smitty

I wasn't pushing hard enough, it was clicky thing. Dash is out, I'll give it a good clean and then once the wiring is done I'll put it all back together.

Pop out that blanking panel, I think thre's a screw behind there. Also that screw basically above the blanking panel needs to come out to remove that facia. I take it you've removed the screw between the choke and the lighter?

I have removed all the screws, the only thing holding it in place now is the choke. I have no idea how to get that off. There's a hole in the bottom but no screw, just metal. Thought it was one of those clicky things so tried pushing it with the screwdriver and that didn't seem to have an effect either.

So about half way through taking off the dashboard and I realise there is a little panel on the driver side where all the wiring goes to. Turns out nothing in the dash is gone, only the connectors from the engine bay to the interior.

I will still take off the last part of the dash off though, to finish cleaning all the dirt and dust away.

Which leaves me at my last question. I have removed all of the screws and so now the only thing holding the plastic to the car is the climate control stuff which is screwed in place. To remove the screws I first have to remove the chrome/metal plate, anyone know how I can remove this?

Dude fixing the wiring is easy just probe the wires with a test lamp while someone flicks switches

lol meant new loom, not car. Wiring will be possible, dad has done Simcas before. It'll just take a while to do all the wires, probably.

Woo! headlight swap!

No, not really though. Picked up the car yesterday using my friend's truck. Bought some (stock) wheels from a guy at my dad's work to get it onto the truck

Which now leaves the car at the first picture. Have taken the bad fender off. It's not actually that bad. What's worse is the wiring, absolutely fucking gone from headlight to dash.

My dad (sparky) may be able to help with the wiring, but if it's too far gone I'll have to acquire a new one loom. Know a guy in Napier who has a basically wrecked 2 door wagon sitting outside his shop but he doesn't want to part with the loom. Other than that the fender can probably be pushed back for the time being and it needs some work but not a lot to get it back on the road.

Double post haaay! I thought it better to ask here than in the build thread, because it's not really progress but anyone know if wheelbase for 2 door wagon is the same as the 4 door wagon?

Was the steering locked or unlocked

Steering was locked, or at least, we tied the steering wheel to the seat in the straight position with as many ratchet straps as we could. There was no wiggle in the wheel IIRC. We didn't actually set the wheel into steering lock because usually it goes into lock on an angle, and that's not what we wanted.

I wonder if the toe-in and wheel alignment is working against you towing it like that. Might be better with the front wheels on the dolly.

Yeah, we think it was the alignment that was screwing with the wheel. We thought about turning the car around and lifting the front but the way the dolly connects to the car means that if we towed it backwards it could potentially damage the front suspension and definitely dent the bumper. It also meant that if I had another flat I would definitely be stuck, due to having no spare. But I will get the alignment checked out once I get the car back.

Discuss, or not, I can't tell you what to do.

Build thread - Not that much is being built, in fact, it's worse of than when I bought it.

Bought R100s Ke70 wagon for use as a daily. Very nice, close to no rust. Basically mint.

Picked it up on the weekend using a quite fancy towing rig I borrowed from a friend (Who has been using it for 20 years without fail). Would have used an actual trailer but my mum's Rav can't handle it and my friend's truck was being used to move house.

So we got the car onto the tow rig:

And the tow rig was working great! Until... Disaster Struck!:

One of the tires popped while towing. We didn't notice for a solid couple of minutes and as of that not only was the fender dented back, wires pulled out and bumper broken but the rim is also absolutely destroyed.

So we chucked on one of the back wheels, taped the wiring to the car, and went on our merry way...

Then that popped too.

And it popped a lot sooner than the other tire. Meaning that we were scared. Not only because 2 of the tires popped, I mean, how often does that happen? But the car also had only 1 spare tire, R100, lent out the spare tire and never got it back, lol. Second flat also destroyed what was left of the bumper end cap AND pulled out the wiring we had taped to the side. And with pulled out I mean that the wiring is absolutely gone. Nothing is left. 

Anyway, we chucked on the last tire and drove into Taupo (30ish ks away from where we had the last blowout) and we left the car with some friends for the time being:

Kinda sad story. Hoping to pick up the car soon. Meanwhile buying some stock ke70 wheels so I can get the car onto trailer. Then need to find someone in Napier with a ke70 to check what all the wiring is that I am missing. Also want to buy right end cap for my front bumper, lol.

Discussion, for if anyone has any tips.

Do you want to build a snowman race car?

Also a while back I also had an exhaust leak where the manifold met the exhaust, leaky seal. It was a bitch to get off and even more off a bitch to get back on, with me using a seal that doesn't actually belong on the car.

Great stuff. Know nothing about these cars but enjoying the thread. We need more wagons with built-in picnic tables...

Thanks! It's one of only 25 sold in New Zealand and as far as I know there are only 2 left in New Zealand so most people don't really know anything about the car. They used to be reasonably common in Europe where you can come across Simcas in most photos from the '60s and '70s. And yes, the picnic table is probably the best part.

Pop up headlight front end conversion when?

NO! Both have their own thing but these are more rare so keep them this way. Maybe lower it and get some better wheels but keep the front end the same.

Not that it matter, but my dad used to have an aftermarket conversion convertible Celica in Holland. Said it was probably the best handling car he has owned:

And the car in the background of Vintage Grumble's photo is a car I saw IRL.

This is amazing, I've never seen any of these Simcas before. Bravo for the original standard look!

I am like, 90% sure that when you make a comment you are meant to make it in the Discussion section (Which I have in my signature)

On another note, to not make this post obsolete once the mods will probably delete NZCarFreak's comment, here is my wagon with my friend's wagon:

I personally prefer the look of mine, being more original and all. But I drove his yesterday and it's like new, which makes sense, because he did a complete restoration. It's so quiet inside, it's unbelievable.

Better angle of his:

Instead of painting the bumpers you should try chrome wrapping them, I believe it has been done before.

Old springs are back on. Likely won't cut springs or try wheel spacers because cutting springs is dodgey and spacers need to be certed and that costs money.

On another note, my dad has a Simca now too, he may or may not make a thread:

If the spring perch bolts to the top arm then make it bolt down in a slightly different place.

There's not enough space to do that on either the arm or the perch. I'll probably go with spacers and then either cutting the racing springs or hoping with the original springs that the tire doesn't scrape the inside of the wheel well.

On another note, turns out the guy I bought the car from did have his wheels widened outwards as shown by this picture here:

Anyone know here I could get something like that done and how much it would cost?

Return the taller perch in so you don't have to concern yourself with rub and then introduce your springs to one of these cheeky fellas...

Yeah, but isn't cutting the spring illegal? I would do it but I also don't have any money to pay fines. Then again, the law here is more like guidelines than it is like actual rules, and I do have a lot of spares.

OR can you somehow slot the holes 5mm in the spring perch so that it sits further inward?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that? I'll ask my dad when he comes home from work because he's smarter than me.

Lowering attempt number 2 has become a failure.

I installed a shorter suspension part (arm? I'm horrible with these types of names) and then the stiffer springs which I tried to use earlier to lower it but raised the car by a centimetre:

As of now the lowered side sits 2 centimetres higher than the non-lowered side. This is due to the stiffer springs which came from a sedan 1501 and on that sedan the car did actually sit lower but that was likely due to the heavier 2 litre fiat engine that was in it. We put in the stiffer springs to stop the car from rubbing against the wheel during corners but I guess I'll just have to hope that doesn't happen when I change the springs. Sadly though, just changing the springs won't completely fix the problem, well, it will fix the problem but there is another problem at hand. The lowered suspension part (and I've got spares, than god for that) is rubbing against the inside of the tire as seen here:

This leaves me with the options of either grinding down the suspension part, which seems kind of risky, or putting in wheel spacers which could probably work. The guy I bought the car from up in Auckland has a white sedan where he had the wheels widened so for that to not hit the suspension he probably had to use spacers or something as well now that i think about it. Unless of course the widening was done into the other direction like with this 1501 wagon:

Although that car was actually sold with those dish wheels, they are very rare, I love them.

Sorry that this comment may be a bit incomprehensible apparently I am getting worse at English over time. 

how closely related are these to the Fiat 1500-2300 family?

 

I know Simca and Fiat had commercial relations at various times and there are several details that look very similar to my wagon, and many that are quite different.

 

Same era of design i guess?

 

Great modelling too!

 

Im also stealing the boot floor to table idea!

I LOVE your wagon! Wagons are my thing, it looks like my car's long lost brother!

To be honest, I have no real clue how close they are related to the Fiat counterparts. I know for a fact that Simca was owned by Fiat until the early sixties. But according to Wikipedia (the Italian article), design on the 1501s predecessor (1500) started in 1957, but was actually halted by fiat to not hinder the sales of their 1300/1500 models. I know that in the eighties there was a member of the Dutch club who put a 2 litre Fiat engine into his 1501, and there was also a guy in New Zealand who managed to do it earlier, so I'm thinking that the engines would probably bolt directly onto the transmissions. My dad seems to think so anyway. But in terms of design they look pretty close. I wouldn't be surprised if Simca "borrowed" some of the design from the Fiat.

The boot floor table thing is really awesome and probably the best part of the design. Surprisingly useful too, simply use the boot lid as a chair and you've got yourself an impromptu picnic, without even having to sit on the ground. I reckon the best part is though that mine has never even been opened. It is in perfect condition. All of the interior is. Well was, right up until I scratched the fake leather on the driver's seat with my broken pants.

Anyway, I seriously love your 2300, probably because it is the car that looks the most like mine!

That 3D model is awesome! What software did you use for it? 

Thanks! I used 3ds Max. I am all self taught, Been modelling since 2011ish. I do it mostly in my spare time with a goal of getting it into Assetto Corsa as a mod. I've actually started about 2 or 3 other simca models which are at various stages of completion but usually I start a new one before I complete the other.

So not much has happened at all to the car over the last few months.

I photoshopped what the car would look like if I went crazy and wasn't scared about getting murdered by Simca club members:

And stock:

I have also been creating the car in 3d but progress is slow because I am a lazy bum and I procrastinate at every turn I can:

Anyway, I have been coming across actual problems though. The rear window is winding up one one side more than the other. I'm thinking this is rust related because it only started after I accidentally left the car out in the pouring rain for 4 days. Yesterday's rain also got to the car and it seems I have a leak. The passenger side carpet was soaked through yesterday after the rain, but luckily we found the plug and it should be mostly fine. Another problem is where the roof was fixed a few years ago. We never actually painted over the new fixed part, other than with zinc and now we are seeing more rust showing on what was fixed.

Hubcaps!

I've also got a real FDM spec (Like JDM, but for French cars) speedometer that has Kilometers instead of miles, but doesn't come with a daycounter, so we're still thinking about how to fix this.

Sharing the garage with my dad's car.

I've also started compressing the images to 30% of the original size, all this loading images is making me crazy.

Sorry for not posting more pics, it's kind of cold and rainy out here and the car likes it in the garage. Also, if anyone knows of any Simca 1501 wagon wreck locations in NZ please tell me, I really want to find a roof rack.