yoeddynz

you could always fit a little sump and a scavenge pump that can be turned on when you attack the firebreaks, chasing down suzukis.

Yeah Id found a good vid here. Quite a bit of background noise but still an interesting watch... I'm quite keen on getting the bottom end of my A12 balanced when I strip it- anything to help make it all a bit smoother at high revs eh.

Back in the 90's I owned a series 2 and my brother had a series 2A with a Holden 3.3. We had some fun. Mine was completely illegal but my mates and I would throw a few litres of petrol in it and drive it through Blenheim and down to the river then spend the day getting it stuck and unstuck. It never let us down. Then I pulled the trans brake on when going down a small slope to a park spot so I could fix the service brakes. Transbrake locked up , landie kept skidding forwards and gearbox got destroyed. So I had to remove and re-build the complete box with many new bits. Was a good learning experience. I later sold it to some farmer. Reading your thread and seeing the pictures brings back memories.

I never realised there was already a discussion thread for this hence I created the other one. Can some helpful mod remove the other one? Anyway- great updates as usual. I would love to see the balancing process of your crank etc. Is there a chance you can organise to go watch the process and take photos? Make the bloke some tea, take him biscuits. We at oldschool will forever be in your debt and can make you tea in return...

Your tps woes... I've never needed to open one up but if it's a standard 3 wire jobby then I'm having a guess that they are just a potentiameter inside? If so then could it possibly just be a case of swapping the left and right wire so it works in reverse? But for all I know they might contain far more magic inside then that and us mere mortals should not be messing with them...

That last photo - both cars at sunset looking out to sea. Wow. Really nice. Cool pic. Do pop in on way down. There's an empty cabin here. Have a break and enjoy a kit kat. We are only probably 25min diversion from the west bank road heading south from motueka which is a sweet road to travel south on.

Glad to see you're still tinkering away with this. Still looks sweet as ever.

A fella in Wales builds his own Panzer tank... http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/35947-panzer-2-turret/#comments

Wow- its been bloody ages since I visited this thread. I may well take some photos, before and after spec, if folk are interested. Trees and landscaping growth has been mental. I'm loving it. The place has such a different feel now. Anyway- I went for a stroll up one of the gullies where I new there had been some damage from that Cyclone Gita. I had never gone up for a look siince the event due to the amount of thick mud and caranage to climb over. However the cyclone was two years ago and stuff has settled. I wasnt expecting to find such a massive slip. Its mighty impressive. I could not actually walk up the top half as it was too steep. I had to clamber through the bush up the sides. Perched at the top looking down- Wow! There are some huge trees up there. This we knew but now the bush has been taken away from the bases and you can see them.. phowarr! We have started poisoning all the large pines. I wish we had done this 5 years ago as suggested by so many more onto it folk. The trees are way too big to even consider dropping as they'll take out massive swathes of very very old tree ferns. The trees we have so far poisoned have already dropped their needles and are breaking down from the top. Its so satisfying. The extra light is amazing, no more needles on the ground to smoother and poison the floor. The growth of natives below is already very noticeable. Poisoning them is easy as, cost bugger all. We are so stoked at the amount of time for other better things in life (like riding bikes and hooning in cars) we have gained by not having to deal with these fuckers now I am sort of tempted to drop a couple of big ones (and get an arborist mate who we both work for at times to help- he has better gear). If landed in the right places there is some real good potential for some North shore spec trails to be had in the gully. Speaking of mtb trails- we have made some more and will continue to do so as time allows. Its a fun thing to do but not super urgent when we have an amazing mtb park full of great trails just up the road. The trails we have made certainly dont suit fatty lazy spec riders or heavy clunky bikes- very steep up and down. Which is what I like. Singletrack. I want to make more flowing fast ones across the property and our neighbours have given me the green light to make some runs down through their pines too. We have new neighbours moved in over the road. Hes into mtbing and is my age within two months , born in the same hospital! Really cool folk and we are stoked to have them join our valley. We want to make secret trails down from the park into our valley I'll get some new photos soon, once I've done the lawns (which look great but fuck me @ amount of lawnmowing in spring.... )

So Hannah and I took the Imp for a two day road trip. Part business and part holiday. On Friday we drove up to Lake Rotoiti, Nelson lakes national park. On the way we checked out some old classic cars a fella owns who wants me to do a load of bodywork on. The Imp drove really well. The sun was out and the music cranking (some ambient tunes from David Tipper since you ask). We had a good coffee and then a nice walk on tracks around the lake. That evening we drove through to my olds place in Blenheim. A nice day out. Here's some photos... Chilled out at my parents, a feed of fish and chips, wine. A grand way to finish a day. Following morning we set to head home. Filled the Imp up, did some maths and allowing for a very optimistic speedo we reckon on around 40 mpg. Not bad considering the gearing at 100kph. Headed home, sadly into rain as a cold front was moving up the Island. Drove long way via Picton and Queen Charlotte drive because narrow twisty roads and go kart car... Over the Rai Saddle, sitting with the flow of traffic. I give the car some stick to pass a motorhome up the saddle and then when cruising down the other side the wee car does that thing.... 'JOLT!' The car does a small but very noticeable stumble. Like a tiny rev limiter. For those that have tuned megasquirt, or maybe other EFI, it felt like when you click burn. "What was that?" Hannah asks. "Shit- I don't know but it felt like an ignition thing, not spluttering fuel thing" I reply. We both go quiet. I almost want to turn the music down and listen for any untoward mechanical sounds that might be there. But I don't. I'll play it cool. Don't worry. Don't get Hannah worried. It was probably just a... fuck. I don't know. I'll just say nothing, drive a little slower and whatever it was will be a memory soon. The silence is piercing. Now I notice every bloody vibration. I'm watching all the gauges like a jet pilot. All the time my mind is going through all possible scenarios. What could that have been. What if we breakdown? 3km pass. It seems ok. I start to relax. Only one big set of hills to go. I pass another rental car, most likely the scurge of the kiwi roads, a Nissan Tiida. I dont know because I'm still having a mini stress.. 'JOLT'. Here we go. This is happening. This time its for good. The car dies and I have to quickly think where I'm going to stop to fix it and quick before I slow too much and that silver blob I just passed drives up my bum. I spot a forestry road on the right, coast across to it (whilst trying to make it look like nothing is wrong so saving face for all classic drivers who get the "oh old cars are so unreliable...") I pull to a stop and the engine splutters to its last road driven rotation with a bang. Bugger. Remain calm. Reception on phone? Not a chance. Tool kit in boot comes out and we go through all the obvious things, concluding that it is indeed the ignition. Annoyingly it was the ignition module, of which I didnt have a spare. If it were points I'd have fixed it. Such is life. Luckily the rain had stopped and double lucky that across the road from the forestry road we parked on was a farm house. The kind farmers wife took us in, let us use her phone and fed us tea and biscuits. I called a mate out with his trailer. We have AA membership however its the basic cover that would have got us to a garage. I knew a Garage wasn't going to fix this and we'd still have to get home. Yeah nah. Stuff that. Mate turns up with his trailer and we have a choice as chilled out trip home. We fed him dinner and it was all good in the end. Big thanks to @Sanfiddy for rescuing us! Oldschool spec favours. I only took one photo of the day... So that was that. On Sunday I removed the dizzy and then the module. It fails the tests as predicted. Here's the troublesome module... Come Monday and at my local wreckers looking for a module. I dont want to spend $120 on a new one when I'm about to fit full engine management. No luck locally but we were in Nelson on Tuesday and I found one at a wreckers there, cheap too. Fitted it that night and brooooooommmmmm The replacement was a proper Hitachi module whereas the one that let its smoke out was a no brand cheap one. Even felt lighter if that means anything. I took the broke one apart and it looks like a little cityscape inside- heck it would scare a Barry used to the kettering system... I also managed to score a spare couple of dizzies, converted with accuspark. My bench looks like a bomb went off in a hitachi factory... I'll need to fix them up, check them out and then I could always have a spare setup in case. That is until I fill the Imp with boxes of electronics and then there's no chance Mr AA man can help me. It'll be like every modern car- useless when broke. In other news- this turned up from China the day we left for the lakes... Its a brand new Hitachi 306 clone, all for not much more then a full carb gasket set costs. I had ordered this before I had scored all the other Megasquirt bits. Anyway- I'm still looking forward to trying it out because my worn out carb is about as good as I can get it. The new one looks so shiny. I'll report back with my findings on how deep the quality goes...

Yeah that is a good price. I've bought loads of ply from that fella. Some good hardwood ply. Its all mainly imported and probably made from Orangutan blood but yeah...its cheap.

Is that ply stuff from the plyguy in Nelson? What's the width?

Wow. Finally I've caught up on this thread whilst at my parents place with their first world spec bandwidth because everytime I tried to load your cinema sized photos at home the whole of Internets in marahau would crash and I'd get angry phonecalls. Looking good. I'm gonna come out your way for a proper coffee and check out your massive tamiya bruiser kitset you appear to have on your driveway. We visited alister yesterday (he has about 5 different classic car jobs for us since we welded up his bus-I must have done something right He told me about your engine woes. Glad you've sorted it. Fucking top spotting and heads up from @Willdat? Buy that man a beer! Also went for a hoon around allisters farm in one of his safars. Fuck they are big trucks eh. Sounds nice.

plus one for electric pumps. I've not used one but everything I have read about them makes so much sense. I have allowed for the fitting of one in the back of my Imp by making sure the pipes layout would suit plus added some wiring in place just in case the Datsun pump wasn't up to the job of pumping coolant to the front etc. When I last looked up the prices the Davies Craig pumps, with the electronic controllers have really dropped in price. Certainly not at all excessive for what they do and the quality of product.

Ha- yeah I had found that a while back. So much info on the techwiki datto1200 site. Sadly I think my WOF guy would spot a twink head on my Datsun engine and say" no - you're pushing it now Alex"

Wow Tom. So many bits to look at. That's my evening sorted. I'm an erring towards using the edis setup now - I reckon the Ms1 was supplied to Rob setup for that. I'll plug the ecu into my laptop and run it up to see what's what. Figuring is already been loaded with a firmware, hopefully extra code. From what I've read the edis stuff is pretty reliable. Grant? - I've been offered an a15 for $100. I think the complete engine. I cw no idea on its condition but worth a punt at that price. But I'm also waiting on someone else who might have some spare parts. Luckily I have two twin side draught inlet manifolds to hand - one for my early round port engine and one for the later oval port heads (Including a15 as well?) I'm sort of hesitant to split this engine as its running so well for an unknown unit. However if I was to get a spare head then I can tidy it up, new guides, valves etc if need be and use it to mock up the inlet. But I'd also have make a new set of headers to suit the different head and stud pattern Also quite interested to see what a straight swap to injection would be like without touching the engine.

Well its been a while since I've updated this thread. Mid July was where I last posted up anything of worth. Little Imp got parked up in the corner of the workshop so leaving anough space for our neighbours to make use of the shed while we took off to England for a decent holiday. Hannah got to catch up with her family, we both did heaps of cycling and running, had plenty of sunshine and beer plus I got to go along to the retro-rides gathering 2019! As I always do I had a fantastic time there and came away with boosted Mojo and lots of ideas. Before leaving the UK I ordered a few spare parts for the Imp... We got back to NZ in September, just in time for the start of spring. The Imp was sitting there tucked away, a tiny little puddle of oil under the sump just like a good little English car should have... First job was to fit the shiny new lenses. Hannah jumped straight into that, an easy but so very satisfying job to do... We then took the steering rack out and fitted the new centre gaitor. Hooray for a rack that holds oil... Having decided I was pretty happy with where the temp gauge needle sits once fully warmed up I carefully measured the resistance across the potentiometer I'd been using to adjust it. I then made a little joining lead fitted with a resistor of the same value. This replaced the adjustable item and should be it for the temp gauge. At some point in the future I may well make a new instrument cluster to suit the dash as I rather fancy having a rev counter in a place that I can actually see it ok. We have been driving the Imp since getting back to NZ as much as possible. On its first journey out since back I got this pic... We've had a few decent trips including a one really neat drive all around the local valley roads and hills, some gravel roads etc. Its so fun to drive. I'm really getting more confident with the handling and how to get the most from it. The engine seems fine and loves a good trashing. The carb is still a bit iffy with that worn out primary spindle still allowing some air to sneak in. I have ordered a new carb from China and will see how it goes. It was cheap enough to try and when I eventually fit injection I can sell the carb on. Whilst out on that really fun drive I got this photo. Shame I only had my phone as the sky was quite moody... After lots of driving I checked the plugs. They look fine with what I think looks to be a good colour... I thought it better to fit the fire extinguisher I bought before our holiday. It tucks away neatly behind the drivers seat... In other news I have been collecting many different parts needed for a conversion to fuel engine management. I just scored another megasquirt one (2.2) ecu plus a full loom and some edis bits - this time from our mate Rob in return for me doing some machining work for him... I need to decide on a few bits needed and also in which direction to go for the inlet layout. Maybe Itbs but maybe a plenum with a single tb. I foolishly dillydallied about when there was a full set of cbr900 ITBs on trademe for $55 including injectors and loom and subsequently missed out on them. At the time I wasn't sure about the suitability but for that money I could have made them work. Not sure on ideal throttle size but they were 40mm each which given the Datsun only has 30mm inlet valves I figure they'd have been plenty. Then I would have had all of the doorts! I'll keep looking... I'll be using a 36-1 trigger wheel, also supplied by Rob. Luckily there is ample room to mount it on the back of the main pulley. Both MS1 ecus I now have use the earlier version 2.2 board which don't have built in VR conditioner circuits. I can make a VR conditioner board and use VR sensor, of which I have many. Or I could use the Edis setup (which has a VR conditioner built in and uses a VR sensor) that came with the MS1, of which I suspect the ECU has been supplied already configured to use. I have never used Edis before. Hmmmm? Its a bit ugly and clunky though. I dont like the quite large ignitor box I'd have to sit somewhere. Or I can go with a Hall sensor but then I'll have to locate one from a wreckers- but what car? As usual I want to do this conversion as cheaply as possible because its just more satisfying for me that way. In my first few casual searches it seems that they are quite pricey and can be a bit frail or temperamental in use? More research is needed, of which I must say I do find to be one of the most fun parts of modifying! Oh also - I fitted a new speedo cable and now have a speedo needle that doesnt wibble-wobble all over the place. How thoroughly modern!

Pop in for a coffee on your way through. Then take the west coast and have a coffee at 808s place once over the haast pass. Then stop by at crazy Tim's for another coffee. Sorted.

I'm liking that mismatched bonnet look. But then look at my wagon... Urbun camo door cards next?

I'm sure @Slacker_Sam.Will deal to him with a suitable tool selected from repco. Sam- is he the same guy who used to have all the cars near motueka, in view from Peter tallys mansion?

Sweet. Please do start a build thread once you begin the conversion!

After you told me about this thread when we met in Blighty 2 weeks ago, I've finally sat down and read it. I wish I'd found it earlier. So cool. Top work on the sympathetic rebuild. It looks great. Also-So neat that Dennis went along to leadfoot with you. I could picture him having a great old time. Presuming he's still able to drive it is there any plan to find a location where he can do so? Fuck I love small cars, especially sports cars that handle well. This car is all that. Thanks for sharing.

It would be a shame to ruin the sweet lines of the 99 with pins. Please persevere. I'm sure between now and the time you actually need to go for a wof you'll have found spare parts elsewhere to sort it.

Cool saw. Would be so handy. What's for me curious is how big is the top drum/wheel? From what I can tell it must have two wheels on top and the blade must be far more flexible then a normal wood bandsaw...

@bean.101 I couldn't find a discussion thread. So here goes. I'm loving all the engine machining stuff. It's bloody interesting and well appreciated I think by many on here. Please keep those posts coming and add even more info about! I like all the different machines and It's good too see where ones money goes when ya leave an engine at a reconditioners to be machined. Will you be adding stainless valve seats to help it cope with unleaded? Alex.