RXFORD

Was finally able to get it back togethor and refitted to the truck. Timed it up again and took it for a spin. Seemed pretty good, go Clints opinion comparing it to his Chev and have been putting a few miles on it since with no obvious issues. Bit of an expensive excercise, but hopefully its good for a while now.

Also noticed a leak coming from around the fuel pressure reg which is built into the back of the tbi unit. No idea what caused it, but I know it wasn't happening before I did dizzy/fuel filter. Maybe I bumped it and the old brittle gasket failed. Anyway, the leak was just dumping fuel into the the tbi throats, so I'd say this was the main cause of overfuelling. Ended up removing the unit and was able to get a rebuilt kit complete with a new fuel pressure reg unit from the guys at American Pickup parts Nz. Got the tbi unit stripped and cleaned ready for rebuild but then found a stripped thread on the fuel inlet to the injector pod. Found another complete tbi unit locally so brought that and robbed the injector pod from it.

The day after swapping dizzy I decided to put a fresh fuel filter in as I had never changed it in 5 years/17'000mi of owning. Got that done and filled it up with fuel on my way home that night. As soon as it fired up to leave the gas station it started running rough as guts. Worse that it ever had. Took it home thinking it may have got a little water in tank but next morning it was still terrible. Overfuelling really bad. Played with timing some more thinking I may have got it wrong and even swapped old dizzy back in incase new china one had shit itself already, but no change. Found a split/taped up map sensor vac hose, so that probably didn't help the situation.

For the last year I had been having an issue where truck would die every now and again if idle dropped whilst changing from D to R etc. It progressively got worse and ended up being every time I came to a stop at a set of lights... I was having to left foot brake to keep the rpm up. Anyway, dizzy/cap & rotor looks like they were from ww2 so figured I would replace the cap/rotor but It was only an extra $60 for a complete new dizzy from Afwe. Got it swapped out and truck ran mint.... For a day.

Havn't had much time for my own junk lately, but had to do some repairs on the Gmc. I took it to work about a month ago after it had been parked up for a good 3-4 weeks and heard a horrendous grinding/ratteling noise. Found that the waterpump was on its way out and I had thankfully caught it before a complete collapse. Probably the easiest waterpump I have done. So much room between engine and radiator once the fans removed. Tried repairing it but ended up having to grab a new one from Sta Parts..

So yeh, the people have spoken Clint, hop to it...

I rekon you should rebody the plymouth with the lillput body.

Looking siiiiick. I hope you keep that patina.

1.2mm wire is a bit hefty for 6mm imo. Its likely that you are having to run the machine a bit too hot to melt the thicker wire, but that extra heat is burning the edge away. Assuming you are watching the weld pool and washing it down a bit when it looks like its going to burn the edge, you could try playing with the inductance setting if you machine has it. May not help much with spray transfer though. Can you switch to 0.9 wire? Might give you a little bit more control over the heat input.

The 2023 Open Bootlid Nationals was a success! Mint day, cheers to all who came along, and thanks Clint for your organisational capabilities.

Anyone from Hamilton way heading along? Where ya's meeting up beforehand? Mate from T.A whose not on the forum is going to cruise up.

Ooof, sounds pretty horn. Big milestone, nice work!

Some hiluxs had an Lspv, some didn't. Some systems are just proportioned through the master cyl sizing. If he drove it, and the rear locked up, or he had it on rollers and the rear was too harsh and you can't adjust it out at the drums, then you'll have to fit a prop valve to dial it them in. If brakes are fine without, nicely balanced front to back, then hes just being a retard.

2 big design flaws make them pretty hard to find in good condition. They have rust traps along the front of the inner frame where the hinge reinforcing is. Traps shit and the frame rots through. And the bonnet stay setup. When the plastic roller fails, the bonnet stay doesn't work, so people over-tilt the bonnet which either stresses the frame and pops the old brittle glue off the skin along front, leaving it to flap around and eventually stress crack, or the over-tilting just buckles the outer skin. Looks great Kelly. How much work did they have to do to the bonnet in the end? Was it a 'skin off frame' job or not that bad?

Locked in.

Theres been a couple big ones done on the Mtnz FB page. I did one years ago which was good, but I think with how shit the scene is these days it would be lame/depressing to do another. Half the trucks have been parted out, scrapped or traded so many times with no up-keep that they just look like shit now. I can count the die-hard 'traditional' minitruck enthusiasts and the amount of somewhat active builds on 2 hands.

The braking standard doesn't specify a minimum grade, but it does mention there needs to be minimum deflection from the bracket/part. So if the section/thickness is less, its probably best to use a higher grade material for a better resistance to flexing under load. My last lot were done from 4140.

Fuck yeh, Trekkas are rad. I have bulk n.o.s Trekka/Skoda shit from Anderson Motors and Gee Motors who were dealers back in the day. When I get some time I'l sift through and grab some pics. Probably some stuff there that might be of use to you. Whats the build number of your Trekka? I'm a barry and have a bit of a file on them. Keen to see more pics.

Give Simon at MaxFab in Tauranga a buzz. He's a good sort and has heaps of stock.

If you are trying to polish out water spots and light marks Cerium Oxide powder is the go to. Mix it into a paste with a little water and go to town with a buff. I have a heaps of it if you are in Auckland and wanted a jar to try.

Well in terms of the layout, yeh something along those lines is the general idea. The geometry side of things is a bit more involved. Its unlikely that you will end up with the link pickup points in same plane front and rear, and with the same vertical separation (parallel bars) once put through a 4-link calc program or mocked up to scale with cardboard from a side on view. Pinion angle change isn't a bad thing as long as the angle change is close to 'equal but opposite' to the UJ at hanger bearing throughout its travel range. The more important thing to pay attention to, is how much 'plunge' the pinion gets. Obviously the axle moves in an arc, so if it gets too much front to back movement its going to flog out hanger bearings or ram the yoke into the back of gbox. A good starting point for a ute to play around with on an online link calculator, would be setting the lower arms parallel(ish) to ground at ride height and move the uppers around til you get an instant centre somewhere around the front bumper. Cycle it, and see what pinion angle/plunge change there is throughout the expected travel range. Report back once you have had a play, it will give you a crash course in the geometry basics. Generic pic for added confusion. Your link will end up something like the 2nd and 3rd diagram once calculated correctly.

There is plenty of bag on bar setups in trucks here and every bagged Impala has them too. Mtnz facebook page would yeild some results. If you want to keep it simple, 50x50x4shs with bushes each end would be fine. Makes for an easy bag mount platform. Could use 5/8" or bigger heims but check with your cert man first, he may prefer bushes for the the 2 bottom arms. Make sure the bag is centered side to side in the arm, if its offset, it will twist the bushes/joints. If you run an adjustable lower arm it can only be adjustable at axle end, otherwise upper & lower bag plates will be misaligned if adjusted from front. I'd place the bag close to axle rather than half way up the bar. 2:1 or greater can be spongy and its double(+) the work for the bag. Also need to make sure the shocks work in a ratio suited to the bag ratio. I would run a tuneable valving shock to help dial it in. Get as much triangulation as possible. That bottom pic needs more imo. The more triangulation, the less the joints get loaded stopping sideways movement. You will also need design approval for a bag on bar setup compared to a bag over axle. Also, don't do a reverse link like the top/middle pics you posted. Key word to remember is 'trailing arms'.

Nek Minnit... P.s thanks for an easy transaction and saving me from having to deal with tardme/marketplace half brains...

The cheese wedge cars.