yoeddynz

I think it's technically bad for our quad to use it on hard surfaces anyway as it's full time 4wd with no centre diff and can suffer from wind up. But would be lovely to pop down to the beach on...

Fuck that 962 is lush. Wow.

Do you have to rego a quad to use on the road or only if its well beyond ya farm gate? I fucking love our quad. Damn it's been handy.

Good news. That Imp shell I am planning on picking up is safe. We drove up a very rough road in our trusty old 4wd Hiace to check out a friends property over the road which has been demolished totally, everything just washed away leaving a 6m wide creek bed where it used to be 1m! Some other flood waters rushed through on the other side of the road, only 5 metres away from the Imp and took out the inside of the campground kitchen. If you look in this following photo you'll see a line of brown mud heading down the field in the background, Imp sitting high and dry :-)... But our road out of the valley is still too nasty to take a trailer on so the Imp shall have to wait a bit longer.

Yes- photobucket is arse!!!! So much good information has just disappeared Yeah- I shall stay in touch. I'm after a later transaxle which are apparently fine for over 100bhp so long as ya dont go dropping clutches or cane it in rally stages. Shock loads = no good. I reckon the big Nolathane doughnuts should be quite good. A normal Imp wouldnt be able to run them though as they dont have the required sprung centre clutch to take up shock loads. Tell me more about your Commer. I presume a Commer Imp? Where be the build thread?.............

I wonder if they just chopped the end of the arms off and let in the ends off some Datsun trailing arms - so allowing the use of the full Datsun hubs/axles and shafts ? You could be flash and allow for Discs that way.

How did you go about with the hub end? Do the datsun half shafts share the same universal size?

I like wagons. You've done well. Was owned by a Barry?

Please tell me more about these datsun half shafts. Details please. What car, adapted how etc etc Oh.. And the R1 Imp

I guess A15s are lighter too because the holes are bigger?

No playing with Imps for a few days. Its been a bit wet around here. We had 260mm in less than 12 hours here!!! So lots of gnarly watery things happened yesterday. The bridge as you enter the valley floor is wrecked . The main road has slips all the way up. The road out towards the sea was a 1 meter deep in silt and floood water until our Neighbour re-routed the river back to where it started. We have had some huge slips on our land. Its not pretty. But compared to many we have come off ok really. Mustn't grumble. Shed is ok. Housetruck fine. Imp is dry in shed. Viva wag is full of water outside. But that bridge.. These guys have suffered big time.. There is a very strong chance that the Imp we looked at on Monday has floated out to sea. The valley it was nestling in got hit hard too. I'll find out soon enough.

Yeah- I can see more arriving on the horizon. Just in case eh....

I went to the Nelson Vintage car club swap meet on Saturday morning. I was chatting to a mate and taling about the Imp project. Some fella behind me said "Do ya need any bits? I've got heaps of parts!" I turned and it was a fella I had met a few years ago when Hannah and I were looking at Bush block for sale over the road from his place. We had turned up in the Viva and parked it outside. This guy came out to look over the car, we started chatting and he mentioned his Hillman Imps. He then showed us about his workshop. Now I had been intending on going back to his place (handy too because we are mates with the lady who ended up buying the land...bloody hippies ) so it was good to bump into him again. I told him about how the Imp race car, which he knows well, was still quite rough from having been pulled straight after the accident. He mentioned the spare shell he had sitting there and said we should pop up for a look. We went up there yesterday and....well.. I have now got three Imps. This shell has some rust, the worst being the drivers floor but very easy to fix. Main thing is that its straight. I would say the worst aspect is the dent behind the drivers door. It will pop out but I don't really like having to use lots of filler, especially on large panels. Oh well. I can only try my best. The front slam panel has a dent but there is a good panel on the other , completely chopped up shell in there. The windows need a clean.. 1971? Mk2? The car is a nice light blue, not too different to the blue I was thinking of painting the car. All for the princely sum of $50 How could I refuse! So my plans are changing (everyday) and I will now use this shell as a base. The Blue car in Chch will be used for parts but I will keep its shell as a future car project (old cars lining up the upper driveway amuses Hannah no end I can tell you... but at least Imps are little cars) thus making the caged race car shell spare (I already know someone who might just want it...) In other news I went hunting with my large spanner and caught a Datsun engine sneaking around the back of my Imp... Then I had a BBQ, drank beer and stripped it down. Hows that for hardcore Saturday night antics eh?! Here's the little transaxle.. Fits on to a quite nicely constructed 'bellhousing' adaptor. The flywheel and clutch remain Datsun. Uses a modified release for with a typical release bearing rather than the carbon Imp type. I'd love to know more about who built this adaptor because a few Imps were converted to Datsun engines here in NZ? Clutch has a sprung centre which is needed because I reckon the custom Nolathane driveshaft couplings don't have the required amount of give to take up shock loads like the original rotoflex couplings do.. That is all for now. I must finish the truck cab swap so I can create some space for more Imps. In the meantime.. you can discuss whether I am starting to get an Imp problem here...

I now really want to phone this frank guy and wind him up... But he could be a really nice fella.

We've got enough big freaky Funnel web spiders here thanks. Just bring beer.

Never heard of him.

That spider is not, I repeat, not the original spider that the car came with when it left the factory. I don't like non original spiders. I think you'll find that the would have got more miles per gallon if you'd left the original spider intact.

It's OK. There seems to be bugger interest from others on the bbq front so I'll just bring coin and support the red Cross/insert other charity sausage sizzle. Might hopefully see you there.

Any sport axles? monte carlo springs?

I was thinking of getting there about 10. @ThePog you have a bbq yeah?

And lots of cats.

Datsun A12 has all the powers.... Maybe I could cane it in reverse and twist it back out?... Anyway... I managed to crack on and do some starter jobs. Most importantly first.. make it easier to push. I think I have spotted the reason why it it drags.. I think those tyres might be a bit too big So on with the Minilites. Now it must be noted that I am not really a fan of Minilite alloys. They are just a bit too.. well...common. But now they are on the car it looks OK. If I squint a bit, turn off the lights and face the otherway I can almost pictures a set of Cheviot Turbos beautifully gracing the car. But they aint. So I'll look for some other alloys but in the meant time these stay. I reckon I can paint the centres and leave the rims polished for more of a Revolite alloy look. Sort of hide the minilite spokes. "HEY HANG ON!" I hear you ask... "Weren't you going to keep those awesome widened steels on, change the tyres over and fit the shiny hubcaps?" Yes. Yes I was. But then I found this... The front hubs had been machined down to take the smaller centre bore of the Viva steels. Bugger. There is still enough meat left further in supporting the outer bearings and for race car that doesnt see a rough road its probably OK , but for a road car I just feel a bit iffy about it. I don't want my hub cracking when I hit a pot hole, the wheel going wobbly, locking up in the arch and me spinning around a locked wheel into an on coming car. So alloys it is. I'll swap across the untouched hubs from the spares car once I get it. I also removed the exhaust and the mudflaps. Looking cleaner and more the style I want. I took some photos in the evening light. I like it. So dinky. Next step- engine removal. The Transaxle makes funny sounds not really befitting of a transaxle. I suspect that it has more damage then we first thought from its last outing. I have been prepared for this and anyway- quite looking forward to taking it apart if needed and learning stuff. I also have plan. A really big plan. Its in the future and it'll be pretty damn cool. I'm not going to say a thing more. You'll like it. It involves several of my building passions. Just watch and see. I'm excited!

Yeah mine would work fine for a while and then the connection would drop. The other thing was that sometimes the gauges on the display would change size and not fit the screen. I think a combination of the serial to USB convertor and its rates (remember I was on poverty spec MS2...) not working well with the android phone and the MSdroid still being a bit 'beta' ? It would be awesome if Phil Tobin could produce a Tunnerstudio to work with android. He has talked about it but far too much changes in the code/different operating systems/I have no idea as I aint a computer nerd ?

OK will do. I bet I'll fall for it's little charms though. Must. Be. Strong.

I too have been considering this for the future. I used to use my Note 2 with MS droid and it would work fine except the connection would drop out. Apparently its a problem using a cable. Better using bluetooth I think I read. Would be super cool to have it setup running as a centre dash display on a cheap tablet. could store music etc too and have a neat setup. Make it slide away so not on display all the time.