yoeddynz

Some of the UK readers of this forum may have already see this episode of car SOS- its a goody. The Imp they restore is like Hannah's first classic car , a 1974 Imp super painted in Prairie wind. A little car we enjoyed immensely and what made me always want another... The episode can be watched here.... https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7t30c3

Ha yeah.. I've had plenty of work already from locals with rust. On top of the various old rusty classics it also seems that more modern vans and salty kayaks don't mix...

Cheers man- its been fun doing the work and posting up progress !

Yeah it was possibly one of the best shows I have been to. Best thing was that it had a nice spread of cars and wasn't all just hotrods, american cars and Holdens/fords Lots of Japanese, english and european cars- which are more my thing Not sure on dash yet. I was planning to do something similar to the viva instruments and make my own but the cost of alloy and all the pissing about exceeds my hassle factor ratio when compared to just buying some aftermarket gauges. The Viva ones worked well but never did looking completly right with their very Japanese 80's/90's car font.

Yeah you drove it well too. Really interesting seeing how people cope driving old unfamiliar cars. Often I find it's the folk who talk about driving fast cars, or seem to have given the illusion that they can drive quickly etc that are actually the worst drivers. Driving smoothly is a virtue that many wannabe 'fast' drivers seem to lack. Their cars must suffer too! Yeah you know the engine but it's hush hush OK....

Well I must say I do love the new Recaro seats. They are so comfy and hold you in place soooo much better in the corners. I had still been using it heaps through summer. Got a shot of it next to an I8. Huge cars!!!... What else? We took the Imp over to Blenheim for the big classic car show they have there. Its getting bigger every year and I have kept missing it each time. Not this time though! The weather was a perfect Med like blue sky day and the cars that turned up for the show were a really nice mix of everything. My parents came along too. My dad is 87 and not too fast on his feet having pretty bad lungs now. I was worried he would struggle but I kid you not- he seemed to perk up more every minute and flitted about all the old cars really quite animated. It was great to see and I'm so happy he made it along. Mum loved it too and we met some great people. Pics.. The show.. Dad pondering if he could have fitted a V10 into his Moris traveller he once had, or maybe the 120y wagon they had... Hannah's favourite car of the show (and her dream car)... Some sweet old boats there... Me next to dad, holding a 8 month old Kelpie puppy(my favourite brand of dog, we used to have one).. The Imp (wtf the Toyota Pius was doing there we don't know..)... There was actually a car there that made the Imp look huge... The Imp was popular, being bright blue and the only one there. Lots of people checking it out all morning. I printed off some photos of the restoration onto a4 sheets and stuck them in a plastic binder with a quick note for each. People I spotted seemed to enjoy the read and I imagine it made for more admiration for the little car that was rescued from a field. The trip to and from Blenheim was fun and uneventful. The Datsun engine impressed again with its thriftyness by managing 44.8mpg and that was with some spirited motoring too Drove some nice roads near my old home town. Very very dry over there and sadly they still have not had much rain. But fantastic grape season if that's your thing. Once back home I decided to put the car up on the hoist and deal to a couple of jobs I have been putting off. Those of you with a good memory may well remember the state of the ring gear. It was worn badly in two locations, 180 degrees apart. This meant that it had a 2 in 4 chance of stopping roughly near one of those spots. It seems that sods law dictated a sliding scale of when it would stop and this scale was linked to how many people are around when I would go to start the engine. Worse if those people were probably of the type that think 'oh that a nice old car but they are very unreliable'. When the time was right the starter would ignore my want for turning over the engine and instead may a horrible loud racket as it wore the ring gear worse. I would have to then sit the car in 4th gear, put my foot out the door and rock the car- so moving the flywheel around just a bit. Then start the car and drive away red faced as the people now watching tut tutted... Never did it do this on our property btw... The other thing was that the rear main seal was leaking badly. Bad enough that the clutch was playing up and I'd have to think carefully about where I was to park the car when going to the country club* for fear of meeting those same people again and only going to reinforce their misguided opinions about old cars. I had the chance to replace the seal when I took the engine out way back at the beginning. But remember who I am - a tight wad who likes to save money and $25 seemed like an awful lot for a seal that 'looked ok' Silly me. So out with the engine then. Made easier by using my special custom made bespoke 'Datsun A12 engine cradle' Here's the worn ring gear. I drilled it and broke it off. Removed the old seal. It was indeed very hard and not very sealy. More like a ceramic ring then a seal.. The oil had coated the clutch disc.. Luckily that cleaned up sweet with a load of brake cleaner and was deemed good to use (please refer to note above about tight wad..) Went to my old workplace, Autofocus in Nelson and used the gas set there to remove the good ring gear from another flywheel that came on the A15 engine I had bought. I then dropped it onto the A12 flywheel... With that done the engine was given a quick clean whilst out and slung back in place. Oh but not before making using the opportunity of an empty engine bay to size up a different engine. That however is secret squirrel and will be announced later in the year The Datsun was all plumbed and wired back up. It started straight away and after bleeding the coolant system I took it for a hoon. Clutch feels great and no horrible starter noise roulette... However..... the bloody speedo gave up and decided that the needle should reside at around 90 mph. It had been getting ever so more optimistic over the last few months and I had read that the springs can weaken. It doesn't affect the odometer which is mechanically linked to the speedo cable, just the speed reading. Now though, having just fixed some other issues my 'unreliable old car' decided to throw another at me. When I returned home from said hoon the needle decided it would resolutely remain at around 60 mph even when the wee car was stationary. So this happened... I'm so glad that I had added plugs to the wiring birds nest that resides behind the instruments because it made removal much quicker and easier. I took the speedo apart and found this... It seems that the sponge sealing which fits between the telltale warning lamps and the speedo face had broken down and crumbled into the speedos magnetic disc area so creating drag. I'm not sure but it was messy in there with lots of friction. Rather then muck about trying to clean it all out I instead pulled the spare speedo head from my stash of Imp parts and fitted that instead. I removed all traces of the old foam, opened my little alladins drawer of various foas and double sided tapes and stuck on some new stuff... This lot will be binned in the future as I fully intend to replace the whole cluster with nicer modern gauges (but with a classic style to them) including moving over to an electronic speedo head. Speedo cables and all their wobbles can leave by the back door thank you please. So since the world has gone a bit weird and we all have extra time I decided that instead of refitting the dash into the car in the poor evening light I would instead do an update. I'll refit it tomorrow. One other job to look at is a rattle from the steering rack. I think I know what it is and I have already stripped and inspected a good spare that I might swap in. Other than that I'll just get back to using the Imp, obviously only for shopping purposes at this point in time. I now have plenty of other tinkering jobs to do and hopefully in the next update there will be some very exciting news * I don't actually belong to a country club. But I do like a spot of lawn bowls....

Yes I think you should. Looking forward to updates on this.

edited

That's the power of the mighty 437cc 2 cylinder Imp engine!

Interestingly if i turn that image on its side I can see a horses head.

Every little bit you can do all adds up eh. Plus better engine braking/no fumes on downhills. Well at least around our place with many hills it certainly helped on the v6. We ran the Viva on the v6 up to the nats at rotorua(?) with no fuel cut. Then turned on fuel cut for trip home (were still learning things) and it gave a very noticeable drop in consumption. Because v6.. Not tiny 4 pot

Tell Hannah to come out to the swap meet and debate with the Barries about such things as whether Japanese cars are classic, what is the best rust prevention paint, how to warm up your car or not, what carb design is the best etc etc...

cocktail umbrellas covering your cocktails as you get hammered before buying more stuff than you actually sold, so completing the circle.