Bearded Baldy

Never got around to test driving. Started tidying up the drive belts as they were at max, then found a serious water leak from the bottom of the inlet manifold. Which then led to me closing the bonnet until today... Minus 3 at 7am meant i waited until 10am to go outside, took off the carby and adapter, dizzy and manifolds and started cutting new gaskets. Cleaned up a spare manifold and tapped/fitted the coolant plug again. Got distracted looking for some hylomar and ended up working on a knife project for a few hours. Managed to borrow some sealant from a neighbour so got 90% of it together just as it got dark. See ya'll in 12 months for the next update.

Car is still outside. Having a shed refit and cleanout currently so hopefully that will change soon. Haven't completely been neglecting the car though, found these urethane engine mounts on clearance so bought the last 3. Can't hurt to have a spare.

https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/in-service-wof-and-cof/introduction/inspection-and-certification-process/issuing-the-wof-or-cof-label-evidence-of-vehicle-inspection Read far enough down the list of bullshit..... Nothing about upper or lower. Lower is just normally more of a prick to remove for the inspector.

I will just add. Flanges. Everywhere you can fit them.

The magic stamp. These heads only came on the late xf falcon efi motors from what i can find. And after 4 or 5 different versions of the alloyhead, they made the chamber shape and size of these ones similar to the old ironhead. Also the E2 alloyheads have slightly larger intake valves which is a nice bonus. From 1.8inch to 1.84inch.

Motor and cradle made it home, did a bit of creative unloading and then degreaser soak and waterblast before wheeling into the shed to be ignored for a while.

Vague memory recalls it may have come off a datto powered forklift. Or that might be some other weird bit of gear i have. The 125 units are good for around 100hp max, so should be fine on a rover haha. That 300a mixer on the snorkel would be my pick though.

PFT Not the prettiest thing out there but not bad for scrap steel and a 15 dollar set of castors. Bottom of pan sits down 1.5 inchs in the big hole, angled box on the left matches the rear of sump for extra support. 170ish kgs these motors.

Have gotten a lead on an alloyhead motor with the right version of the head to suit my needs. Hoping to pick it up in a couple of weeks so started making a rolling cradle to sit it in. Had a spare sump left over at work so have designed it around that. Finished tacking it up today. Complete with lugs to tie it on with for potentially longterm storage. Just needs paint then will take photos for thread.

I run vdo gauges in the cruiser. Simple, elegant, timeless. Blah blah This style. https://trundlesautomotive.co.nz/products/vdo-boost-gauge-kit

Have you tried going to a PV that opens earlier, and put a piece of safety tie wire through the PV ports in the metering plate. Can work wonders sometimes. Bit of reading here explains it better than i can. https://www.aussiespeedshop.com/carb-tuning-help/

Straight from trademe. Made a trolley base for it this morning, tested it this afternoon. Much more betterer, still need to do something with the lights though.

Indeed, might have to steal that one. Ordered a 20kg bag of extrafine garnet from toolshed yesterday, 60 bucks including shipping. Ordered cyclone funnel and have a 20l bucket ready to go. Going to see zap shop over the road and see what i can do in the way of lighting. Let the barrying commence!

Aswell as the fork seals, speedo and paint.

This week i decided to get it to at least start and run nicely so took it into work to play with it at over lunch. New manifold, choke cable (was siezed), and a diaphragm for the carby was the initial idea along with obviously cleaning the years of shit out of the carb. There is a rubber bung that plugs the pilot jet tube that was perished but not available locally so i put it back in and reassembled the rest. Took the tank off and gave it a rinse out too. So of course after that the fuel tap leaked out its base. New gasket in there and no more wasting the liquid gold. Started on 3rd or 4th kick so not bad. Still wouldn't rev out, smelled and sounded like it was flooding itself. Brought it home to have another look over the weekend. Float height is good, jets and ports are clean. Hmmm pulled the pilot jet out again to check the oring at its base. Not looking too flash, so pulled a box of dhla spares off the shelf and found a suitable replacement. Had another look at the rubber pilot plug. If it wasn't sealing properly then nothing will work right. No fuelproof rubber in the shed so came up with a different solution. Cut a thread inside the tube and cut down a countersunk machine screw to plug it up. Put it all back together and everything works as it should. Youngest daughter heard it start and wanted to go for a ride so i swapped my shed slippers for boots and we rode around the house and backyard a few times. Now i have ridden it a bit further i have a bigger list of things to do. Swingarm bearings, unbent footpegs and a clutch job are in the future.

Started to give it a quick wetsand to tidy it up but ran out of paper halfway through. It wasn't able to draw any fuel through with the split manifold so i dribbled some old lawnmower juice down the sparkplug hole and kicked it over. Started up and kept running so idled it round the backyard to check the gearbox out. Made it to 3rd but couldn't pull any revs. Then parked it up for a couple of months.

Which brings the quad up to date. Still need to get some new carpet for the tray but otherwise ready to go. Which brings me to the ag200. Mates family had it in the woodshed and for a high price of $100 i picked it up. First impressions. Inlet manifold was in 2 bits, fork seals leaking, broken speedo and cable, missing starter motor, oil leaks from a few places. Good starting point though.

Got used for everything from hunting and moving fallen tree bits to pushing the boat around. But after 5 years of getting parked outside without a cover it was looking a bit tired again. So a few months i stripped it down to give it another birthday. Found 4 or 5 broken wires in the headstock loom and replaced the set of wires from the 4wd switch to the loom plug as they had broken internally. So now 4wd works off a switch not just left stuck in 4wd with the servo unplugged as my trackside fix that i never got around to fixing. Upper headlight works, and the speedo which stopped on my 2nd trip away is now functional too. Made a new grab rail for the rear tray so the kids can actually hold onto something now too.

Did a couple of trips away and while it drifted well the tires were lacking where they shouldn't. Turned out a mate had a set of muddies the right size in barely used condition. So on they went.

Had a customer come in one day talking about the new quad he had just ordered, the bike shop wouldn't give him anything for his old one as it 'needed too much work' etc etc but they would dispose of it for him if he dropped it of... yeah right. Asked him what he would take for it if i turned up with a trailer, a big chocolate cake was his answer (good thing my wife is a baker/cake decorator for a living). At this point i didn't even know what breed of bike it was, but i wanted a quad for hooning and hunting missions so a couple of days later i went out to the farm after work. Talk to old mate for a bit then he tells me the bike is waiting by the hayshed. Only bike i can see over there is a big late model looking thing so i park up and wait for him to wander over. He looked at me like i was an idiot for a few moments then pointed to the one i had seen. 'Yeah it needs all the brakes done, wheel bearings, bullbars and handlebars got a bit twisted after i rolled it the 4th time, but it's your problem now hahaha'. And that is how i became the owner of an '07 vinson 500!!! (not quite 10 years old at the time) Big strip down and inspection followed. Had to remake some of the frame. Clean up the faded plastics. Rebuilt the brake calipers with new pads, new wheel bearings and a balljoint. Then a few fiddly things. For future reference, vinsons use datsun 510 universal joints which are cheaper than suzuki branded bits.

Yeah lost a bit by doing that over the years. Few shed beers before finishing leads to going out next morning to keep playing....hmm i didnt turn that back on.... doh.

I run a D bottle on my little home mig, ezyswap argoshield 90/10. Just had to swap for a full one last week. 170 bucks. Best thing about ezyswap is if you have a couple of years with doing f all welding the bottle doesnt cost anything extra. Think when i bought mine it worked out to 3 years rental or thereabouts, had it for nearly 6 years now, filled 3 times but built some trailers n shit too in that time.

I like the rapid deployment tapemeasures.

Rock auto to the rescue?

Overdue update to seal this up. Found the sheath in the shed, was dried out and crumbly. Managed to revive it partly by applying half a dozen coats of leather boot grease. The old boy made a kwila stand for one of my motorbike models back in the day, when i track down what box my model collection got relegated to i plan on repurposing it as a base for this. How it has turned out.