doullama

Rustproofed underneath both the old cars with my usual mixture of black oil paint & penetrol. This handy ramp makes it much easier, but still came out looking like a seagull in the aftermath of a shipping incident. Polara's wof has just run out, I think I will leave it shedded until september or so before bothering to get another. Where are our 40+ year long wofs at by joves

And so there was, a 66 monaco. Different tail-lights extending onto the trunk lid and different grille for 66. The monaco was the up-spec 'fairmont' to the polaras 'series 1 au falcon forte'. Great show, roughly 100 old mopars in attendance, split pretty evenly between aus & yank. I especially appreciated the rainbow array of chargers. Suprisingly there were no ap5 or ap6 valiants or dodge vans in attendance.@Roman came too in order to graph number of antiquated jalopies vs soil hydrocarbon levels.

And then a photographer asked if she could take some pictures of the car while I was out to breakfast with the wife, happy to oblige. Going to mopars in morrinsville this saturday, be interesting to see if there are any other polara/monacos there.

Random car update, no further work has been carried out but I have been using the car a lot. Took it to OSnats which was great fun. I was a bit nervous about descending the kaimai range each way with single circuit drum brakes but it was fine, no drama. Spent quite some time removing all the mud from underneath!

Extreme morris pesting. Quite funny watching people walk up to the rego label to see what it is - i'm sure '1977 austin 400kg' is very enlightening. Of course technically it is an 'austin-morris 575DL', an inspiring name indeed.

Excellent, let the pesting commence

Got the calipers & lines back yesterday, they look great and apex in hamilton were good to deal with. They relined my rear brake shoes way back in the mists of time too. Slapped it all back together, painted and polished the wheels since they were off (and then had to do the back ones too since the fronts looked too much better). Took it out to bed the pads in and the brakes are noticeably better, I wonder how much of that is the stainless flex lines. Washed the dust off and now it is (fingers crossed of course with a leyland product) ready for its wof. It'll have to be week after next due to important railway business, a pity as it would have been handy for nats - will just have to bring the dodge instead (sufferingfromsuccess.jpg)

Almost there for a wof with the van. Got a new fuel cap, morris minor are the same as marina van/ute, but not car as far as I can figure out. The drivers side brake caliper was not playing ball so I pulled the calipers off and have sent them to apex to be reconditioned with stainless pistons, flex lines etc. Thought I may as well change the rotors, not in terrible condition but are at least 18 years old. The hub has to come off to change the rotors anyway as they bolt to the rear of the hub, so did the drivers side wheel bearings as the outer race was a bit ugly. Pax side was fine and just got some new grease.

You would scarcely believe it but I have a van update. I had a wof booked today, I was going to take my daily ute in but thought bugger it, i'll take the van in - it needs a good run and i'd rather the ute didn't fall due just before xmas. Didn't fly through but pretty good for a 70s BL product that has been essentially parked up for 6 years. Brake lights weren't working - the switch had died during hibernation. It exploded into shards of mediocre 70s plastic upon removing the wires, I had a spare - 3 whole years newer so swapped that in. They didn't like my radiator blanking cap as gas cap - So I guess i'll find a fancier radiator cap, the filler neck is literally a radiator neck - leyland build efficiency. Only other things were headlight aim and front brake imbalance, they are discs with sliders greased & pads changed maybe last year or the year before with practically zero mileage since - I think they just need a bit of exercise. Should get a sticker early in the new year with any luck

Been getting more good use out of this car, still can't believe the difference the pertronix has made. With the amount of roadworks around and some very hot days I noticed the temperature creeping up while sitting in traffic, when it got to 215f one time I thought I'd better have a look at the cooling system. Had a 195f thermostat which I think is a bit hot for a 60 year old car, changed that out for a 160f. It now won't go over 180f in traffic which is much better. I also added a recovery tank and changed out the 17lb radiator cap for a 7lb, bit friendlier to the ancient brass radiator. Took it down to taumarunui Thursday for our work breakup, slept in the back - it hosed down with rain in the night, the car didn't leak at all to my pleasant surprise.

Finally got around to putting the pertronix module and its associated coil in the car. It was very straightforward and didn’t take long, the adapter plates were a perfect fit and it came with all the bits & bobs required. All I can say is wow - what a difference. I didn’t think it would make much difference at all vs a near new set of points but it really has. The car starts immediately vs a couple of turns prior, is much punchier - picks up revs in gear significantly quicker. The exhaust even sounds better. I am thoroughly convinced of the benefits of electronic ignition. I will keep an eye out for when the kits go on sale through summit as I would like to carry a spare module in the boot.

Ha yes it it always a bit nerve wracking with an ancient car - especially one which is a bit of an unknown being new to me. I am stoked to know it’s a good sound car. I will take my marina in sometime this summer, nothing like a Leyland product to induce wof apprehension

Cheers @RUNAMUCK, off to eBay I go. I did consider putting in sniper Efi on the existing manifold (they have a direct Carter 2 barrel replacement flowing 400ish cfm) but I really cannot be arsed with certification for such a minor mod.

So the following day from this post I thought I would double check my alignment, with the help of a beautiful but unwilling assistant I determined the car had 5mm of toe out, which it must have had for years. I popped the inner tie rods as they looked like they had never before seen the hands of man aside from my greasing & scrubbing the previous day. Wound them out a couple of turns each side and replaced the ancient, dessicated if still intact grease boots, now have 3mm of toe in which certainly makes the car less wandery. Took it in for its wof, flew through with the only comments being a slight leak of ps fluid from the steering box and the rearmost uj being a slightly incorrect modern replacement, it has no rotational slop but can be moved side to side as the clampy things (technical term) on the driveshaft bottom out before getting a firm grip on the uj, easily sorted with a small packer of some sort. Reminds me I need to get a real trolley jack & stands, my supercheap specials quail at the sight of such an enormous car. Took the car for a post wof cruise through Taupo/reporoa/rotorua and back to Putaruru, very enjoyable.

They're a tough engine to find aftermarket anything for, the only thing that interchanges from the 1967 on LA318 is the distributor. 2 barrel carter (200cfm!) was the povo spec so a factory 4 barrel manifold shouldn't be too hard to track down. There were twin 4 barrel manifolds too in the 50s but made of unobtanium. Nah not yet, I have a pertronix & coil on the shelf but I gave the dissy a birthday while waiting for it to arrive, running great so haven't felt the need to put them in yet.