cletus

FYI These are the wheels my boss is doing. They have been polished but no plating yet. Centers had to be removed and get welded back in later They had to be a specific old style rim , and he had trouble finding someone to do it, as they are not perfect. otahuhu chromeplaters is going to do the plating, apparently the old guy that started the business is back running the place again It took the polisher 5.5 hours PER RIM to get them to this stage so I'd hate to think what they will owe him when they're finished

All done and back in action Pan is still quite low but at least the little bump & drain plug are not hanging down as something to get caught on things I added a drain at the back of the pan , it's only a 6mm bolt and not at the bottom but it's not like changing the trans oil is going to be a regular event, it's not that hard to drop the pan off to drain it completely Side note it takes 10l of trans fluid

Probably easier to just take it somewhere else. If he's asking for something that's not in the virm, you could make a complaint . But for the sake of $60 or whatever a wof is now , not worth the headache IMO I got marked down on a performance review for failing a car on a bad rear main leak (like a drip every second sort of bad) The guy said he understood my reasoning, I said it would be dangerous for other road users like motorcyclists, but it wasn't a fail reason in the virm so I couldn't knock it back on that

https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/in-service-wof-and-cof/general/vehicle-structure/structure-incl2.-frontal-impact I guess it depends how far you want to push back But I think asking you to strip the underseal is outside of what a wof inspector can require you to do Is it worth going back to him and saying you've read the VIRM and there's nothing in there about requiring underseal to be removed for inspection, you could offer to remove the carpet so he can see the top side if he's worried about rust? Alternatively you could get a panel beaters report and see if he'd accept that , as that's the most a wof inspector can do in this situation

I think that thick lumpy underseal stuff was something that you could get done as an optional upgrade in the 60s/70s to protect the undersides? Common in NZ new old cars, but not seen often on anything imported My VG has it It's pretty horrible, I have seen some old cars where the floor has rusted on the inside but the underseal has been holding it together

There was more hold ups with freight getting a new lever out of the states so Eric from WAER pulled a lever out of one of his own boxes to get me going again Managed to swap it out without pulling the box. I was anticipating much swearing and for it to be a cunt of a job I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was, just needed a long 1/4 extension with a wobbly end to get the bung out that holds the band apply lever pin in The band anchor had fallen out so had to drop the valve body to get that back in the right spot Reassembled and bands adjusted Done for today, I'm going to mod the pan tomorrow, I've never been a fan of the drain plug , it's the lowest point on the car apart from the exhaust so I'll cut it out and make a new one somewhere else

That looks sweet!

I think to chrome a wheel properly the rim has to be removed from the center so all the areas of the wheel can be polished properly , I dunno if it then gets welded back together then chromed or chromed then welded the guy I work for is doing something along these lines for his current build, I'll ask him Bumper replacements in onehunga is the last place I heard was good for chrome but that was a while ago

On the turbo setup in my VG I had the hot side piping done in the extreme stuff, they do a ceramic coat (the white/silver ) then go over that with the black, that was pretty good On my current vehicle I just had them coated in the black, but I think it's either a bit thin or not up to the heat of a turbo setup as some of it has gone rusty in places

If it has methanol in it it is considered a fuel system so has to comply with all of the fuel system requirements, which none of the typical water methanol injection systems that you can purchase comply with. However if you put a sticker on the tank saying for water only then it's just a water tank and there is no rules If you wanted to be 100% legit then you could build a system as per the fuel chapter in the CCM and it would pass cert

Just some ideas for you because I like to help

some sort of device to work with canbus light wiring?

The guy building the jalopy engineering front ends did a really nice job, hopefully the new owners keep up the same standard

they can pass, requires design approval, and the geometry is less than ideal i cant remember if its ht-hg thats one of them but there is one of their front ends that has a really short top arm which on paper is a cock up especially if its set at a higher ride height

There are some certifications that are approved here, that don't require lvv cert, but it's quite specific, usually only applies to things modified in Europe or Australia, and its production run vehicles like campervans, disability vehicles , gvm upgrades. Has to have the correct label on it

Imports from Japan with coil overs has been the 'bread and butter' work for me , for ages They were the jobs that were actually profitable, and kind of subsidized the more complicated work This work has dried up a lot over the last few years so the price of other stuff has had to go up to cover the time it takes

There are no lvvta rules, and the wof requirements are very minimal for light trailers, by drawing a design that's not in crayon you are already ahead of most trailer makers

Nope. Courier sent a pic of the bin they left it on, saying gps showed they dropped it off at the right address I sent them a picture of my bin, to show it was in fact not dropped off at my address, and could they tell me what address they dropped it at But they would not I spent a couple of hours walking around trying to see where it might have ended up, trying same number house a street over, or a street not far away with a similar name etc Cunts

Haven't done anything yet, still waiting for part to arrive and I've been too busy at work to think about it

If you remove or shorten the roll center spacers that might fix it? That will lower the wheel in relation to the tie rod end

That will completely fist the geometry though You would need to raise the inner joint pivot the same amount, or it would cause a large amount of bump steer

it can get murky. in an ideal world= the car is certed for a, b and c mods the cert is done properly the first time now has d and e mods added a certifier only has to assess the new mods, the others are covered by the previous cert. you get a new cert and carry on with life however, especially with the new photo based system, this is often not that easy, and a large can of worms can be opened, often a recert can turn into a fucking nightmare due to previous certs being done poorly, things being missed the first time, the old plates not being big enough to fit everything on, the expectation of what should be certified on a car changing over time, people adding or changing stuff that fits within the limited description that fits on a old style tag and even just trying to figure out what was acceptable at the time when it was first certed. this all takes time, emailing back and forth with lvvta etc it always takes me longer to do than just starting a new cert on a freshly modified car for example, the welded caliper brackets on @dabuzz car, if i was re doing the cert, normally that would be a no go, cant do that, but it already has a cert for disc brakes on the rear,so i can just write down "previously certified" however i dont know if the previous certifier went to lvvta to get an exemption because it was already done or did he not notice at all or did he notice and choose to ignore it or has someone changed it since it was certed so ive got to take a photo of that mod for the new cert, and say yep thats good, its on the cert with my name on it, so everyone that looks up that cert from here on, sees that i did the cert so to cover my arse, id have to go to lvvta and explain the situation, and get the OK from them, this might take a while because they would likely recall the paperwork and see what it says it might say that there was a NDT for the weld and it was welded with a low carbon rod to a cast steel bearing housing and there was a exemption given at the time, in which case it is ok or it might just have a tick in a box next to 'car has brakes' in my opinion if you are changing the calipers or are unhappy with it, just cut all that shit off and make a bracket that bolts on to the ends with the calipers you want

Yeah just disconnect it and block it off and run it It's not a common problem but easy to check and cross off the list

White smoke can be brake fluid , check its not leaked into the booster and is chewing on that ?

Vacuum pump is under the injection pump by the looks of it, the pen is pointing at it The vacuum pump looks similar to the one on the back of the alternator, it will have a fitting to attach your vacuum hose to