yoeddynz

A late update. It been quite hectic and not much appears to have been done but it has. We had to go to Christchurch to pick up more stuff. in fact half the project time is going about picking up bargains, hunting for lowest prices, research etc. Thats building on a budget for you. Its a shame- I'd love to buy everything in one go and have it all here ready. But it is fun getting bargains. We put the cladding up as far as the base windows but had to stop to finish building the frames. And back to Plankville in Richmond, Nelson where we cleaned out Brent of the rest of his slices of this wood. I think we will have just enough to do the popouts and up to the bedroom where it will be plywood from there. The ply will be be broken up with batons 'a la oldschool medieval style houses (but they didn't have ply.... ) The cladding thus far... Then of course we had some busy body neighbour decide they dont like the noise- which we have kept down and been within normal acceptable times. So twice we have had embarrassed looking noise control blokes come out- but its not excessive so they leave. Anyway- to keep everyone happy we popped out to a friends farm and used a shed to plane loads of wood down in one go- whilst it was drizzling outside The slide outs are being built up one at a time- I have made some rollers up and they roll out lovely. Luckily the Engineers I went to get the alloy from let me use the lathe when he found out he used to work at the same place I did my time at- so that saved some hassle and money! I need to get some nyloc nuts, put bike inner tube over the last two and paint them then they are all done- they are over built but wont give us any grief! We are trying to keep things as square as possible so everything fits neatly. When they are out they should seal perfectly. Lots of time has been spent building window frames- takes ages but they will look great- deeply varnished Rimu wood. Some of the stained glass solder joints were broken but I have fixed them up and now I want to build some myself- later on when we are living in it! I will have to get a photo of all the windows made so far lined up. We are going to stain the cladding and then seal it with some wormal wood seal from the states- its wicked when on- water just beads instantly and runs off The stain we have decided on as after so much effort going into putting up nice bits of cladding we don't want it to go all silver and lose the colours of the different woods. And lastly I found our old pad in England on google earth - when zoomed in we can see our bedford TK, our totally hippy mates Bedford bus with his completely unhippy mint white FD RX7 next to it , our old bmw 525TDS estate, our old blue chevette 4 door and possibly my Rx3 next to shed. I love Google earth. And we do miss our old pad out in the country side 1 minutes walk form a quiet pub with free wireless!

I'm following this thread.... http://www.vauxhallviva.com/forum/viewt ... 22&t=11482 Its an HC but I reckon they are similar under the dash. I"m only considering this if I end up fitting the quick rack i have- even then the steering wont be that heavy.

sweet. Do they have a stand alone computer for the speed sensitive bit?

i shall go hunting at local wreckers then.... anyone on here fitted one ?

make sure you do a good build thread on this cortina! I'm gonna at some point fit my 12a elford turbo into my viva so always keen to watch other people doing similar my engine is a simple old suck through carb job though, good luck with the build!

Like this one here.... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VAUXHALL-CORSA-C- ... _720wt_736 do any cars in NZ come out with these- i dont know whether corsas are sold here actually...maybe rebadged like the old barinas? Anyway- i want one for my Viva at some point (along with a bloody good alternator to run it...) they have been fitted into all sorts over in Blighty. I should have brought one over with me!!!

breakfest in america....

ooohhhh.. I just did a sex wee....

There was a craze in the states back in the 70's for Foam houses. They would build a basic wire frame and build walls with chicken wire. Then they would spray expanding foam onto the walls inside and outside. Once set it could be carved into shape and smoothed. But they soon became obsolete due to health problems from vapours leaching from the foam Looked cool though! I'm sure there are better foams now but I still dont like the idea of being surrounded by manmade stuff. Wood is Good! On another topic, I have posted this build up on Retro-Rides and someone on there doesn't believe the photos from the inside of that modern 6 wheeled truck I put up are real. And after a google search it appears a lot of people didn't believe the photos. So I replied with this... "yeah they are photos from inside that truck - I you look carefully it has a raising roof - quite common , there are even some in NZ using the same system. This gives loads more room. One truck I know raising the roof about 1.5 meters. You can see the scew list in the corners of the living room. So those side windows are exposed when the roof lifts. and the bedroom is above the kitchen area- but can only be accessed when the roof is up. Imagine how tall our truck could be.... But if you still don't believe..." http://www.hoax-slayer.com/garbage-truck-home.shtml unicat offroad motorhomes And while on the subject of total madness here is truck build I followed a few years back. This truck is amazing! I love the build thread- very well written and funny. So make a big pot of tea, stoke up the bong or what ever floats your boat and check out this one... Rob Grays 'Wotthahellizat'

First bits of cladding are up! We will have to get some more though as after a sort through there wont be enough. Off to plankville again on friday then.. Cladding away in the evening sun....

here's some goodies we got while down in Christchurch... lots of polystyrene for the walls etc. 20m thick - we will double it up. Ok Sesame steet people, what does that make? That makes 40mm. Good job big bird- now go 'play' with Snufalufagas and his big 'trunk'. here's some Rimu floorboards- less the 150 odd carpet tacks we removed... I'm going to fill the base of each upright with posh cavity wax- I dont want them ever rusting through and the house falling off when caning it through the S bends on a track day. We started putting up batons today. This is a big moment as it means we shall start cladding it very soon!!! I cant wait. Really windy and its meant to rain later. If it does we will retire to the shed and build window frames to the sound of good tunes whilst inhaling nature. Cosy. And here are some photos a friend sent me of a bloody cool truck. Not my style- but it would be totally my style if I had lots of money! I think its 6 wheel drive too! heaven. I love the way everything has its place for proper offroading!

Mark Brownie at Just GM here in Blenheim has got a mint dohc gem 4 door. quite rare aren't they?

i was thinking along those lines too. The photos show it in a location that i would not want to hang around at for too long. Dodgy as. Cheap truck though- would require full stripping out to remove bodies

here's a cheap project if any of ya's are interested.... cheap dodge housetruck

This weekend in chch we have bought ... 200 meters of rimu floorboards at a bargain price, one lovely western red cedar and rimu door, enough sheets of 20mm polystyrene that we ended up having to leave some - another trade me bargain saving us $400, 4 more leadlight windows, 10 litres of tredgrip paint for the roof, and one oldschool rev counter (for my viva) Van is now packed! Back home tomorrow. Beer and pork roast time now...

They are trying to change the law in UK regarding modified cars but changing laws there is like paddling up shit stream in a barb wire canoe with a tennis racket for a paddle- a long process. The way it stands in the UK is that if a car goes for an MOT and the tester feels that lets say the morris minor is not safe with a 457 chev and drum brakes all round then it wont pass. The truth is a lot of places just don't want to bother with extra digging or hassle - so long as it passes the criteria for a standard MOT its all good. This is great if the cars are built with some thought about safety, which most are but Ive seen some really dodgy builds over there. Things that would have a cert engineer here wearing out pencils. I still love the lack of certs in the UK though! I'm happy to have to cert my car here if the other option was no mods at all like some states in aussie or half the European countries- but I think its bloody expensive! And I still cannot get over the fact a car will fail a wof if the parcel shelf has some holes in it for speakers!!!!!

some questions, When was it that cert's came about? And a friend told me that some cars have older cert's which don't have a plate- they have a piece of paper with the changes noted and its sighted and signed by the engineer- are these still OK and accepted by WOF testers/ police if nothing has been changed since it was sighted and signed. When did they stop doing it like that and go over to a plate?

lots of trees getting used in this one for sure.

Carve a massive totom pole!

what is it with these front mounted oil coolers?....

Finished welding up popout frames and Hannah painted them. Meanwhile I fitted another skylight - this one is above where my workbench will be. The weather got a bit shitty today- didn't rain though...Blenheim so we retired to the shed after having started the woodwork for window frames/sashes. I'm not a carpenter and they are very basic simple frames but have come up lovely! Nice Rimu and what I think might be totara or black beech. We have quite a few window frames to make- a long process! Its getting easier each one and we'll keep building them over the next few days. Lots of varnish will be needed once they are built. We have been collecting various stained glass windows off trade me. We still need a few more. Then we can start cladding the framework knowing where and what size the window frames will be.

We had to piss about with the bedroom floor this morning. Its the one area getting insulated that is just a steel frame with out batons being added- and the steel being 38mm with the insulation being 40mm means the polystyrene sits proud. We thought it might squash down but it didn't- power of surface area eh! So we decided to cut a sliver off the polystyrene. Which was gonna take ages till I made this... 'alex acme' polystyrene planing jig... Now the floor was all done and the ply wasn't getting forced out by over thick poly we carefully (and awkwardly) lifted it up into place. Wow - with a floor down up there its amazing- so huge a bedroom. I tried taking photos to show the size but it was tricky with a small camera. We laid down up there and checked out the view- cool having skylights. Next problem was the bloody aerial- it hits the bedroom floor. So I drilled a hole and it can now extend up into the bedroom.....

fuck yeah- that big eagle in the photo in trademe link- wow. thats the bizzo. im not against roof racks- our sunny has one and has transported many sheets of ply. van has one too- its all bent down now after picking way too big a load of wood for truck. but filling them full of crap - just a bit far. At last years retro show in blighty there was even one fella with a stand selling crap to go on roofracks....

I just had a look and tall ships mascots seem to be in short supply. But I found this...

Gay roofracks are all the rage in euroland! I think tow bars are the next big thing... I love that tall ships bow mascot idea- where could I get some?....(tall ship...?) certainly would be a talking point!