RXFORD

Pulled passenger seat out for maximum dog sniffing ability.

Topside got the same treatment, but in the harder wearing hippo-liner again.

Got the underside prepped and cleaned, then primed, seam-sealed and sprayed some underbody sealer same as the underside of cab got.

Knew I got a bit ahead of myself at the start of lastyears lockdown. I never should have hippo-lined the tray before I check diff head to floor clearance. I didn't want to raise the truck, so hacked a hole in the painted floor and patched it in higher.

Scored a set of 12" Subaru Justy rims and tyres off a Riverside GC, Greer. Unfortuantly they didn't fit his Daihatsu so I swooped them up. Love this style of semi-solid rim. And fyi, that pic at the substation... I just pulled up and the wheels just happened to be perfectly aligned, what are the odds.

Did some genius docking and stashed it at a mates wirk on his trailer for a while til we made room at the lockup. Going to be a long while before I get stuck into this one.

Shit mang, bumped back to page 5. Terrible Got my tallboy up back in December. Mark & Chris Petch from Racer Products brought it up in thier fancy race truck. Highly likely it was the shittest thing that the tail-lift has ever lifted.

I could potentially go, but have a few questions for you. Fire me a pm and can go from there. I would be concerned about rear 1/4 rust staining. The earlier models (finned rear) have a design flaw where the c-pillar has a water drain which runs onto the inner wheel arch, but its only a small hole and they block up causing the inner/outer wheel arch plus the c-pillar to wheel arch gusset to rot out. Its a fuckin major to repair properly. Rear 1/4 off kind of job. I assume these have a similar design. I like these old mercs, but having done the metalwork on a finny in the past, its put me off ever buying one.

Nice work on the pipes. That diff cap is quite sexual too.

Those are proper epic. I wanna see some vids of you mobbin it around strong-arming out the window with biggy playing on the noise box now.

Isn't the 'suitably qualified engineer' you're referring to, essentially the Certifiers and staff at Lvvta? If not, then how would you suggest these Engineers get the training to all be on the same page? If there is more than a single industry standard or at least a guideline to follow, such as what we have now, it would just be a shitshow. And what sort of 'Engineer' would be used. Its a pretty broard term. Even if said Engineer was knowledgeable about certain aspects of vehicle building, it would be highly unlikely, they would know everything that was needed, so who would they turn to for that knowledge?

Fairly productive weekend. Got some new cu-ni hardlines made for the b2000 on thursday/friday afternoons, and Saturday I welded the brackets on to suit the new flexi hose I picked up Friday. @piazzanoob spilled butter chicken in my Gmc, then gave me a hand to bleed the brakes & clutch, so thats a big peice of the puzzle ticked off. Also gave my daily (which I havn't dailyed in 5 months) Laser wagon a birthday, and got the Cambelt/Waterpump done as well as a service which I finished up tonight. I also brought yet another shitbox to occupy space I don't have, in the form of a T2 city. Its a fucked rolling body, but will make for a good mezzanine ornament or garden art...

And laid down some black. Gave all the bushes, which I replaced earlier in the year, a clean and fitted with fresh grease. Also spent some time cleaning up the threads on the shackles and lower shock mounts plus the fasteners to suit. Some of them were pretty manky. Got it all back togethor and threw the has tank back in too. Good way to finish up a nice evening. Excuse the wheel nuts on the shock mounts, I had no m12x1.5 nylocs at the time.

Smashed some epoxy down and probably covered my shitbox daily laser in overspray

Still have a few brackets to weld on, but needed to get some paint on the rear end. It was a nice day Saturday just been, so got it stripped and prepped.

Tracked down a bunch of little stuff to suit the facelift swap. Newer style headlight/corner light connectors, and a few random clips I was missing. Also got a pair of guard indicator lenses and mounts which were a bit faded and dull. Hit them with the mini-buff for a few mins each and got some shine back into them.

Bit more progress on the B2000 over the past few weeks. I had a bunch of stainless tube and bends lying around, but havn't had the hoist free or the time to make a system, so when I spotted this setup that a guy was selling I thought I'd better jump on it. He was parting out his bagged truck for some reason which never actually made in on the road. He had the system made to tuck up above the chassis rails but still fit the stock chassis mounting points. Has an AdrenelinR muffler and reasonator fitted so wouldn't have been a cheap setup to get made. Can't complain for $425 shipped from Timaru to Akl... He even made this sweet crate to send it up in. My shifter bush kit finally showed up from Aussie, so I swapped out all the worn shit and fitted a new non-split boot then got it installed. Tight boxes are gooooood.

I really should do something about getting the Manhattan up here. Mates been pretty good storing it for this past year for me and letting me get other purchases dropped off at his place. At least my Recaro Lx collection is multiplying whilst its down there.

Ordered a pair of new tie-rod ends and have tracked down an A/C pump too so just finalising the deal on that. Need to make some time for it in the next month now.

Scored a few bits for the BlueWaffle last weekend. A mate sent me some pics of a City at Manukau U-pick, so myself and @piazzanoob went for a gander. My seats are pretty wasted, so the plan was to use the Manhattan City seats in the blue car, but thats still down south so I pulled a good rear seat from it which will clean up sweet, and there was a ba5 Prelude there too, so I robbed the front seats from that. Also got a drivers lower arm which has a better balljoint than mine and some other random bits that were missing.

This things farkin epic! Fizzing over that bone stock but lowered look, its perfect. Great job, super nice car.

Thought I may as well get the shock mounts done before pack up time too. Flipped one of the stock upper shock mounts and used that on drivers side, then used some lasered brackets I had left over from another job on passengers. Shocks sit nice and more upright than stock so should ride a bit better. Can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel now.