yoeddynz

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.

Work has been continuing at pace on my large model car build as we both clean bits and piece it altogether. Its fun. Its taking far more time then I ever remember. I always forget about just how long these 'little jobs' take. Made longer because the car looks so clean and fresh so how can we possibly put dirty or crusty bits back on. I ordered some new 175/60 13 tyres last week. Of course the rims look yucky. Not a fan of all silver rims, especially Minilights. I have always planed to paint them to how I want them to look. Really make the rim dish stick out as much as possible. So my friendly local garage where I now get my tyres from popped the old tyres off, we took the rims home and I did this... Which was fun and quick. Very handy that the Viva shares the same 4" PCD. The rims ended up like this.. I then selected a colour from a book of swatches lent to me by the local paint shop. This process of selection took bloody ages! Just how many 'metallic greys' does the world really need?!!! Paint finally selected, bought and Hannah masked the rims very carefully (I tried to do one rim and gave up- I really have no patience for that). I threw some paint at the rims... Because Hannah had endured the boredom that is masking wheels she got the fun job of peeling off the tape.. They looked fantastic. I was very happy. So here is a sexy rim shot... then with tyres... But they cant go on the car just yet. Many jobs to do with the Imp back on the hoist. First off. Radiator pipe work. I had bought a length of stainless pipe a while back along with some 90 degree bends I could chop up. I measured, cut, tacked, checked, tigged and ended up with these... I blocked the ends up and filled them with water to double check them. Two little pin holes. Glad I checked. Whilst full I weighed one. 3.5kg. Not as heavy as I was expecting. Phew. I then fitted them up... Next step was the brakes. The front calipers and discs are from a ED Honda civic. I had never bothered to check that they were free when I removed them from the race car. Oh. Wish I had. Seized! Bugger. I managed to free the pistons with a bicycle track pump and sure enough the pistons were rooted as were the seals. I priced some up from several places. !!!!!!! Crikey. Rebuild seal kits were horribly expensive in NZ. I wanted to sort them out asap so didnt want to wait to get stuff from the states. So I tried an old place in chch I've used in the past who re-sleeves brakes in stainless. He sold me some seals cheap and I machined up new pistons from some stainless. Made quicker by the larger drills we got from my uncle with the lathe... Front brakes all sorted. While I was there I machined up some nice spacers for the caliper mounts rather then the stack of odd washers that had been doing the job. I also added back in the missing flexible line tabs I'd forgotten to do whilst rebuiding the shell.. I then re-fitted the rear brakes, after having unstuck, cleaned out and reassembled the wheel cylinders which luckily appeared new, as do the shoes and the drums! Then onto the master cylinder. That lovely one from Russia with love. It fits so well into the imp pedal box but I needed to make a push rod, something to secure pushrod in place and a pushrod yoke. All really fun little jobs at the bench. It came up well and fits in nice. Fitted it in place and made all new brake lines and clutch line. Re-used the old 8mm fuel line from the race car but neatly this time. Ideal for future power upgrade... Clutch line was copper, left over from the Rx3 in the UK. Fine for clutch lines but not for brake lines in NZ, which have to be steel. I've made the pipes long enough to swap positions on the master depending on whether it has biased springs inside. Time will tell on that. Added new tubing from the, nicely cleaned and fitted by Hannah, fluid reservoir... While I was in there I had also found an ideal piece of stainless mesh left over from our compost toilet build. Perfect size to fit in here neatly... The steering rack boot had a small split and was leaking like a proper British car does- all over the floor. I was getting bored with placing bits of carboard everywhere I moved the car but I cant afford a new boot plus shipping so instead, as per some advice from a fellow local Imper friend I added some grease nipples. Much better then oil puddles everywhere and no protection within the rack!... Fitted a new universal on one of the driveshafts to replace a knackered one. New one has a grease nipple. Yay for IMProvements We both worked together on the door cards, a job we had been putting off. Glued some new felt on to the new hardboard and then glued on the sweet looking red and black vinyl, which had come with the car from Christchurch. They'll look great against the blue... This afternoon Hannah cleaned up the Datsun engine, masked it up and I sprayed it with Black epoxy (Resene Durapox). I had also cleaned up the rocker cover and fuel tank for the same paint. The rocker cover will get some nice blue next... And that is all for now folks. I was really hoping to have the car on the road for a classic car show next weekend but there are still so many jobs to do. Wiring, put the transaxle back together with its new bearings, make a new improved, tidier engine crossmember, plumb in the engine. However it was great to have a date to aim for and we are both really excited about getting it on the road before Hannah's brother comes to visit in a few weeks time. So I'll just keep cracking on with it (in between the paid work we have building up that is..)

Cheers man. My motivation was waning quite a bit in the middle part of the project but now it is getting close to being finished I'm itching to work on it! It's at that fun part where it's lots of little jobs and piecing it together like a big model car

That suit! Those shoes. The squealing tyres. Only the 70's Brilliant. My fav advert... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYsG0Sh4NqA

Far out!!!! So much rot. Good on you! Is it in your own workshop where you're doing the work or at someone else's /some business? Youre certainly diving in at the deep end for someone new to mig welding. Cheers for the detailed updates.

Wow! Awesome. Thanks for sharing. They're is a fiat 126 floating about Nelson, used as a daily. So cute. So cool. So small- it makes my imp look huge. Whereabout in nz are you? . You are more then welcome to pop by our way for a cup of tea, stay the night and talk shit about little cars. We are near marahau. Alex

So cool. I really like these. Not a much room as our old hiace 4wd but much better of road with those approach angles. I was actually doing a load of rot removal from the back of one this weekend. It belongs to a certain Sam von slacker... Its pretty damn cool eh @Slacker_Sam.

Oh thanks. It took me days slaving behind my super graphics computer (note 4) to craft those pics. Some of that time was indeed just trying to get decent photos because we'll, as we all know, taking photos of animals is always tricky and dinosaurs are no different. The Romans were no easier to snap.. Poncy bloody Italians always worried about their hair.

^that is Bruce's Imp ute. He has many an Imp (and lots of Vauxhalls too..) I've actually just listed my spare imps up on Trademe- let someone else have some fun with them... https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1956094077

Nice Cortina!

I think they are 3m badged...but Chinese. I might use the for other jobs one day but for now they just got thrown in the drawer. I put my compressor outside in the fresh air away from the paint spray so I was breathing in nice clean air. There is a water trap and a filter on the belt as well.

I used it with an airfeed.

Oh I forgot to mention a while back that I managed to get my Mum to do a spot of sanding to when she visited. I doubt she would have lasted log though but I think she did like the fact she had a trapped audience to waffle on to while she did sand... However- that was obviously before paint. Now we are right into the fun jobs of piecing back together the big kitset. The trickiest thing is trying not to get too carried away with cleaning things but it always does seem such a shame to put messy, rusty or dirty items onto a clean shell. I think in the future I'll try to stick to ratty cars like the Viva wagon. Saves time when things can be messy So yeah.. cleaning things. First the bumpers. I straightened both as best I could and Hannah then cleaned the backs and painted the surface rust in Por15... I then trial fitted the front but once bolted up it was slightly wonky. I ended up having to whip up a bending tool to straighten out the slightly bent mounting points... All straightened I mounted the bumper and stood back to admire the first bit of bling... We then hauled in the other two Imps and went over them like a team of car stripping Piranhas and removed all the last morsels of useful bits... With bits removed they then needed cleaning. Hannah quite enjoys these jobs and did a stirling job of making things all shiny again... I filled the roofline and inner wings over the rear arches with cavity wax. Much more enjoyable this time round then the first time I ever used some back in Blighty on my Rx3, in winter on a very cold day. This time round it flowed perfectly... Together we fitted the head lining we removed from Imp 3- the one rescued from Christchurch. Its a bit discoloured around the edges where the contact adhesive that the original factory worker had brushed in place has stained it right through. Not much we could do with that. But its rip free, pulled up nice and tight and looks better then nothing. Its in keeping with a 54 year old car... I then made a engine cover stay. Because the cover is fiberglass and had no mounting points for a stay I had added some before painting along with a suitable point on the car with them further apart then the standard imp placement to take away extra leverage over a flexible f/glass lid. Now to connect the dots. I had a rough Idea of what I was going to make when I added the mounts and just went with it. I had a piece of stainless the right size and used a plastic knob from an old broken cafetiere I had stashed in my bin of 'might be useful one day' bits. I bent the stainless rod in such a way that when the lid is opened it slides up and drops over a stainless bolt then cant go further. To drop the lid you have to lift the knob slightly- this way a gust of wind cant lift it and make it drop. It works sweet as!... Next big job was to get the wee car back on its wheels because I had some work coming in that required the hoist. I refitted all the suspension and luckily had collected 4 decent shock absorbers with good shafts. However the springs were going to be too long. I'd happily pay the $200 for some Montie Carlo springs. For those not aware they are the popular lowering spring set for Imps that most people fit. However the freight costs for a set to NZ is too much for me to cope with and anyway- I have 3 full sets of springs I can play with for free. I like free. So out with the Makita... After doing a heck of a lot of web browsing I deduced that one coil off the front and half off the back would be a good starting point. Totally aware that I'd be raising the effective spring rate I reckoned this would still be OK. The car is going to be a touch heavier all round anyway but too much extra stiffness to the coils without adding extra damping would be no good. I definitely cant afford new posh dampers at this point so I played it safe... I then heated the cut ends up with the Tig in several zones, flattening the coil as I did. This worked well- the heat didn't travel very far. Its not optimum. Optimum was what I used to do back in the day when I spent 3 months of my apprenticeship working for a Blacksmith resetting leaf springs and shortening coils etc. But I dont have big furnace at my disposal nowadays so Makita it is Then cut the ends flat and they came up sweet. It will be really interesting to see how it sits on these and this I wont know until the car is fully built up to full weight. I reassembled the struts and finally I was able to fit the minilight wheels from the racecar on and lower the Imp to the ground. Ooooooohhhhh. I dont know when this car was last rolling but I suspect it was a very long time ago! It felt so good to roll it away from the hoist, stand back and admire it. Plenty of premium positive camber to come out as the weight piles on. I'll soon be ordering some better sized new tyres and getting them onto the rims. While the car is off the hoist Hannah can continue assembling interior bits and I'll be attending to some work on other peoples cars.

I bought these... 3m clone. Comes with cartridges for other jobs too. https://www.trademe.co.nz/building-renovation/building-supplies/safety-gear/protective-gear/listing-1950980698.htm?rsqid=768fbb3df824447d9c31a18af1d7128d Fed air into with this unit.. https://www.trademe.co.nz/building-renovation/painting-wallpaper/paint/other/listing-1950982284.htm?rsqid=768fbb3df824447d9c31a18af1d7128d Worked a treat.

None of the above helped my paint job though. I ain't a painter that's for sure but hey.. Orange peel finish is all the rage...