock collar off, its a 32mm nut, and normal 6 sided nut

So my lada has spat the output shaft nut on the gearbox, only I can't do it up tight enough with my gear, anyone have a large set of tube sockets nearby that could help me? I have beer and some angus backsteak I could offer for your time Nick

Dirty little pirate hooker! On the way to work today second gear started popping out, I've had this before and is because of the main nut on the output shaft that holds all the gear clusters together, sure enough, I could move the thing with my finger So, off work and set about pulling the transfer case out so I could release the donut and tighten the darn thing, only I cant get at the bloody thing with my sockets. I tightened it up with a cresent after the rebuild but obviously thats not tight enough, Any one have a 30-32mm tube socket in chch able to help me out tonight/tomoro? Thats it, hiding in sight, unable to be touched

I have a panel in the boot to replace, have been unsure how to do it nicely, this post was good timing if I ever saw it, cheers and thank you!

Yes yes and yes again, so rad, can't wait to see more pics!

This weekend its a happy good bye to the square of concrete I rebuilt the lada on, conveniently located adjacent to a perfectly functional garage we didn't have access to and hello to our new place with a garage! (hopefully) good times ahead.

Well not much happening, she's running well, found a small patch of cancer which will need attending to before it gets worse and there is something fishy with the carbs, I'll need a good day at it to pull them off and have a play, but overall I'm happy with how she runs, clocking up 250km a week heading out to work and back. Had a dig around looking for a picture I took years ago and found this gem from when I first brought her and thought I was a 4x4 god, took all 3 vehicles to pull her out and tore the front diff off the mounts as it was stuck in the gravel!

When I first moved out I got 45min toward the Wellington ferry and had the dipstick pipe pop out and spray oil all over the exhaust of a beat up bluebird, smoke everywhere! I had little car knowledge back then and thought the adventure was over, lucky it was an easy fix and I made it down to the mainland. Hope the drive gets better for ya and good luck with the course!

I had trouble with a rough engine a while back, couldn't pin it down until a downpour sent me inside but left the engine idling, came back and the spark plug was under water in its little hole and bubbling furiously, bloody thing had cracked between the ceramic and steel! replaced the lot and she came back to life, wish I kept that plug!

Flames out carbs to me is a timing issue, especially the difficulty in revving, stuck advance weights or vacuum advance? Mixture screws not responding is most likely air leaks if they were fine before.

+1 all said above. This is the set up where I painted mine, nothing flash but had a decent compressor and gun (plus help at hand, thanks dad!) paint was from a good supplier and whole job was sub 1k, I was in a hurry before winter with the weather coming in and did it in 10 big days, start to finish, only painting the last few, prep work is everything! Don't be scared, leave yourself with plenty of time and give it a go, but I for sure won't be painting another car for the next 5 years

You mean ditch it for one of these?

Yeah mate, rad car! if its basics and you have time, there are enough knowledgeable fellas on here who will help you through the learning part.

Spent the Christmas break in the hills chasing Tahr, saw a few but boy are those buggers keen on going places bipeds shouldn't! Anyhow missus sprung this little gem on me after a short treasure hunt in the bush near camp, absolute gold! Back home to the city and without anything to do boredom sinks in and I began to fidget, having cleaned up the interior last week, there was one thing left that has bugged the daylights out of my soul, I just can't clean the air vents, so I removed the stereo, heater and fan to pop them out, before and after This also let me pull out the heater tap that has seized on, kinda necessary with the current Canterbury weather! Another week off with nothing to do could be good for the Lada!

Fun times with the Lada! up to now with traveling to work i've clocked up 1000km since the WoF really should drive the toyota but whats the fun in that! Fuel economy seems about the same as normal, but my gut says she's lean, first thing in the morning the starting procedure is open the bonnet, tie back the enrichment circuit on one carb, use an alligator clip on the other, start the engine (which is easy as) then drive 5 min before pulling over to release the two levers, no matter how much I pump the gas she just won't fire without, so last week I finished work early and headed out to palmside for a quick chat, the fella there agreed with my thoughts and one step at a time i'm going to try moving the idle jets up a size. Ziplock bag of expensive stuff on the passengers seat...... Fitting is a 5 min job, really love the layout of the dells All went just brilliant, engine responded to a little more fuel and she now starts without the enrichment circuit, few pumps and its all go, also idle is much more stable and will drive from cold, happy times! So out to the farm for a burn and a long quiet road for some plug tests... 1,2,3,4 These are 80kph @ 3500 so hopefully in the main circuit, still a little lean? Thats when as usual something else pops up, with the bonnet open and the engine running I could make out a clicking noise, must be the slightly loose tappet on number 1 exhaust I think, so back home and have a measure up, call mal and beg for a saturday delivery before christmas....... Once again he delivers and I proceed to wedge a few screwdrivers and extract the shim and replace with the new one, about this time a van pulls up and Ben_10 introduces himself and a mate (Sorry I'm shite with names!!) and have a good yarn while trying to slot the new shim into its new home. The boys headed off and I carried on but while turning the engine over to double check clearances the click is still there and bugger me, its not exhaust its inlet, covers off and sure enough there is a solid click, kinda like a 1/4 torque wrench, not at all a tappet sound stopping to think all I can come up with is the bucket catching or broken spring, both require the cambox to come off, so and everything comes up fine!!! can't see any signs of clashing or broken springs and moving the valve by hand via large lever feels good too, I'm stumped, only option i've got now is a loose shim in the bucket, but I can't feel the click there, bent valve or miss alignment of the cam box, ideas? I'm wondering if there should be any dowels to align them? also I guess a compression test to confirm the state of the valves would be a good idea. Also looked at a loose camshaft but that seems fine, no movement when leaning on it with a screwdriver and rotates freely, for now i'm planning on ignoring it, after all its a 30 year old engine, they do make odd noises! that and pulling it apart and giving everything a clean seems to have quietened it down, or am I just paranoid?