yoeddynz

Oh I like the idea of a push button. Cut all the crap out!!!! @mo999 any schematics of what you did? Just a simple as grunty current handling relay? Or a bit more involved?

Oh you guys....

Ahhhhh. Just had battery tested and it's well and truly fucked. Plus apparently way too small for the job, in winter. I'll check the spare regulator we have as the one fitted is over charging, swap it out and get a new proper dopper battery then see what happens.

Pardon the Russian but ™®¢¥¿^¬`;\|¦¶§× I can't find any really good explanation on how this system works and how best to test it. Our old hiace (87 lh series 4wd with the mighty 2L engine) we bought it in 2010 has always needed the glowplugs to kept on for longer then the glowplug (from now on GP) light stays on. We wait till we hear the first relay click, about 10 secs. It would then always start fine. How've more recently it wouldn't. The relay would would clock earlier, we'd try to start it but no good. So we leave it longer before starting. Now the second click @ about 1 minute! In order to see/read what's going on I had fitted a volt meter to the dash. At the first click it goes from around 8-9 to about 10-11 volts. The second click coincides with it going back up in voltage. However I'm worried that leaving it for that long with out would be burning out the glowplugs. I'd checked all the connections. Battery is pretty tired so will be replaced. We've never fitted new GPs so bought and fitted a set a couple of days ago. It's still hard stater. We will put a new battery in this week but for now have to use the jumper pack. I don't want to fuck the new GPs. I can't find any solid info on how the setup works. It's all a bit conflicting and even the Gregory's manual we have tells me fuck all. Alot of the info or there on superglow is based around landcruisers etc. There are many links in the chain. A timer control, A relay, Another relay, A current sensor, A gp resistor, A temp sensor, The GPs. Can anyone here please shed some light on how it all works and what in their experience usually fucks out. Has anyone got some proper wiring diagrams that show how the system works? Access to Toyota workshop manuals on the system? Cheers. Alex

He's gone on holiday. But when he gets back we all need to give him a mild bitch slap and tell him to get his arse into gear and continue with this conversion!

Hmmmmmm Please tell me more about this adaptor plate you speak of.....

Well now.. its been a few weeks and time for an update. So far the Imp has been reliable and not let us down but it has also been true to its English form and left a few little puddles about. I'll talk about them soon. We took it on its first big road trip which was fun, although a bit noisy. I couldn't really cane it super fast on the hills because Kevin the cat had to come on the trip with us. It was a few days away to visit my parents so we cant just leave the kid at home... The car did the trip with no hassles and returned an OK 35mpg, not bad considering its geared quite low, has had heaps of sitting on the spot being tuned and due to the constant annoying flat spot right off idle I had to accelerate faster then I'd normally bother in average driving. It certainly hoons along very very well although it has an exhaust boom right around 60mph, which is around 4000rpm thereabouts. It became a bit too tiresome however should be better now I have added a load of sound insulation on the back parcel shelf. I am super impressed with the Datsun A12 engine!! Its really peppy and fun, very smooth (allowing for the annoying carb issues) and just works so well. I can totally see why they have such a cult following around the world. Everyone who chats to us about the car (and its ALOT of people.. its a right little magnet this car) think that the Datsun conversion makes so much sense. More often than not folk are full of praise for the Imps they knew, had, learned to drive in etc , except for the standard Imp engines reliability. This is a shame because I think the standard Imp engines are great however one must accept that they do need to be cared for a bit more than many owners obviously could be bothered. But the Datsun engine- first comments are usually " what a great swap- those are bomb proof engines " usually followed with the comment "it must be hard to get those engines now because all the ministock racers have got them all"... So anyway.. the wee Imp ran well and got us to Blenheim and back. But before that big trip I wanted to sort a few things. One job was to build a cold air fed filter box and carb lid to let the engine suck on some cooler air rather then the super hot air floating about in the top of the engine bay, due to Imps not having the luxury of lots of cold air running through over the engine. So I built a filter box, sized to take a modern Honda filter. I have made the box large enough to handle bigger pipes and the volume that might be needed when I plan to upgrade the induction. Box... With filter in place... This box fitted under the parcel shelf above the gearbox. Sort of out of the way and hidden but easy enough to get to. It was fed with a flexy alloy pipe from under the car. Another section of pipe headed backwards to a plenum/tophat thinggee I made for the carb... It was all going so well I thought. I splashed some black paint on it all so it looked a bit neater... Then I fitted the tophat to the carb. This is where things went a bit... tight. It seems that I had completely forgotten to measure how much room I had just above in front of the carb. Not enough it turns out .... The engine lid wasn't able to go back in place! A few choice words that somewhat rhymed with duck along with a sentence that sounded quite similar to 'well you stupid punt' were uttered. I then calmed down, realised that at least I have now got a filter box sorted for future upgrades and with that I removed the lot and refitted the previous air filter I made. At least its winter so a bit of hot air cant hurt I did another couple of jobs before the trip. I swapped out the fuel gauge which wasn't reading correctly for a spare unit I had.. I was also fed up with trying to adjust the clutch. The slave cylinder fitted had a 7/8" (22mm) bore and being pushed by the standard Imp 5/8" (16mm) master cylinder, which happens to be the same size as what the Datsuns use. However- Datsuns use a smaller 17mm slave to get the correct amount of stroke at the slave. I wasn't getting enough stroke so the clutch pedal and release fork clearences had to be set very tight to clear the gears. But I did have a very light pedal... So I worked out that the amount of stroke available from the Imp pedal, whilst being very close to that on a Datsun, was not quite enough I could get a good working system with a slave of around 3/4" (19mm). However- there didnt seem to be any slaves available out there that had the same mounting lugs, in 3/4" bore, with a metric fine hose thread. But I did have some spare random 3/4" seals, some stainless bar for a new piston and a big lump of alloy. So I made a new slave cylinder to suit. I could have sleeved the existing one down and I have a 3/4" reamer to help but I wanted to keep that one intact in case it all went pear shaped. Plus...its more fun making things ! I offset machined the lump of alloy down in the 4 jaw, bored and reamed it to suit, milled the shape up and machined a new piston to suit. But I was having too much fun and forgot to take many photos.. New next to old... It works heaps better! I can now have a bit of slack at the pedal and at the release bearing and still get my gears. Another job was to take the carb apart for the 14th time. I'm getting very quick at this and can field strip a Hitachi 306 carb in under 15 seconds, blindfolded, with both hands tied behind my back, whilst under water breathing through a straw. The carb had a few leaks. I realised that the top lid was pulled out of shape... I carefully filed it and the body flat, cleaned it out again for the 10th time and made a new thicker gasket to suit... On the next test drive the leaks had gone but I had still had not cured the flat spot. So I gave up and made a parcel shelf instead. I did have an original Imp one but it was a bit wobbly and a pain to fit. I made a new wooden one for the passenger side so now actually had somewhere to sit our phones, wallets, bag of Werthers originals, old parking tickets, a broken pen, out of date fuel vouchers and, most importantly, a screwdriver for constantly tweaking the carb settings. Again, so much fun but no photos. I finished the shelf the morning we set to leave. We plonked Kevin the cat into the car and set off. A lovely trip was had with the only downer being that the cold I had caught at fire brigade practice a few days before was really kicking in to full runny nose time, while the weather was a bit... Wintery. Got to test the wipers out though (must fit intermittant control kit I have) On the way over to Blenheim. You can spot Kevin. I took my Dad out for a hoon in the car. He loved it and only complained about the wipers being in the way of his view. Not a car fault but more down to the fact he must only be about 4'5" tall now... Back home and more recently things have happened. I weighed the car at the local tip... 750kg. The guy said the scales are within 10kg. So its in the ballpark for what I was guessing. A bit heavier then a standard Imp to be expected with a heavier engine, seats, exhaust, radiator and associated cowling, water pipes etc. But still light enough I think standard Imps are around 700KG ? More recently- one of the output shafts on the box leaks. I think it might be the shaft moving out just a touch too much on certain corners and the seal running off the land its meant to seal on. Or the seal land on the shaft is too worn. Or the new seal I had fitted has moved. The car will soon go on the hoist and I'll have a look. Cant really drive it until I sort this. Expensive stuff this oil- even more expensive if its loss means a buggered transmission. In other news I have made a parcel shelf for the drivers side. Now I can stash all my own crap within easy reach .. I am going to make some speaker boxes to mount under the shelves alongside a headunit. At a later date when I can afford to do so I'll fit an Amp and sub. I do like my music and there is only so much of Datsun A12 at 4000 RPM booming I can cope with so I need to drown it out. That is about all for now. Wish me luck with my seals...

Hey Feral - for adjusting the camber you can drill out the factory rivets that hold the top ball joint in place and bolt it in place as is usual for replacement of it anyway. By slotting the top arms and making an extra spreader plate to go above the arm you can then fine tune the camber. I can't quite fermenter but I think the 1.8 magnum and bigger engined firenza hc vivas have longer bottom control arms so giving you the preferred negative camber to start with. If you want period correct larger discs on the front, (abiding by pre 65 rules?) about a big as you can go then the fd 3.3 lower arms, ballhoints, hubs, discs and calipers are the way to go. But the ball joints and inner hub bearings are becoming unicorn like to locate new these days. I had them on my last viva and struggled to find bits. I'm fitting magnum brakes to the wagon this time as they are only a half inch smaller in diameter, much lighter in the hubs and easy to get bits for. There is a vented Renault 21 disc that can be adapted to fit and then widen the calipers to suit. As for bushes, like you've found out with your capri and what jake said, do avoid the poly bushes. They are too stiff and don't allow the movement that is factored into the rear end on vivas. The rear arms need to be able to twist a bit- especially the top arms. They just don't last. I fitted a factory harder/stiffer at of rubber bushes. A good compromise if you can find them. Rated at 65 seems to ring a bell.. One place I did for poly bushes was on the front control arms to chassis. They really improve the front braking under heavy use in the corners where sifter bushes will allow a lot of castor change and associated shimmy. Avoid superpro though--their listed item doesn't fit. Get superflex items. Spax make a full set of adjustable dampers that are period correct as they are an old company now. They are n nicely built, last well and offer a good range of damping adjustment. For road use I never needed to go further in them about 7clicks out of 20 each end. There were front sway bars available from factory, off the larger engined cars. But in an already stiff setup, especially if fitting the heavy engine, you'll lose vital grip on the front and it'll push even more. I ended up keeping mine off for better feel and grip at the expense of a little roll. Rear ones can be had but id had no luck finding any.

Hiya, Cool car!!! Nice wheels... In my opinion, based on having set up a 2.3 in a chevette, owning a FD victor wagon with one and having driven a fair few HBs with the slant fitted.. I would use something lighter and better then the slant 4. They are asthmatic heavy old lumps with a terribly designed oil system. Fine for a road car (although always bloody thirsty no matter how you drive) but horrid for anything you want to trash all day long on a race track plus be able to go around corners properly. Your car will never be as good as an HB can be with one of those. Now you'll get your slant 4 fan boys quipping in and saying things like " oh but they are torquey and strong and Gerry Marshell was a god behind one etc etc " Yeah fuck that shit- one fella who told me off sternly at a NZ Vauxhall nationals for having stuck a Japanese motor in my Viva ..." how dare you put that shit in there! " followed it up with "you should have fitted a 3.3 Cresta six instead! " Obviously not that keen on going around corners with grace that man.... You could look into loads of great engines that are lighter, stronger at high revs, will last longer. So many to choose from. If you want to keep it looking all period then I would fit a Ford crossflow (who cares about badges...its just a car). I fitted one and they are quite light, look cool, sound great and can go fucking hard. With enough money thrown at one you could get similar horse power to a worn out old toyota 4age.... or mx5 engine with a turbo. My choice, when I get around to it, for my HB wagon will still either be another v6..because I just love the sound and revs, or the Duratec/Mazda L series engine I have sitting here. Tough choice- the V6 is still a tad heavy for the best steering. If you insist on fitting the boat anchor then do the handling a favour, cut the firewall out and mount the engine back as far as you can. Then buy an Accusump for the oil system... I hope this doesn't sound all high and mighty. I just think you can do that car so much better then a slant 4. Looking forward to seeing another Viva thread on here !!! Alex

Yeah. I told him that I had discovered his 'art work'. He was completely unfussed. Had a smile. He's a pretty cool chilled old Barry... and he is actually on this forum and has been following the thread!

Because I'm such a hardcore Friday night raver I'm here doing an update on an old car whilst my cat sleeps in front of the fire. Rock on. This little Imp...its great fun!!!! I have not really clocked up many miles yet, as you'll find out why soon, but those miles that have been driven have been fun. Its taken a little while to get used to the balance, steering feel, brakes and sheer grip that exists. Still not fully confident at flinging it about but getting there. Its a giggle. I'm just weary of the slippery wet corners that are about now we are into winter here. The little Datsun engine is a gem! Its still not quite perfect at idle and just off idle but once rolling its great. I can really see why the Datsun 1200 cars have such a following- they are about the same weight as an Imp with similar gearing and were well known for being peppy little performers. The engine sounds pretty cool when trashed. I have since found out that this is indeed a completely stock unit and it was a different engine that the previous owner, Rob, had fitted with a supercharger. Anyway- onto fettling. There are always a few things to sort on a fresh build. First off was to sort out the dodgy running carb. In my previous update I thought I had found the problem with the accelerator pump boot being split. Turns out that wasn't the problem... I managed to locate a couple of A12 carbs from a local fella for beer money. One was a complete standard 1200 carb with stock sized jets etc. I took my fitted carb apart and soon discovered that not only were all the jets completely wrong, way too big and pretty butchered as well they were also housed in the wrong carb for my engine! The carb I had fitted was off an A15 which has larger throats and venturis. Great for a slightly hotted up motor but not what I'm after right now. The leaning out issue was because someone had fitted a air bleed that was way too big for the primary jet, among the many wrong other jets. So I rummaged through both carbs, got the best bits from both and assembled a nice new carb that was stock and set to factory specs. I had a page covered in jet numbers and felt happy in the knowledge that I can now possibly join the elite group of carb Barries forever chasing the perfect tune (when the know full well that injection is just soooooooo much better in every way! ) A photo of some carbs in pieces.... So with the Imp now fitted with the right carb I took it for a spin. Because the work shop is now clogged up with the start of a tiny house build I had to drive it out from the back of the workshop and up the grass drive to the cabin. I thought it best to get some photos of it next to the other Imps... I did a few test drives and I had to remove the carb a few times to dial in the float height, getting pretty quick at that process I must say. The difference is huge. Much better all round except for a hesitancy just off throttle. I'll continue to tweak things and see if I can improve it but I am starting to wonder if the vacuum unit I got from another car for my electronic dizzy has too stiff a spring. I think it might not be advancing the ignition enough under light throttle loads as it should. Ill get back on that. Next issue was a funny one. Some of you will have seen it already. Not funny for the amount of pissing about I had to do to fix it but funny in what I found. A work of art really. Rob has to be proud of his handy work at creating such a masterful bit of Barry engineering! The story goes like this.. After getting back from a quick drive checking the carb was OK I noticed a horrible vibration in the engine. I popped the lid to discover a very out of balance main pulley. Bugger. I knew it was a hybrid pulley made up of what I think is Toyota pulley on the Datsun hub but I had never looked further into it because it just worked. But not any more. I removed the pulley to discover this on the back... Hmmmmm. Lovely welding. Purposeful. I'll have to grind that lot off and make a new hub. I'll start by removing those two screws.... Eh?!!! its not weld. Its magic fake weld thats been machined into a flange(like)thing. Its wonderful! Just look at this art ... The Datsun hub had a crack running through down the keyway too. I had no choice but make a new hub to suit. First off I cleaned up the pulley and had its running perfectly true... Then I popped to my local steel supplier and get a big lump of steel bar from which I machined a new hub, with a centre locator to tightly locate pulley central. In photos.. Then the internal keyway. When I was working as a (young) fitter turner back in the 90s I would use either a broaching machine or a shaper, depending on the size of the key way. I have none of those tools. I did contemplate milling it from each side with a end mill and filing it out square but that would take ages on this fairly hard 1040 steel. So I made my own internal shaper bar to use in the lathe and just scraped out the keyway using the carrige. I bought a lump of 20mm bar at the same time as I got the round and cobbled together a tool holder from it. This will now be handy for future jobs I'm sure... and in action (well about as actioney as a photo of a non moving lathe tool can be...) Resulting in a nice neat keyway.. Which fits nicely right here. Beefier then the original Datsun offering too Hub drilled and next to pulley.. And altogether now, in a uniform coat of black paint... Much better. In order to tighten the main bolt, of which I had to buy a new slightly longer one to allow for the beefier hub, I had to make a tool to hold the pulley. I had tried tightening it up with the car in gear, on the ground, with the handbrake on but I didnt like the feel of trying to put the 110 lbft through the transmission like that. so yeah- tool time. Now I have another random tool to got in my wooden box of other random tools specific to only one thing... Doing its random tool thing... So I had a working Imp again that was not going to rattle apart. Best thing I do is to take it for a drive. I took it to town where we met Sam and is son Chris, who jumped at the chance to go for a ride with his Dad in the little blue car. Here they are returning... While in the shop buying stuff a Honda city turned up and parked (badly) next to the Imp. What I always think of as tiny cars looked huge next to the Imp... We went to the steel merchant for some more steel bits for another project. The rear opening window is handy for shopping. Note the lovely old land cruiser... While in town I rang Rob, the previous owner of the original race car shell that donated all the running gear for this restoration. He popped down and met us and had a good look over it. I reminded him of how I'd love the Weber sidedraft manifolds he had left over from his ownership. Well good old Rob actually popped home afterwards, found them in his piles of stuff, tracked us down later on in town and handed over these to me ! ... Wow! awesome. Top bloke. I'll now be able to fabricate a decent inlet setup for injection in the future. Yes!!!! Later on that afternoon we parked next to another small car... This evening Hannah and I took the Imp out for a hoon on our local roads which are just perfectly made for little nippy cars. It was such fun! I love it when the (tiny) little secondary opens up. Its got a lovely induction sound (right behind our ears, even with two thick blankets covering the engine cover..) We went for a nice evening walk and I took a photo of it parked up on the near the beach... Closer... Tune in next time to hear about the stupid mistake I made when buiding a cold airbox setup....

I just cut open a hose that looked all good on the outside but inside was super swollen and restrictive. Cheap way would be to swap hoses side to side, rebleed system and see if the problem has moved sides. New hose made up was $35

As said by others above- fuck this is a cool thread to read! Keep the updates coming. Sorry to hear about ya losing your job. I really do hope something better comes along.... mainly so you can continue to throw money into your latest hole in the ground for our entertainment I remember there being one of these parked between some cabins at the campground in the middle of Queenstown, back in 2001. It was sitting there with a tarp over the screen. Cool car.

I think if I spend any real money and effort at improving the fueling it'll be via a megasquirt/speeduino ecu and my own custom injection After having pissed about trying to tune an SU on my turbo rotary, the cost of needles and it never being right compared to tapping on a keyboard (or even my phone!) injection just makes so much sense. But for now I'm happy to just get a the stock hitachi system working. Certainly going to make a cold air feed though. Bart was right- its thermonuclear hot up in the top of the engine bay.

Once again old man Datsun has stepped in with handy bits of knowledge I'll rule that torn boot out. The history and origin of this carb is a bit murky. I was given it by a Viva loving friend in Nelson who had got it with a box load of Viva bits. This was well before I had even contemplated buying an Imp, let alone a Datto powered one. So it sat in my big box of junk under the bench next to old dizzys, starters, alts etc with the idea I might retro fit it to the Viva 1159cc engine (apparently they work real well on Vivas) Hannah was the one who looked up the serial/model numbers and deduced its from a 1200. However- I have not confirmed that the jets are correct. So at some point today I'll strip it down and check the jet numbers, give it a proper good look over and see if I can spot anything. I dont want to wait for an ebay carb kit, nor wait for a potentially substandard carb from Ali. @Slacker_Sam. can sort me a carb kit for $50 which seems ok but we are yet to confirm whether it has new jets or not. No point me buying a kit without jets and then discover the jets are incorrect in this carb. I do like SUs but they never have the same snap in acceleration. They are great for economy but apparently, well from all the road tests I have read, these Hitachis are aweome for economy on a 1200 as well as having the extra acelleration pump feeling. Apparently. Its gonna be something stupid and small this issue. Anyway- we have a tiny house build to take on now and earn monies!

What if the piston is buggered too? But yeah OK. I'll check it all out and see if I can spot something else. Meanwhile.. You be a good boy and look through your carb collection for me

Why hey- thank you! You are most welcome here- should I put the kettle on love?

Well I fixed one leak and then discovered the mother of all leaks.. Mr Bart- tell me more about your box of bits. I think its just the bore on base that is worn- hoping the shaft is OK. Although I do think my cunning use of a rubber washer and a blob of silicone has truely fixed that, now minor, leak and in a good Barry fashion I'm just sooooo stoked its road legal now.

The little IMP is now all road legal !!!! I refitted the carb this morning, hoping for the best but it was still terrible. I just couldnt get it to idle below about 1500 rpm and it had a big flat spot on light acceleration. So I gave up and we drove it to town, the long way through Kaiteriteri so I could have some fun on the windy road there. Wow its fun! Soooo much fun. Even with an engine that wouldnt pull properly, horrible flat spots, tyres that are definitely too high in pressure, a few clanks from the yet to be fully secured pipework, noise from the un-insulated engine bay shelf, noise from no carpets, fumes being drawn in through the old heater hose routing holes etc etc... it was still fun. It really is like a big go cart. The steering is lovely. Gear shift is great. Brakes getting better as they bed in. The temp gauge sat pretty much bang on an indicated 80 degrees C whch I reckon is more about 90. Fan only came on when we stopped, as expected so I was really happy about that. We got to town and straight into the booked WOF slot. Our local friendly wof man just loved it. Kept saying how cute it was, how neat the install was etc. Really impressed. Did all the check things as usual, test drive and it was all good. We looked about all the neat stuff in his workshop.... WOF attained and we went to the local council and got a years license. $47 - yay for old cars. Did a shop at supermarket, did the proper look back over my shoulder at my little Imp, sitting there in a sea of bland grey modern cars, looking sooooo tiny. On the way home we popped in to show it to another couple of fellas who run a nice country workshop and had sorted out the tyres for me. They too loved it and the older fella reckoned it was running way too lean and certainly had a big air leak somewhere. Then off home, this time driving over the much steeper longer climb. No worries even with terrible carb. No increase in temp. Yay for that. I got home and removed the carb. Discovered two things. Firstly. Spot the schoolboy error here... Yep- That accelerator pump can go downwards for sure, but not if the lever pushing it down cant go up at the other end! My air filter base was stopping it. This also meant that along with only a tiny bit of travel I was also not getting the secondaries to open properly. Easily sorted with a hole, some alloy and some epoxy. Second thing- this... There goes my air leak. Air getting pulled in through that huge split, past the accelerator pump piston and into the venturi. Well at least I am pretty damn sure that this is the culprit! Reporting back with findings soon.....

Hannah got to drive it yesteryear evening. She loves it I knew she would. Hannah's first classic was a little imp super she bought in the UK and she joined the imp club back then. Did a few local meets in Oxford. This was her first drive of one since then. We popped down to the beach last night... The little car is going well but for a stumbling idle. I cant quite tune it out because the throttle spindle was so worn. So last night I took the carb off and stripped off the linkages... The gap is quite large! .... I'll keep a look out for a better carb body but for now I have to improve this one. So I went through my collection of rubber washers and found one to suit, which I did. Its a good snug fit over the shaft and sandwiches in neatly between the body and the first bit of linkage... Then the other end. Nothing to sit a washer on. So I dabbed a bit of automotive silicone on top and let it set. It flexes enough to let the shaft turn so its now well sealed... I have yet to try it out. The car is booked in for a WOF today so wish me luck

yeah for sure those pipes were only just touching..but it was easy enough to squash them so every little helps I'm over carbs already... looking forward to injecting it. But for now I shall persevere...

Cheers. Yeah it sounds meaner then 68bhp (gross...) should do. That little carb is certainly holding it back. At about 4500 it starts tailing off. I think also that the E15 electronic dizzy might not have the right advance, nor does the vacuum unit I've retrofitted from some ford. Basically I'm going to get a replacement main chip that's missing from the MS1 that I was given ages ago and at the very least run full lecky ignition. Injection won't be far away.. But for now.. Drive it.

Hey thanks - glad you enjoyed the read Yeah it was more to do with making sure the cooling system works well. And it seems to so far but yet to take it up a good hill....

Righto. Exciting news. However I shall start where I left off. So last time I moved the car under its own steam resulted in quite literally its own steam, all over the floor when the heater matrix decided to give up. I swapped that out with a spare unit I had, replaced that seal in the clutch slave cylinder, fixed another couple of wee things and prepared it for the big drive. I also lowered the platforms on the front dampers and got the car down to a much better height. I may well raise the front by around 5mm later on so to get the camber a little less negative. I'm not a huge fan of excessive negative camber nor does it aid in handling unless corning at 9/10ths all the time. The car looks so much better low all round. I took some photos.. Now lets take it for a drive! This time I made it about 1 metre further then last time. Then I stopped to look for the cause of a terrible rattle coming from the flywheel/clutch area upon engaging the clutch only. I suspected the spigot bearing (which foolishly ...when will I learn... I thought was a bit worn but it would be OK..) Upon Hannah sitting in the car depressing the clutch for me to investigate the sound, the drive to the box stopped. Bug-ger! I thought it might be a broken friction disc hub etc. Same scenario as last time... push the car back in feeling quite a bit pissed off and this time we both went for a decent run. Get away from that car I thought! Proper exercise is my go to thing for instantly feeling happier So that night whilst in the middle of engine and box removal I discovered that the clutch slave had pumped out, again, and was holding the clutch in I released the bleed nipple and the clutch fork returned home So I now suspected two things here: Either the flexi hose had broken down inside and was restricting fluid returning quick enough so instead the master refills from the reservoir. So I had a new hose made to rule that out. Or was it the little one way valve within the master, of which I had made a new spring for to replace the missing item, opening too easily. Possibly it was easier for the master to draw fluid in quicker via that valve then refill from the returning fluid from the slave. Hence the slave was getting pumped out with each push of the pedal. It stayed out in increasing amounts by about 4mm each stroke! So I bought a new 'proper' spring whilst I was at the brake shop too. So there it sat- engine not exactly where it should be. But I do like this shot though... So out with the engine and trans. I made a wooden cradle this time which I lowered the engine into. It made it much easier and meant I was able to have the engine and box sitting on the large mobile steel bench and I could then work on it at a decent height. I removed the transaxle, then the clutch, adaptor plate and finally the flywheel. Gave all those bits a clean. The flywheel has been lightened quite extensively and weighs up at 6kgs. A standard item is about 9kg... Here is a good shot of the alloy adaptor plate that joins the box to the engine. Its quite nicely made... The spigot bearing was indeed pretty worn once I had a good look at it... It was indeed allowing the first motion shaft to just tap inside the release bearing guide tube. I bought some Phosphor bronze and made a new spigot bearing. No photo of resulting new bearing- but rest assured it looks pretty much like the old one but this time without enough room between its bore and the shaft to house several Badgers. I reassembled that lot and had a looksie at the transaxle reverse gear plunger... I was not happy with how much effort there was involved in moving the gearstick into the reverse plane. I knew what was 'grabbing' and had an idea on how to improve it... There is this lockout plate that rotates in an arc as you move the lever across the gate in neutral. There is a spring loaded plunger that has to be pushed in to select reverse. However the edge on the plate is very sharp and rather then sliding over the plunger as it pushes it in it digs in a bit. I could feel it through the lever. You can see it here... You can see scrape marks on the cone of the plunger... So I gave the edge of the plate a gentle tickle with the grinder.. I also took the corners off on the plate here... where they slide through the slots as you move across through neutral here ... Resulting in a much nicer shift. It will be improved further when I get a proper ball for my shifter and I suspect my flexible coupling at the end of the shifter tube onto the transaxle is a bit too flexy. The trans was reunited with the engine and slung back into the Imp. It all went back in nicely. This morning we re-bled the clutch system and YAY !!! It works better with the slave returning instantly. Filled the cooling system back up, having added a bled nipple on the thermostat housing which improved the bleeding of air from the system hugely. I'd also forgotten to mention that a fair while ago a fella on the Imp forum mentioned that my stainless tubes tat run under the floor should not really be touching each other all the way down. The hot one will heat up the cool one. Not good. I didnt think too much of it but it bugged me so quite some time back I ended up ovalising them which gave them clearance all the way down... I also made a throttle stop so not to break the cable... With that it was about time to go for a drive.. Success! This time no rattles from the clutch area, clutch worked fine, battery was good. Ran it up to temp and bled all the air out. Temp went up to about 80 degrees C indicated and sat there. It was a fantastic sunny and pretty hot Autumn day for a drive. All the smoke from oil spills, coolant spills etc burnt off. I checked the timing which was about spot on at factory setting. Gave the carb a tweak so the car idled nicer but it'll need more attention. It has quite a worn primary throttle spindle and I think that combined with that light flywheel makes it hard to get a super smooth idle. Enough is enough though. I finally took the plunge and did this....... I came back beaming. It drives pretty well. Wanted to stall when stopping, because of that lumpy idle. Has a slight flat spot down low but once on the secondaries it fair flies along (well.. for a Datsun powered Imp) It sounds much better then I was expecting. I parked it up and checked all the usual things. No obvious leaks and the fan came on after I adjusted the knob on the thermoswitch. Fan is loud but works really well- very efficient. Happy, relieved, excited. We both sat down on the sofa, had lunch and a cold beer and admired the little blue car in the sun. Yay

I can swap for a weber 28/36 carb that someone gave me. Oh hang on.. That was you.