Crispy

A Car (or rather a shell) has popped up on trademe that has peaked my interest (provided it doesn’t go for too much). It needs some hearty rust repairs which I’d have to chip away at over the next few years/forever. Obviously any sort of rust repairs would need a repair cert etc. and I’m aware of that. But before I sign myself up for fixing this thing. How much of a ball ache (paperwork wise) am I up for? It has the original manufacturers tag. Which has chassis number etc. but no Nzta vin number and no evidence of plates. It’s a pretty rare car here and they don’t come up very often in any sort of condition. So trust me if the option was to find one with wof/reg or at least on hold I would….

Hey man! Enjoyed chatting with you on Saturday (I was in the Green Mini, on pretty old Semi slicks ). I'm a bit more of a lurker here, no build threads or anything. Cool to see the back story and how far the cars come and good to see the Datsun out being used like it should!

Yea my Leone wagon was handbrake on the front too and that was an 88. His rally car was an 84 model. Not sure what generation that makes it off the top of my head sorry. Maybe it was a twin cam? I honestly can't remember. I was like 3 when he did the swap lol. I'll ask him about the stud pattern change and chassis notching in the weekend when I see him though.

My old man had an early 80s Leone Hatch rally car in the 90s and early 00s. He started with the factory motor, then chucked that on twin webers, but it ended up with a stroked N/A 2.5 ej (up from 1.8) with Kelford cams, Link etc. And adapted an RA 5 speed Cr box. From memory he went 4x114.3 for better wheel selection. But can't remember how he did it or if he upgraded brakes? He had to notch the chassis rail(s) to fit the cam covers being DOHC. Was a weapon in its day being light and 4wd. But people started putting more money and technology into turbo cars and he eventually got left behind and upgraded to an RS Legacy. Was way easier to drive. He said it didn't want to swap ends on gravel coming into every corner which was reassuring haha. If you have any questions I could ask him about the specifics of putting an EJ into an older Subaru as I was just a kid when he built it. Excited to see where this one goes. Always had a soft spot for Leones (my first car was an 88 wagon).

Surely talking about ease of conversion this would be up there? Run it on bike carbs/webers so no ecu to worry about (and all of the dorts). Pretty well documented overseas and I think you may even be able to get mounts or at least diagrams? I have no experience with this myself. But researched it a fair bit as an idea for a swap last year just before my old man sold his anglia.

2.7 petrol Hilux/hiace motor (not sure of code) and matching manual box (R154?) or Hail Mary and do something like this.

I find Minispares Uk cheaper than Minisport for parts. Both are fairly reasonable compared to NZ Retailers, however understand they have overheads and margins they need to cover. If you're importing more parts at any stage let me know. Always keen to collaborate and keep shipping prices down a bit.

Shit. I would've been keen. But don't think I could swing the time off work/away from home (already been travelling a lot for work lately).

There is a rear fog/park light which I may wire up into a reverse light just in case any poles sneak up on me

Potentially looking to get rid of the yuck taillights on my Mk6 Mini and replace them with far cleaner looking Mk2 items that bolt straight in (so I'm led to believe). Only problem is they don't have provisions for reverse lights. Everywhere I've read says reverse lights need to work if fitted, but not an issue if they aren't fitted. Can someone confirm this. My WOF guy is pretty chill, but I don't want to test things too much.

So have been enjoying browsing the forum. Would be sweet to get out to a meet or something once this lockdown stuff is all passed. Anyway, been getting done a few small jobs I've been putting off on the car. In between work having me work from home. Minispares Uk is out of stock on the Gearbox rebuild kit I'm after, so done some small things to pass the time and keep myself busy. Car is still together, I don't really want to pull it apart until I know I've got at least some of the stuff I need, and I'm kind of flat out working from home.... With the help of my father aka my fabrication yoda. (he is a fitter/welder by trade, and I might as well have blocks of cheese for hands) But what better way to learn? Bent up and I painted some flat steel. Which turned into this Even though its not Motorsport spec or anything, I still feel a little safer. Rolling with ol' mate Lucas has its risks. Nothing too bad yet, although I've found some fuses that look like they have been a little hot at some stage. Then after that I took to the dashboard. Someone back in Japan had fitted these tweeters on top of the dash and tbh I think they looked bloody horrible. That, and they don't work. So set to ripping them out. I'd already wired them up to the new head unit I'd put in not long after I bought the car, so had to take it back out, which was fun.. But a good way to kill an afternoon when you can't go anywhere. Much better! Also managed to get rid of this random JDM wiring job There is a few marks left on the dash pad, but it already has a few cracks and it not in the best condition, so not really fussed. Shortly after this my tyres turned up. May seem a little excessive. But Hyper had 40% off and free shipping, and I'm a sucker for a bargain. The plan is to find some wheels for the a359's (the road tyres) and use them for the grass, at least on the front to stop my under steering everywhere. May have some wheels lined up for them, but we will see when Aunty Cindy lets us travel again. Not long after that I had my birthday. Entered quarter of a century with a Zoom chat with some mates and pulling the trigger on some wheels I'd been eyeing up for a long, long time. I'm Keeping the Watanabe's as I'd always liked the idea of Jdm style minilites on a Jdm Mini Cooper. But wanted something that would stand out more too. What made the search harder was that I'm still running the 8.4" brakes, which I'd like to keep. Which means I can't run anything smaller than 12". Most cool Mini wheels in Japan are 10" After transferring a heap of money to Japan, the anxious wait started to try and get parts halfway across the world in the middle of a pandemic. Today some rather large boxes turned up, so I took a break from my working from home to check them out. What could this be...... Genuine SSR MK2's in mini stud pattern (not redrilled like others on the interwebs I've seen) . The offset is a little weaker than the Watanabes, so to help fill out the flares I grabbed some 5mm spacers from Minispares Uk and they're bang on. (Will take off spacers and maybe even swap wheels for wof). Will see how we go once the tyres are on though. In the flurry of excitement, with cardboard and bubblewrap going everywhere. I actually forgot to take any decent pictures of the wheels. Both close up, and when I test fitted them with the car on the Jack. But some photos on Facebook of Japanese tuning shop Mini Delta had some really similar wheels on one of their cars, which is what sold me. Also scored this sweet Smiths dual water temp and oil pressure gauge from Minispares uk that will be getting hooked up when everything is out. Plan is to mount it underneath the dash next to the bonnet pull. But that's a way off yet. So that's all for now. Plan is to save a bit over the next few months for gearbox rebuild parts and take it from there. In the meantime I'd like to get the lips on the mk2's Looking a bit better. They already are pretty shiny, but I might do a fineish grit wet sand (maybe start at like 800) and work up finishing with mag polish (I hear the mothers stuff is the biz). They also have the odd paint chip etc. They're overall really good condition, so don't really want to dive down the rabbit hole too, too much. I also spent quite a bit on the wheels, so a professional refurb is probably off the cards. so if anyone has any advice in this area it would be much appreciated. TL:DR Paid heaps for some wheels from Japan, like them a lot. Thanx for reading

Apologies if this is the wrong place I'm after a personalised plate. Plate hasn't been on car since 1994 (according to Carjam) Is there anyway I can track down the owner of the plate? Or is it pretty much a no.

I think this will be the right place..... Hi all, long time listener first time caller. So here goes... January last year I entered my first grass motorkhana with my Daily commodore wagon. Something I'd been wanting to do for a while as the old man rallied when I was younger, but gave up because it was too expensive. I Had an absolute ball, even though my car was far too big to maneuver, staggered wheels made me under steer everywhere and my p/s pump gave up by the end of the day. So I cracked open the savings and decided it was time for a project car. It had a few conditions... 1)It had to be a bit of an investment(ie. If I had to sell it I wouldn't lose too much money) 2) Not too hard to find parts for and simple(ish) to work on as I wanted to learn on something that I didn't have to drive every day 3) Able to be more competitive than my commodore around cones haha After considering a few options including a very good offer from a mate trying to sell his NA8 Mx5. I kept coming back to Mini's.. Namely Japanese ones, as most were already well spec'd with a 1275 injected engine and don't seem to have as much rust as some of the older ones. I'd also kinda always wanted one after going for a ride in a couple when I was a teenager and now in my 20s I'm in a slightly better position to have my own. After a few months and a juggling of finances, this gem popped up for sale locally. Which I promptly set about acquiring. The dealer had already had spent a fair bit on it, tidying it up and bringing it up to standard to pass compliance. From Japan it had a performance exhaust of some sort, Coil spring adjusties (lol) with cert, the flares and 13x6 Watanabes. All stuff I would've done eventually anyway so that was a bonus.... A few months later a winter motorkhana came up, this time on Tarmac in the top carpark at Hampton Downs, I did a few things to the car to prepare it, including replacing the absolutely shot (and downright dangerously perished) tyres with Yokohama A048's for max grip (would recommend) Had an awesome day yet again and managed to come a long way in my driving. Having never owned a fwd car got a bit of practice pulling the handbrake to get around those tight corners towards the end of the day, once I built up a bit of confidence. Still a ways to go yet though. Car did awesome too with the only real problem being my new gear knob almost coming off in my hand on one of the earlier runs. I spent the rest of the winter continuing on making the interior a more comfortable place to be. Ordered some floor mats from Japan. Got some different seat brackets from minisport, a genuine Italian Nardi wheel from Driftworks in the uk to show how everyone JDM I am. A Steveston Motor co steering wheel drop bracket, and the most pita thing.. A Custom sort of trim matched Cobra Clubman fixed back seat (never shipping a seat from overseas again ) Things were going well and I was taking the car for the occasional drive to work etc. til around October. I managed to get into an accident in my Commodore. The Mini became my daily while it was at the panel beaters. That was going well for about a bit over a month until I lost clutch pressure one afternoon on the way home from work. The day before it was booked in for a wof. The old man came through the with sos call and we (well mostly him) spent most of the night bleeding it up to get it usable. We swapped cars as he has starts at stupid o'clock and has no traffic to contend with on his commute. Once I got my daily back it just sat in the corner of the shed as by this stage it was close to Christmas/New Years. As with most people around that time of year, money/spare time were required in other areas and I was pretty over it. Until I was camping with some mates at the start of January and saw my new friends at the Pukekohe Car Club were holding the first round of their motorkhana series, the same series I had entered in the Commodore last year. From the comfort of my tent I ordered a new clutch master cylinder thanks to classic mini spares in Te Puke. Also joined the club for future events. After a bit of a mission squeezing around the air con unit and working under the dash Dad and I got it in. Its still leaking out of the slave cylinder a little. Its a mission to get to with everything crammed in the little engine bay. But seemed to hold pressure and not cause any problems. so we were good to go. And vowed to do it properly once the series was done. I completely underestimated how hard it was driving on grass. I was still running the A048's as I don't have anything else, which probably didn't help my cause. But again learnt lots about driving, car didn't miss a beat, even the clutch! So a successful day. I drove it around for a bit, again, the odd trip to work etc. As I really enjoy driving it. Round two of the motorkhana series came up and it was only a few km from my house so I thought I've got nothing to lose. Set to adjusting my handbrake and thought I will push it home if I have any major clutch problems. I wish that second photo was better quality. Again another awesome day. Thankfully no pushing required either. Had some tips from the old man and a few of the guys that knew what they were doing, including a fella named Craig who won the event in his Mini. Learnt lots about car control and am sort of getting the hang of the handbrake now. I was doing reasonably well until I couldn't crack one of the last courses of the day which put me back. Consistency seems to be the key here. So this about brings us up to date. Car is still very much drive able. I put a new grille on it at the end of last year as well as using rivnuts on the flares and a few other little things. Lockdown induced boredom made me paint the old grille black and take the spotlights off to clean things up a bit. I'd like an Italian spec black Innocenti grill one day, but this will do for now. I've got a huge wish list of things from Japan and England that I'll get underway once this level 4 is over. I was going to wait until the last few motorkhanas were over, as there was two more rounds planned and didn't want to have the car out of action. But now I can take some time and do it properly. Which is kind of why I left it when it shat the bed. The engine and subframe will be coming out as the gearbox has had a crunch into second since I've owned it and there is a few oil leaks (typical). So that will be getting rebuilt with new Baulk rings along and will be throwing in a new clutch slave. . Wanted to do everything at once. Already got some new tyres on there way thanks to Hyper's 40% off and free shipping lockdown sale and hopefully another set of wheels lined up too. If you've read all of this, thanks for sticking with us this far. I've learnt so much already. Definitely no regrets.