Nominal

We had a spiel from Andy Smith on cert's at our latest rod club meeting. He avoided mentioning too many fails, but did note that a lot of people ask to cert 'just the seat rails' or similar, which can't be done. The certifier has too look at the whole vehicle and all mods. Also touched on the pre-92 thing as one member has a rod that has declaration, but rego has lapsed, so falls into this category.

Oddly, I was googling rocket stoves just the other day.

I see Gene Winfield is going to be there, which is cool. I want to add some relays to the Mercury headlights, and hopefully fix the dash lights. Also have some LED strips to mount underneath if I can find them in the garage.

This thing I saw last weekend looked to have a fabricated strut subframe.

Wagon backup loaded and installed.

Tomorrow night I'm going to bring the baby wagon to town as it's been sadly neglected for the 'new kid on the block'

We don't all have a van to haul junk around. I got some taller 185 tires from pick apart fitted. Hyflys ftw.

Yes, 4x4.5 or 4x114.3 if you like to mix and match units. I could get the stock wheels widened, but for roughly the same sort of money I should be able to get some oldschool mags.

Thanks - it's good to be able to drive it. I'll have a closer look at the spaces, but a quick measure indicated about 10mm was needed, along with longer wheel studs. Technically spacers need to be certed, but if it works out OK I could just swap back to the stock wheels at WOF time. In some ways it would be easier to weld the space to the wheel face, but that is probably dodgy too. /I really want a set of Turbos. Or maybe those 5-spoke Triumph wheels would look good.

I've got a full set, but they won't fit on the front without spacers - drum face is inset like this |__/--------\__| It's a super-annoying design. Won't be able to run modgies either (sadface)

Wowed the Oxford wagon foamers at British Car Day. Got a couple of contacts for parts, including one who has a Aussie 6-cyl Freeway wagon stashed away. Also walked pickapart for awhile to find some 185R70 tires for the back which should help the gearing/looks a bit.

Excellent! I have a large NZ Railways one but need to make a new base. I like the idea of the legs.

On tomorrow. Will be there in the new wagon I think. Going to road test the latest wag-cessory too.

Fingers crossed for some non-winter weather!

Looking good. I had to do something very similar for shock mounts. Make sure you have locking washers on everything (including air tank mounts etc) to keep the cert man happy. I had to put a lot on, which was a pain.

@KustomKreeps I checked the ride height and it's ~95mm clearance in the normal setting. I think its about 40mm at the low setting, it's on the lift right now and the chassis bottoms out on the deck.

Hmm wonder where I copied that from. It is on this Sunday though. Al is running a mile!

OK, so this is coming up again soon. There was some chat about it at Wagnats, so I'm assuming there are some extra attendees this year. We'll be there in the Mercury, had to arrange new accommodation again (due to flood damage) so will be hanging out down towards the surf club. Arriving Wednesday sometime.

Thursday night was wagnats packing and jamming the CB radio and aerial on. The gas fridge took a lot of room in the back, and I contemplated putting the towbar on so I could take a trailer. Couldn't get the bolts to line up easily so I jacked that option in and just packed more carefully. My Mrs was coming camping too so that reduced the space available, and it was raining. Anyone with an old wagon knows about water leaks! Loaded for bear! Tagged onto the OS convoy in Te Horo and headed north. Prior to this I'd only driven the thing for about 5km in total. It went well though. Leaks as expected around the windscreen and rear side windows mostly. Some hesitation developed at higher throttle when getting near Hunterville. I suspected a blocked fuel filter due to the rusty tank, so picked up a new filter at the BP in Hunterville. Still got us to Vinegar Hill though. It's big enough for two to sleep in (so long as a few drinkies first) and did the job expected at Wagnats. I replaced the filter over the weekend and the old one (which was only little) was well clogged. Ran fine on the way home, even in the stop-go traffic coming in to Otaki. Might have been a bit smokey there, as reported on the CB. The cross-shaft in the gear linkage between the body and engine popped out when I was backing it into the garage so I lost gear selection. It was easy to lever back - looks like a new rubber bush is needed there. Still plenty to get done, but I'll leave the next steps until after British Car Day. ObPic of rusty metal removed:

OK, so I got this done. - Fixed petrol tank and slapped some paint on it before putting it back again - Installed an electric windscreen washer setup (first bit of hack wiring on the car, amazingly) - Redid exhaust to manifold joint - Put washers on the tailgate - New bushes on the shackles. Tires were a bit of a run-around. Got some used 175's for the back as a temporary measure. New 165's for the front as I had no time for anything else. Also adjusted the column shift linkage (one rod was 5mm short) which made it heaps better to drive. Put various bits of the interior back in to make it 'comfy' I picked up the front wheels and new tires on Tuesday evening (the garage owner fitted them after hours) then took it back for a WOF recheck early Wednesday (6:45am). Mechanic was a bit grumpy but did the required paperwork and issued a sticker. I nearly drove it to town but decided I shouldn't temp fate/the popo so just bought the rego during the day.

I set mine up with to work with the stock bump stops, so it won't go lower than that. When fully down there is only about 10mm of clearance for the chassis though. For normal ride height I used the accuair system to auto-set which I think is mid-height. I think the front is tweaked down slightly. I'm not sure what the ground clearance is like, but probably about 100mm. I can run it on the lower automatic setting (15% IIRC) which is OK on smooth roads, even at 100kph. It will hit the road on sudden dips though. I tacked some 5mm plate onto the lowest parts of the chassis rails to cope with this. You can get it certed with lower than 100mm, in theory anyway.

I went with 1K for safety reasons. RALI wouldn't sell me 2K.

Oh yes. They are practically the same design as a Ferrari 250 GT Pininfarina you know. http://www.australiaforeveryone.com.au/afe/motoring-peugeot-404.htm

I've been looking back through your rust repairs - quite a lot of similarity to the Farina BMC cars in the structural design of these wagons.