yoeddynz

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.

#Auckland weather?

That's a bargain for a good flywheel.

Oooohhh. It is suitably wedgey to go along with your previous cars isn't it. I'll find some pics when home but my brother owned a TVR S3 with the later 2.8 efi cologne engine. He had it since about '96. Was the second owner and bought it from Paul Matty cars in chch. I'd drive down to chch from Blenheim on a Friday night in my supercharged MR2 and we would spend all weekend hooning around the hills in banks peninsula and do midnight drag racing with all the lads along Moorhouse Ave etc. Dems da days He moved to Blighty so hannah and I would look after the TVR. Some sweet drives over to Nelson etc. Taught me many things about power oversteer in the wet and being quick with the wheel. fuck it was fun and the v6 sounded fantastic. Low point was being fair and squarely beat in a drag race against a (twin turbo?) v8 diesel prado thing up the gentle Annie hill out of Nelson. Oh how they laughed. Red faced me. We sold it to some fella from chch who had started a TVR club I think.

Your workmanship on the infilling around the tank is great! It's looking very factory. Damn I need to get or make myself a bead roller.

Great work there. I've been waiting for an update. Man you'll be itching to get back to it now you've done by far the most critical part of the conversion. The flywheel looks good. Is that a fidenza? How much did that cost? If I do decide to fit either the klze or the kfde I have laying about here into my wagon (rather then the duratec) I'll have probably use the k8 flywheel I have. It's not as light as the cromoly one that was in the first viva but at least lighter then the standard 2.5 items.

Faaaaaark @ that crash. Seeing that only goes to put another nail in the coffin for our van. Ours is a 4wd hiace too. It puts the willies up me when we find a tourist coming round a corner on our side so I tend to drive it in super slow cautious mode. But not much one can do when a drink idiot crosses a centre line etc. We've been planning a replacement for many years now, similar to what you're doing but with an old Bedford truck cab. Anything that ends up higher and with an engine in the front eh. I hope your back recovers awap and it all comes right. Really interested to see your tiny house build. It's certainly something we'll see more of as house prices get ever more ridiculous eh!

He's a bloody helpful fella him.

I will when I get back. Its been carefully placed in a show box for many years. I'd also scratch built a Volvo f10 cab out of cardboard when I was about 12-13 or so. Working interior lights, proper cloth upholstered seats etc. It even had a opening fridge with a teeny model of a can of coke in it. I'll look for photos when I'm back. Looking back at that, building such things at that age.. Hmmm. Maybe I was on the spectrum or whatever the trendy thing is.... Or just a young truck loving nerd

Anyone here into building 1/24 trucks? I've been scratch building a tnl freighting merc skip truck. Probably the oddest truck to want to build but it just appealed to me about 27+ years ago when when I started on it. As a youngling I'd even ridden my pushy many times to the tnl yard in Blenheim and taken photos and measurements of it. It's based on an italeri kit that I have had to shorten the cab on in 3ways. Chassis cut down and converted to 2axles. Scratch built air system, underpinnings etc. I've not touched it in two decades and had a long way to finish. I'll get some photos if interested. Looking forward to quiet modelling times during a storm in a cabin with cups of tea one day

Ditto that man ^ please do nothing more then is needed t to make this legal to drive on the road and roll it as is. Don't even clean the windows.. Except for windscreen. Its so cool!

Yeah we'll do a bbq meet at ours in September. The imp certainly is bright eh! Sort of needs to be ready to spot when it's about as high as the hubcaps on a typical 4wd ute these days..

There's two sets of holes. The inner ones are about 142mm pcd. The outer ones are around 159mm. The speakers are pioneer.......so I am figuring that the pioneer covers you have would probably work I'll send you a PM.

Cheers Ben- I'm guessing you were working up in Richmond heights?

Yeah it will be put out for sale in maybe November. Its still our house so when it goes we have to move into the cabin until we build a new house that is specific to our aspect in the yard. We had a buyer lined up but he got cold feet with the whole living on a truck thing.

Yeah ok I'll have a measure later today and let ya know.

Ahhhh... Just like a good Morris engine should be. Sweet cheers for tip. Yeah I'll do the sump to be sure and can pop a cap off and look at bearings. ".... And that folks is where the complete and utterly expensive engine build began, leaving the little Imp to fester in the corner of the workshop, leading Alex to buy a succession of other shit old cars to see him through whilst he built the race engine of dreams... "

Oh awesome. The circular groove that the mesh cover would push into is 150mm diameter. The depth needed to clear the tweeter is 17mm if the face of the mesh is flat. Let me know if you can help and I'll ping ya some dosh. Cheers.

Update time. Firstly there will be no more juggling around shuffling stuff to get the Imp on the hoist, or having to drive it down the slippery grass drive that heads to the back of the workshop to get it onto the hoist. We have the workshop back after having finished building this cabin on wheels. We delivered it to its new home where the owner will continue with the build , fitting windows, door and lining it out. It was a fun job but took up a big chunk of space. Well until we start the next build. We will have a 8 metre trailer to build for ourselves soon once we sell the housetruck. So we could now relax and enjoy the Imp. A few little jobs completed and a fair few miles clocked up. Most important thing to sort out was a leak from the nearside transaxle output shaft. After getting back from the trip to Blenheim it was discovered that oil was coming out from what I thought was the seal and getting spun out off the coupling, marking a perfect line of oil inside the engine bay. So the car ended up in this position getting its trans fluid drained. I removed the shaft, doubled checked the seal land which was fine, checked and tightened the seal by cutting a few mm from its spring because it just didn't feel quite tight enough on the shaft. I also checked the shaft too. The early Imps have a splined shaft that the output spider slides onto and is held on by a large nut. The design went through two revisions ending up with the later shafts being a factory press fit and no nut. I was sure that my late type was fine and solid but just to be sure I cleaned and siliconed the end of the shaft visible from outside. Just in case... Put it all back together, a few drives and the leak was still there. After some advice from a fella on the Imp forum I took the shaft out again and checked it in the vice. It was indeed loose. Loose enough that it could move in and out slightly and had broken the silicone bond so allowing oil to creep past the splines and out. It must have been getting worse as the oil was essentially lubricating the once tight fit of the splines. It knocked apart easily, showing the factory O ring fitted before they press them together. Once clean and dry I tried the fit. It was a touch too loose for my liking so out with the JB weld epoxy. It'll never leak again Yesterday we drove to Nelson and back and I'm happy to report that the leak has stopped ! Yay. Now the only real leak is a dribble from the rear main seal on the engine. I'll change that when I change the worn ring gear in the future. Another job was to sort out some sounds. I like my music and not having a sounds system in a car on long trips is annoying. I had already eyed up and sussed where I would mount some speakers. It seems a fairly common place after having looked at other setups out there on Imps. We had scored a JVC headunit from a customer after upgrading their setup. Then we had scored some speakers from a Nissan Bluebird SSS we had been given and passed on but not before robbing its sounds. I also had some ply left over from lining the rear of the Viva wagon floor. So sorted for a cheap as setup. We made some boxes in the sunshine on what was a cold day.... Later on the sun hid behind clouds so all three of us moved over to the warmth of the log fire.... After Hannah covered the boxes in black vinyl I mounted them under the parcel shelves and wired in the head unit, a neat little unit that due to not playing cds is shorter in depth so fitting under the shelf nicely. It all looks neat enough and sounds fine for the size. Just need to find some protective grills to suit those speakers. Next on the list is to get and active sub and mount it under a seat so we can have some fuller, deeper sound. Another job I had planned to do but kept being put off was to hinge the front number plate. I don't want to mount it any higher and block the grill so where it is makes for a great driveway crown sweeper. Driving along our 500m long stone driveway in a lowered Imp with an even lower number plate gets tiring! So I did this... I'll report back with whether it also swings back at 170mph so avoiding speed camera tickets. The other night we had a lovely sunset and the Imp was looking resplendent in the light. I took a photo.. Next jobs to do are fit some carpet and I'm still really keen on pursuing building a full EFI setup. But its going to be a very busy summer for us so that will have to be a project I pursue in the evenings. Alex

Fuck yeah!! Congrats on first drive. It sounds perfect and looks so lush. You'll be taking it to hanmeet yeah?.....