yoeddynz

Yingyang. You'll head away with a truck filled with as much shit as you sold. And so continues the oldschool circle of life.

We at oldschool see no problem with a line up of projects to do one day....

Crikey- the esky too. #sadface. I was looking forward to seeing what you'd make that into.

Wow- ya sold it! Just like that. I hope its gone to a good home and they appreciate the fucking awesome job you did at restoring this wee gem. Thanks for sharing a great thread with us all! Looking forward to more mk1 esky updates- especially the bit when you finally fit a 12a drillport.

Yesterday afternoon I got to make use of the truck when we helped the neighbours do the hay. Every year we and a few other local farmers help them out with the hay and then we all get pissed and eat way more food than one should. Always a grand afternoon out Its been noted that flat deck farm utes suitable for hay are getting less common around these parts so they are super stoked we now have this truck...

More little jobs completed on the TK over the last week in between other stuff (like apparently one has to earn money to pay for mortgages etc = boring! ) The battery cradles needed attention. In fact they needed removing full stop. They were both right in the way of getting easy access to the passenger side of the engine. Plus they were a bit higgledy piggledy (thanks to Hannah's mum for teaching me such delightful technical words) because the truck was originally 12V and then later converted to 24v to suit the mighty Nissan donk and hence two separate cradles were in place... Hannah removed them both, having to cut bits off that had been farmer welded to the deck. While she was having fun under the truck I was cutting a million and one bits of stainless steel box section for a customers job. I think she was having more fun. Once out of the way we measured up the batteries and designed a new cradle to suit some existing holes already in the chassis. I used various bit of angle iron left over from jobs and made this... Once in place I went through all the battery leads we had, between what was on the truck and what I had squirrelled away over the years. Much neater, shorter runs were tied up in place with extensive use of that flexi conduit stuff because I'm always a little paranoid of battery cables rubbing and becoming arc welders. Finished result is much neater and now well out of the way... Happy with that. Next job was the ugly plastic header tank and the cobbled together brackets. It had been mounted too far out from the cab and hence in the way. Brackets to remove... New header tank in metal, rescued from the field ridden parts truck now fitted in place... I had to cobble together some new coolant pipe work to suit using a pipe rescued from a Caddilac northstar engine of all places. New tank looks much better. It also leaks. Great. Its just a pin hole in a soldered seam so I'll have to use my very best soldering skills to make it worse. Then give it to the radiator man to fix properly. Also. There was a big Bedford badge on the front. Neither of us like that badge. Not as nice as the later smaller ones. In fact I think it'll look better without. So I welded up the holes. Not sure why there was a huge round hole behind the badge? Maybe a drain for the dipping process the cabs go through? I found an appropriate sized holesaw, cut a disc from some sheet and welded it in. Took it slowly so the panel didn't buckle but panel was nice and beefy steel anyway. Sky was pretty last night. Neat light. Took a photo of the truck, Impy and Minky peeking out from behind... Minky and impy are currently parked in the space left by the last housetruck. Enjoy that while it lasts... This afternoon Hannah had another fun bit of time under the truck cleaning all the old grease etc from the steering box and pedal area. She's so lucky I gift her these jobs instead of hogging them for myself... Then this evening I moved the truck into roughly the parking spot it'll reside on once it has a house on it... Heaps of room to play with. Nice to start having an idea of how the new house design will work in with the land there. It'll be great that it will be so easy to move the truck in and out from under the house and continue to use it for work (or to take it to vintage rallys/A&P shows and really upset the Barrys with its Japanese motor... ) We have decided to just crack on with a cab re-paint asap and also build a new deck as planned before we take it for its next cof. Looking forward to seeing the faces of the testing station that know the truck so well when we turn up with it all cleaned up and shiny like But a bit more work on the mezzanine floor needs to be done before getting too excited about truck restos !

Yeah Its looking good man- Good work on the welding. I always like seeing an update on this thread!

Sweet. I need to get some of that sounds deadening mat too. Might go shopping

Yeah I bet I can flick off some sheep piss infused decking, rat piss carpet, flogged out but completely genuine cast in england brake arms and authentic rusted out steel and plastic bedford mudguards to some barry foamer... I'll be there!

I buy controller off you. give you monies i do. Five dollar. Buy now. I buy. You controller you not need. I buy.

That is good service. I think I'll be getting one of them thank you please. Is the chinese bosch sensor still going ok?

Hannahs 330 diesel one weighed 6.5 ton and managed average 15 MPG which aint too bad given the mountains we travelled over all around Europe...

So over the last few days we have been tinkering away. Its neat sized truck that fits into the workshop nicely. Will be good when it comes to building the new deck and then the steel framework for the house later on. Our hoist is rated to lift 4 tonne so technically it could lift this truck. However I see that 4 tonne as a Chinese 4 tonne and don't really trust its actually a proper 4 tonne. I think I'll pass .. Anyway- old truck in workshop = nice... The first job to do was pull out all of the interior. Rats had obviously found it a nice cosy place to stay in so it all needed to go. Plus Wayne had to fit another seat to get it through a cof because the old one was so shot and had metal showing- now a test failure. But the Marina seat he fitted sat me too high. Luckily there was a good seat in the spares truck. I think Wayne must have had a go at removing that from the spares truck but two seized bolts had stopped him. We however had luckily brought out our cordless angle grinder on the day of pick up- always a handy tool to have about. So we managed to cut the bolts and free the seat. It cleaned up nicely and sat much lower. Next item was the throttle pedal assembly. The original beford item of rods and linkages was horrid and like mentioned earlier meant your foot had to stand almost upright and was really uncomfortable. We popped to the local wreckers and looked through the toyota vans there- I knew that one like in our hiace van could work a treat. We nabbed a setup from a super custom hiace and also grabbed a rubber gear lever boot from a mazda ute (because the bedford one was an old ripped vinyl thing that needed to be replaced). Plus a brake servo from the same ute for a future job on the TK. Hannah then removed all of the throttle pedal and linkage assembly. Youu can see the difference between the hiace item vs the bedford stuff below... I made a plate bolt the hiace pedal to and welded it onto the A piller.. The cable was luckily just long enough. The bracket to take the cable outer was in the wrong place so that I adapted... And all in place working... While I was finishing this Hannah set to removing the old dog box. It had to go because I wanted to move the batteries. The truck was converted to 24v to suit the Nissan engine. They added another battery and cradle to suit but it all takes up space right where you want to stand to have access on the passenger side of the engine bay... So Hannah ended up on the ground having fun with old seized bolts and rusty steel... I started dealing to the seating arrangement on the passenger side. The KM cab was designed around a much taller engine I think. There was no double seat, instead a removable access hatch I guess so you could adjust the front most tappets etc. This meant our double seat taken from the parts truck wouldnt fit. So I cut out the tunnel bit and altered things... Made a new lid to suit, keeping it removable because access there could always be handy... Made a new bit to suit the new gear stick rubber gaitor too. Painted it all... Fitted it back in complete with a nice old gear knob that originally came from a 60s Foden truck in the UK and then found a place in my V6 Viva. I kept it when I sold that Viva and now its got a home in the Bedford. I had to tap the threads out to suit. Spot the gear knob that was fitted previously - I guess a safari item? Could be anything but I think the new one looks more in keeping... While I was playing with my knob Hannah set to work on her rim (of the cab..) She dug out all the lifting seam sealer and can up some light surface rust and then painted the lot with Por 15. This will hold it until full paint later on. Luckily as the truck had mainly been stored inside it was in great condition around the roofline. I welded up the hole left when we removed the aerial. No room for an aerial sticking up there when there will soon be a bedroom floor residing there instead... Sort of up to date now. Thanks to the powers of social media I got this lovely response from a fella on the book of faces NZ Bedford group about our new project... "This truck is very special to us and loved driving this ole girl a few times during the hay making season.It originally belonged to my late father in law Cyril Higgins. Since his passing my brother in law Wayne has taken over the grand ole girl. If only she could talk. This truck has many happy memories for both my wife Jen ( Wayne's sis) and I on the farm. Loved seeing it go up Spooner range driven by my brother with pedal to the metal lol then cruze thru the Motupiko/Korere valley to feed out / check stock on the back country farm etc as they would do on a very regular basis. Would hope you get as much fun and enjoyment out it as we have. Would love to become part of your progress trail blog if you would be kind enough to include us please. Will post some photos up of the ole girl for as we come across them . Those were great days for us as we are sure they will be great days and memories ahead for you and your family..... Jen & Den " Den also posted up some cool pics of the truck in action... This is super cool and really made our day when we got that message. Den is now following the build here on Oldschool so we better do a worthy job I'm just loving the bit of history you can get with an old truck like this- makes it all the more fun to restore.

Yeah initially we both figured they were added by the owner and we planned to swap back to original singles. Then once we found out they are factory fitted they started to seem ok. Now I have sussed a way to make them tie in nicer I think they are staying put. Yeah certainly could be added. Could just nick the setup from @ThePog dynafari once he gets bored and starts another awesome project... The engine on the truck in the field is still a goer- but I'd only wish it upon an enemy so when it breaks down they lose. Its a horrid 214 petrol thing. Your reply on the design disasters thread about the old dispondent barrys in the bedford foundry had me pissing myself laughing! I see only good things happening when something British gets a Jappa diesel. Hannah's bedford 330 did work really well and never let us down. But it should have been good- it had been fully reconditioned by the BBC workshops with tax payers money and low mileage when she got it. But to rebuild a fucked one of those engines these days- it aint bloody worth it. Hence a nissan engine makes so much sense. That Barry on the bedford facebook group just ... well... idiot. yep- its a cool history alright! There's more to post up about that soon. I'm already pretty familiar with the brake setup- although Hannahs 330 powered TK in the UK was air over hydraulic with a fairly complex unit on the side. This one has the usual slop in the pedal bush where it mounts on the steering box. I'll be sorting that out soon. This one has also been altered and now has a different remote servo/master like what's on a bloody hillman hunter so single circuit brakes. I hate the idea of single circuit so I'll be swapping it back to original- I have a plan. House ideas are already quite well planned out and it should be a really neat use of the space. Very excited to get into building that! We will be building a new deck first though.

Hannah and I have been looking for a suitable truck to build another house on since selling the Hino. We wanted something a bit smaller than the 5 m wheelbase we had been used to. A bit more of a manageable size for little holidays plus the new house is to be removable so the truck can be used for work/play. We'd been looking at a variety of different trucks- some ex-fire service, some at a local wreckers. We'd been offered another Hino at an OK price and it was a 4m wheelbase. Then a couple of weeks ago Damian @dmulally asked me if I could look over a Bedford TK listed on the book of faces that was local to us. No worries. I like looking at old trucks and it was a good excuse to go for a hoon in the Imp. Here's a couple of pics I took that morning of the viewing.. Upon viewing we promptly fell in love with it and since Damian wanted a tipper, which this wasn't, he very kindly let us have first refusal on his find. But we did had to have a little think about it... At 3m the wheelbase was far shorter than what I have been planning the next house build on. I re-did some drawings and we sussed out some ideas. Deciding that with our mezzanine build giving us a huge amount of living space we realised we didn't need a massive housetruck. Also the idea of utilising some decent sized pop outs excited my designing itch. Other bonus points for the fact the little truck would be so easy to move about the yard plus in and out from under the planned 'house on stilts' , the fact it was a proper classic, a model Hannah had owned for many years and we both lived in while in the UK. Its rated at 6.5 ton with a current tare weight of 2.8. Ample allowance for a small house build plus its in a cheaper RUC bracket! The fact the truck had a really neat bit of history and was a one family owned truck from new with the seller, Wayne, being a very friendly bloke who really loved his old truck. It had been bought new by his Grandad and then his dad used it eventually being passed onto Wayne when his Dad died. It was still being used to run out the hay etc and is pretty much always kept road legal. The cab had been swapped in the 90s after an electrical fire had damaged the old cab beyond repair. The new cab was off a larger engined bigger KM model Bedford- hence the different grill and lights as fitted at the factory for those models. They had the Nissan safari/civilian engine fitted in the early 2000s after the 4 cylinder Isuzu went pop. They wanted a much smoother 6 and loved this conversion. A rust free cab, decent history and fitted with a 4.2 Nissan Diesel engine, all road legal for 5k. Bugger it- lets just do it! Last weekend we went back to collect the truck. It has been garaged most of its life... Currently sharing a shed with a very cool old tractor.. While we were there we got a nice tour from Wayne of the old seed thrashing machines his Dad had installed in around 1965 or thereabouts. They all still work and he showed us some of them running... While we were out there Wayne let us nab a few spares from the old TK he had in a field. Some seats in better condition and some standard TK single headlights in case we decide to swap it back that style (although growing to like the twins..) Said our goodbyes and promised to stay in touch as Wayne is interested in what becomes of his little truck. I drove it home, soon remembering how low the windscreen top is for tall folk. The seat that Wayne had fitted to see it through more recent cofs is from a Morris marina and sits too high. That will be fixed asap I thought. The throttle pedal was an awful design and sat almost vertical at idle. Tricky to moderate and my ankle had to contort heaps making the drive uncomfortable. But otherwise it all went well. The engine seemed fine and pulled well up the hills on the way home, even seeming a bit faster than our van. No doubt things will slow down with a house on board - but folk should never race about in their houses now should they... That evening we popped down to the beach and the doc carpark so Hannah could take it for a hoon. I took some pics... Once home again we parked it in front of the shed and started planning out a few tidy up jobs and modifications to make it nicer to drive. More on that soon

Those Naki druggos with their rose tinted glasses eh?

I was chatting to some visitors from the naki a couple of weeks ago and they too claimed that they have about the same sunshine hours as Nelson! I thought to myself 'hmmmmm- I always thought it rained heaps there'

Another great starion thread to read. I'm enjoying your writing style too. Fun. What are the chances that two starion owners on oldschool have identical cats. Your cat does indeed look like Oscar - @ProZac cat!

This is great. I love threads like this! Subscribed. I remember driving this car at nats way back. Glad you are back into it! Oh a and $200 purse!!! Fuck. A mint momo boss is a much better spend said all the ocd blokes....

Ideal for removing the anodizing on some race face cranks I have that are a horrid green?

good turnout peoples!!

Yeah what the geoffman said. plus one for getting nolothane bushes on the castor arms. Under really heavy braking the standard old squidgy bushes can flex quite a bit so allowing that arm to move backwards - in turn leads to less castor right when you need it most and you'll get a 'squirrelly' * front end with less stability. It can be really quite bad in a Viva if you brake fucking hard for a corner from high speed and the front end can wander a little right when all you want is directness. This might not be so bad in a lighter car but its still worth changing them. The ones I got listed for Toranas needed machining in the lathe to suit the cup it locates in. The company claimed they have sorted this now but do check. * maybe not the right terminology I just like the idea of lots of squirrels appearing under heavy braking..

Isn't it a type of angular bearing? Its much like a oldschool wheel bearing in a pushbike. So if you machine up or find a thin shim to go between the end of the column tube and the bearing flange you'll squeeze the bearing that bit tighter to take up the slack.

Yeah bugger spending $80 on a bearing like that. Ask about on the vauxhall viva facebook group or the nz vauxhall group. Someone will have a spare i bet.