yoeddynz

Oh awesome! I never realised you had come back on here and started a thread about this after having told me about the dickhead mod at xmas time. Fuck this is looking good! Top work going on. loving your new shed too- damn I bet its a relief not to be shafted with absurd rent anymore. Looks a lot warmer and lighter too! We are still planning our similar project with a Bedford K series cab and have found a supply of Safaris. The planning continues- now even more excited after seeing your project.

Its been a while since the last update but i have been chipping away at this project. I finished the weldathon on that bus and it was picked up the next day. The owner is really happy with my work and it turns out he has quite a collection of classics. He now wants to bring me some of the cars, including a mk1 mini cooper, for some rust work. Cool! While the bus was taking up space I had been sneaking in some work on the wee Imp. I fitted the engine up to the transaxle, weighing the engine first. 87kg with the flywheel in place. Not too bad at all. Not super light like the standard Imp all alloy unit however I have moved so much stuff to the front that it should still be well balanced. I do love the idea of an all alloy Nissan cg13 twink from a K11 Micra- however that would require a full re-certification. I prefer the idea of a Goldwing engine engine more! I digress. So anyway- I had slung the engine in place using a lump of timber and a ratchet strap. Worked fine. Then started making new engine mounts and cross member. I was not happy with the state or look of the old one and knew it could be far better. Not really a lot to say about making fabricating it all- the usual story of lining the engine up exactly central and building things to connect. I wanted to make sure that the exhaust manifold and starter could be easily removed without touching the cradle. I probably over built it with extra bracing (I even ended up adding extra gussets just before painting it, because ocd paranoia) but all up it still only weighed in at around 7-8kg. In photos. I didn't take many as work progressed on this bit really quickly.. Clearance under the car was still really good, considering how low the sump looks from the back. I think an optical illusion due to the rear panel not being in place. Then painted in black epoxy.. Next up was the exhaust. The manifold that came fitted was running really close to the drive shaft! Enough that it would contact when the car was lifted off the ground. There was quite a bit of damage, dents, poor welds and other bits that needed attention so I chopped it all back and carefully shortened the bottom pipes then systematically pieced it back together. I required quite a bit of forward thinking because the access to weld to pipes all the way round was really tight. No photos of work though as I was so immersed in the process I forgot to take some. Really happy with the result though. Fits perfectly, cleaner runs and still equal length (as if a Datsun A12 with a carb the size of a small cup would care. But hey, every little helps ) Later on I painted it and then wrapped the upper pipes to ward off heat from the inlet and coolant pipe. I know some dont like heat wrap but I think its great! Its worked well on my last several car builds. Luckily I live in a dry enough area to get away with it and not worry about potential corrosion. With that sorted I moved onto the rest of the system. I have always had a picture in my mind of what I wanted it to look like and I wanted it to be rear slung with a side exit to avoid the car filling with exhaust fumes. Apparantly these early Imps with the roof vents can suffer from fumes being pulled into the car by the vacuum. I also had a rough idea on how I would build my own silencer and there wasnt anything available that fitted my ideas with a price I liked. I had built one for the Mazda Rx3 and it worked well. Money is tight (I'm too tight..), time is plenty and I love making things so I started building. Using the pipe from the original straight through muffler.. Then fabricating my silencer using some ideas I nicked from Google along with extensive coffee fueled airflow thinking in my mind. I have no idea on what it will sound like but it was a fun process and looks neat. The stainless pads worked well in my last muffler along with some glass matting I got from the neighbour. I'll report back In photos... I had a pipe bent to 90 degrees and added mount points to the muffler so it slings up under the rear valance. I made a stainless heat shield to deflect heat away from paint and bottom pulley. You'll see that later. I have yet to decide on the length of the exhaust tip, cut it and then weld it on to finish. Then the inlet. Because the Datsun engine sits flat in this Imp, unlike the rear sloping angle in its usual Datsun 1200 home, the carb is not level. I chopped off the mounting face and milled the manifold at angle to suit. Then I welded it back in place. Carb is now level. I filled in an unused vac hole, cut off the extra unused lugs and gave the whole thing a clean up till it was nice and smooth. While I was playing with alloy I made a new alternator bracket... and had to rebuild a very corroded thermostat outlet. it was knackered... I was given a better spare by a nice fella with a Datsun 1200 ute but it pointed upwards. My outlet, most likely from a van, points down and suits the pipework routing I wanted to do. So I had to fix it. I found a suitable piece of alloy pipe on an old scooter handle I had rescued from the local scrap metal pile at the dump... Much better! Then onto the pipe work in the back... Just a case of sussing out a neat route to suit my tastes, remain easy to work on and remove and allowing for a potential Davies Craig electric water pump just in case the Datsun pump is not up to the task (and also because I do rather fancy the geekiness of the little display unit not to mention how much better it could work) With the pipes sorted I replaced the transaxle output seals because well, for $20 it made sense to do them now. I machined up a stepped tool to make sure they went in straight and to the correct depth. New seals.. Then mounted the brand new BMW couplings I bought from Rockauto. I had to make some spacers to suit as they are narrower then the stock Rotoflex couplings. With the car on the ground the driveshafts sit almost bang on parallel to the ground which is good for their longevity. I didn't fancy reusing the red Nolathane couplings that came with the race car because whilst strong in shear and rotation they didn't have much flex in and out which would impose quite large stress on the transaxle casing as the rear suspension went through its motion I felt. I then did some fun little jobs (but its all fun really..) like cleaning and painting the starter and alternator... I dug out my old art oil paints and mixed up a suitable orange to paint the inside of a very faded rear indicator lens. It'll do for now but I do look forward to locating and buying some better ones when I go to Blighty in July! Then began the wiring! Like all my other previous car projects, I enjoy this part immensely. I love the challenge of hiding as much of the wires away, re-configuring the circuits to suit add ons or just to make them better. In the case of the Imp, which has no fuses fitted at all (until the later mk3 Imps came along) this was an essential item to address. It also has a terrible dash wiring layout whereby you have to unplug everything to remove the instruments. Almost everything seems to run off just one piddly feed wire coming from the key. I'll sort that lot out with some plugs. Add in some relays for the lights, fan. Wires for a potential electric pump, sound system, high stop lamp (I have a neat idea floating about in my head for that) and making sure its future proof because later on I would like to inject this engine. I have also added in a tail to attach a trailer plug to. Because that will be a thing So I had two extra looms going spare which I pulled apart. I now had a large amount of extra wires for my project. Wiring isn't the most exciting thing to take photos of. I have now finished the engine bay wiring and I'm pretty happy with it. Now I've refitted the rear valance panel and exhaust and can lower the car down and start on the interior wiring. I'll be making a removable fuse box/relay unit and fit it under the dash if all goes well. Some photos of where I'm at now...log burner in use as the nights get colder. Sofa wheeled over to middle of workshop for max stereo imaging whilst I drink beer and play with wires... Wires hanging from engine bay.. Engine bay completed (missing hose clip noted..) but for an over flow tank from header tank to fit. I will build a better two part tank in the future I think. Exhaust tip length yet to be decided and cut. Note stainless heat shield. Bumper also to go back on, with bottom mounted rego plate.

Cool- it'll happen in good time. I'll send this dow when I have finished reading it/remember to take it to town next

Top job! Cool.

@datto_610 My parents found this the other day. Belongs to your wagon. I'll post it down. Its filled with period correct old Barry type dad scribbles and info

Yeah they work fine Perhaps you'd put up the wrong 'share' link on other photos? My brother in the UK is kind of keen on getting another vw van. He used to have a newer design, square looking thing, with a 1.7 diesel slung in the back. Fuck it was soooooooo full of rust. I think he wants a bay window now but prices there are stupid for good ones.

Are those Honda Prelude seats I'm spotting in there? If so then I had some in my first chevette. Not exactly period but bloody comfy Please repaint this the original blue (I'm not a fan of BRG either...)

A lot of your photos are showing up? Just pops up some insta thing?

I'm sure you'll get advice from someone on here.....

In the amount of time you've spent fucking about talking about trigger wheels you'd have cut and filed one out by now. Honestly--it's not a rocket science job. Tools you'll need. Vice, Hacksaw, File.

Still better then dizzycrabs

I think there's a buffer built into the code anyway. Or am I just talking lots of food.

Just make one- I made one from 2mm steel disc. Marked out the teeth, cut it with hacksaw and filed smooth. did not take as long as expected and was a nice simple srarngely satisfying wee job to do with music cranked up.

Ooh Oh - on potential injection for imp.. Previous owner had just told me he still has a couple of sidedraft twin weber manifolds and will get me one

Just set it up as 30-1+6 in the drop down menu....

Can you not just weld two more teeth in...

Yeah a turbo would be ace. However.. I can most likely sneak injection past my wof guy but certainly not a hairdryer.

Not much room for my stock carb... Bugger. But heaps of room for sidedraft! I guess I'll just have to make some itbs and go injection In the future. When my money tree has grown more leaves.

625 kg heavier!!!! Bloody fatties.

Imp work has taken a back step due to this rusty old 4wd bus thing that has come in for work... However we are both still sneaking in plenty of time on the wee car. Its so exciting to see it come together that we cant help it. Hence I have also been fairly quiet on the forums etc. So when I left off last time it was door cards I think. Or painting the engine. Yeah- that little engine. It looks quite pretty with a little blue bonnet on its head I must say... Now the doors. I cleaned out the threads on the hinge plates, oiled them, cleaned and painted the old screws and then we carefully manoeuvred the doors into place and set the gaps. I knew they would come up good because they were good on the car when we got it. They do look good. They look factory. However I think this car was assembled on a Friday afternoon at the NZ Todd Motor Corp and they had been into the beers already. The wing tops, factory, don't quite match the profile of the door tops, factory, which don't quite match the door or sill bottoms. Factory. Looking at other Imps I think this is fairly par for the course on what was a cheap run around. I'll live with it Then it was the careful task of fitting the 1/4 light windows and the rest of the glass and runners. I rummaged through all my window parts and pieced together the best I could from the stash... I had to lengthen the front glass runners to suit the new bailey channel seals that I'd bought. The new type is soft backed whereas the old ones were steel backed. The runner extension bridges a 40mm gap between the bottom of the 1/4 light and the runner. I folded up a profile the same, butt welded it, cleaned it up and all good.. I fitted the runners, the best glass I had (or so I thought at the time having since now found extra windows hidden behind the lathe which appear to be even less scratched) and then fitted new weather strips on the outside. All very posh for a 53 year old car. Then the door handles. Again it was into the stash of parts. Hannah had already selected, cleaned and polished the best handles of the bunch. I went through all the door locks, hatch lock and ignition barrel managing to get a working set which matches one key. Always a nice thing. I had to make new handle rubbers as the old ones were completely perished. Trying to cut neat holes in thick rubber is never easy but over the years I have made a set of hole punches to suit. I needed a new larger one though... which then made neat holes... Handles fitted and working fine we moved onto the door cards. Actually genuinely excited about this because after the restoration of them came up so well we knew they would look ace against the blue. Even not to bad with the mx5 seats. Nice clean shiny interior handles too along with freshly painted door bins. Very happy with it all... The Mx5 seats dont look too bad in there but we would much prefer to have some red seats.. To match the rear seats which I reckon look great!... I had also fitted the door seals. Not original and a bit too thick to start with but once I cut the bottom out they now now squish perfectly and work well. However- they have either shrunk or were never cut long enough to start with leaving a gap an inch long. I shall have to fill it with some more of the same profile. Now the doors were done it was onto finishing the transaxle rebuild. Ages ago we had scored a later stronger mk3 box from an Imp at the Marshlands graveyard in Christchurch. This car here in fact... I then had a right good collection of boxes... I had stripped down the broken box from the racecar which had some chips in the teeth and was generally in a bad way. These transaxles are so cute (if a gearbox could be cute?..). So dinky. The little diff. Nicely made wee boxes... The later mk3 box has a stronger casing due to extra ribs being cast in around the diff support bearings helping to stop case flex. There is also a breather hole built in a neater way in the back plate, the diff spider gears run the side loads against bronze bearings rather then just the bare cage, the output shafts have pressed on drive lugs rather then just held on by nuts. All the sort of little tweeks one expects as a cars design gets improved through its life. Sadly when we removed the box from the car, which was on its side, I had forgotten to release the gear change coupling from the shaft. The box at one point ended up hanging its weight off this and bent the shaft plus broke the casing. Initially I thought I could just swap the end casing over but they are a different design. There is a breather hole plus the o ring seal that seals the shaft was moved from the shaft itself to the inside of the alloy guide stub (in order to move wearing the alloy down from an O ring attached to a shaft sliding with the hole to fixing the o ring so the hardened shaft now runs within the ring- good idea that man) Photos of broken bits. Note the different casings... I had to fix the casing. I skimmed it flat in the mill.. Milled a step down... Made a small tool with some HSS to machine an inside groove... Machined groove in alloy and a step to on outside for a slight interference fit into plate lug which was then tapped into place with some retaining compound... Cool. Sorted. Then I did some cooking... and pressed a brand new frozen bearing into the case to replace a fairly rough feeling old bearing... I had to weld a block of alloy into the bellhousing to take the pivot ball for the Datsun clutch assembly and then the whole lot was reassembled... Then I had to do a three point turn within the available space, easy with an Imp, so I could par it in a spot with better access to the rear. Next up is to sling engine in place and make a new crossmember to suit because I dont like the one it came with.

What's the green car? Fiesta rs? It looks so huge against the Tina. Lovely project. I love a clean engine bay.

Yeah that rusty ain't really that bad. I've seen far worse and on cats not half as worth saving. Now that I see the panels you can get it makes the repairs soooooo much easier. Especially that complex shaped inner guard bit. Yay for the rescue of such a cool car!

If the roof is solid and dent free then it's all good from there on. Nice thing if the door skins are straight too. Everything else is just easy edges. If it's mainly rust under the car then it only has to be repaired to a strong wof standard. Doesn't have to be factory perfect or showroom straight.

I know someone who would take that rusty challenge on as a new project But I would actually most definitely and up as a single fella and have to hang around with my new buddies as a proper Barry on the 'lonely hearts thread', exclaiming the the virtues of putting British engines into Swedish cars and why handbrakes on the front wheels are so good, whilst I eat my new default dinner of cheese on toast (which is btw the best food in the world but no, it apparently should not be eaten all the time so I've been told) So anyway... PLEASE DO NOT PADDOCK THRASH THIS CAR! It's just way to cool, and rare, for that to happen. Instead. Grow some man sized balls and step up to the plate and start fixing it. It's with it and you'll get a big hug and some beer from me and others on here for doing so :-) Or pass it on to someone else on oldschool who will. Not part it out and so kill agnetha. I wanna see this rescued

Yeah stay in touch. Just send a pm. If you're on facebook then send details.