Beaver

Wow, thread dredge (I'm sure I hadn't let it go this long, honest). So a while ago I packed my life up and shifted north back to the mighty Waikato. Was a lol drive...... Since then its mostly been a trooper. One day the fuel pump started leaking and got real bad diesel knock, so got pump rebuilt (not cheap....) but made it so much nicer to start and drive. Lately has been sitting for a few months awaiting me to give it a tickle up for a wof. Figured lock down would be a good time to start....so blew the dust off, pumped up the flat tire with my bike pump, got it running (just, battery is now flat) and lo and behold a puddle of coolant on the floor. Interesting.....topped up radiator and jumped it, more coolant pissing out of where the water pump is, so suspect its sprung a leak. Pump is buried behind the fan, pulleys, and covers on the front of the motor, so is a radiator out jobby. So pushed it back in the shed and pretended I didn''t touch it.....

Yeh those extra rooms/annexes are good if the tent is high enough off the ground. We have one for ours but it's not that useful as it's not high enough to stand up. Have seen some lush setups where people have put a couple of camp stretchers in there and set it up as sleeping quarters for kids.

@Sc@ Chi I'm sure you've done your research but FYI fold out roof tents like the one you've shown use both sides of the base to form the mattress/sleeping area. So unless you're a midget, or plan on getting a fucking massive tent, you won't be able to have it like your drawing where one half is sleeping sideways, and one half is open from below for standing up in. Here's our weekend getaway arrangement. Nothing special but is perfect for what we need.

Yeh yeh yeh

Sheeet need to find an excuse to come visit

Finally got around to having a play with the leaves to try sort out the lopsidedness. So swapped out what I thought was a sagged set of leaves with another, and it made no difference. So then put the supposed sagged set into the high side and it stayed high so that confirmed it wasn't anything weird with the leaves. So then looked at the front which was also lopsided and suddenly occured to me it could be the front loading up the back in weird ways. So dropped the high front side down via torsion bar to match the other. That seems to have done the trick and is now reasonably level so I'm calling that a win. Still hunting for some choice wheels. Has done a couple of trips to Rotorua and back, one with a giant smoker on the back, has lapped it up so far.

Lol, great business model then

Perhaps the outfit you got that picture from would be a good start http://www.steelcuts.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&path=70&product_id=176

Have you confirmed temp sensor is good? Seen it asked a few times so I suspect the answer is yes. This is probably the greats thread on OS right now. Such suspense!

If I was to do it again I would notch the frame and get the engine sitting a bit further back, and then just drill the frame to pick up the front engine mount

This was the detailed design drawing

I bolted up th front engine mount to the factory frame mount (with washer's to suit the width), and then just made a plate that bolted to th back two frame mounts with hole for the rear engine mounting bolt. Will try find some pics. All done with some steel plate, a grinder and a drill.

In my opinion there arent enough regulars to have a stand alone meet, so as much as im not really a fan of the burger fuel meets, at least there are always people. That said, I'm all for random park ups with feeds from wherever with 3 other dudes, so I'm keen to mix it up.

Yeh I should probably check the water pump as well...

Yeh I broke my own cardinal rule which is don't even bother fucking around with temperature related problems until you know for 100% that the radiator is good. You're right though, I should just get it done properly.

So I noticed it would always run cold, and never warm up properly. The temp sender had been replaced recently as apparently the temp gauge had stopped working. I thought perhaps the thermostat was playing up or something,. So I drained the radiator in preparation of taking the thermostat housing off....color of water was not promising, very rusty. Then whipped the thermostat housing off.....no thermostat. Awesome. So feared the worst thinking the rad must have been chooched, but figured Id give it a good flush out and see what happened. So went to town with the garden house, whacked a new thermostat it, and boom, now warms up properly and doesn't seem to have nay issues getting too hot or anything. Success. Next item was the speedo which over read by like 20kph. The needle had snapped as sometime and someone had just glued a random piece back on, albeit crooked, which caused the over read. 5 seconds with a lighter and straightened it out. Boom. Tacho also didn't work, and then I noticed the needle was bent as well and jamming on the dash face. So straighten that as well with high hopes. With the key off, it sits on 4500rpm....then when key on it slams to zero. It works in the sense it moves as the revs rise, but it under reads by about 1000-1500rpm. lol. Semi success. Starter motor would occasionally make horrendous noises and sounded like the teeth were engaging properly with the ring gear on the flywheel and wouldn't turn the motor over. Pulled it out expected it to be gummed up or something, but turned out the main 12v feed was just not done up properly. Hopefully this fixes it. PS, the start motors are a nightmare to get off on this, forearms are bruised and battered today haha. Success until proven otherwise. Oddly enough I'm actually enjoying diagnosing and fixing these little things. Is also quite nice working on something that isn't oily, smelly, and diesel for a change. And in other news we sold our VW golf so now have a strict fleet of Nissans (this, my gloria wagon, and a xtrail for adult duties).

Haha yeh they are definitly cheaper. Probably because everyone else is just putting d windows on their Utes lol. If anyone has some sweet 6 stud rims stashed away I'm all ears

Serviceable?

Starter motors. Every so often mine makes a horrendous grinding/spinning noise and doesn't turn the motor. Sounds like it keeps spinning for a bit (like free spins) once I let the key off as well. Might do it once or twice and then just starts normally. Dodgy starter or something more serious?

I've been wanting a ute for a while now as we are forever borrowing and or hiring trailers for odds and ends. Figured why not replace our little runaround car with a ute. Win win. I didn't want a single cab as I like the idea of having room inside for gear, and at a push, people. Wasn't so keen on double cab as that seems like overkill on the inside space (I have no friends anyway so don't need to fit 4 adults) and means a much smaller deck. Enter the king cab.... Spotted this locally and held off looking at it as I would have preferred a wellside. After not being able to find one that wasn't a heap of crap, I went and had a look anyway. Was impressed with how tidy it was (considering it's age, 1990) and pretty much had me sold on the spot. Bit of a haggle on price and picked it up the next day. 2.5 petrol (z24) and 5 speed manual. Does what it needs to do. Rear seats are legit, had four up yesterday (as long as the people in the back are reasonably small). Fold away for ample room for bags and whatnot which is awesome. Was pretty farmer joe spec, so decided to fix that ASAP. So as per the photos I got busy this weekend, and must say I'm pretty happy with the result. Reused the timber sides (hit them with an electric planer, my new favorite toy), new ply on the deck, and generous amounts of black paint. Next up is a bit of low and some wheels, then that'l be about it. It's got pretty bad drivers side (and fuel tank) sag, so have tracked down some second hand leafs for it, so will make a matching pair, chuck some blocks in, and wind the front down to suit.

They are often listed on the manufactures sites (eg found them for toyo in 30 seconds) . Doubt you will find a one stop shop for all tyres though, so need to do some digging.

Does the breather on the catch can let air in or out? I've always wondered why some have breathers and others don't. In my head they shouldn't have a breather but I don't know much about much to be honest ...

Big had been running rougher and rougher and I noticed it would chuff from the intake manifold as well. So pulled it apart and applied liberal amounts of goo. Runs better than ever and starts way nicer and idles straight away when cold etc. Boom. Also have aquired another frame for a side project, as seen below. Chucked my original v50 motor in. Plan is slam, hardtail, flat bars etc.

@Geophy may be able to assist depending on how big of a lathe is requires. Think he's off the radar at the mo but will be back on board on the next few days.