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Avenga

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Everything posted by Avenga

  1. Thanks for everyone’s help! I have found another windscreen in Christchurch. Made the 5 hour drive. Pouring rain through the Arthur’s Pass! We are freezing but we made it to Christchurch safely. Getting the new windscreen installed tomorrow
  2. For wedding 1 my Charger might fit the bill For wedding 2, would any of my Avengers suit? Their not rotary but the wagon has a V8
  3. +1 for bespoke auto glass. They have done all the windows on both my Avengers and my Charger
  4. I use those Aerocatch bonnet pins on both of my Avengers. I painted them body Colour so you can’t hardly see them. The bonnet pins are listed on the cert plate on both of my cars, but I’m not sure if the cert is needed or not.
  5. Haha, Yeah, especially because they don't expecting it when you line up, they think it's just some old slow Avenger wagon with a 1600 I recorded some more video of the track stuff. That was really fun, we did the normal track one layout, and then we did the track 3 reverse, which was really fun because I have never done that configuration. Yeah, That poor Type R, didn't really stand a chance, the poor guy!! I'm pretty sure I could hear the screams from the V8 driver trailing off in to the distance It was really fun races, against all of the big V8's it was pretty close. I really didn't think I would beat them because they all had big blocks, which are about 2.5 litres bigger than my little 4L V8 and they had at least 100kw more than me, but then my car is about half the weight, so I do actually have better power to weight ratio.
  6. Really fun weekend at the Kaspa Transmissions CAR-nival. It's a 3 day track meet with cruising, drags, drift, burnouts and racing. The drag racing was super fun. The car was hooking up perfectly and I managed to win the drag racing tournament in the Naturally Aspirated class!! I was up against some tough competition in the form of a 300KW Holden Commodore, and 396ci big block Holden Premier and another big block HQ Holden. I also went up against a 323, Intgra Type R and an RX7 but that wasn't really a fair fight. I was quite surprised that I managed to beat the big block chevs, I guess it was just down to how light my wagon is and how well it hooks up. Here is a video of all of my runs, I went undefeated 7-0 nd they had a sweet as trophy, I also won best engine bay but they didn't have the trophy there so they will send it out to me. Had a real blast hooning around the track. Went a bit too hard on the first day and wore out my brake pads. It was a total nightmare trying to find some Wilwood race pads at 4:30pm on a Friday in Taupo. None of the brake shops down there had any so I had to call around my friends and found one of them who had a close enough match, so I had to drive out to his place with pretty much no brakes and swap some pads over. In the morning I had to go get the rotors skimmed. The petrol stations loved me down there. The Avenger is pretty good on gas when you are on the road, but it chews through the gas on the track. Discuss
  7. An exciting update this time! My wagon was featured in this months NZ Performance Car Magazine (Issue 271). Definitely one ticked off the bucket list, I never thought I would have one of my cars featured in a magazine, so this is super exciting. It's a really great 7 page article, it's out in stores now so pick up a copy if you get a chance, well worth the read Back to upgrades on the wagon. Finally got my custom carpets installed. I brought a standard set of Avenger carpets from Autodec, then got them modified and installed by Supertrim. It makes it look so much more finished now The rear carpets didn't need to be modified, I only needed to customise the front for the bigger transmission tunnel Also got carpets for the boot, and brought a bit extra to do the back of the rear seat Got some New Old Stock tail lights from Ebay UK. The shipping was more than the lenses themselves! Ouch! Also got some NOS clusters also New tail lights installed. Looks really nice Now that winter is coming™ I wanted to figure out a way to still be able to show my engine bay at car shows but also keep rain out of the trumpets. I took one of my trumpets off and went down to the local hardware store to find a sink plug that fits the trumpets. They are 50mm trumpets which is a common size so I had a good selection of plugs, so I could find one that I liked. I brought a little "Remove before flight" tag so I can just pull the chain and take them all off in one go, and also it will remind me to take them off before I start the engine, not that the engine would start with them in place. What do you guys think of the plugs? I might tighten up the chain, and also change the hoops on top of the plugs for something a bit smaller, like a little keyring. Discuss
  8. The bolt shop in Auckland http://boltshop.co.nz/
  9. There is something funny going on with the cert info though, Both of my Avengers have had engine swaps 1300 to 1500 and 1600 to 3968, and they both show up in the database with the new engine size. But then I know of 2 Rover V8 rally cars, and I'm pretty sure at least 1 of them is certed, and they don't show up, they still show as 1600's. So I'm not sure if the cert info only shows up if it was certed after a certain date or something.
  10. Thanks. I agree. I think it's the perfect balance of tough and sleeper, any bigger and it wouldn't look sleeper, but any smaller then it wouldn't look tough. I got the data from the "New Zealand vehicle fleet open data sets" https://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/new-zealand-motor-vehicle-register-statistics/new-zealand-vehicle-fleet-open-data-sets/ It's a spreadsheet that they update each month of currently registered cars (including rego on hold), and you can download the spreadsheets and search. They have one big file for pre-1990 and then a separate file for each year after that. Basically unless it's deregistered then it will be in the database. It is quite a pain to find every car, because some were registered wrong, like some Hillman Avenger Apline's we registered as just a Hillman Alpine, and same with the Avenger Supers. So I did a series of searches looking for the chassis number pattern, model, name and then finally just skimmed through all of the hillman's and Chrysler's just to make sure I didn't miss any. The number I came back with was Total: 276 Avengers!!! Of those Saloon: 245 Wagon: 28 Van: 3 I could then break it down by year, colour and engine type. So I did up a little census of all the Avengers left. http://www.avenger.co.nz/forum/index.php?topic=1114.0 The database is just a snapshot of cars that are still registered, including ones on hold. It took me a couple of nights of filtering the data and coming up with the lists but it will be a pretty accurate snapshot, I might have missed one or two but I went over the data pretty thoroughly.
  11. More adventures in my wagon. Decided to break out the old DLSR camera and take some nice shots of the wagon, instead of just using my iPhone Lots more car shows. Went to the Waiau Pa Hop and Papakura Club car shows. Parked up with my mate Hamish in his 1978 Avenger GLS Went to the Renegade Hot Rod and Custom Anzac show and one Best Other Went up to Whangarei for the Rev Up show. Parted up with Kevin's 1979 Avenger, love the shade of green, it looks so beautiful in person We then drove out to the Packard museum The day after that I cruised over to Caffeine and classics with my neighbour Rob in his 1974 UK imported NZ new wagon. It his so interesting seeing them parked side by side. They almost don't even look like the same car. Mine is so much lower and as a result looks really wide, where his looks tall and skinny Here is a good shot of how much lower mine is, and how big the back wheels are With the wagons, the only thing they changed over the years were the front lights. Mine is a later model Chrysler and Rob's is an early hillman. The wagons are super rare, there is only 28 left registered in New Zealand, including ones with their rego on hold, so I would guess that maybe half of them would be still on the road. So maybe just over a dozen left driving around. To see two of them parked next to each other like this would be extremely rare. Discuss
  12. Been having tons of adventures in the wagon. Won a few more awards. Best 8 Cylinder at 4 and rotary jamboree And my favourite, the "What the ?" award from the Automania festival. Pretty much sums up the wagon You put a V8 in what??? So, back to my adventures and what not. I decided on the spark plug cover look I liked the most so I went with just the plain black covers. It worked quite well because I had heaps more people asking what the engine is, so I guess it fools them just enough without the V8 FOUR CAM 32 badge on it Before my trips I figured I would find a new brake pedal pad, I found it a hoot that it is a dodge truck part! Looking sweet, I will have to get another for the clutch at some stage, they are both the same pad So with the engine sorted and the brake pedal sussed I went for a cruise down to feilding for the 4 and rotary jamboree. I stayed at a sweet little B&B just outside of town. Got to Manfeild on Saturday for the track day, super excited because it is the only track in NZ that I haven't done a track day on, so I can tick every track in NZ off my bucket list now. Got out on track then on the first lap disaster stuck!!! The track had been used for field days the weekend before so it was super dirty, and the car in front of my chucked up a rock, smashing my windscreen!!! I drove the rest of the lap with my hazards on and my head out the window. When I got back to the pits I gave my friend Jared (A.K.A @JoKer) a ring and got him to bring me a spare windscreen over from Dannevirke. While he was making his way over I drove down to the local glass place and got them to swap the windscreen over. I got some funny looks cruising down the main road of feilding with a busted windscreen in a V8 Avenger, it was only about 1km from the track so I just drove with my head out the windows. Made it back to the track with the new windscreen just in time for the afternoon session. As a thank you, I took Jared for a cruise around the track. It was quite a blast My favourite picture of the wagon out on the track Out on the track I had a bit of a lean backfire off throttle so I pulled the car off the track early and set it up in the show and shine, After the show and shine I found the problem was the idle adjustment screws on the back right pair of throttle bodies had vibrated up so those throttle bodies weren't closing fully, fixed it in the car park. On the way back home I stopped in at Horopito, AKA Smash Palace to get me some wagon parts. They have a few Avengers there, 2 wagons and 4 or 5 saloons. Got me a good haul of parts, got some rear bumper brackets to replace the ones I had to borrow from the 75 Avenger when I swapped to the NOS Hillman bumper on the wagon. Got me a tow bar because there is nothing cooler than a V8 Avenger wagon towing stuff, am I right?? And also a pedal box for a friend, and a new door card. Got back home and gave the bumper brackets a good sand blast Then painted them with black zinc paint The next weekend I went off to @Ned house warming down in Taupo, So I figured I would camp out in the wagon on his front lawn. I am really digging the wagon for camping. The bed mode is really comfy, so I think I might do that more often rather than staying at hotels. On the way back up I meet up with the Hillman Humber club and we did a run out to a truck museum. Pretty good turn out. We had 3 Avengers there!! Then the weekend after that I had the Automania festival!! I entered my wagon in the indoor show. I figured I should actually get a photo with the bonnet down as 99% of the time it will have it's bonnet up, because V8! I went with a nice little in car display of some of my old Avenger sales brochures. I especially like the one on the back of the drivers seat because it has all the original prices hand written and a dealers stamp on the front, it must have been kept all these years by someone who was thinking of buying one, it's either 1979 or 1980 so it's from the exact era of my wagon, and even has the van pricing on it, and that you only needed 30% deposit, rather than the 60% deposit you needed for a normal car or wagon. I also entered my 1975 Avenger in the outdoor show. It was raining all day so my poor little Avenger Panther felt very unloved while it's younger brother sat warm and dry inside (Can you tell I have a favourite child at the moment?)
  13. Yeah, that's not going to help with this wagon because the tags have been swapped so there is no way of knowing the original chassis number because they are not stamped on the chassis or anything. The old chassis number was lost when the old tags were removed Yes, it does. So it is really hand for seeing how many of a car is left on the road. But not for trying to track down this wagons original plate. Next week I am going to format this database so I can make a little chart of how many Avengers and what makes and models are left on the road. Exciting stuff!!
  14. I'm searching in the pre-1990 database so there won't be any dodges
  15. That's in the eye of the beholder. I think the Avengers are awesome and love my Avenger wagon. Thanks heaps for that. I should be able to find the engine number. As a practice I searched for the engine that is listed on the BROWN SALOON 1600 BP7H410 98319118021979200 NEW PRIVATE CHRYSLER AVENGER PETROL WHANGANUI DISTRICT 1979 That is the same area as the wagon is. If I search for B*7M45 then I should find all 1600 wagons. There are only 15 on the list. Do they delete cars off the list as they become deregistered? I can see my V8 wagon on the list. And it has been updated to show the engine size as 3968cc Hmm this is actually amazingly awesome. If I search for Avenger, then it comes back with 280. So does that mean there is 280 Avengers left on the road? and only 15 wagons? If it is updated to only show cars that are still in the system then it won't show the old detail for the wagon but it is still cool to see how many left. Just had a reread of that page and it says "The New Zealand vehicle fleet open data provides a point-in-time ‘snapshot’ of all vehicles currently registered in New Zealand." So it is only ones that are still registered so the old details for the wagon won't be in it but it is still super cool that I know how many Avengers are left. I'm going to break it down, make up some lists and put them on the Avenger forum. Thanks heaps for that info!!
  16. Thanks. I thinks also looking at the photos some more I have narrowed it down to either a 1976 or 1977 wagon, which could help. Because it has the pre-facelift dash and grill, it has to be before 78 and because it has the metal window winders then it needs to be after 75, so that narrows it down to a 2 year window. I'll see if they still have contract details of the owner who did the switch, you could probably track him down through the ownership papers also. They said he was an old guy so fingers crossed he is still with us after 7 years
  17. Not unless they had a time machine The Hillman wagon body was made at least 2 years before that Chrysler tag was made. The last of the pre-face lift models, which the wagon is was sold in 77, and the tag that's on it was from a 79. This is what the Hillman tags looked like. This one is from an early hillman 1600 Super sedan, the wagon would have originally the same style of tag, just with a 7M45 in the chassis number.
  18. They changed both the ID tag, and the plates over. They took the number plate and the ID tag from the 1979 Chrysler Avenger GLS sedan, with the vinyl roof. And they put it on to this pre-1978 Hillman Avenger wagon. Other than the number plate and tag, which have been swapped, there are no other identifiable markings on an Avenger so there is no way to tell what the original number plate or ID tag was. Except for the engine number, but that could have been changed at some point
  19. Yeah, it's not due to a mistake in the records. I have been talking with the seller and I got them to post a photo the VIN plate which is on the car. Which is this one. That decodes to a 1979 Chrysler Avenger GLS sedan with a vinyl roof. That tag does match the plates on the car In 78 they did a face lift on the Avenger a 1979 Chrysler wagon would look like mine. They changed the front grill, indicators, bumpers and dashboard. The Wagon for sale is 100% a pre-78 Hillman So it couldn't have been a mix up on the assembly line because there is 2 years difference between when they stopped making Hillman's and when the tag was made. So it has to have been switched. You could go in and try to change the body type to a wagon, with you get you closer to what the car actually it, but it's still not an 1979 wagon, so to get it fully matching you would need to change the year to 77 or earlier, and the make from a Chrysler to a Hillman. If you look it up in carjam https://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=jh4031 you will see there is a drop in the ODO in 2010. That's when I think the plates were swapped, before that, it's last WOF with in 1999 at 65,937 km. which would have been on the old sedan body. Then it's next WOF was in 2009 at 38,306 (Ignore the 383,066 km, thats just someone not knowing it's a 5 digit odo and putting down the decimal) Which would have been when he swapped it over to the wagon body. This makes sense as the current owner said they owned it for about 7 years so he would have swapped the plates over to the wagon, just before selling it, and then you can see that by the 27,000km drop in the odo
  20. The problem is worse than that, it's a pre-78 Hillman Avenger Wagon, and the plates and tags are for a 1979 Chrysler Avenger GLS sedan. So it's the wrong year, wrong make, wrong model and wrong body style. Assuming it still has the original engine, that might be the only way of identifying the car, but can you search for old engine numbers? keep in mine that the original rego has probably been dead for at least 7 years so it will be well and truly out of the system by now. With the Avengers, there is no other identifiable markings on the car. The only place where the chassis number is noted is on this little plate which is only held on by two rivets, so all you would need to do is drill out the rivets and then swap the plates over and then the car is totally untraceable. BTW, the BP7H41 is what tells you what type of car it is, that decodes to a 1979 1600 manual GLS sedan. If it was a 79 wagon it would be BP7M45 Chances are that you probably could have kept on getting WOF and regos without anyone noticing, because unless you knew the difference between a Hillman and a Chrysler, or unless you looked it up on carjam as saw that it was registered as a sedan, or you decoded the chassis number, then you would never know that the plates have been swapped. It was before they had the chassis number stamped on the body, so back then it was simple to change the plates and nobody would ever spot it, if he had have swapped the plates with another hillman wagon, then you couldn't tell, it's only because they swapped it with a Chrysler sedan that I spotted it You couldn't prove it's stolen, but you probably couldn't prove you own it either, because when the seller signed over the ownership, they weren't taking ownership of this wagon, they were technically taking ownership of some other random sedan. I probably don't think the plates were swapped due to theft, talking to the seller, the guy they brought it off was an old guy who had a bunch of Avengers, so he probably just did it because the plates had expired on the wagon. Exactly, so because there is no way to actually tell what the original chassis number was then I can't see a way that you could ever prove what the car is, or if it has been stolen, or if the original seller even owned it in the first place. My only thought is that because they were swapped so long again that maybe they reached some type of statute of limitation. But yeah, it's going to be difficult because you wouldn't even know what year to reregister it as. So yeah, I don't know if there is something you can do when a car is in this situation, or if it is destined to become a parts car, which would be a shame.
  21. Hey. Here is a tricky one. I have been looking at a car on Trademe. And I can clearly tell the number plate and tags have been swapped at some stage. The plates come back as the wrong model and also the wrong body type, it's a early model wagon but the plates and tags on it are for a later model sedan. I have been talking to the seller and they had no idea that the plates had been swapped, they brought the car 7 years ago from an old guy who had a little collection of said old cars, so I'm thinking that the old wagon plates had expired so he did a dodgy and swapped the plates for some live sedan plates. Rightly so, now that the seller knows the plates aren't legit, they don't want to sell the car for fear of getting in trouble. Because the wagons are rare I want to see if I can help them get it legal so they can sell it, so hopefully there will be another wagon on the road. So... what are their options? There are no other tags on it, except for this sedan one, which is clearly wrong. I can't even ID the year, other than it was made some time between 1972 and 1978. It has been driving around and getting WOFs for the last 7 years with the wrong plates and tags, and nobody has noticed. Can they do a Statutory Declaration and say that they have owned it for 7 years and were unaware that the plates had been switched by the previous owner? Would they then need to re-register the car?
  22. Tried the new idea of the painted fins IRL on the old "V8 Four CAM 32" covers. They look pretty sweet. Obliviously I would be doing them on the plain covers without the writing. What do you guys think? I'm liking the one with out the silver strip at the top and bottom. The bottom one in this picture And here it is back on the engine This is my fav because it pops out more, without the writing I think it will look awesome Almost reminds me on a BMW engine
  23. Here is a couple more ideas one of my friends had. G. Blank with the top of the "Cooling fins" silver H. Blank with the top of the "Cooling fins" silver and bottom and top strips silver
  24. More like Hyrda, which are the bad guys from the Avenger comics
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