yoeddynz

The guy who owns or co owns Blenheim toyota has a NZGT hatch like yours and he just got his grey leather seats recovered by a Blenheim upholsterers- they did a good job. http://www.finda.co.nz/business/listing ... -trimmers/ You ring them as the leather looked a good match. Good guys there too and cheap rates.

So KK is the man for cheap SS bolts? Damn- we just bought a load. Looking good man but watch that front lip. You'll have to add like 50psi to your fronts with so much down force....

Damn- we are still in CHCH- just got back from chris's pad checking out awesome Gems and even awesomer radio controlled stock cars. Gonna dust off my old futaba and build me a metal model Hino stock truck!!! I'll text ya now. And fellow viva dude- do it!!! Build a yellow bus home. Its awesome fun and bus would be so much quicker easier to build.

Cheers man! We love this old van - it does us well so deserves attention. And Geoff- I'll pass on your generous offer.... We are now down in Quakecity and I must say the trip down via lewis pass with some pretty cold weather was made soooooo much better now we have a heater! I managed to get a second hand heater fan speed resistor for $10 and now we have 4 speeds not just one. And this morning is a chilly start in the city so happy having a heater!

Quite a recent build? Any links to info on it- i'm just curious as to how easy a fwd box might fit. Once when i was on a mythical urban adventure i met a little bird sitting on a grapevine who told me that 323 boxes almost fit up but i think it was telling me a tale about its wife.

Yeah those pushbutton switches look great- where did you get them? On the above mention of rotaries by dpns has anyone ever mounted a rotary into a mini while keeping it front wheels drive? In fact has anyone made any sort of adaptor to mount a fwd box to a rotary?

Can we get waxoyl in NZ? Thats what I would spry down inside the arches. Its looking good- in fact its looking fucking hot!.. but you must stop posting pictures from now on because I too am getting Z envy and may well just have to win lotto and then buy that 260 I have been resurrecting....

we'll be down in chch soon but in van. Next trip in truck will be kaikoura coast for winter solstice:-) shit- not far away. Must get cracking and stop cuddling cats.

cool- i was thinking of trying a hose. I think we never had this problem in the past as we always flushed it from the engine end of the hose as you have suggested. I'll give it a go. Cheers. Cant wait to have a heater!

Bump this up to top as hopefully someone can give me an idea on how to bleed the heater matrix? Or will it self bleed? I can't see how it would.

'Absolute prick of a job time' on our van today. Since we have owned it the heater has never been very 'heaterish'. More 'tepidish'. When we bought the spares van for its engine we also nabbed the heater box while we were at it. I say we but actually it was hannah who had that pleasure. Today it was my turn and I had to remove the whole bloody dash to get at it. Plus loads of extra shit had to come off as our van had air conditioning which has never worked anyway. I dont want all the extra stuff that goes with it under the dash anyway. pics missing I got the heater box out and luckily the two of them are almost identical- the new one actually has a wider matrix but the box is the same dimensions. The air conditioning unit/matrix was completely clogged with dirt/dust/pine needles???/flys etc so no wonder our poor wee fan only ever produced airflow when on full. I ripped the guts out of the enclosure so now the air flows straight through from the fan to the heater matrix. While the lot was out I cleaned all the 24 years of dust away and luckily there was only some surface rust here and there. Hannah has neautrilised that as we plan to keep this van long time. What was nice to discover was that there is not rust along the bottom of the windscreen seat- as a lot of hiaces of this age start to go there. Took the carpet out next and cleaned up the whole lot after this shot. Good access with the heater and aircon gone. I have come in from the cold now having just refit the new box. I think I cut some wires I shouldn't have. I had to cut the loom in one place in order to remove the unit and I thought they were only for the aircon circuit but just in case I made sure I cut them in a place that would be esay to solder back together. So I now have some upside down under a van soldering on a cold sunday morning to do. Question time.... How am I meant to bleed the air out of the heater matrix? It stands on its end with the pipes facing down through the floor so trapped air will sit in the top of the matrix. There is no way to connect it up with out fitting it in place first.

oh ok. i'm using a 3.5mm jack cable between headphone socket on telly and aux in on headunit. Can I get a gli for that?

Yeah thats a point. The truck electrics are in no way connected to the house battery. So this gli - does it just go between the earth and the battery? Or in line with that?

Damn- I don't like being raped up the shitter with a pineapple! I thinkk its a disgusting price to pay given the time involved was pretty much the same as a car. And twice a year! I guess we can offset it by knowing that our annual licence is $200 less as its now a motorhome. I'll check out some noise surpressors - maybe Jaycar? jakesae101- I will PM you if I have any questions.

yeah leadlights are well nice. I'm really glad we fitted them as the light that comes through is great- well the coloured ones at least. I didn't realise at the time because Hannah paid but the COF cost us $117 !!!! bloody hell! thats a bit much- it took them less time then most car tests I had done. I hope its cheaper at Vinz. Still- just happy it passed. Yep- that above diagrams of a GLI doesn't make sense to me.

Wicked! Hey whats involved with that leckywoof on a camper? I heard its just the connection from the campsite box to the camper that gets tested? We have a pretty basic setup- just an extension cord hanging out the bottom which is wired into a plug on the wall. I was just going to fit the relevant connector and a proper camping extension cord to suit.

Yeah!!! please if you PM me some prices on bits and pieces involved. I'll tilt the cab at some point and have another look but yeah- a couple of the tie rod ends were sloppy etc so an afternoon spent replacing them will work wonders I bet.

Now that its all road legal I am busy cracking on with the other jobs..... Well it is raining outside and cosy inside. ^ this explains why we are so slack. I think cats are a major contributing factor to overall slackness.

cheers guys!! yeah serenity is all good now. It was just amazing yesterday to be sitting in our house and instead of looking at a hedge or house and hearing cars on a busy road we were able drink our coffee looking at the sea and listening to the waves It would be cool to A frame the Viva. This old bearded builder guy swung in where we were parked up and chatted away- he used to build and live in housetrucks up north. He now travels the south island with a funky old 60s caravan that he has put cedar shingles on. He picks up building work here and there. Interesting old dude. He just built a mobile workshop so now has to do two trips. But yeah- cant travel far yet as we need money. Still have a small amount saved in blighty but exchange rate is getting worse everyday. Just need to bump our funds up for a bit. Not looking forwards to that whole work thing..... quite enjoying getting up late

Yeah- couldnt sleep last night. we were in best place nice and peaceful and I just lay in bed wondering what might it fail on etc etc. Going to bed now- gonna sleep happy. Bloody noisy road again though....

Woo hoo!!! We now have a fully road legal house! Yesterday was a day of many little jobs like putting catches on anything that may fly open around corners, fall and smash or just move about marking things. Finally after waiting till all the traffic died down and the cars parked opposite had left I swung the house out wide onto the road, avoiding taking out the gate we drove up to Taylor dam - a nice spot about 8 kms from home in the country. The truck was surprising to drive- its actually far less slower than I thought it would be and rode much smoother than I was expecting. I'm not used to driving such a long truck but that aspect was fine. What did scare me is not being able to see exactly where the front overhang finished- I kept thinking I might take out a sign with our bedroom. Hannah just sat there insisting we were really close to the curb- but thats what all passengers say eh? Steering is fine- steers like an old truck but at least it has power steering which the Bedford didn't have. Brakes felt fine. But the gear change is sloppy- I really want to tighten up the linkages as its tricky to find the gears on downshifts. The gearing is really low- 80 kph will be tops unless I rev it hard. Its sits on 80 fine though. Its low geared for sure but at least its good for acceleration and around town/hills. At 80 I'm doing 3500rpm and off the green sector on the rev counter. Parked up by the lake/dam and chilled out for the evening- really kind of weird not hearing town but instead hearing ducks and other birdlife. We slide out just one pop out and tried the invertor out- watched a dvd. Annoyingly our new 'pure sine wave' invertor seems to create a hum through the speakers if we play the dvd sound out through the headunit. If we just use the TV speakers there is no hum. Both the invertor and the stereo are off the same battery. Can I put some sort of filter on the power feed to the stereo? In the morning we woke to a chilly but not frosty clear day. The views are great out here- so close to home but so peaceful. I took some photos, hannah made coffee, I got nervous as it was test time. Taylor dam.. The Ned (950m) in the distance with morning cloud... We arrived at Blenheim's VTNZ about 9.30 and there were 2 trucks in front. The guys were well interested in our house and all piled indoors for a looksie. They loved it and gave lots of praise which is nice. Every thing was looking. Dave who works there and has been helping with info on certain requirements like windows etc mentioned we could change the usage over to motor home- this knocks licencing from $600 a year to $400!!! Cool. The truck flew through the test until it came to the rear brakes. The came up imbalanced so given it was cold plus we hadn't hardly used them at all Dave suggested taking it out for a good session, work the brakes and get the truck weighed while we were at it. We needed to know the weight for the reclassification plus for buying more road user charges. The nearest weigh bridge was about 7 kms away and all the way there I kept doing hard stops and some left foot braking in true rally style. A lovely welsh lady at the coolstores weighed the truck. Its max weight allowed is 11.5 tonne. We were hoping it would be under ten. To our surprise it was under 9!! 8.4 tonne. Cool- that saves another $32 per 1000 kms. We went back to VTNZ- no queue this time- straight onto the brake rollers and much much better. Its a pass. They reckon they should get better with some more use too. The brake dials of doom... So Hannah did all the paper work involved with change of usage and I showed more of the workers plus some random truck driver inside the truck. As we wouldn't be able to get back into my olds place while cars on the road we decided to head to the beach. Bought some hot pies on the way to celebrate (yeah- I'm hardcore) and chilled out at the beach for the rest of the day which was awesome- so cool to have the door to our house open out onto the beach. No one else around. Lovely sunny day too. I took loads of photos- they aint great as I only have my phone. I must borrow mums camera next time. On way out to beach... Settled in nicely thank you.. View from back door... View from window in spare room... Some others.. This evening we watched another movie with the sound of waves in the background and then we packed up and headed back to my olds about 9pm knowing it would be clear to get truck back through drive. And here I am now- back in wifi zone uploading photos- very very happy I am. In two weeks we plan to head south in truck to the Kaikoura coast for the winter solstice. That I am very much looking forwards to. Still lots of jobs to do but at least our house is legal now! EDIT; whoops- hannah spotted a double up of photos.

ahhh yes. ^ that would be the common or garden variety hc viva. Mine is a rarer and much more desirable hb. (Runs and hides from expected onslaught of rude comments from hc owners..) Anyway- off in truck soon for the night. Wont have nerdnet access so wish us luck for cof tomorrow.

Its fun building them thats for sure. But I wish I had a barn to build it in so not worry about weather.

I know I'm nervous when I start farting heaps....

Last night I drove it out the drive once the traffic had died down. We had check that the rear overhang would clear the footpath due to gutter dip. From 500mm off the ground when level to only 90mm with back wheel sitting in the gutter. But it made it!!! Tomorrow we go for the COF. It started straight away and sounded lovely. It seems so big even though reality is that its only 1m longer than when I drove it from Nelson. I will have to really watch that rear overhang when swinging into side roads though!!!! We cant leave parents house during the day because if there are cars over the road during the day I cant go out far enough to get out from drive as the truck is too long. Slightly nervous as well as excited. I will drive it out tonight and park out of town at a nice rest area in front of local hills. Then in morning we can drive to test in a relaxed manor.