yoeddynz

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

sweet. I'll chat to lance or dave about that. Noticed that the current cert on the rope rails had expired in 2009. Obviously wasnt a concern at the time we took it in for its cof because it was a house then, welded to the deck. The fella at vtnz had told me we could've built the house from balsa wood and glue and so long as it fell within the size constaints and windows were toughened or covered they'd not be fussed- its just a load.

hell- I read that wrong at first and thought you'd typed that dave had knocked up your wife!...

Cheers. Yeah I have used both Lance and Dave for various jobs. Both are really good to work with. I have contacted Lance but waiting for him to get back to me.

yeah but we have no intention on ever building a 'real' house. Most likely always going to live in a housetruck because we just like it. So idea is to build a different styled house to suit this location. Truck will be turned around this time so the back end will be facing north and get the all day sun. Open plan living at that north end with a full slide round wall to open it up. The west facing side will slide out almost the full length by 2 metres so making for a 4.5m width most of the way down. Its gonna be a fun build and I'm bloody excited. I reckon I probably can get an exemption from having to get a certificate of law and knowledge because the truck will really only be used for very occasional use.

Yeah for buses that's the case. But not on housetrucks with separate cab and no access to the back. And it only has a bed for two (three if you include the cat...

sweet. Cheers. Now I can see why small trucks under 6000kg are so popular....

yeah that would be sweet. I might well pop into VTNZ on Pascoe street and ask them too.

Fuck me- what a bloody (expensive) ballache a TSL license is.... https://www.nzta.govt.nz/commercial-driving/transport-service-licences/goods-service-licence/ Bugger that.

Sweet Steve- good info right there! Cheers very muchly So yeah.. I think we will just have to build a deck and get it certed. Costs for deck cert I have no idea ? so I'll have to look into that. Its all part of the equations we need to suss out so we can set on a price. We are keen on keeping this truck because we know it well, its solid as and had a full engine rebuild to the tune of 10k by TSN in Nelson. Its a good truck. Plus getting a similar 5m wheelbase truck, on the road aint that cheap. It seems that even old trucks hold their prices if in usable good condition.

Question time. We have some friends local to us who are keen on buying the house part of our housetruck. This suits us and them because they dont need the truck and we want to keep the truck so we can build another house that better suits the location its parked in. So the basic plan would be something like this. I add some removable legs to the underside of the deck. We trundle the truck to their property, park it on the spot they intend to have it, unbolt and jack the body up and then drive the truck away. Go for a hoon, do some skids and make the most of the now lightweight racetruck. My questions are... Can we take the truck for a COF without a deck ? I presume we can but imagine things like the rear wheels having covers are needed? We would plan to build a new deck and then the next house is removable off the deck thus allowing us to take the truck for hoons/use it to take the rubbish bag to the end of the drive/go do the weekly shop etc. What is the deal with building your own deck. I'm aware that rope rails etc have to be certified. But what of a simple deck without them? Quite excited about prospect of new house build but not going to count our kittens until they have hatched. Need to settle on a price etc that suits us all so its not a given. But knowing what we can and cant do with respects to building a deck etc so we can factor it in. Oh and also- its currently registered as a motorhome. This would now mean fitting seatbelts for next cof (not hard because there's most of the mounts in there and I can add the rest if need be. I have done loads of certed seat mounts in vans/trucks but the cert cost is pretty steep even through the fella I use) If we change the rego back to being a truck is there any benefit? I can't remember exactly the reason we had changed it to motorhome way back then. Possibly it was cheaper rego/rucs?

Is there a big following for fbs in Canada eh?

a bit like this lovely lady did, but only with much better style.... edit; the words that came out of her mouth when she caught me taking the photo....wow. Kevin bloody wilson would have blushed!

The painter at my old workplace bought my 12a turbo from my Viva to fit into his Anglia. He's still whittling away on that. I think he's going to go injection and get Stuart Bubb to give the engine a tickleup.