Vintage Grumble

Well, it made it nearly exactly 1km before the first damage. The kids drove it to my BIL's place, and due to the driveway being blocked, my daughter had to drive it through some very tight garden paths, and hit a low brick wall with the running boards, lols. Its also been backed into my shed, backed into a retaining wall, and had a light bumper scuff along a concrete wall. I might have also driven it into a door frame, ha. My daughter wants me to install a reversing camera, kids these days eh. The body and bumpers have made it quite a bit longer than it was, and it is a bit hard to tell where the front bumper is, but the kids have got used to its new dimensions now. Its done a lot of k's in the last week or so, and the only issue so far is the brush holders on the motor coming out again, so a big cable tie is going to go around those. And to make this post a bit more interesting, a very short video of the boy testing out its off road capabilities in the back yard: All the rattling noises are coming from the front shocks, when my lathe is going I will make new bushes to tighten all that up a bit. Regards, VG. P.S. Proud dad moment, I witnessed my son chucking it into a corner covered in wood chips so hard he got it to hang out. J5's son was on it at the time too, but he'll be well used to such danger. P.P.S Yes my fences are turbo fucked, and yes that is a ratchet strap holding the fence up.

Got some shed time, so started cutting/bending/welding/grinding, GET DA FUCK OUT RUST. Bit more of ^ that to do, but its going OK so far. Then, with a bit of assistance from the lovely @GuyWithAviators I ordered a new top window trim, as the old one got a bit wonky while I was trying to get it off, because I had to glue it on years ago due to retaining clip failure. Only took about 2.5 weeks to arrive, not bad. The correct one for my chassis (early/zenki) was obsolete, so took a gamble and got a late model one. Its very slightly shorter, which I don't think will matter because the ends are under the side moldings, and has a different clip arrangement, which also shouldn't matter. I hope. While ordering the above item, I remembered about a couple of small items I've been meaning to get for the last 18 years, lols. Got a bonnet stay grommet (car has never had one) and the little clip that holds the stay when not in use (has always been broken). Pretty fucken excited about these items, will make it seem like a new car again! Regards, VG. xoxox

What about that Bobby Fingers, he makes a nice diorama ...

Whats the big dial way up in the air between the bars? Rev counter?

I'm not a harley guy, but they are a cool looking bike. I'm enjoying your riding/ownership review. BUT, the speedo, does it not look crazy ridiculous where its at?

We supplied an 18" butt weld end cap wrong to a workshop, they cut a big hole in the end of it before they realized it was the wrong schedule/thickness, so we got it back and wrote it off. I purchased an 8" cap and welded it to the bottom of the big unit to fill the hole and make a base, and its a bingo, you have a solid as fuck brazier. (Table on its side is my wind break)

Yeh nah so I've done some more on this unit. Got the orange looking pretty good after a bit more fucking around, then started on the grill. Bit of a bastard to mask off but got the white on OK. Then decided to brush paint the black bits, as I was getting over spray cans, but the brush paint didn't stick and half came off with the masking tape 😭 so then spent ages scraping that paint off, repairing all the surfaces and spray painted it anyways. I then made little brackets to hold the lights in. Then I did my first ever upholstery, and covered a few layers of foam with black vinyl over a wooden base, which has anti slip knobs underneath so it cant move. I also got some vinyl tread plate mat from bunnings for the floor. Then I did a shit load of wiring (including a 24v to 12v magic box for the back lights, and wiring the 6v front lights in series so they dont explode) and put the little dash in. There's lots of plugs so the body can be taken off easily also. Annnnnnd that means its FUCKING FINISHED!!!! (apart from "toyota" letters in grill) We then unveiled the finished product to the kids, they fucking love it. We went for a cruise all around town, collecting their cousin and his Willy's Jeep on the way. Super stoked to actually finish something for a change, lols. The only thing that could be better is the tow hitch hangs a little low, but it's not a major problem. Speaking of the hitch, now to start on the trailer, yay! Regards, VG.

Thank you sir. Yeh the factory mount is rather spindly, and that 4age power definitely played a major part in its demise. How dare you! Didn't you read Barts comment, its clearly been over powered by raw 4age power, nothing to do with my mass!

Nothing going on at work, so lame update time. Haven't even started on roof rust yet, but I have sorted out operation "Restrain fatty 2.0". There was a lot of angles involved in making the new grunty seat mount, so I had to get the press brake out, Took a lot of smacking and creative fucking around with, but came out correct in all angles. Old VS new, Drilled lots of holes in it for some dirty big plug welds, I'm really worried about melting or setting fire to some interior part that is no longer available and impossible to get, so purchased a couple of fire proof blankets. Then welded the son of a gun in (after slapping a captive nut in) Just need to slap some paint on, and she's done, Found a few spots of surface rust in the dash, which is a bit of a PITA, don't think I'll try cut this out, will just kill the rust as best I can, Also had to rip the front to bits, to aid in getting the old windscreen urethane off, and so paint can be applied to a couple of areas that never got paint on them in the last re-spray, Got a few weeks off, so hopefully I'll get that main rust done at least. Regards, VG. xoxox

Excellent plate also: Benign Rage

Not really sure where to ask this, but I currently have the old BC red/black coil overs in my 86, they have 6kg springs rear, and 8kg up front, which I believe is sort of the go to for drifting? Anyways, me and the car are getting on a bit now, and I hardly ever use it on track, so I would like to go to a softer spring rate all around, so its a bit more plush on NZ's shitty roads. Anyone got any ideas on what's a good rate to go for? mebbe @Truenotch might have an idea?

Indeed, it was most excellent. Great bunch of chaps and some outstanding roads, bloody top notch work guys. I didn't take many pics, this is about all I got,

Extra dull update due to trying to look like I'm doing something at work. Rode the CT around until it ran out of gas. I did nearly all open road at about 85-90kmh, with a bit of slow sandy off roading. It did 162km on the 6.2L tank, which is about double what it did last time (less than 80km, but was all up big ass hills and WOT express way racing) So if I'm getting 26km/L, with my little extra 5L container, I should have a total range of about 290km. One thing that did LOL me, was I put it onto reserve, and got about 3km before it completely ran out of gas, so luckily I had the back up. The main tube in the tank must be missing or something, so its as low as the reserve tube. Anyways, pic for Fred, me cruising for bitches,

I got it up to the metric ton down the Hamilton express way I'll have you know/so did J5 on his bike and still used way less gas, lols.

It will still be terrible, as the needle was already all the way down, so must need a smaller jet. I have around 6L extra gas onboard though, so hoping if I don't go over 80/90khm I can get 200km out of it.

Rode my farm bike to work (~35km) if it makes it home again, ima call that good to go for the ride.

Good day gents, are any of you fine chaps attending this prestigious event from Wellington? I'm bringing a motorbike motor down for @Goat and was wondering if someone might be able to take it closer to him? He may want to actually confirm where hes at, but I think its welly?

They have to be in the top 5 adventure bikes ever made, surely?

I really should just learn how to paint with a gun, with the amount of stupid shit I build, it would really make sense. And like you say, probably end up cheaper too. Yeh even in the sunny BOP I always pre-warm the cans in a bucket of hot water, defiantly helps with nozzle blocking issues. CRC seem to have a quality control problem, they occasionally have a batch of dodgy cans. We actually had a period of time where the 1L pots of zinc it were explosively blowing the lids off randomly. I have PTSD from having to take the cans off the shelf and chuck them in the bin, not knowing if they were going to pop. They put little clips on the lid/edge of the cans now to keep them on.

Yeh rust-oleum seems to be a bit more up market, TBH the ONLY reason I've used CRC is I get it at cost, and I've had a pretty good run with CRC in the past, its just this time everything's gone to cactus. Its been a bit of a learning curb, as I've never built anything like this before, I'd do nearly everything differently if I was to do it again. Yup I know, I just want it to be nice for those 47 minutes so it looks like I tried, puhuhuhuh. I have a horrible condition where I'm quite OCD, but have no skills or patience, lololols. But the main reason is my BIL had his kids one brush painted, and it came out pretty good, but I know its possible to get a better finish with cans (and I suck at brush painting) so I have to have it come out good to prove myself right

Haven't put much time into this for a few weeks, but made a bit of progress before the progress stopped, and a bit of regress happened too unfortunately. Finished painting the shassis, Then I opened the diff up to check it was all OK. The grease was dryer than air fried bacon, so cleaned all that out and slapped some new stuff in. I was quite impressed to see it was full of actual bearings and seals. Even made a custom gasket to keep all the spacing/preloads correct. With the diff back together, I reassembled the shassis and fitted the floor and firewall boards, And all back together ready for the body and some wiring, I then got some fancy pants fine bog to fill in a few little imperfections, and the bastard stuff had a weird reaction with something (I think it was the pigmented sealer?) and fucked up quite a few areas of paint. So I had to scrape those areas right back and start again, which has caused a lot of issues as the top coat is so damn thin. At this point I should have just painted the whole thing white to cover all the patches, and then did the orange over top, but I didn't, and its then taken many many coats of the watery orange paint to cover the patches. I am also having huge problems with the shitty CRC cans, as some cans have shit nozzles, some cans are just weak, some seam to be spitting out tiny little chunks of shit, and I even had one that seemed to have way to much pressure in it. I was also battling shit blowing into the paint even though I'm in a shed with the door shut. SOOOO I got the shits and hosed down the whole inside of my shed to try stop shit falling out of the roof. I now just need to get a few good cans of paint, that have a good nozzle, no chunks of shit in the paint, and a warm day with no wind so nothing falls out of the roof of the shed. I got this perfect set up on the weekend, but then put on too much paint on and got a pile of runs on one side. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Oh, and also bugs seem to absolutely love bright orange, so show up from all over the country to dive into the wet paint. So yeh, painting the body is not going well, lololols. And what I hoped was its last visit to the booth, but alas, it was not to be. (this was a pre-paint pic, the paint actually comes out really nice when the planets align) So once I give up on the orange, I just have to paint the light surround white, and black out the air vents and the painting is done. I then just have to fit the lights and sort out the wiring and its good to go. Regards, VG.

Right, made a start on the resurrection of this crustacean. Moved lots of shit so I could get it out of the shed. Shes a bit dusty/*BARN FIND JOKE* It still thinks it was made in England unfortunately. I decided to remove the race harness as I doubt I'll use it anytime soon, and some inspectors don't like it in there at WOF time, and this is when I discovered another weeee job that needs doing. The right rear seat mount (on the drivers seat) is not happy, and the seat rail is also not impressed. This was starting to happen 11 years ago when I was putting the car back together, so welded up the cracks and added a big washer to disperse the load. After pulling the seat out, I now know its much worse than before. Now before you point fingers and exclaim "what a fat cunt" i'd just like to point out that I'm not just a fat cunt, but also a 6'4" tall fat cunt, so I have to have the seat full back, and when its full back, the rear mounts are near on half way along the seat. So the majority of my fat cuntness is right on top of or behind the mount, less than ideal. Finger indicating location of rear mount. Not much I can do about this, other than make a beefy replacement mount, and reinforce the rail I guess. The other mounts are all fine. Anyways, got the old girl going (started perfectly) but the gas is very off, so will drain that and replenish. Gave it a good wash, which reminded me of all its other haggardness, but meh, just needs a WOF, not trying to win no sho'n'shine. Removed everything needed to start cutting the windscreen out, most of it came out OK, but the top window trim was a COMPLETE BASTARD to get off, due to me gluing it on with a litre of window sealant years ago after it blew off. Got my first peeks at the rust. Started on the cut out procedure, haven't cut a screen out for like 20+ years, but I managed to do it myself without rooting anything. Don't ask where the cutting wire came from. Check out my pro cutting handles though. Screen gone-burgers. Little rusty bitches. Two main spots, and lots of little bits around the place, next I'll get the buff cup out and go to town, trying not to destroy any interior. Regards, V "I regret not selling this at the hight of retarded covid pricing" G.

Gave up trying to get factory racks for the CT, so slapped together a home made abomination from a random rack J5 gave me, with donor parts from one of the free Jialing farm bike racks I got from old mate in the hills. Welding poorly prepared (i.e. still had shitty powder coat on it) Chineseium steel was quite splatty. I also recycled rack off cuts and hung the lovely indicators J5 donated to me. (from an ER suzuki I guess?) Looks low at the back in pics, but is level IRL. Then made a mount from more rack off cuts to hang a china rotapax off. I got two of them, but exhaust made it too hard to hang one either side. I also modified the OG indicator brackets at the front to take the new units, The barry spec mounting and wiring for the old indicators. Then I investigated the muffler, the last baffle was shot to shit, it had lots of rust holes that had been filled with some putty, and the outlet was quite haggard. So I cut off the last section, fished out the remains of the baffle, then found a bit of tube exactly the right size and welded that on. Filled all the rust holes with weld. And then put on a silly looking little outlet pipe. Much better. So just need to paint the rack and muffler, wire in the indicators, and then I can try remedy the nasty fuel consumption. Regards, VG.

That's very kind of you Sir, but I have a tame tuner in town (my BIL is a haltech certified installer/tuner), I just need to get the car out and tuneable, lols. I have taken the first steps, new battery sorted & a welding blanket has been purchased. I really don't want to melt/catch the dash on fire when I do the rust repairs.

THE SOUTH AE86'S WILL RISE AGAIN!!