doullama

UC sunbird/toranas need them to stop the bonnet cracking around the latch, i'm not a fan of the aesthetic but it beats random bonnet attacks

I wanna know more about these Lifepo4's now, unlikely to get one as free batteries are hard to beat but they sound pretty interesting - surviving long periods of disuse would be a big plus

I'd second what bling said, lap joins are inferior by nature so if you use them, use weld-thru primer and seam sealer to exclude air/water and thereby delay the rusting process. They are much quicker/easier than butting in though.

also you need a larger battery for boot mounting to overcome the resistance of 5m long leads. Id just get a good quality battery that makes the most use of the available space, don't forget height too. CCA can be a bit misleading, it is unlikely that you'll need to wind the car over for 30 seconds in subzero temps after all. I've used tiny jap car batteries which would be lucky to have 200cca to start ancient v8's, they'll generally wind over fine - just not for very long. With a modern injected engine (or a well tuned carburetted engine) with a modern efficient starter & electronic ignition this won't be an issue.

$1927 seems like a bad number for a battery. What are the dimensions of the battery space available? I moved the radiator of my marina over 30mm to accommodate a 600cca battery, simply due to the fact I have a supply of free 3 year old 600cca batteries. Could always relocate to boot but that should be your last option. If your car has less accessories than the donor you can most likely get away with a smaller battery also.

Looking at u.s conversion vans: I see as part of entry cert they must now (from '16) be lvv certified due to the removal of bracing when installing side windows, fibreglass roof, dodgy seats & seatbelt mounts etc. Does this also apply to the many vans that are already on the road? These two are my current candidates, dodge is already lvv certed (and has 318) and ford is a heavy vehicle therefore exempt (and has 460 + uncle Rico vibe) both 14k with no bites for a while/ripe 4 beatdownz. Was just wondering as if so there must be hundreds of vans due for some wicked spendy work

Cheers, Rang the elderly polish gent as soon as I saw it! pretty good nick aside from the shunt to the right rear, service history back to 88' too. might spring for a session on a car-o-liner for it cause it'll annoy me otherwise

Choice man, will post tractor-spec pic when done. Would totally have that one too if it was in N.I!

@DoBro Jesus Have finally obtained 4wd mirage of dreams (really wanted your one but shipping was going to cost more than several mk2 mirages) - how do I go about fitting 27" muds to it? Has the factory skinny 14" rimz at present. Chur

7k from a townace - made from 83-07', easy to carburate if that's your style etc. Would love to obtain one myself as a sly upgrade from 4k. Around 80hp of ohv fury

and ended up swapping for a chebby turck, in pretty good nick, RHD and 94k miles. Is 350/th700r4, was LPG at some stage so has been converted to carby. Certainly gets up and marches, sounds the tits too. Also has canopy for camping missions. Will never be mentioned again as not really OS (89) Great leyland support vehicle

did a bit more work to van, wof'ed and put up f/s to the great unwashed, here's a pic for posterity

you've come a long way baby, not really happy with my paint-job, bit orange-peely but oh well, better than it was. Reassembly almost complete, just need to install stereo, get rid of fake whitewall things and get a better drivers seatbelt, hunt down front bumper rubber thing + carpet the rear. Put styley brown doorcards on which suit well, along with new weatherstripping. Even has a functioning rear hatch handle, and vastly better rear bumpers. Swapped to a smaller oil filter to eliminate start-up rattle. Really needs its o.g suspension put back in, not a fan of having to crawl over obstacles + I assume the swaybar was removed due to incompatibility with lowness, have a 1 ton one to put on, gotta have that RTS after all. Don't intend to keep this van long, just sick of its bs haha

I dig the floor extension, do these have the cavity under the floor where rear seats would go to hide stuff in etc?

Cheers, it’s a metallic that goes coppery in the light. If I could only apply it in a fashion that doesn’t appear to be sneezed on then it should look quite good. Always been a fan of brown as an automotive colour haha

Much welding & filling has taken place, and the whole shebang has been given a coat of oil paint + penetrol, left to cure & then given an inaugural coat of urethane in a stylin’ brown, my ancient + cheap gun seems to want to spray orange-peely unless there’s only 50ml of paint in the cup? Rather than get a new gun I think i’ll Roll 50ml at a time haha, after another day of wet sanding of course. Swaps for nice champagne AU, serious

This thing is awesome! How does penetrol handle sun? I always mix it in with oil paint/slosh it around inside panels etc but haven't left it outside on its own

Should put out more KW than factory with the electronic ignition

allow me to present the "car-b-que", hope y'all like your steaks marina-ted

Almost there, just front quarter now. Sadly my wheel arch lip alignment was thrown off a bit by some bog discovered a touch too late, not unbearable though

and the rear inner + bottom of wheel arch, just about ready for outer which is cut to shape. Guess I'd better repair guard & door for this side so I can bung em on to check sill alignment before I get too carried away

I'm certainly hoping the end is in sight! very much looking forward to getting the rust work out of the way so i can get back to regular bodging, sheds too full of flammable junk to weld in there and its cold outside! Sure thing, i'll be the sucker lying in the driveway haha distractions most welcome

Have finished making some patches & started welding in the front of hz's lh inner sill tonight, luckily most of the inner is salvageable excepting the very front and a couple of feet of the rear! bit where sill joins firewall was toast but complex, just cleaned it up & gave it a mig-wire rebuild. There is meant to be some sort of support under the a-pillar, it was rusted beyond recognition so may just use some handy bent c-channel I have lying around, couldn't find a relevant patch-panel excuse generic bird-splatter

Oh hurro original sill, suspect the other side is an oversill also - however will refrain from confirming suspicions.. The RH rear quarter is an over-quarter too. Seriously is it that hard to run a grinder along to cut out the bulk of the rust before slapping a panel over? Even thats rough but this is next level, oversill held in by about 20 poor tacks + bog to taste.. got it started with grinder +nail-puller then just tore it off by hand! Have both inner/outer repro sills, Outer sill will be a pretty easy replace once I cut out the front quarter panel (still waiting on arrival ex aus) Inner sill looks a right bastard, (complete replacement reqd, big suprise) so much spot-welds under low car.. may even just cut it off at spotweld flange, clean it up and spotweld the replacement inner onto that, then cover the mess in por (just got some, never tried it before but not much to lose -soo much surface rust/pitting to cover. Whatever I do cant possibly be worse than what is there I figure. Be "interesting" to see what A-pillar base is like under guard. Have grabbed a bunch of random scrap steel & an old ute tray headboard which will come in handy for replacing the rotten arch support. Still blown away by 70's australian rust-susceptability tbh!

Whipped the LH door off holden to address some rust in bottom of A-pillar, + its poked (so is RH) so not putting that one back on, while I was there thought i'd do some investigative grinding, someone has kindly smashed in the front quarter? with a hammer to "line up" -read leave room for 1" of bog between it and the poorly folded, and now rusted out replacement outer sill. rearmost 8" of inner sill is also shagged. Luckily patch-panels are available for all this, chinese mig's gonna get a hammering! Also found why water was leaking into A-pillar, nowhere near the appropriate amount of sealant around windscreen, so I guess that comes out too.. Swaps for Austin/morris, no rileyz