Motu

derestrict a 2 stroke, way more fun.

A Train...just called doubles back then. No Macks at RFL when I worked there.

Wow, Serious Foods have got a really serious pick up !

On 27/03/2024 at 09:19, SOHC said:

308 is Bruce Frasier and yes thats a Jawa head but thats an air compressor barrel under it, when I was going to beat him so he went home. Inia is somewhere elce

Sounds like Bruce - but he's more likely to break down because he replaced a high tensile bolt with a coach bolt. 

He's not wearing a hat !   When I was in Melbourne, 1980, I was warned to look out for brown Volvo's with driver's wearing a hat.  I was on a Guzzi, and some fuckwit moved into my my lane  - yeah, it was a brown Volvo and he was wearing a hat.

54 minutes ago, igor said:

Ah, the disposable shitbox stage. Then suddenly there aren't many left and they start to appreciate a little because people start to want them again.

The guy who bought my XC hit that sweet spot. Back in the '90's when the Imports killed the price of a used car, he drove around Otara and Mangere, offering a few notes for the old Falcon sitting on the front lawn. 

17 hours ago, igor said:

You swapped in a pre-crossflow 250 from an older coon? Did it go appreciably better? I had always believed that the iron head crossflow was the best of the old coon sixes. Heard a few bad stories about the early XD alloy head 4.1s but they might just be hearsay, I have seen no real evidence.

The cast iron Xflow was prone to cracking, the alloy replacement wasn't much better, so the Japanese sorted it for them with the Alloy II.  Heaps more bottom end with the 250, but all the later engines had more top end - so, I could smoke a later engine off the line, but once across the intersection they were gone. The XF power steering was a real bolt on - pump onto the block, hoses, pulleys, and steering box. But as mine was an auto column change, I had to break the plastic rivets in the steering shaft to collapse it a few mm...just a little pressure with a lever. 

On 13/03/2024 at 22:42, igor said:

 

Bought the XC cos I needed a bigger car to accomodate an expanding family and I couldn't find a good Valiant that I could afford. Told my eldest, then aged six, that the extra (sixth) seat was for the baby. I didn't know that my then fiance, his soon to be stepmother, was already pregnant at this time.

Got a yellow XC wagon when No4 came along...I wasn't going to stoop to one of those Jap Import people movers. The cast iron Xflow was shit, so this had a good 250 in it, max torque at 1600rpm.  Put power steering from an XF in - bolt in.  I got a donor Fairmont with 302 and bonnet scoops for a make over, but by then the older girls were driving their own cars and never home, and I found the Falcon was in the shed and hadn't been moved for weeks, the Missus was driving a Telster, much better around the city. 

It woulda had a red oval Ford badge.

1 hour ago, yoeddynz said:

I dunno what this car is/was..? 

E93A Prefect - the Ford 10, probably 1952.

I fail just about every car these days on ''lights''.  The plastic lights are always cloudy and need a polish. Fail, fail, fail.  We apply a special brew to make sure they fail next time too...a good money earner.

WoF's should be performance based, like trucks. If your car passes everytime, come back in a year, if your car fails on major items everytime, you come back in 6 months...or less.  Some customers book in a Wof, and I feel like saying ''Don't bother, I''ll post it out.''  They take care of every little thing on their car, and it never fails. Others, they get a fresh on the road import, and a year later it's fucked, you could fill out an A4 sheet of fail items.

Which is exactly why we have WoF's in the first place - during the depression they were driving real shit boxes because there were no parts, and if there were parts no (non) working  man could afford them.

Re PD...no they just rush them through, tick the boxes, and hey, look how fast I am boss !  I was employed a few years ago just to do PD's (an old mans job) because the mechanics didn't want to do them, so didn't do the real job.

And the glossy Yank cars that come in with shit work...this was last year, so how did it get on our roads ?

7 hours ago, igor said:

Not a fan of the current regime of three year wofs for new cars either. 

Nearly every 3 year old ute we get in for it's first real WoF has the headlights pointing to the sky.  It's a new vehicle - tick all the boxes, put the sticker on and it's out the door.  The audit guys used to says dealers were the worst for issuing shit WoF's.

Pledge works best on slow belts...and you can get a lemon one too. If it's stuck out it's a goner.

On 02/02/2024 at 05:35, RUNAMUCK said:

The VVL motors go hunnitz. They might even have fixed the SR20s propensity for the oil squirter tubes that lube the cams to block up from lack of maint on these too?

Manwell is a must.  From memory that upper bush is actually a bearing? Mine was worn. So it took it to a different wof place and sold it.

As much as they reckon primeras handle great, i think i read the wagons use an avenair chassis? (Maybe that was just the 4wd?) I always though the ride was uncomforfable.  And mine didnt even have a dash clock. 

Elventy billion percent would not trade again. EVER!

Those squirter tubes were the death of many an SR20 - my alternator belt is loose, it's squealing....no, your cams are fucked.

There were a couple of bearings in those swivel hubs, one is just a 6****, but the other one is a bit special. 20 years ago I found a supplier for them, and may be unobtanium again.

On 02/02/2024 at 05:35, RUNAMUCK said:

The VVL motors go hunnitz. They might even have fixed the SR20s propensity for the oil squirter tubes that lube the cams to block up from lack of maint on these too?

Manwell is a must.  From memory that upper bush is actually a bearing? Mine was worn. So it took it to a different wof place and sold it.

As much as they reckon primeras handle great, i think i read the wagons use an avenair chassis? (Maybe that was just the 4wd?) I always though the ride was uncomforfable.  And mine didnt even have a dash clock. 

Elventy billion percent would not trade again. EVER!

Those squirter tubes were the death of many an SR20 - my alternator belt is loose, it's squealing....no, your cams are fucked.

There were a couple of bearings in those swivel hubs, one is just a 6****, but the other one is a bit special. 20 years ago I found a supplier for them, and may be unobtanium again.

On 13/11/2021 at 12:28, Indianapolis said:

Johnson Piston Rings were originally called J&S Piston Rings, back in 1937. My father and grandfather started the business B Johnson & Sons Ltd, manufacturing motor engineers & grinding specialists. It was sited in Parnell Rise just above the railway bridge. The business was sold in the early 70s after my father died. I have been looking at an old brochure and saw the name J&S Piston Rings. I always knew them as Indianapolis 500 rings. Does anyone know when they were rebranded?

Are you a Johnson ?  My brother was a good mate of Clint.

Have had a couple of tail spins the last couple of years with 3Y engines - fitted new condensers, no change, one we tried 3 condensers.  It was the condensers.  Don't get Bosch, try some other brand, or a known old good.

21 hours ago, Nominal said:

253 by the looks of it

 

Did you catch a glimpse of detective Simms ? 

Yeah, vegetable based, mineral won't go there.  Worm drive truck diffs used to use castor oil, no mineral oil of the time was up to it.  

3 hours ago, GregT said:

Triumph and Jawa did it commercially. My first race bike had a Triumph slickshift box with the mechanism disabled. Apparently it was quite useful at stoplight drag races. Pressure on the lever held the clutch out, lift the foot and away you went.

Back in the '70's we used to find slickshifts that people had removed, and fitted them to our bikes.  One night we jumped on my mates T'Bird and went to the fish n chip shop for a big feed to bring back to the rest of the crew.  On the way back to the pad we found a Highway lad broken down, so stopped to help him. Just a wiring issue, and needed pliers and tape, so I set off down to the pad not far away for the bits. I got on the T'Bird, with apehangers, my mate handed me the big parcel of chips which I held to my chest with my left arm, put it in gear and took off down the road. Apparently the 61 boy said ''Did you see that ? He didn't use the clutch...is the clutch lever on the right?''  'Dunno' said my mate, 'check it out when he comes back.'   When I got back he went over to the bike and fiddled with both levers, I guess he was wondering what he saw, and we weren't going to enlighten him.

It's a housetruck - I thought they were all Bedfords.