keltik

Have also had this problem once and ended up sanding the pads down a smidge.

Good news everyone! 200km round trip to an OS event and i didnt break down or get arrested. Mission accomplished. Car is road legal for now but still needs a few things tidied up on it. Tonights little trip revealed a few things i really need to get sorted before the big event next weekend; * Raise the back a smidge and lower the front * Get the instrument cluster backlights working, using the maplight aimed at the gauges isnt an ideal solution. * Fix the split CV boot before the joint decides to eat itself * Investigate clunk in the front suspension that has magically appeared * Finish installing oil pressure and water temp gauges

Some photatoes. Rolling oldschool 80 to the meet. Lush drive. Well happy with the evening.

Empty passenger seat if any eastern bay members fancy a ride...and transport to the shindig.

This is tommorrow erryone. Will use it as an endurance test for the freshly hacked together ute.

Took the ute into work to get the front pads n rotors fitted and a wheel alignment. Turned into a half fail/success affair. First of all the rotors were fine, so i didnt replace them. Instead it was discovered that the front calipers were seized with shit and all the dust boots were nakkered. Got some caliper kits and had them rebuilt. Then for the wheel alignment, nothing was adjustable so it just ended up getting left alone. Headlights got aligned and at the end of the day, it came out with some improvement at the expense of my wallet. I didnt know what to do about the front valance, so i chopped out the rotten bits and discovered it was just as bad as i had feared. Then i found out that they are still available new from Subaru Japan...so im going to save up and just buy a new panel i think. Its not crazy money and is going to yield a shitload better result than trying to fudge the existing one back together. Next mission is to re-bleed the brakes as the pedal has gone a bit spongy after the new caliper kits went in. I suspect a sticky rear wheel cylinder so will be examining that also. Finally i get to fit my new gauges. Got a tacho, water temp and oil pressure sorted. Just gonna dash mount them. All is looking good for the cannonball run. 2 weeks left to go. Hope to meet up with some oldschoolers while im in the Auckland.

I think VG is gonna make an effort to get the AE86 to this one an i plan on getting there in the brumby. Aim for an all time best turnout of OS cars?

teehee

If only you knew a guy that could get replacement fasteners for something like that. GT28 would be the tits surely

Yeah could do in whichever one of my steeds happens to be running.

The original plan was to have the monthly BOP meet switch places every now n then and cycle between Tauranga, WHK and Rotorua....because frankly, having to drive an hour every time sucks dick. But really, nobody wants to drive anywhere ever and the only reason us Whakataneites do is because were all one big gay family who share a car. /rant. Yeah keen boes.

Im already trading parts with Ken, hes a GC but yeah - his red one was turbo fucked and his white one was starting to turn to cheese. God these cars are shit.

First order of business for the weekend was to get the irritating electrical gremlins sorted. So easiest way to do that was to remove the entire cab wiring loom....there it is Discovered a few broken wires that were mildly necessary. One of the ground wires to the cluster had snapped, so that explains the wonky instruments. Then i managed to remove the wiring for the heater and other things that no longer exist. Ended up with something much cleaner. So now everything electrical works and I've got some spare power feeds fused and ready for use by whatever should come up. Next item was to tackle the rust in the rear cab mounts. Now i need to point out that i suck at welding. I honestly do and im ashamed of the results frankly, but fuck it - at least the job got done and with a bit of flap wheel and a bit of filler, it looks good as a bought one. Cut the rusty section out, bent the stringer that goes from the cab floor to the rear chassis out of the way then welded a new patch in, bent the stringer back into place, plug welded it back to the floor and undersealed the shit out of everything. Then i keyed the floor inside, primered it and painted it black with some tough sound deadening paint from supercheap auto. It went quite well. I also tried some satin black from supercheap to paint the back of the cab but it was super shithouse. Fucking awfull paint! So im going to get some of the nice VHT satin black from Repco that ive painted the rest of the car in. It might cost twice as much but it does ten times as good a job. Rinse repeat for the other side of the car. Today im going to whip the front bumper off and start attacking that front valence. Tomorrow, it shall go for a wheel alignment then on the first day im free, i'll take it for a wof and we can see what else needs to be tackled.

Got the new brake hoses on. Rears fitted pretty well, the front went on fine but the knobby bit in the middle that locates it on the strut is in slightly the wrong place. Also the ones on the strut are a bit munted so might look at getting some other kinda mounting bracket on there somehow or figure something out. It will work as it is, just not neat enough for my liking. Nothing is under strain but the proportions dont look right. Old busted New hotness Mr Jones even appeared to help me bleed everything up.....when he wasnt complaining about how ugly and shit my car was compared to his MGBs...yes plural. New clutch works, got new coolant in the rad to replace the flush stuff. Went for a wee drive to make sure it was biting well and seems to be a good improvement there. The 2 rusty floor spots are the next challenge i set myself before i begin on the front valence disaster. Coming along nicely at this point.

VF23/24 would be my pick for best value for money turbo because nobody wants them. Not quite as flowy as a TD05 but would snap on like a motherfucker higher in the rev range and is good for 200kw. Or just a TD04.... For injectors I recommend a bucket attached to some string strategically balanced over the intake.

Small pictureless update tonight. Got the engine back in with the new clutch, reassembled the engine bay. Inspected rear wheel for noise, unable to reproduce concern, no fault at this time. Did one of the rear brake hoses then the one on the other side refused to undo. Had a go at making my own special brake line spanner with a normal ring spanner and a grinder....it didnt work, shit is just too tight. Need some multi-grips/pipe wrench/something else to undo it. So tomorrow i want to do that last stubborn rear brake line. Splash some underseal over everything from the back of the cab backwards. Refill with coolant and have a play with the light switch again. A nice helpful gentleman on the USMB forum has furnished me with some wiring diagrams so i can figure it out.

Put another hour in after work tonight. Wouldve done 2 hours, but accidently read the time wrong and washed up at 7pm instead of 8. One day ill learn what each hand means and be able to interpret that into a time more accurately. Anyways, i couldve gone back to work, but i got hungry and really need an offset 12mm spanner preferably ratcheting to go any further. Those pressure plate bolts are just ever so slightly too offset to get through the starter hole with a socket. So ive slammed on the new clutch. Got the engine back onto the transmission after a bit of faffing about. Got it all the way on there, seated to about 8mm gap....and it didnt want to go any further no matter how much jiggling i did. So i slowly and gently squared it up with the bolts, gave it a shunt and it popped on a bit further to the point where i was satisfied everything was aligned. Once a few of the bolts were torqued down on the pressure plate and the bell housing bolts were snugged up, i went to give the clutch fork a wiggle to make sure it was seated ok and it was tight as!! Then i remembered that the previous person in here had installed 2 spacer nuts on the clutch cable, so i whipped those off and everything settled into the right kind of adjustment with the rangi spacers. So i reckon the extra effort to get the bell housing to mate up was due to the clutch fork pressing on the plate. Fuck knows why the other clutch needed these spacers, but this one shouldnt. Could be something to do with why it slipped. Im not a mechanic. Tomorrow night i can slam all the other shit back in the engine bay (the radiator) and do the other things i was going to do tonight. I remember hearing somewhere that EA82 clutches and EA81 are very similar except for a 10mm throw difference....since repco ONLY list this brumby as having an EA81, i think i know what happened here. OR the 10mm thing could be bollocks and something entirely different was wrong.

Got home today at about 5:15, started working and whistling away. Engine was sitting on my floor jack in the engine bay ready to lift out at 5:50. J5 arrived at 6:05. Lets see you do that with a Vectra! Anyways, it looked too hard to lift the engine out. It might have only weighed 80kg, but was at an awkward bastard angle....so i decided to leave it in there and just do the clutch in place. I did however leave the clutch at work. So now its time to have some tea and leave everything until tomorrow. Old clutch didnt look half bad, spring in the pressure plate is probably piss weak from years of sitting. The good thing about a tiny engine in a relatively large engine bay. Just sitting with an axle stand under each head. So tomorrow i can slam it all back together, diagnose the random rubbing noise that has appeared in the LHR wheel, try to nail the light combination switch wiring and then have a cup of tea before the serious work begins doing the last bits of rust.

Oh yeah and fit clutch and sort out wonky electrics. The temp gauge likes to go up into the hot if you use the brakes or any decent electrical drain. No idea what ive done wrong but it cant be that difficult to sort out since this thing is simple.

Heres how we currently sit; Got my Hilux fuel filler modified quite nicely, only needed to tweak one bend and slam a few extra inches of pipe on it. Mr Muffler man did it while he was sorting out the exhaust. On the way to the muffler shop, i discovered a slippy clutch. So i put my massive twin pipes of doom dream on hold and settled for a functional pipe that i can feck with later. Heres the filler Good as a bought one! And heres the Coby i had stitched on the back end. Also got the leaks sorted throughout so now the exhaust is nicely wofable. Also picked up all new brake hoses....so sometime this weekend i might go mad and install all that lot. Which leaves us with a bit more rust to sort, a little bit of paint, some rhinoline type stuff in the tray and some underseal underneath. Then wheel alignment and Robert's your mothers brother.

Yup, same car. Got dismantled by the next owner who made an attempt at most of the rust....then was basically ignored for 6 years with minor stuff being done here n there.

Found a few pics of this thing back in 2007ish when it was last on the road. Saw a potential problem on the windscreen and had a wee panic. After further investigation, it looks like its either been taken care of or forgotten since VTNZ / LTSA have no record of it. Looks kinda tough with no springs tho... Also hit up the local wrecker and snagged a fuel filler from a Hilux. It should be nicely modifiable to go into brumby with just a little bit of tube required. Tonight, might have a go at bleeding brakes and fitting new parts.

A checklist post. Things that work which didnt before; Engine runs Clutch engages 4x4 and lo-range work All warning lamps and indicators work Headlights, turn signals, park lamps, tail lights and rego lights all work Seatbelts should be of acceptable standard Doors all open and close reasonably well Suspension is set to a reasonable height so there is some clearance before the bumpstops Shocks arent leaking and seem to work ok Handbrake works, service brake works well too Horn, windscreen wipers and squirty washers work Things that still need to be ficksed; Exhaust to be fitted Rust holes in cab to be tackled Rust in front valence to be removed Brake hoses to be replaced Drivers seat base needs to be unmodified. Think someone has bolted a bracket on upside down. I suspect secondary jets need some unblocking. Will investigate once everything is drivable.

Cell phone camera has the worst audio quality ever but this thing does sound kinda tough at the moment. New exhaust has been planned out and is going ahead on Thursday. Also took a front brake hose off the parts brumby while i remembered so i can send it away to get some new ones made for mine.

Its been a good day of progress. Got the lighting system mostly working. So the original cars harness had a 5 wire headlight switch....i had accidently installed a 6 wire one so did some re-pinning and a spot of soldering and i think ive got it sorted. Headlights and park lights are all good, tail lights work again and rego lights go....but the one wire left which should supply 12v to the dash light circuit isnt playing the game. With the tail light circuit plugged in, the dash lights wont go, i forgot to measure the voltage at the dash light terminal. So i slam 12v on it and the lights work, with the park lights on or tail lights, it wont illuminate. More investigation tomorrow. Was getting all sorts of weird funk happening on one tail light. Brake would flash faintly with the indicator, and with the lights on, only the brake light flashed. I popped the light out and found a mess a few inches down the harness from Mr towbar installer. Photograph turned out shit so imagine lots of rotten punch down connectors and strip connectors full of spider guts. After cutting out that bollocks and cleaning everything up, i still had the same problem. So grabbed another light off the parts brumby, swapped the lenses, washed it all in the sink and cleaned it up real nice. Now it works properly. Also rebuilt my radiator fan. It was making all kinds of shithouse noises and not going nearly hard enough. Popped the motor casing apart which was crimped together in a very annoying way. Found one of the magnets had detached from the housing so threw it away since its got 3 more. The brushes were frozen so freed them up, cleaned the whole lot out with contact cleaner and popped it back together with appropriate grease and so forth, works lovely now! Fully loaded up with headlights and rad fans, ive got an appriate amount of volts. Had to rev 'er up to 1500rpm to get a decent output. Voltage is possibly a little high getting up to 14.2 at times, but i think it will be ok. Got my spare alternator here to throw back on if things get scary. Finished bolting the chrome on, made some new clip/attachment block things for it out of knead-it and screwed it into place. An excellent trick if i do say so myself. Tomorrows goal is to get the fuel tank sealed up, the filler neck off and maybe put on the new front rotors and pads. Managed to mash up my hand courtesy of a ratchet slipping off a nut and some jagged sheet metal getting punched. Going to recover with a beer and tackle more things tomorrow.