yoeddynz

Like this?.....

Rafters all good now. Its up Brook valley. Yeah plenty of room for more trucks I think. $50 each per week including all the power you need and the best showers ever for as long as ya like! Bloody cheap washing machines too. All in all a cheap as place to live and only 10-15 minutes bike ride down into centre of Nelson.

Righto. I said ages ago I would get some pics of the truck parked up where we are currently living. I realise these might not be the most exciting photos on this forum but enough of you lot might appreciate it eh. And I figure if it helps inspire then thats all good. Took some photos on Monday afternoon in the sunshine while having a drink. I love the porch- such a nice place to relax (but for the bloody sandflies....) Hannah chilling on the back porch. We get the sun right through till late which is great. The stream we are parked next to. We built the little path down to it a few weekends after moving in and its settled in nicely. Now with all the spring growth its looking really nice... Looking up from the creek... Our neighbour who lives in a small bus he converted has been living here 15 years or so. He has an awesome garden down to the stream and has tame Eels that he feeds. Some are pretty big.. And a swimming hole just along a few meters.. The truck has been very good- well the house I mean. Just dealing with the possums shitting on the roof from the tree above and general leaf cleaning from the gutters. I started it up the other day and worked the brakes as I figure this may well help keep the wheel cylinder seals happy. I'm glad its got good new clean brake fluid throughout for this reason.

My front windscreen washer didn't work for wof as I had broken off the jets. But they didn't test it at all- only the wipers. A mate told me that he had his washers tested for Wof and was failed due to the jets squirting enough fluid!!!! So I guess it all depends where you go. I wouldn't have thought a car should fail due to the rear screen washers not working though!

i'm just fucking happy it arrived this week. Off to blenheim in a few minutes to get the viva woofed. Woo hoo. A weekend of old cars and fluffy kittens.

Just received my cert plate for the Viva! yah! Everything on it all good except its states my car is a 4 door! The has two doors. EDIT; Another plate is on order and I'll get them swapped over when it arrives

the crush tubes i had to add were only where i was bolting up my home-made engine crossmember that goes in up the front. I didn't touch the standard crossmember apart from chopping off the original engine mounts. So you'll be fine. You wont need crush tubes as you have not really altered your crossmember or its position. But yeah- they are easy to add.

Cool. Every day is a school day! And as for 80 bolts.... just don't bother putting them all back. I'm sure 2 on each side will do....

Fill sump with banana skins instead of oil- worked in ww2. Well ok..in jeep gearboxes. But would make it smell nice and be a great story to tell AA man 1/2 hour later after car breaks down eh. Or use ep90.... The method of holding valves out with compressed air- I have heard of it but never seen it done. Do you use a fitting that screws in place of the plug? If you went down that route then you would only need to remove cams and keep shims organised correctly- then surely you wouldn't need to re-do clearances if it was all ok beforehand. Plus you only need to do the inlet valves (no seals on exhaust eh?) You could lift engine up ever so slightly higher to have more room to work on heads.

Yep that's it. Was thinking the other day of a sticker like.. 'NZ historical Zimmer frame collectors society' Billy- yeah man- if the plate arrives this week then i'll be over friday to fit it. Bloody well hope it turns up- itching to get it on the road now!!!! Will ring ya when its sorted eh!

I'm at that excited stage where my car is now close enough to being on the road that I can now start looking up essential tuning items such as this lot.... http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/bowls-b ... 306583.htm I want those books for my parcel shelf. I'm looking for essential items like a straw hat, old tartan blanket and may make up my own lawn bowls club sticker- I'm thinking 'Dommet Lawn bowls association' because I just cant think of a much tinier south island town that many people may know of as they cruise through on SHY 1 than Domett? Other possibilities are 'Ward' or maybe Seddon...? Like this but older style... I also need to make a dash top protector for the sun as my dash as no cracks. Plus this will hide the rev counter and other bits when it hangs down. Maybe some beaded seat covers too? I'm after a Viva tow bar so I can chuck the pushbikes on the back. I've been offered one for free off a HC Viva- I think it'll fit but its a really monsterous ugly thing. I can make my own but tow bars are always the sort of thing that most people end up throwing away.

Well.. time I have right now but I bet its a messy business? Gonna look it up just out of curiosity though..

Is that just the four for the bottom tailing arms eh? I've not had a price yet so at least now I have a starting point- cheers. I've friend down in chch who's absolutely Viva mad and has built some cool Vivas over the years. He told me yesterday that vauxhall used to make some much harder standard bushes with a metal sleeve on the outside as well and reckons they work much better. He's seen a fair few urethane bushes let go- apparently Vivas are hard on the front bushes in the upper arms and chew poly ones out quickly. Anyway - he thinks he might still have a set of these harder stock ones and is gonna have a look for me

cool and cheers for offer! Yeah i remember machining bushes from the stuff years ago when doing my apprenticeship. It was tricky to machine it could catch and i had to make sure tooling was razor sharp.

Cheers Zac. I'll text you the numbers but first off I'm trying another lead I'm fairly sure I might be able to get some from Viva mad Shane down your way.

Yeah keep a look out as maybe next week I'll be cruising through Renwick. Cheers chris- i think thems the ones except they have metal sleeved exteriors whereas all the other lower wrm bushes I have seen plus the original ones look like this... http://www.superflex.co.uk/proddetail.p ... 70-80-4KSS With sides to stop them rubbing the arms metal to metal. I think the ones you have pictured are the two that are pressed into the top of the axle. I'm leaving internet land now and heading back to the truck in the valley where we disappear from existence. So replies may be late till I next get access to the greater world..

Aww shucks- you guys make me blush (looks for blushing smilie but can t find one- inserts this instead...) (wtf) Before we head back to nelson I jacked the car up and removed one upper trailing arm. The bushes are quite soft- not perished but just soft. If anyone does have links in the industry to getting cheap Superpro bushes or similar please do let me know. I just priced up the superflex ones in blighty- $320 just for the rear end! (8 bushes)!!! What's the deal with making adjustable top links so you can point the diff head up or down? what does that do? Something about stopping vibrations in the prop shaft, like this bloke mentioned in his Viva thread.. http://www.vauxhallviva.com/forum/viewt ... 2&start=50 Anyone here have experience this theory?

Sweet- good idea! Stay in touch as to when you'll be over. Chris- you need to get over here too. And Cam!

I like the panel vans and always wonder just why they dont fetch the same money as sedans? So much cooler and more usable. Wagons are the same- cheaper. Why ? Loving the wheels- is it to be dropped further?

Yeah i am just about past pluto now! We'll be about around Dec so more than welcome to bowl by and drink tea/beer/talk cars. Both Hannah and I are really keen on making it to OS nats next year now we have a old car to cruise in!

Yep- Just love the lines on this car and those wheels set it right off proper!

Yeah that was the icing on the cake. He didn't have to like it but he genuinely really did enjoy driving it. Made me happy. Plus the car behaved well and didn't throw its toys out of the cot for the test drive. Temp stayed bang on etc.

It passed!!!! But rather than type it all again just check what I wrote about the mornings test in the discussion thread here... viewtopic.php?f=18&t=25475&start=180 I'm very a happy boy!

Its all cool man!!! The passed its cert with flying colours. Certification man Kendall Bradley from Nelson turned up this morning in a cool old hotrod and went over the car top to bottom. He was pretty impressed the the build and just made sure I had done the right things like fitted crush tubes were my engine crossmember was bolted through chassis. I had taken photos of that and showed him so he was happy. Then we went for the drive. He loved it! After a good decent drive with some brake tests of course 'acceleration testing' we headed back into town. He then said " I'm really impressed with this car.. its so quiet and smooth that you would never guess its anything but a standard old Viva" That was cool. Yep I'm a happy man. Car ran well and gets better every time its driven. I think months of rich cold starts are getting blown out and the engine is settling in too after being cobbled back together after the rebuild. I also showed him my widened steels and he reckoned they look well made. He said its up to me but I can just put them back on once the cert plate is in place etc as the sizes on both wheels sets are the same 13 x 6" but to cover myself I could always get one crack tested and see if it comes up cool. He also said "now dont go out and drive it till the plate turns up because you dont want to get a green sticker!" But thats cool because we are heading back to Nelson later anyway. When the plate arrives hopefully next week I'll come back over and do the wof recheck. Cant wait! Oh yeah- its was all nice and sunny for the whole process and then just after he left it began bucketing it down. Lucky. The only thing noted was the rear bushes are soft and under really hard acceleration the axle moves and self steers the back of the car across the road. He noted down that I need to replace the bushes so I'll get a set. Any ideas on where I could get nolathane bushes for it at a nice price? Anyone on here have connections?... I know superpro make them as they are the same ones as LC Toranas.

and always remember boys and girls- if your doing this to an old car don't inhale the brake dust.