doullama

question the sexual decency of my female relatives here : 

On 6/25/2017 at 14:59, locost_bryan said:

Same diff as early MGB, so 3.9 ratio an option. But you have a 5-speed, so not as bad for highway running.

Wasn't too bad from memory with the 5 speed, comfortably went as fast as you'd want to go in a dubious marina anyway. I do have an auto estate diff which is apparently taller but probably less fun, and converting it to the vans 4x114mm hubs would doubtless be painful!

We have a runner! Set, tappets, shimmed up the exhaust, set the timing and away she went, runs nicely stationary anyway. Once new h/brake cable turns up can commence "round the block" testing. Thought for sure i'd have carburetor trouble since the twin aisans have been shelf-bound for so long but so far, so good. Can now hack into the body in earnest

Had work today, didn't stop me hitting up eBay though. nos rh tail-lamp on its way from blighty, along with a marina key-ring. On the lookout for Leyland mud flaps, perhaps a 4k inlet manifold with single carburettor for initial ease, may get the twin Aisans overhauled. A set of good rear doors would be nice, the ones on there have seen a few inattentive drivers over the years. Has a meaty steel step about 1 1/2 ft wide to go on the tow bar, which ought to prevent further damage.

27/6/17 Have ordered a one piece 7kc manifold gasket, the reason it was parked up was it kept blowing manifold gaskets between 2 & 3, measured up and seems it's fallen victim to the ol' 12mm intake flange, 10mm coby extractor flange scenario, plus crappy acl 2-piece gaskets. I could get the intake machined down, but that's not bodgy enough for me so i'll just chuck a few cut down 2mm washers on there. Need a smaller feeler gauge set for the tappets, mine only goes down to .010 nyaaah. Finished removing and tidily-ish storing the van-load of spares from van finally too, even has a fully siiick chin spoiler from estate

edit: also all fluids, belt, plugs, feeler, ground strap, filters, extra bodging supplies etc. Thanks supercheap with yo free delivery. Will try 4rage oil filter, better startup oil pressure the 4k foamers say. Can't wait to get this motor buttoned up.. luckily found manifold & rocker cover bolts in parts mountain. studs would probably be better, see how it goes.  Better get a battery at some stage too I suppose.  

Cheap bunnings compressor has finally died after years of abuse, plus theres a "mysterious" 6" piece of air-hose missing, probably an 8mm socket too. May spring for a fancier 2nd hand unit, though it did provide great service! painted 4-odd bedfords, several cars and a good deal of my house over the years. Am kinda leaning towards heinous mustard or satin black for its initial repaint at this stage

Very true, nice low cost option too. All Nz assembled goods vans (not sure about Utes) were only available in white. Passenger ones could be had in awesomely heinous bl shades. Need to wreck a good Morris minor and steal its brakes, Not to use but for revenge haha

2 hours ago, rustisize said:

These are actually under-rated as far as 70s panel vans go.

Tbh factory ones are a bit woeful, 1275 a-series, 4 wheel drums and a low-geared 4 speed = a comfortable cruising speed of 50mph

Everybody used to think it was an escort van, especially if I put on the morris grille rather than the austin one in the pics. Marina is a bit bigger in all directions if put side by side but very similar proportions

Some old pics from its heyday (I think around 04-05)

Better start at the start I suppose. At the tender age of 17 I bought a 1977 Austin-Morris 10cwt (ok, its a marina) from some barry in rukuhia for $1200. 4k motor, 5sp, disc front, air shocks rear, certed in 94'. Had it for around 7 years, and had a blast in, on & around it. Painted it repeatedly, and had to fix everything on it myself as my beer, ciggy and tinny budget was tight. Sold it to a mate of mine, he ran it for around 2 years until the intake gasket went, it then went on a suburban lawn & had the windscreen pinched for a marina ute, which was the last I had seen or heard of it, so assumed it had become poor quality refrigerators. Caught up with the mate on facebook, hadn't spoken in years. Asked him about the vans fate, turns out it had been shedded with the rego on hold since a few weeks after I last saw it, and would I like it back? Apparently the footwells were now pretty rusty etc.  Was pretty keen for nostalgia's sake, so sold the 48' superpoise to make space.

Went to have a sharn & pick it up today, was pleasantly suprised by it's condition. The fancy paint job ain't so fancy anymore, but the van is still very solid. footwells only have rust on pass. side around one of the drain-holes, and where the old (now discarded) toyota seat reinforcing plate sat against the floor.  Came with heaps of parts, i'd given the guy a good cond but woefully hopeless mk3 marina estate at the time I last saw the van, he'd dismantled it for anything useful, so should have just about everything to put back together, and then some! His kids had been using it as a playhouse, they've painted the inside rear of the van with clouds, rainbows, dinosaurs etc, I think i'll leave it as it'll be brilliantly creepy. Also found my marlboro lighter that had been m.i.a for a decade haha

To do:

-patch pass. floorpan, clean & paint entire floor & underside (cbf dependant, doesn't look too bad.) 

-chuck driver door on, was removed to make it easier to push haha

-few dents to beat n bog

-new sprayjob, colour to be determined, probably black again for nostalgia

-jam in one of the windscreens, even has good rubber

-hook the rear brakes back up, he had planned to put the estate diff in as its taller, however its marina stud pattern (4x95?) and I wanna keep my cheviot 6x14's.

-set tappets, bolt on exhaust & intake manifolds 

-new fluids etc etc ETC, get er running

-brakes, bearings etc if needed

-wof & escapades

-presumed death by piano

-

Still better than a mondeo - fact

4 hours ago, tortron said:

Truck Barrie's used to run up and say, boy you don't hear a gearbox like that anymore

I especially enjoy the 4th to third downshift, chugachuga *clutch* vroom *clutch* *crunch* ROOROOoooOoooo etc haha

Haha was wondering if you'd hear it whining by   

am making up for lost time by driving her everywhere, regardless of need to go anywhere! Am driving it to its new owner north of Hamilton next week, am looking forward to it. The people stuck behind me may not enjoy it so much however. Am planning to travel putaruru-te awamutu via arapuni, to pirongia, whatawhata, ngaruawahia. Will be bringing my finest tartan thermos, and a boom-box with "rule britannia" crudely & repeatedly dubbed onto cassette. Put the sides on tonight, man they're heavy for what they are, must be iron-bark or some such. I like to think the attention i've given her will help on her quest to outlive the nation of israel. Can hardly wait to start dredging 2003-era double brown out of the walls of this old marina of mine, still need to go check it out, determine whether its saveable, and if so determine whether to drag it home and diy or take it to a financial rape-dungeon for the inevitable flintstone floors etc.

1991 Diesel Starlet and a pair of earmuffs. I bought one from the matamata-piako council for $300, had done 625,000km. Everyone called it the helicopter cause the rattling of the body sounded just like one. didn't wash it or open the bonnet once between then and giving it to some backpacker at 710,000, still getting wof's with ease despite the paint being 20% lichen

Commer update! Swapped the v8 one above for an 86 Isuzu NKR light truck, went to a guy in te awamutu who is far more motivated than myself. Had some big vehicular news, caught up with the guy who I sold my 1st car to, last time I saw it it was sitting on a lawn with no windscreen 13? years ago, and I assumed It had dissolved, a reasonable assumption as 70s leyland product. No, its been in a shed with reg on hold since about a week after I saw it, and would I like it back, free on the proviso I return it if I get bored with it? Sure! The car is of course, a 4k-powered, 5 speeded, disc braked, woefully inadequate windowless marina panelvan. Thinking that two british cars is probably two too many, I put Tori's ex commer (aka the os commer) up for sale and was swamped with interest. Guy from waimiha was first to view and said he'd take it. I offered to take it for a wof to see what it needed, flew through with a clean sheet this morning, so got a years cheap reg too. Am now hoping the guy won't get back to me (hasn't so far so I can enjoy 3 months or so of legal commer action haha, so this saga may or may not be continued... 

Its become a bit of a cluster-you know what, the requirement is that they sight the bike to confirm it is indeed a scooter as opposed to your run of the mill jet-powered shopping trolley/office chair etc, did one a couple of months ago, rolled into vtnz with the scoot in the boot and the counter-denizen assured me that I had to climb to the summit of bureaucracy mountain, so I went home, printed out the relevant stuff from the virm, and returned the next day to find a lady who was more interested in making sure I got the best numberplate from their stash, didn't even look at the bike

On 4/28/2017 at 09:21, hmmmnz said:

well its a train that has killed a couple of people,  once you'd  be forgivien for thinking it was an accedent .

but twice.. well a pattern is starting to emerge, 

308 is thomas's murderous cousin high on diesel and mere human souls

 

was that along the line of what you were thinking? or something else ?

It cannot be stopped
The train is fueled by chopped bodies
Filled with sorrow
There is no tomorrow

Ticket is your life
Ended by a knife
Called the murder train
Eternity of pain

Oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about

There is no escape but death
Your life is just
A murder train a-comin

Nice job on the cab! My condolences on being shanghaied into railways lyf.

Haha yeah! top marks for effort, probably would have gotten away with it before we levelled up our fascism stats

I lost a black plate once, just ordered a supplementary, matte blacked it, chucked a bit of dust at it while still tacky so it looked old & took a flap disc to the digits, looked legit/never any probs           

either way, giz that futuristic synchro box

It might be ohv, in which case it's already modern

Got another Q also, it can be jammed in this thread too. 1943 Karrier superpoise, has an hq front subframe and a very nice cab & chassis. Is declared for 350/th350/9", but has 253/trimatic/bw78. Actually drives really nicely, but realistically it will probably be easier/cheaper to return it to 350ci etc than cert it as is. All i've done so far to it is rig up a choke, jam an air filter on it and swap out the plugs, just for ease of starting/moving round the property etc. Will probably tart up the body and interior and when circumstances allow, hand it over to a shop for full drivetrain conversion.

Tortron was kind enough to make me a discussion thread, you can provide me with personalised or generic abuse here: 

Update time! Dulux rebuild almost finished, just the chassis from cab forward to go. Actually looks ok for $2 shop brushes wielded by a man high on paint fumes. Painting a vehicle with a brush is very therapeutic, so much less hassle than spraying. No point pushing the boat out on this one! Wasn't going to paint the whole body but by the time i'd painted all the ex-rusty bits, chips etc etc it was looking pretty patchy. Also got all the lights & the wiper going, various blown bulbs/bad earths & so on. Found the diff appears to be minus any sort of breather, will rectify & see if it helps with the leaky axles, as they don't seem to leak while stationary. Fell through one of the running boards so replaced them both with some leftover decking, as you do

Sorry @tortron completely missed this! I'm rather enamoured with the old girl, was just having a durry/lurking in it earlier. I have so missed having a british car! Looked pretty ott with its pinstripey mini-mack stz, quite like its battle-worn, sun-matted appearance and am trying to keep the repainting to a minimum, just the cab scuttle/screen surround/roof and the underside. It's quite funny reading the notes about painting the underside back in the 90s etc "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" The karrier also came with stacks of spares so now have a reasonably ridiculous stash, good window rubbers & interior trim etc too which will be handy. Have been talking to a dude down in new plymouth who has a 202/trimatic one, he has a rebuilt crashbox & a couple of dizzys, regulators etc going spare (and handily available at the gentleman's price of a box) so i'll get myself down there at some juncture.  Pretty keen on wof-ing the commer and hacking about in it, been a bit busy/lazy to take it down but i'll get there. Karrier is sweet but can wait for a rainy year haha. If you're ever down this way feel free to drop by for some quality commersation