carnut1100

Most efi cars converted togas just run a simple old school Venturi mixer like a carb.

Ecu still works ignition and thinks its running the injectors but the power to injectors and the fuel pump are cut.

Gas injection is more efficient and better power though but more expensive.

Nulon power steer treatment....went from topping up the steering twice a week and gettig noisy to haven't touched it in a month and it's quiet again.

If Castlemaine Rod SAhop does a kit, buy it cos it will save a whole lot of messing around. His kits are first rate ( speaking from experience here) and not that badly priced. If it costs $2k then there will be a lot of stuff it in. We got a kit for a Falcon motor in a Landcruiser and it had adapter plate, crank adapter, spigot, mounts, exhaust section, starter motor and heaps more. And good instructions too.

That is not the only kit we got from him either, and probably will get others from him too.

Cortys never came with V8s here, people just have a habit of inserting them.

I knew someone with a V8 Mk3 ( or TC as they are known here) which had a 302 Windsor in it with autobox running ( I think) standard 6 cylinder Corty diff. I don't think a Cleveland will fit, as tha Windsor was tight.

We have a 69 Transit with a 4.1 crossflow alloy head Falcon motor and 4 speed. It has Falcon diff and front discs too. It has heaps of grunt but the handling is not the best. To be honest I think a lot of this is down to worn kingpins but I am not a fan on beam axles anyway. I am tossing up the possibility fo fitting a Bedford front suspension unit to the Transit giving me IFS and rack&pinion steering.

If you get a Transit to convert to six cylinder, make sure you get a longnose one like the Astralina factory sixes and UK diesels as the six is a pain to fit in the short nose V4 body and takes up a LOT of room in the cab. Fitting the longnose panels is possible, but definately not easy. In fact it is a pain in the arse of a job and thouroughly not reccommended ( from experience here).

In Australia most Bedford vans had the Holden six from the factory. I haven't seen a 4 cylinder for years.

We are thinking of moving to NZ in the next year or so and we are tossing up whether to bring the Transit or get a Transit or Bedford over there. Are they hard to find in reasonable order?

SU carbs also don't have a conventional choke valve. If you choked an SU then very little air would flow past the vacuum hole and the mixture would lean right out. Instead when you pull the choke knob the jet moves down, having the same effect as the needle moving up and richening the mixture.

The Stromberg CD carbs work on the same principal but have a rubber diaphragm instead of a piston to work the needle.

Manual conversion is wildly variable on the car you have. I wanted to co9nvert my old Peugeot 604 to manual but as manuals were never sold in Austrlia it would cost at least $1000-1500 to get a flywheel, bellhousing, gearbox etc.

I am almost certain that VR4 stands for 4wd.

My father had heaps of cool cars. Among them were;

Early 50s Jeep, 42 Harley WLA, Peugeot 403 wagon with twin carbs, worked head and wide wheels, Sunbeam Alpine, Mini, Morris 1100, Morris Minor, Holden FJ with 186D, Saginaw gearbox, and HK Monaro front suspension, Lots of Landrovers, Cossack bike, Zundapp scooter, HOnda CB100, Yamaha AG ( several), Hilman Hunter, Humber Hawk, Renault 16TS, Renault 10, Peugeot 504s ( 2 petrol 1 diesel), Volvo 164E, Landcruisers, Nissan Patrols, Daihatsu F20, Ford Falcons XK, XA, XF, FOrd Customline, HOlden HQ ute, Ford Transit Mk1 with 4.1 motor and 4 speed, plus a few more I can't remember.

My Grandfather;

30s Chev, 1952 Ford Prefect ute, 42 Willys Overland sedan, Peugeot 203 wagon, 403 wagon, 403 sedans, 404 sedan with worked motor from a crashed rally car, 504 diesel, 504 petrol, Renault 10S, HOlden HD, early Toyota Crown, Datsun utes, and that is about it.

Bogging rust will not cure it. I have seen this many times, and the rust will fester behind the bog and the bog will eventually fall out, leaving you with a bigger job. Even if you can't weld neat it is better to do an ugly weld and smooth it with bog than to bog rust.

Falcons:Is an XT older than an XL? My mate has one, and another mate has an XM

Falcons were XK from 1960 to 62, XL from 62-64, XM 64-65, XP 65-I'm not sure but 66 or 67, XR to 68, XT to 69-70, XY to 72, XA to 73, XB to 76, XC to 79, XD to 82, XE to 84, XF to 88, and then you are into OHC territory.

The early Falcons were the same as the USA ones but after a few years they diverged. They were still designed in Detroit but by Australian stylists until the XA and since then they have been designed here.

We never got any 2 door Cortinas after the MK2 so a 4.1 2 door would either be a conversion or a very rare model indeed.

South Africa made Cortina utes and V6 COrtinas as well as V8 Capris.

Lasers here were initially definately a Mazda, the Laser was a hatch and the Meteor was a sedan, later the Meteor dissappeared to be replaced by Laser sedans. The 1.5 KBs are not too bad to drive, but are built of tin foil and are pretty boring to drive for long. They are a pain to work on also.

How common are Transits there now? I assume they are outnumbered by Bedford CFs? Are there many longnose Transit Mk1s?

Also are there many old sidevalve Prefects, Anglias, and Populars still left alive? Mostly I am interested in the 93, 103, 493 etc, not the 100E. One would go nice with a Zetec and 5 speed

I am kind of curius about the history of Fords in NZ. Actually I am curious about old cars there in general. Expect to see a few more threads like this one over the next few weeks but with different manufacturers.

Zephyrs: We had utes here in Australia in both Mk1 and 2 as well as station wagons. These were not like the UK wagons whichwere coachbuilt, but were factory Ford produced.

We had very few Mk3s, and no Mk4s at all.

I know NZ had Mk4s, but did you get wagons and utes?

We got no Granadas at all. Did NZ get them?

Falcon: I know NZ got Falcons, but did you get them from 1960? Are they very common?

Cortinas: From Mk3 onwards we got six cylinder COrtinas with either 3.3 or 4.1 litre engines from the Falcon and a power bulge in the bonnet to fit the big six under. The also had Falcon BOrg Warner 78 rear axle units instead of the Timkens of the UK spec Cortinas. Did NZ get them?

We never got Sierras, but I have heard that NZ got a few sedans and a lot of wgaons. Is that true? And did wagons have IRS?

Did NZ get Cosworths or XR4x4s?

When did Anglia 105Es finish over there? They finished here long bofore they did in teh UK.

Escort: We got shitloads of Mk1s and 2s but no Mk3s or later. We did get 2L Escorts as regular models, not just RS2000s although we got those too. There is an old lady down the road with a Mk2 2L Ghia automatic 4 door and we once rebuilt a 2.0 2 door engine for a friend.

I have heard that NZ got Escorts later than Mk2. True???

Did NZ get Fairlanes, LTDs, Landaus etc?

Did NZ get the rebadged Mazdas such as the Laser ( Mazda 121 from early 80s) the Meteor ( 80s 323 FWD) Telstar ( 626) etc? And of course the Courier which was a B series ute, and the Econovan which is an E series van?

Transit: When did Transits come to NZ? They came out in the UK in 1965 but not here for a few years after that.

Did Mk1 six cylinders get sold there? They were based on a longnose cab with a Falcon 3.3 litre six ( crazily they only offered the low compression 3.3 when they could have sold 4.1s and made supervans) and a Falcon 3 speed manual or auto box. They used 4 cylinder LWB rear axles which are higher rated than SWB axles but the SWB sixes did not have dual wheels. They had wide six stud wheels made out of about 6mm steel. They are unbreakable.

Fitting a 4.1 turns them from a slowish van with no top end but good acceleration( they used the V4 axle ratio of 5.14:1!!!) to a supervan but to get the most you should fit a taller ratio diff. A 4 speed box helps too.

Our Transit was a V4 but has been converted to six cylinder spec. It has a 3.55:1 Falcon diff and with a 3.3 and 3 speed ran out of puff on hills and drank like a fish.

Now it has a 4.1 crossflow and 4 speed it sails up hills like they aren't there and still drinks like a fish but no worse than withthe 3.3. The Falcon front discs are a definate improvement on the Transit drums too. I would like to modify a Bedford CF frond end to fit it one day which will geive it IFS and rack and pinion. Then maybe a new Falcon IRS, motor and gearbox

I suppose I have asked a lot of questions here, but I have managed to keep it to one marque so there are not TOO many I hope.

2L Zetec? A bit pricey I know, but you can get all of the bits off the shelf and it shouldn't be any dearer than a SR20.

AFAIK HQ-WB spindles are the same. I think you will have to go for the custom spindles.

I find that every old car has its farvourite method of starting, for example when the Transit was running a Weber with aauto choke you pump the throttle once, let go, and start it. Now it is running a Stromberg it is 3/4 choke, pump 3 times, hold it to the floor and crank it. My Peugeot you give it 1/2 choke pump a couple of times and crank it etc. We had a car once where you never pumped it, nad you didn't use the choke, you just held the throttle to the floor and cranked it.

its kinda pissing me off, but carnut keeps turning posts into car history in NZ

keep it on topic please

My sincere and deep apologies if I have caused you any offense. That was not my intention, and I didn't come on this board to annoy anybody. I am just curious about the old car situation in NZ, as it seems to be quite a bit different from the one here in Australia and as I am moving over there in a few months it is naturally of some interest to me. I will try not to ask questions which may drag a post off topic in the future.

Peugeot Oxia concept car, but that is not pre-80, so I will have to go for the Peugeot 402 DarlMat roadster

Or maybe the cabriolet,

Or the coupe,

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3.3 Mk 3s are not too hard to get here, mostly auto or 3 speed manual, but some had a single rail in them. 4.1 manuals had Toploaders in them.

Mk 4 pretty common, Mk5 too. Most 4.1s were auto though

They are not called Mk 3, 4, or 5 here, the pre-74 Mk3s are called TC, the post -74 Mk 3s are called TD, Mk 4s are TE, and Mk 5s are TF. Don't ask why.

After the initial period of V4s, nearly all Transit here were sixes. They dropped the V4s after a while cos they weren't selling any. Six cylinder shortwheelbase ones had the heavy duty axle from the longwheelbase V4, but no dual wheels. They had six stud wheelsabout 1/4" thick. Built like a brick shithouse, but the 5.14:1 diff really sucks. Ours has a 3.23 or a 3.55, I'm not sure. It could pull a higher one if we wanted.

When we junked the 3.3 in the Transit and fitted the 4.1 it had electronic on it. The old points on the 3.3 were crap, you always had to replace them, even new capacitor didn't stop it from chewing points.

The electronic was a dream until it spat a module, a weeklater it spat the coil, then the rotor and cap, then the whole dizzy chucked it in. Now it is fixed it is a dream.

and i thought the lump in mine was a tight squeeze

It was a fun fortnight getting it to fit, I can tell you! Especially as we went from 3 speed to 4 speed at the same time, and junked the short V4 nose for the longnose. Lots of fun!!!

The worst bit was not fitting the long six in there, as we used the engine box from a factory six, as well as the engine crossmember ( the previous home made crossmember in it when we bought it broke in half ) but switching from the old pre crossflow to the crossflow was a pain. The carby wanted to be where the heater intake plenum was, and the intake manifold wanted to be where the firewall was. The factory air cleaner also refused to fit, which is why the air cleaner is part Transit, part Hilman Minx, and part duct tape and hay bale string .

The Weber was stuffed so we stuck on the single choke Stromberg, but we have two stuffed Webers and we are going to build one good one. I still hate the electric choke though, so it might get a manual conversion.

The original V4 radiator was stuffed and inadequate anyway ( would you believe it boiled over a dozen times in one day??????? ) so we used a crossflow radiator from an XE Falcon, which only just fits in the nose. We had to ditch the fan spacer to fit it in, but the other day the fan still lunched the radiator core so we have done a bit more modifying to make sure it will never happen again. The bloody thing needs a new sarter too, and this is about the forth or fifth one that it has eaten. We are going to try and fit a starter from an OHC Falcon, as they are supposed to be tougher. It ate 5 of the 3 speed gearboxes before we fitted the 4 speed to it as well. They would start jumping out of reverse, then out of first, then very soon after there would be a big crunch and you would limp home in second and drain the metal filings out of the gearbox while you look for another. I can remove the gearbox in under half an hour now, and replace it in less than an hour. I think my best time is 40 minutes.

The thing is unbelievable on hills, you just press a bit harder and it flies up. Tows like a dream too. It just handles like shit, mostly because it is a beam axle with kiingpins and leaf springs We are going to try and modify a Bedford CF crossmember to go in to get IFS and maybe try for a 5 link coilover at the back. CF crossmember has rack and pinion too.

Here in Tasmania ( Aus) they mostly have Falcons with quite a few Commodores. The detectives often have Camrys or Magnas with a good dusting of Falcs and Coms.

In the Snowy Mountain region of NSW they got a bunch of WRXs a few years back for chasing in snow and slippery roads in winter.

Back in the 60s my dad lived on a straight called the "Flying Mile" and the cops in their EJ Holdens would try and catch the MGs, Jags, etc on their sunday drives from Sydney. They had no hope until they got a couple of Lotus Cortinas and painted them like base model cop cars. They caught a few after that.

Did you ever get six cylinder Transit there? They have teh 3.3 Falcon donk with the 3 speed gearbox and they are in the longnose diesel body. We never got diesel Transits here in Aus.

G'day Nightmare. That's a pretty mean looking Corty.

Here is the Transit.

And here is the 4.1 crossflow six squeezed into the engine bay.

Did NZ ever get the inline six Cortinas? A 4.1 4 speed is quite a car.

I've heard of Pug 406 discs being used. All the FWD Pugs have the same stud pattern as Escorts/Corties.

Didn't you guys have 2l Escorts in Kiwiland? Heaps of them over here. There is an old lady down the road with a tidy 2.0 auto Ghia.

Here are my little beauties!