Snoozin

OK so the motor is pretty much ready to drop in. @Stu popped in and finished up the wee loom for the front of engine bits, so the cam/crank sensors etc are all sorted out. Project KP61 2019 (6) by Richard Opie, on Flickr Project KP61 2019 (10) by Richard Opie, on Flickr Project KP61 2019 (90) by Richard Opie, on Flickr I've chucked all the brand new plastics/seals on the front (Toyota still carry a lot of things) and stuck the new 4AGE sticker on the front. Important. Project KP61 2019 (84) by Richard Opie, on Flickr Project KP61 2019 (75) by Richard Opie, on Flickr Project KP61 2019 (21) by Richard Opie, on Flickr This weekend the idea is to drop it back in the hole and then at some point wire it all up. Yay? YAY!

Worthwhile point! All of the holes on the pedals are raised around the edges, but I guess it won't be too tricky to make up some pedal things with skateboard grip tape or similar on them if Mr Certman deems it no good. I just hope it works tbh.

Would've been rude as to not fit these things up, hey? 20190302_175341-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190302_175351-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr The sparkle doesn't kick off quite as well when it's out of sunlight. But I'm pretty hyped on the aesthetic. So while the motor is out, I at least need to crack on with a few other wee jobs. The pedal box was something that needed addressing. Previously, I had the big old "long" style Wilwood master cylinders which have a press on cap with a 3/8" push on fitting for rubber hose on the inlets. It became fairly apparent that there just wasn't going to be any room behind the dash for this kind of hose... the OD of it is MASSIVE, and 3 lengths from the reservoir (yet to be mounted) to the cylinders wasn't really possible. So, I decided to change to the GS "Compact" master cylinders. Ordered from Jegs, got here within a couple of weeks. Same sizes. 3/4" for front, 5/8" rear, 3/4" clutch. 20190227_193343-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Primary reason for the change was to use a -4AN fitting for the inlets, which these have. Inlet is at the far end of the cylinder. 20190227_193416-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr So of course, a test fit to the mounting frame was required. Pretty straight forward, and the space saving is an added bonus. It's getting pretty crowded behind the dash! You can visualise how much shorter they are by the outlet hardlines that are still in place from the old master cylinders. 20190227_200449-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190227_200554-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Following this, I had GSS (thanks @legendlives and co for the continued great service) sort the hardlines out to suit the new cylinders. Pics in a bit of that. All stripped back, I shot across to see Jon at Strange Workshop and had a hoon on his blasting cabinet. 20190306_215500-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190306_215445-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Naturally, a coat of paint was in order. Etch primed and top-coated with black epoxy rattle cans. The VHT stuff comes out super nice! 20190310_131148-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Finally, assembly for the final time (I hope) although there is a very real probability that I'll need to fuck around with the master cylinders to get the brakes feeling right. Pretty chuffed with the end result. You can see the banjo fittings and excellent hardline work in these shots. Nice and compact and tucked well out of harms way ( @cletus might confirm if I need to chuck a P-clip in there, it's well under 300mm from banjo to bulkhead fitting though). 20190311_182910-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190311_182918-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190311_182958-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190311_182937-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr DISCUSSION EVEN!

Arm twisted.

I think I could be persuaded into coming down for a couple of shandys. Who can I book a seat with?

A bit of chequebooking. I prepped these and Ben at GT Refinishers chucked a luscious coat of blue matched to the Cusco strut tops, with added sparkzazz. 2019-02-27_09-44-44 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Yeah nice.

Been tidying up the engine thing, painting lots of stuff, reconditioning the starter and alternator, etc etc. Here's a few phone pictures of how it's looking. With assistance from @kpr I've adopted his trigger arrangement for the cam/crank, this has meant the dizzy can be turfed completely. 20190224_170300-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190224_170315-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190224_170451-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190224_170348-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190224_170355-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 20190224_170410-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Also attached an SQ Engineering reverse down-pull throttle linkage to the ITB, in the interest of simplifying the cable run. 20190224_163540-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr New 4AGE sticker. This will stick to the new OEM cambelt cover. 2019-02-26_11-24-31 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Sort of where I am at now. @Stu is going to come and give me a hand to terminate those sensor wires into a nice easy to detach loom, and then the engine is pretty much ready to go back into it's home. The silver cam covers are temporary, the blue ones will return soon with a new finish that's pretty damn epic I think.

Monday 4th I am heading back bro. Shout if you still need a lift.

Did ya print out a woof to go with the plate and the rego tag?

So the engine bay thing kind of took off. Some egging on by a certain lanky Auckland member... Motor out. 20181216_135918 by Richard Opie, on Flickr You can see, there's multiple useless holes in the firewall. These include, but are not restricted to the original heater inlet/outlet, brake booster, loom, aircon and all the other weird shit that I don't need anymore. Same goes for the brackets on the firewall. So what next? KP61 Phone-1 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Trekked down to see @oftensideways with the KP in tow. For those of you who don't know Sean, he's a freakin wizard, and a top bloke to boot. Someone I am privileged to consider among my mates. He'd agreed to weld up the engine bay for me, and with Bex being away visiting her family over the break it was a great excuse for me to get out of the house and go for a bit of a drive. KP61 Phone-2 by Richard Opie, on Flickr I didn't really get many shots in progress, but here's what the firewall looked like when it was time to load up and hit the road (the next day, even!). All of the large holes have been filled with steel patches. MIG'd in place then TIG welded to finish. The little stuff with captive nuts on the other side have been filled by MIG welding. Then a bunch of hammer and dolly work to get the shape back. And so we took off home. Straight into @sheepers shed... as I said, this all happened a bit quicker than I am used to. KP61 Phone-3 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Front off, subframe and suspension out. Then onto the labourious job of prepping for paint. KP61 Phone-4 by Richard Opie, on Flickr This is after the initial prep work for a coat of high build primer. You'll note the brake line holes and etc in the inner guards have also been filled. Thought it was a good idea while I was down at Seans to do it once and properly. This first prep really started to reveal just how good the job Sean did was. High spots at an absolute minimum - which is great, as these are way harder to fix than low spots, for obvious reasons. KP61 Phone-5 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Sheepers sprayed the first coat of primer on the bay that same night. Was a fairly long day, but super cool nonetheless to see an inkling of what the final product was going to be like while the primer was still wet. Promising. Of course, lots, and lots, and lots of sanding still to come... KP61 Phone-6 by Richard Opie, on Flickr This is after a wet sand. A whole days worth of wet sanding. You can see all the red spot filler on the firewall. This is ALL WE NEEDED TO FILL IN. Let that sink in for a while. After the amount of welding heat and bashing that had gone into the firewall, the requirement to crack out the bog was slim to nil in the end. That's how damn good Sean is. Regardless of how good it was, I ended up with trench-hands from being in wet gloves all day, which was equal parts gross and hilarious. But then the second coat of primer went on... KP61 Phone-7 by Richard Opie, on Flickr HOW GOOD. The followup to this was pretty much a rinse and repeat of the earlier scenario. But with more hand sanding, and less power assistance. Definitely a learning process, figuring out how best to make the paper do the work, while maintaining a smooth surface ready for the base coat. KP61 Phone-8 by Richard Opie, on Flickr This was about the moment I began to properly fizz. Couldn't stay in the shed while it was being sprayed as I didn't have appropriate respiratory protection, but when the door rolled up... this shot of the bay coated in a colour matched red was the result. Not bad? Major tent pants moment was still to come, however. KP61 Phone-9 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Look at that! You could bloody go swimming in that gloss. Sheeper was a little bit apprehensive to try the clearcoat I bought (that was recommended by the joker at CarColors Albany) since different product can apparently yield very different results if you're not familiar with spraying it. But how good is the result, testament to the multi-talents of the lanky fella on the gun. A couple of runs for sure, and a little bit of dirt got in the paint - expected for spraying it in a garage. But nothing that can't be very easily fixed. Today was a day off working on it - from go to whoa this took 5 days in total. I'm heading back tomorrow to touch up the underseal in the guards and also reassemble the car, take it back to the shed it lives in and crack on with the engine while I let the paint harden enough to wet sand or cut/polish the imperfections out. Thanks for looking.

I fitted an adaptor from a GX81 with an auto box to my T50. Maybe it will fit a W series. It just screwed into the spot where the cable normally goes, and spits out the relevant signal. $20 or so from pick a part. I am using a Stack ST3800 series speedo.

It's a Starlet so it's worth maybe 1500 - 2k max.

Been a long time since I looked at this, due to obvious reasons. Anyway, pulled it out of it's corner in George's shed, and washed all the crud off it a short while ago. Before it got put away, it has had a new/modified body loom by Nick the Sparky. All of the lights/wipers/fan/dash/fuel pump etc all works on it again now, battery is relocated to the boot with an isolator, various other things. The electric mirrors even work now, for the first time since I have owned it. I also installed finished the fuel tank, and sealed it with that POR15 kit. Made a right mess, and had to repaint it. Now it's shiny black with some metallic flake in it because the painter thought it'd be a giggle. Uh, did some other stuff too. Just a phone photo for now, but hopefully I can recommence with good shots in due course. 20180520_161320 by Richard Opie, on Flickr I've been pretty disillusioned with it, but have decided to try and have one last crack at being interested in it and if I can't make meaningful progress then it needs to leave my possession. But fairly confident I can sort something. Sheepers popped around and helped me take the engine out the other day, so I can bugger off and fill in all the holes that are in the bay.

^ I'm picking it's the cord, or the source unit has a cover or something preventing full engagement of the plug so only one contact is working.

Results speak volumes. That's goddam awesome!