RXFORD

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.

80s hatch park up.

Convinced @piazzanoob to dig his Piazza out of hibernation and bring it along. My buddy Mark drove my ute there and Kirk with the blue 2 sedan met us at the shop and we cruised down to Mobil Quay Street to meet some up with some of the dorito boys.

Got my wof a couple weeks back, just in time for the New Years Jap meet. Did some not very sensible things to the suspension on the Friday night, gave the paint a quick hand polish and the glass a clean Sat and took it for its first fuel up in a couple years.

The guy I got them off made the set from 2 separate pairs, and one pair one alot more oxidised the the other, but both were pretty average. I gave them a quick huss with the d.a to make them a bit more presentable. The cars not perfect, so can't see myself getting them re-diamond cut anytime soon, so this will do for now.

A few months back, after a couple years of keeping an eye out, I managed to score a set of these ultra rare Nz only stock Sigma 14s. They were made under licence of Cheviot, but made locally for the launch of the 1984 Sigma SE. Theres a bit of a write up about them and the launch of that model Sigma in the book 'The University on the Hill' which is about the Todd Family.

Back togethor and on the ground. My 10 second colour eye match decision was a bit off, but meh. Wof booked Thursday so will see how it goes. Tyres are are bit old, so I'm half expecting to get knocked back on them. Need to pick up a new battery for it on my way to way to work too. Fuckin money pits.

These things have an odd rear suspension arrangement. I believe they were Mitsi's first irs, and had a trailing arm setup that were connected through the centre with one tube inside the other. I assume there must be grease or oil in there and the rubber boot that covered the 2 halfs was wasted. New parts are pretty scarce for these cars, and I didn't like the idea of having to pull the whole rear assembly apart to fit an universal boot if I was able to match one up. So I boogied up a strip of 2mm rubber sheet, wrapped it around and hose clamped it. Pretty ghetto, but will do for now. I'l have to revisit this another day.

Orig speakers were falling apart, so thought I'd better grab some new ones. Just so happened the local supercheap store had some 5" in stock that bolted in and just tucked in under the stock speaker grill. Cheapys but better than the stock ones. Got all the inner boot panels, the false cargo floor and carpet cleaned and refitted. Also gave the hatch seal a really good scrape out and clean. Needed to get the bits of rusted flange out.

Bits going back on. Swapped out the original black garnish which had a broken mount, for a spare I picked up a while ago. These get broken often as they attached to body, but people grab them thinking its the hatch handle which is exactly what a mate did with this one.

Heated up a scribe and stabbed the holes through. Bloody beaut fitment.

Picked up some good quality 6mm closed cell foam from James Walkers who are a local gasket maker, and got a couple trimmed out and dressed up.

The main reason I parked this up way back, was water getting in the boot. Cordias had a pretty crude foam gasket and mine were pretty cooked. I managed to get the best of off in 1 bit, mapped out the light mounting holes and used it to make a cutting template from Ali.

Confirmed for Sunday 15th. https://facebook.com/events/s/16th-new-year-japanese-oldscho/742566323878343/

I'm a metal guy, not a body work/paint guy so I was a bit lazy and broke my own rule of no filler over bare steel. Seeing as this thing needs a full repaint one day, and it was only a little bit of filler compared to how much fuckin resanding I'd have to do if I Epoxied first, I figured I would wet on wet the primer/paint. So smashed down some Dp40, seam sealed where needed, and shot some 2k silver.

Got it prepped late last week. The serial tapist strikes again.

After painting the insides, the car sat for a week or so in the lead up to Xmas but I went in on Xmas day and got the inner latch panel welded to the outer taillight panel, and dressed it all up. Thats where its at currently, but now with the Nz Stockcar champs out of the way I'm aiming to have the silver sprayed this week sometime.