sheepers

2 months later i have all the bits to rebuild the bottom end. the heads are already finished and i have them back. parts, 9 to 1 CR Ross forged pistons (the cunts will not change the value of the parts on the shipping invoice so keep that in mind when deciding to use them or not) eagle H beam rods and ARP rod bolts ARP main cap studs and bolts new genuine Toyota oil pump theres heaps of other shit too but you get the picture. block will now be bored and honed to 88mm. rotating assembly will get balanced and ill get the short block back. then its reassembly time. good days. or maybe not good days. going in to hospital to get back surgery in about a month so that will fuck all progress for a while............... 2019-09-19_07-59-37 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-09-19_07-59-22 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-09-19_07-58-23 by sheepers, on Flickr

so 1 x generic falcon tap and some cutting and welding and we're back in business. tap is in the engine bay and its fairly ugly but there isn't fuck all i can do about that. 2019-09-19_08-00-10 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-09-19_08-00-03 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-09-19_07-59-55 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-09-19_07-59-47 by sheepers, on Flickr

stories from M lyfe. the heater tap started leaking. the heater tap is inside the passengers foot well. like any true M series connoisseur i know it was leaking within seconds of it happening because i smelt it. i knew, instantly, the the M was about to try and fulfill the prophecy of its lineage, and its tradition, and attempt to BHG. but old M masters like myself are made of sterner stuff than that, it'll take a better trick that that old chestnut to bring the prophecy to life. so, i caught it before it had a chance to get hot, no harm done. MS75 heater taps are vacuum operated, incorporate a 90 degree bend in them and just to really make sure there is no way of substituting it with something available its closed with no vacuum. all available vacuum operated taps that i have found are open with no vacuum. there are no taps available that event fit in the space available, let alone have the right vacuum configuration. so ill just have to buy a gates one, cut and weld the vacuum actuator to be on the other side of the lever and put in the engine bay somewhere. if i can stand up for long enough to do that job ill do that tonight. 2019-09-19_07-33-00 by sheepers, on Flickr

Righto, so ive been driving this to work every day for the last month ir whatever. Hasn't missed a beat. Its fucking slow. Fuck me is it slow but that's not such an issue, it's fucking cool and I like driving it. The front end is a bit all over the show If you have to hit the brakes on the motorway so ive replaced all the bushes. Castor arm bushes and upper inner bushes were completely fucked. Im fairly certain they were original ones. I'll do the back next weekend and put thre disk brake diff in at the same time.

i spray it all the time. mask and glasses obviously. if im spraying something large i have the door down and let it settle before opening the door again. something small i usually dont bother. 10 years and no complaints from the neighbors so far. dont spray clear with the door open though, that shit stinks and goes for miles.

the ONLY thing i will say against epotec is that the resins tend to float to the surface as it dries. so the first sanding that you do tends to gum the paper a bit. however if you use a DA sander the paper wont load anywhere near as much. also, also, you can wet lay onto epotec with great results. over thin the primer to about 40% and it flats out like magic. wait about 2 hours (depending on temperature) then you can top coat straight over it. only ever done 1K base and clear but im sure most top coats would be no drama.

dont use POR15, its fucking useless. epotec 408 is a fucking great two pac primer but its 1/4 the price of durapox. sandblast or dip, whatever. once you get it back clean the fuck out of it, scotchbrite the hell out of it then spray it with epotec. whatever you do after that doesn't matter, with that base your good.

hey also, here's a technical tip for those of you interested in the finer details of auto trans setup, if you want it to not leak fluid out the bottom, do up the drain plug. you got that?

got my driveshaft back and put it in. filled it up with trans fluid and took it for a test drive. everything seems to be working fine and the trans shifts perfectly. kickdown is working shifter selects all the gears correctly i hooked power up to the overdrive solenoid and that's all working mint its like a different car. motorway crusing is lush now. no more 10billion revs at 95KPH. here's an art picture because i didn't take any of a gearbox. 2019-08-13_07-49-37 by sheepers, on Flickr

finished modifying the crossmember and put it back in the car. everything's done now, fluid lines hooked up, kick down connected, shifter connected and spedo cable hooked in. just need my drive shaft back (should be Tuesday) then its test drive time. cant hook up the converter lock until i figure out how the fluid pressure circuit works which ill know when i drive it. 2019-08-10_12-08-21 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-08-10_12-08-29 by sheepers, on Flickr

replaced all the lip seals on the crank and both ends of the gearbox. tapped and fitted some 1/8 NPT hose tail fittings to the fluid cooler lines and then i put the box in the car. it fits. dont have the gearbox crossmember in yet, ill make the mods to that tomorrow night. 2019-08-08_07-51-57 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-08-08_07-51-47 by sheepers, on Flickr

@Yowzer had the flex plate i needed so i went down to the Ham on Sunday and got it. so that should be everything major. the driveshaft is with Aiden at Drive Inn services to get shortened. Ill get a new gearbox mount because the one i have is fucked and ill replace the front and rear seals in the gearbox as well as replacing the rear crank seal while im at it. ive still go to make a system for the kick down. old one was rod operated and the new one is cable so ill need to do something there. what else? the threads in the box for the oil cooler feed and return are a fucking weird size with an oring type seal and i dont have the proper fittings. however its close enough to 1/8NPT that i can run a tap down the hole and bring the thread out to take an NPT fitting. easy.

today went better than last night thank fuck. the super good cunt @Yowzer has the flex plate i need and im going to go down the the ham tomorrow and get it. i spent most of the today measuring things and modifying the shift linkage. i made a new detent lever because i didn't have one and i shortened the shifter arm. the bell housing clears and there seems to be enough room for that part of the trans. i will need to mod the end of the shifter lever that pokes through the floor to clear the back of the box. also need to move the gearbox cross member back about 60mm which shouldn't be a drama. 2019-08-03_04-11-29 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-08-03_04-11-38 by sheepers, on Flickr

Fucking ace. Yea going from A30 to A43DL. You around tomorrow? I might come down and grab it if that's cool