JR

Here is a very late update. A lot of my pictures were removed from the image hosting site and I just gave up on posting. I got her all sorted and running great. She was running and driving for a few months before I finally got around to fitting some airfilters. K&N stopped making them to fit the DCNF carbs a few years ago. After hunting for ages I gave up and bought these foam ones from the U.K. I had them on for 3 glorious days and had just picked my son up from school while stopped at a red light she started to cough and splutter a little. Then the engine died and smoke started pouring out from around the bonnet. I told my son to bail out, grabbed the extinguisher, (best $25 I ever spent) went to open the bonnet and whoomfa.. opening the bonnet let all the oxygen in and my car flashed before my eyes. For a second I thought she was a goner. Luckily I got the fire out pretty fast so not too much damage really. I rebuilt the carbs, New fuel lines, a few wires etc and a massive clean. Now she's all back together good as new apart from a slightly scorched bonnet that I'll one day get around to sorting. So yeah.. I can't say I recommend those air filters.

@Valiant Hey, yeah that would have been me. I live in Lyttelton. I’ll make an update now, cheers for reminding me. I’ve been super slack.

After some solid advice from old school I removed the coolant to avoid potential issues with the fresh head gasket. Fortunately the high tide mark never made it to the heads. The frost plug was installed and I had the guru who built the engine on hand for the first start. He’s a bloody legend. This is the second start: Result! So stoked. A couple of small hose water leaks to fix, put some wheels on and take her for a drive.

Oh true! I had no idea, never heard of that! Thanks for the heads up! Does it make a difference that I’m running a cometic head gasket? Im away from the car now, but at least the high tide mark should be below the head gasket. cheers.

I've done a push to get this thing running. The gearbox is all rebuilt and back in now. Made the infamous drive shaft safety hoop. Wrapped the headers Installed new brake lines and bleed the brakes. I got pretty excited, she's so close to roaring. Just needs coolant and she's away. I tested the starter motor and it spins but the pinion wasn't engaging in the flywheel... So I had it reconditioned and was ready to roll... Put it back in, filled it up with coolant and... Oh shit, there is a frost plug missing. The prick is hidden behind the cam gear cover... and way harder to install a new one now with the cam gear and cover on. The plug was removed but a new one wasn't installed. I never noticed. Shit. Faaaark, this happened this afternoon and now I've got to go away for work for a few days. Frustrating.

I've been chipping away at this thing a fair bit lately but I don't have a whole lot to show. It seems to be 1 step forward, 3 steps backwards. Ages ago I changed the gearbox shifter position. I need the gear sick to be more rearward. I bought a longer selector shaft and the corresponding housing plate from a gearbox outfit in the North Island (There are about 8 different shifter positions for the W boxes). This is the original I had to take the gearbox apart to change the shaft over, which I was a little worried about doing. I got it all back together and it turns out the turkey sent me miss matched parts. The shaft was too long for the housing. The gearbox is in neutral here, so the little circle should be in the center of the hole. So it won't select half the gears... I tried to get them to send me the correct housing to suit but he had a sob story about his company being evicted from their building and he doesn't have access to the parts. That was months ago, and I just continued and put the gearbox in as I can fit the correct housing when i find one while the gearbox is in the car. After quite a while of looking I found the next size up housing (so I thought). I put it in but it was 2 sizes bigger, and I had a similar problem. So I decided to just extended the shaft by 10mm so that it works with the new housing (the new housing fits with the hole in the tunnel perfectly). I made a wee jig and extended it. Since I had to strip the gearbox again I figured I'd treat it to some love and gave new bearings and replaced a suspect 5th gear. Now I finally think I have the gearbox side of things sorted. The last few days I've been sorting out the fuel system. With this carb set up I have read they are prone to vapor locking with the heat build up, the solution seems to be having a return to tank line to help with cooling. I made up a hard fuel return line, plumbed in a pump near the tank, and this sweet looking regulator/filter. I'll get the gearbox back in soon with any luck, then install the radiator and shouldn't be too far from kicking her in the guts.

I had a similar issue recently, I'm not sure where you are but these guys have quite a good website with pictures of all of their master cylinder. It helped me out. https://www.butlerautomart.co.nz/Our-Range/Clutch-transmission/Clutch-master-cylinders/Index.aspx This is the one I bought, actually looks similar to the one in your link. https://www.butlerautomart.co.nz/Our-Range/Clutch-transmission/Clutch-master-cylinders/Product-Specification-32987886.aspx

Oh true, I just had a look at his profile and it looks like he hasn't been on in a few years. That's a shame, I'd love to catch up with some locals who also have terrible taste in engines/cars.

Thanks @RUNAMUCK I’ll follow him up cheers. No, what’s the TT group? haha, that does sound good… my bank balance doesn’t agree though haha.

After a bit of messing around I've got the flywheel, clutch and master cylinder sorted. I was looking into the different types of sound deadening, Dynamatt seems to be the go to but fuck it's spendy. Just to do the front half of the interior it was going to cost about $450. I went the cheap Chinese route instead. I bought enough to do almost the entire inside of the car and it was $45 including shipping. Time will tell if it's any good, but it seems about right. I pulled the dash and trim parts out from under the bench and gave them a clean up. It was the first time I've seen them in about 16 years. The stored really well. I have had the instrument cluster in at Parrot and son to have a little work done, the main thing was having the tacho modified to suit the 6 cylinder and they fixed a couple of small issues. I've wired the engine up more or less. I'm waiting on the electronic ignition to arrive, I'm going to run some hard fuel lines, install a fuel pump, regulator and make some new brake lines. The drive shaft is being built and should be ready in a week or so. Hopefully not too much longer until she's running. The interior is mint apart from the front seats, they need recovering and probably some new padding. Does anyone have any recommendations for someone in Christchurch? Cheers.

Here is a wee update. The fist job was to sort out a couple of issues on the hydraulic clutch setup. I realized that the slave cylinder I had that came with the bellhousing fowls on the headers. After a bit of head scratching and hunting I found another slave cylinder that just fits. I heated the headers then tweaked them out about 15mm to give a bit more clearance, it is still very tight. I still only have about 10mm of clearance. I'll make a heat shield I think. That is the new one, only problem is that the bolt holes don't line up with the holes on the bellhousing. So I milled slots in it. I was going to TIG the bellhousing holes and tap them but I decided not to just incase this new slave cylinder doesn't end up working out. For the master cylinder I welded a backing plate to the fire wall and mounted it in the engine bay between the booster and the header. Tight fit but it works. That picture makes it look much closer to the header than it is. I couldn't have it directly behind the clutch pedal unfortunately, so it's off set from the pedal. I used some steel rod linking them all together and threaded the ends. It's nice and smooth, I'm hopeful it will work well. Engine in for hopefully the final time. I couldn't mount the gearbox as when I went to fit the fly wheel I realized I don't have any flywheel bolts. Doh. ARP ones are on the way. Next I'll start wiring her up and put the dash back together. Cheers guys. P.S. Pro tip... Don't spray a car in jandals. That was taken after 2 showers.

Cheers, yeah upgraded valve springs are in. When I was in my teens I cooked one of these engines not long after a rebuild. Oil pump drive had worn out, was a very expensive and time consuming lesson. I've replaced the drive on this one and bought a spare while I was at it haha. Cheers.

I've been chipping away a fair bit lately. I managed to find some radiator suport panels. This was my first time doing any sort of panel work, after a fair bit of tweeking I managed to get them good enough to where I was happy. I also filled in the 2 big holes in the engine bay. Years ago I hacked off the washer bottle mount to make room, luckily I kept the remains of it. I made new ends for it to replace the bits I hacked away. Replaced the battery tray. I did a test fit of the engine to sort a few things out. The main things were the gearbox cross member and where to fit a clutch master cylinder and sorting the exhaust. Not a hell of a lot of room, but it worked out OK. The wee fella helped modify a toyota gearbox cross member. I've just finished painting the engine bay today. It's not going to win any awards, but I'm happy enough with it. I'll start the final reassembly now. I sorted out the flywheel/clutch issue too. The guys who did the engine work (Kennally Cams) did some magic to the fly wheel and machined it to accept shouldered bolts to locate the pressure plate as it's being torqued down. Hopefully this week I'll get the engine in for the last time.

Hmmm, shit that's a worry. To me the bellhousing looks fine. Sounds like you have had a bad experience with them? What happened? Mk2 and 3 are the same but MK1 are a fair bit different. I might have to try and find someone locally with a MK2 or 3 and just try to copy theirs. Does anyone have one in Christchurch they wouldn't mind me making some cardboard templates of? A box of beers in it. Cheers, yeah pretty happy with how the engine is looking.

Ohh legend, I've just messaged him. He's basically my neighbor, I'm In Lyttelton. Cheers for that!