yoeddynz

Yeah I was thinking I could get them sent to my brother and see if he can do the old wink and nudge with karen down at the postshop and get a much cheaper postage rate than the ebay sellers seem to offer.

Hey Hogan- cheers. Yeah I have seen a few snippets of his channel and I must watch more but I always end up drifting off to watch old episodes of the peep show or 8 out of ten cats etc etc. I really must sort my shit out and learn stuff from channels like his on the internets. Funny enough was that over on the uk retrorides forum someone suggested I check out Allans channel too. Whilst I'm here- you're into bikes along with half of the chch crew. Its been suggested on retrorides that the itbs from a BMW k75 would be a really good match for my heads. If anyone knows where in NZ I can try to locate such things that would be sweet. They are available bloody cheap on Ebay uk but postage is a killer. Unless again someone has a good idea on cheaper ways to ship from the UK. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1986-BMW-K75-Throttle-Body-Bodies-13541461113-FREE-UK-SHIPPING-131/264476173551

YES! Yes you should

OK so I had the engine sitting there in pretty much the spot I wanted it. I had taken loads of measurements and pondered many aspects in an attempt to really look into the future and pick up on any potential problems that could arise. It was pretty obvious that the bodyshell was going to need a fair bit of chopping about in the tunnel region (ooooooohhhhh I can see the originality preachers trembling already..) and that the engine was too low in its nether regions. You can see it here. Its not stupidly low and I have seen worse but for a car that has to navigate our driveway with its rocky surface it needed to be better... It had a nice burly bottom but my intentions were to raise that and make a removable sump plate. Still with fins though to help keep the oil cool. Here's what the underside currently looks like... I pulled the engine out and sat it on the bench. The Imp then got its little Datsun heart bolted back in place and reassembled to working order (yay for no more leaks I thought..but it still leaks because British) I poured myself a whiskey. It might have been a few. I studied the crankcase and sump carefully... I then went over my plan of attack. My main issue was the oil pump. It was going to have to move further up in the block so I had to find a suitable place to mount it. I also had to work out how I would drive it. Originally it there was a larger spur gear running off the crank, driving another spur gear. Off the centre of the spur gear was a sprocket which ran a chain down to a sprocket on the oil pump shaft. The oil pump shaft ran not one but two oil pumps. The main pump in the sump area and a smaller scavenging pump in the clutch housing area which squirted oil up over all the gears. The shaft also ran through the main pump to the front of the engine (what is now going to be the back) and powered a water pump. A bit tricky to picture? Well here is a stunning bit of pencil art I did just now ... Plus a photo of the all those gubbins on view at the back. The driven spur gear is missing in this pic but you can see the splined hub it slides onto with the driver sprocket on inner end... Honda had made it all very neat but also all very complicated for what I required. I just need one main oil pump to feed the bearings. So I move the oil pump up. Fine. I'll mill a flat area and make new mounting blocks to suit. But because I have removed the spur gear arrangement (no room for that lot with a custom flywheel planned for the crank) I'll have to chain drive the pump with sprockets (at the correct speed too). OK. That should be easy enough. But no spur gear means the pump will be running backwards. Oh bother. So how about I mount the pump on the opposite side of the sump casing and so turn it around. The shaft is long enough because it goes right through the pump each way. I took the pump apart and checked if this was feasible. It was. Yes! Now why not just run an external oil pump and dry sump it etc ? Well mainly because I am not Mr Money and hence prefer (have) to do it as cheaply as I can with what's at hand (more of a challenge this way and more satisfying too) Also- if I use the Honda pump and keep the required oil routing sensible then it sort of remains factory. I am also going to do my very best at keeping the external look of the engine as clean as possible with a nice uncluttered engine bay. That's just the style I like. Plus we were only just into lockdown here and I wanted to crack on, get as much fabrication as I could done while on my ' holiday in the shed '... So now I had a plan to follow and could start chopping things up. I chopped it just below the engine mounts I intend to use. There is a myriad of long bolts running through the cases clamping them together. The main larger ones are all up around the crank area. Then another two lines of smaller ones below (which hold the cases together under the against the loading of the transmission shafts- now gone) Plenty enough bolts so the lowest are now gone. This lot will be stronger when I have finished with my idea. I kept chopping it up. Took a bit more off because it was fun. Lovely alloy too I might add. Very clean castings. Ended up with an engine a fair bit shorter in height... I got the cuts pretty square and straight. Made easy by the fact that Honda had nicely added reference lines for the purpose- just like on a pack of butter... Now I had to mill it flat. It would take decent sized knee mill to clean up something this size and awkward. Or how about a little drill mill, a steel bench and a big plate of steel I had rescued from a Japanese dentist chair I stripped for bits... I had to position it just right and use the swing on the radial drill mill to run over the cut edges. It looked a bit suspect but it worked fine with light cuts. After the bottom of the sump case was flat and square I then milled a flat area on the face below the crank flange. This would leave a good flat surface, perpendicular to the crank centre line, to mount a plate with an idler sprocket on it for the oil pump drive I had sort of nutted out in my head (but really had not gone any further then just that and it could well have been just nutty) That area ended up like this... The pump would fit somewhere in here like this... Then I threw the lot on the fire... and swept up all the alloy chips that seem to have gone everywhere! When it was nice and warm I welded some new flanges on. Very carefully and slowly I tacked them, taking my time to make sure they stayed true and square and keeping it warm in between tacks. They did. Yay I welded as much as I could reach with my torch along the tricky edge leaving just a few spots that I'll seal at build time with JB weld. It turned out so good that I barely needed to give it a tickle with a larger file, more just a clean up and sits square on my bench. Straight edge reveals my bench is indeed flat too- I had to check! I was so happy at this point because it was one bit of the conversion I feared could go wrong - however I think the warming up and that fact the block is a complex very rigid shape helped keep it all straight. I sat back with a cup of tea and admired my nice burly flanges that I will bolt a plate to...

It would be 22 hours of sleep, an hour of eating etc , half hour of cleaning and half hour of general 'fuck you' cat stuff...

Plus I'm a fucking good looking bloke with with a full head of dashing (greyish) hair and a chiselled manly jawline. I'm also incredibly modest. But I've no time for doing youtube stuff. I entertained the idea and then looked into how much time might have to go into making something decent enough. I feel awkward in front of a camera and don't know that I have that sparkle. But mainly its a time thing.

All in good time.. I have nice bit of 'project thread update buffering' built up. I going to eek the updates out so I don't use up my buffer much. This way I can fool everyone into thinking I'm out there working super hard on the project in the cold shed - when instead I'm actually cosied up inside next to the fireplace, with a fluffy cat, a cup of tea and reading other peoples build threads.

Where did you score the steering wheel from? Looks sweet.

Nice funny write up. Made me giggle. When the panel beater returned the car did he appear to have more grey hair than when he had when he took it away? He's done a neat job. You should be proud (in selecting him)

A nice satin finish is what I am after. I'll come visit soon for a cup of tea and a chinwag.

Cheers fellas. Hey @avengertiger Dave! Are you still doing blasting with walnut shells? I was thinking that might be a good way to clean up the outside of the block/heads. Its a sort of silver paint finish that has corroded away.

Cheers KK. I do actually have a little folder on my laptop dedicated to just pics of sexy looking 911 engines and I think I would probably be banished from Oldschool if I fit anything other than itbs. I'm definitely going to use efi though so sadly, some might say, it wont have the full on classic look of webers lined up. But I plan to try my best to have the engine 'classic' looking, in a 60's race car inspired sort of style . I won't have brightly coloured AN fittings and braided lines etc that for me often ruin a classic engine bay. Here's a neat vid of a cafe racer styled Goldwing, stripped down with 6 webers. Its pretty neat.... https://youtu.be/iuuiHgzlgp8

Sweet! Go hard and get it legal! @Slacker_Sam. This was a conversion you were thinking of doing on janes car at one point?

Gearbox time. As mentioned in the last post I was pretty set on using a Subaru Transaxle. I could also have entertained an Audi unit or perhaps a Renault 21 item but they are harder to find and more expensive. Subarus are everywhere! So way before I had found a engine to buy I started looking. Now initially it was a Legacy front wheel drive trans that I was looking for but when I realised that early Leones also came out as front wheel drive with a smaller lighter 5 speed Transaxle they got added to the list. Not as easy to find though! Then one day a leone boot lid popped up local to me on my Trade me favourite search. I contacted the seller on the off chance that he might have a box. He did. In fact he had two. A early 1600 item and a later 1600/1800 unit. So we went for a drive and paid him a visit and what a thoroughly top fella he turned out to be. A mechanic by trade, ran a local garage before retiring and now works from home on locals cars. However its what he does in his past time that was really interesting. He has been building small hover craft for years and became well known for building one with wings that could fly.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhGN4gFYPLk But I digress. He had some boxes because he had been using subaru engines for his hovercraft. So I bought a couple of boxes (one which came with a 1600cc subaru engine attached) , two starter motors, an 1800 ring gear. All for bugger all because I think he just liked the nuttiness of my plans for the Imp. So here is a box. The earlier 1600 in the small casing. about 4 kgs lighter with a smaller diff and takes a smaller flywheel.. This next one is the one I'll use... Its a later Leone 1600 T71G which shares the same slightly bigger stronger casing as the 1800cc. Ratios are 1st 3.636 2nd 2.157 3rd 1.266 4th .885 5th .725, Rev 3.583 - these coupled with a 3.9 final drive ratio should suit the Imp pretty well on its 13" 175/60 wheels. Here it is again next to the stock Imp box. Its not too far off but the gear selector is higher and points up at an angle. The box is also taller at the rear so the tunnel will need to be raised and the removable cross member chopped about. At 35kg its about 9kg heavier than the Imp box. I can take that. An interesting and very handy fact is that the box selector rod works in exactly the same way as the imp item, even the movements in are pretty much the same in travel both in rotation and back and forth ! So that is nice. Now as discussed previously there is the fact that the Honda will be rotating this boxes input shaft in a direction opposite to the norm. It has been done successfully with Audo boxes and I know of a fella who has run a box backwards behind a 440ci engine with no dramas. I'd also had the discussion about the new thrust loadings with a fella in the UK who's into Goldwings. Came to the conclusion that being a Japanese box from a much heavier car, optionally with a Turbo. So its not been to much of a worry however more people have questioned it and now I was really curious. I decided to strip the spare 1600 box down (same internal structure but a smaller diff and different casing) I got as far has the last bearing and syncro hub to remove and my puller broke. I'll use friends press but even so I am now happy that it will be fine. 5th gear is the one with the least thrust area when run opposite direction but that wont be so loaded up. Here's some pics I took... A beautifully done bit of technical description in this one showing original (green) and new rotation thrust bearing positions. (My Samsung note phone needs a new stylus!) On a side note- it has to be the easiest gearbox I have ever taken apart (ignoring the fact I need a press to remove some bits from the shaft) so I will take the box I'll be using apart and rejoin the casings for mocking up purposes later on. Much easier on my back. So lets put the box away in the corner and get back to the fun bit. The flat six. I was really looking forward to seeing how much lighter it was gonna get as I removed all the un-needed bits from inside. With the alternator, starter, inlet manifold and coolant pipes removed I weighed the engine. It came up at 105kg. Diet time! I removed the rear clutch cover that has the slave cylinder built in. Removed the clutch unit. Took off the drive gear housing. Ohhhhhh. Clean and shiny. Neato. I was told that this engine was possibly a low mileage unit but I was not to know until I began to strip it. I was fearing sludge or bad staining inside the castings but its super clean. Here's a shot with a few of the spur gears missing and showing the various bits... Clutch unit added back but without the main rear casing on so you can see what it looks like.. This was fun. I like learning new engine layouts. Here's the front of the engine which will now be facing backwards. Cambelt covers removed and you can spot not one but two VR sensors for the Honda CGI ignition setup. It has a 12 tooth trigger wheel which with a tooth removed could be used as a crank angle sensor for the EFI I have planned. More likely I'll make a 36-1 wheel the same size for better resolution. There is also plenty of room for a cam angle sensor to be fitted- Ideally I would rather run this engine on full sequential injection if ("if !?.... hahahaha" they laugh..." he said if " ) I use ITBS. Cam covers off. One of them had some welding. I suspect that the reason is that the bike was crashed and one cover got hit. Fella who originally had this engine for his project had bought a complete bike. You can see the nifty hydraulic valve lash adjusters.. I removed the cams then the heads. Carefully stashed all the bits in order on a shelf I had cleared. All the bolts and bits were being placed in organiser trays I had bought for the project. I knew full well that this project could well drag on for a long time given life etc. With the help of Hannah we split the crank case and revealed all the gubbins inside... Lots of heavy stuff in there to weigh in! Yay. All this stuff I didn't need went in this box... and that box went on the scales... 35kg Sweeeeeeeeet! That's more like it. A little bit more to lose when I start hacking the crankcase apart. Now I'm aware that I'll be adding some weight back with a flywheel and clutch but hey- this is a good place to start. Its now a 70 kg flat six. Next thing to do was sit it next to the box and line some things up... You can see where I'll have to fabricate a bellhousing to fill that 40mm gap. The Imp was at this point in time 'up on blocks' as I had the Datsun engine out to replace the rear main seal and ring gear. How handy then because I wanted to see how the engine sat in place! I bolted the heads back on loosely and slung the lot up under the imp. I lined the transaxles outputs with the driveshafts so positioning the engine front to back. I took a few photos, took some measurements and noted some stuff. I then removed the transaxle from the equation so I could lower the car down so the engine would sit roughy where it will end up. I stood back and admired it. Wow! It just looked so bloody spot on in there! Man - if my juices weren't fizzing with excitement previously as I stripped the engine down they certainly were now. I'll let these last photos I snapped end this update

I'll just mount a 20litre can of oil on the parcel shelf, run it into the top of the box and loop it back. Fill the box and let the thermal cycling take place for constantly immersed gears.... But yeah- I have looked into the design of this box, (actually bought a box well before getting the engine) and it seems overbuilt enough for this application. It's certainly going to be a good way to get the Barries hotly discussing it around their formica clad smoko room table as to why its all so wrong .... " its a Japanese engine in an English car! He needs to be shot! "

Yo dawg - I aint gonna be a poverty spec 912 owner...

Maybe number 5 is wearing little scarves for his 'neck muscles' ?

Oh yes- I see that now and wont be able to un-see it.

Yeah whoops! Its weird- I clicked on submit reply and took ages. I thought it wasn't working so closed the window and tried again. Still no go. Did this twice more and gave up and went to bed. Woke up and went to try it this morning and its up four times! Aliens!

So what was this engine that I was so excited about arriving just in time for lock down to begin eh? All carefully placed and tightly wrapped up on a pallet by none other than mr @Threeonthetree and sent down to Nelson in the nick of time. The forklift driver chuckling away after I explained what it was and what car it was going into. Just a little glimpse through the plastic. Those magical numbers I had been after for a fair while after having decided to take a chance and just go for it. But finding one of these engines complete, without a massive bike attached, at a price I could afford was proving to be tricky. We got home, having completed the rounds about Nelson of whatever shops still happened to be open for emergency lockdown supplies. I knew full well that at some point during the next 4 weeks of my of enforced tinkering I would come up to a road block. Something essential would be needed. Something silly and normally easily available. But I didn't care. I would deal with it. I just wanted to get stuck in. The wraps came off. Oooooh lordy. Its a beaut. But a beaut that was in urgent need of a diet and trim in size... So this is what I have bought. A 1991 Honda Goldwing 1500cc flat six. Now going back in time, way back in around April 2018 when I was restoring my Imp shell a guy named Darkspeed on the Retrorides forum was chatting about engines on my thread. He's had a few Imps and Ginettas over the years and has always been looking at other engines. He uttered these words .. "I also pondered the Honda Goldwing lump for that mini 911 Vibe" Now this struck a cord for me. It just seemed right. It was far too interesting for me to not look further into and I did just that. I did lots of research, studied the pictures so carefully on a downloaded workshop manual and had sort of sussed out that it might just be a viable option as a swap. Not for this car but maybe my other shell. But then he came back with this bit of info... "I cannot recall why I actually dropped the idea but I suspect that they maybe counterclockers " Bugger! I said. He was right. Somehow I had completely missed this fact in all my studying. It was indeed, like many Honda engines, a anti clockwise rotating engine. Damn. So I put this idea right out of my mind and continued on with the restoration. Until, as mentioned in the previous post, Mr Pete Valiant stepped in at the Oldschool nationals. He had been thinking about this and the idea popped into his head of taking a Subaru gearbox from a fwd Leone or Legacy, turning it around 180 degrees and in so doing counteracting the 'anti clockwise' rotation of the Goldwing engine. Simples! Wow. So this idea played on my mind for the rest of the nationals weekend, I downloaded manuals again, looked over them and schemed. It was not going to be easy and simple though. There were going to be many hurdles. The engine was heavy and quite tall with its built in transmission. There was no bellhousing. Not even a resemblance of one. There was no flywheel and the oil pump was driven by spur gears and a chain that had to go in order to allow for a flywheel. The engine is also a clamshell that once together does not allow any access to the insides without completely taking it apart - so new head gaskets each time and a whole load of work just to get to the oil pump etc. The starter and alternator were integral to the gear system so they wouldn't be viable to keep in place. But the crank does have a flange to which an adaptor could be added to and bolt a flywheel up to. However I could not easily work out the size of the flange or bolts. It seems to be that these engines just keep reliably going for a long time and when they die not many people rebuild them. Its just cheaper to just swap in another engine. There was/is not a heck of a lot of info out there on them like you might find for other engines. Excluding trikes I could only find two other vehicles that had used a goldwing engine and they both used them with the transmission through a diff. That wasn't going to work in an Imp as it places it too far back and high. But I was keen on the challenge and wanted to have a go. If I could find a cheap enough engine I could have a crack and if it all went pear shaped I would cut my losses- so long as it entertained me and challenged me. I needed a cheap engine and had been keeping an eye out for one everywhere. Too expensive to import, too much of a risk to buy a complete non running bike. Then one popped up in Auckland and it was fitted in an Imp of all places!!!! Wtf Turns out that a fellow kiwi Imper had bought a Imp race car project that was built some 20 years ago or so. I don't think they ever got it racing. He had bought it for the shell mainly. It utilised the entire Goldwing setup, like the other two cars I had found and ran the power through a Holden ( I think) diffhead along with the Goldwing electric reverse. It was indeed mounted really far back and quite high on a pretty lacklustre framework of angle iron, hopes and dreams. But it was there, complete and really low mileage. I heard it running, it sounded mean and I wanted it. We set on a price of $500 and Neal kindly sorted out getting it down to me. So that is where this pallet of goodness comes in. Now to see what I had bought and let myself in for!.... Carbs had been removed by Neal so they couldn't get damaged... There was this plastic board with a very carefully laid out Goldwing engine electrical system complete... There was a book too. Very handy. This would make for great on the throne reading... So this engine complete with transmission, starter, alternator, carbs is around 126kg which was a bit too chunky to risk lifting between us both. I lifted it out with the engine crane plonked it on the big steel bench and removed the exhaust manifolds, inlet manifold. Still too much engine... I removed the starter, alternator. Looking better already for sure but there no doubt about it- this engine was going to go on a intensive weight loss course! I was already enjoying this new project and looking forward to the next step.

The commer engine? off topic but I'm liking this truck right now.... https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/trucks/flat-deck/auction-2301309265.htm?rsqid=e110bed7431943bfa8c33d98cce417c9-004

But turbos could happen! I have kept all 4 turbos from my Viva wagon....

Soon.... Only just got off phone from 45min chat with fella who wants to buy housetruck. So much going on right now !

Hmmmmmm. It must have fallen over whilst in transit. I best check its rocker cover is not dented.....

Not sure where to begin with this latest update really. I have kept this side project fairly secret squirrel with only a few folk here and there knowing about it. I'm sure others will guess pretty quickly. I have soooooo much to write and many interesting photos to post up. I was going to hang on for longer because the engine build itself is still a long way from being finished and then I have to chop the Imp about to fit it, build an ecu, intake, exhaust to suit plus many other jobs to make it work. Its going to be a big enough mission to write about it all but I'm pretty confident it'll be interesting enough to make writing about it worthwhile. Where to start then? Well.. a long, long time ago I was chatting to a certain Mr Pete Valiant at the Oldschool nationals in Banks Peninsular 2018. The subject of my engine dilemma from early on in the restoration came up. Pete had been thinking about it. He had an idea so simple it just seemed like it couldn't possibly work. But it got me very excited and I spent much time on the drive back home from Nats looking over a downloaded workshop manual of 'the engine' trying to nut out how it might work. This process lasted for an entire year, often going on the back burner as other things in life stepped in the way. Then I found out about an engine up for grabs, sussed out a deal and thanks to a very helpful fella called Neal I ended up with this pallet of goodness turning up in Nelson - the day before NZ went into full lockdown ! ... Then the work began. More to come soon