Jeffs_Emporium

Have been a bit slack on this as of late, will blame the weather. Had a few weeks off from my day job and thought I would make a start on installing the new cambelt and water pump tensioner etc I had purchased. Couldn't find the washer to space the tensioner out so ordered new with a few new engine plastics also. I think I have it all to put the front of the engine back together including cam seals and front main seal These are a bit nicer than the cracked and scraped ones the car came with and cheaper than you think.

Used my 12T press to install the new gear on old shaft Popped it back in and went for a quick hoon up to 50km/h using GPS app on phone and it is spot on 50km/h on the dash. Pretty chuffed with that for the correct speedo but more importantly the correct reading on odometer as this has just clicked over 170,000kms which is a rare find for a 80s vehicle these days!

However the shaft length on the 23/5 is 25mm longer. I was about to go wild on the grinder trimming in and cutting new slot for cable to fit into when I vaguely remembered you can somehow change the head. Used a hammer and punch in vice on the 19/5 gear and it popped out revealing a knurled end on shaft to hold gear.

Dropped the ts-x22 off at axent audio in New lynn to be repaired. Not sure when I'll see them again. The speedometer driven gear showed up today which was actually 23/5 not 21/5 as previously posted. photo angle shows them as different size but they arent.

I'm at the 'it drives and does what it's supposed to but can't be fucked making it awesome' stage

Modified sump and bash plate will be on the cards but likely not for a while. Might look at going to a 185/60 up front and some new shocks all round also

After many celebratory/therapy beers Saturday night we set off 8.30 Sunday morning to beat our 12 hour time for a 6 hour trip we had set on Friday. This was a lot more successful, only had to put petrol and air in the back right tyre twice. And made it home for 3pm. I did develop an exhaust manifold leak from turangi onwards that has me down on power quite a bit, I wasn't stopping to bother with that.

Packed all my stuff to run a stall at manfield and set off from Auckland 8am Friday. Picked a friend up from Hamilton and had some breaky for and hour or so before hitting the road again. Just north of Tokoroa we hit some particular poor roading. Needed to grab some more petrol (only 35L tank) so stopped in Tokoroa. Thought I'd better inspect damage and it wasn't good. had stoved the sump in a pretty large amount and it was loosing a lot of oil. My friend was actually picking up a car from same event and following with an empty car trailer so we made the call to put in on there for the rest of the trip down. Put some feelers out and we had a sump ready for us once we got to fielding about half an hour out of fielding. Got down there around 6.30 and Glen from syndicate fabrication who had the sump let us use his workshop and even helped swap the sump which he had. Gc I'd decided I would wind the front torsions up for the trip home after the track day the following day... However leaving Glens there was a real gnarly road and I managed to split the new sump within the drive back to fielding. Was pretty upset and parked it on the grass and went straight to bed once getting to the hotel at around 10pm. Checking in the morning there was almost no oil on the grass. Went to manfield and parked up and there was only minor dripping. Did the couple of laps for orientation and once warmed up she was pissing out again. I pulled it apart again and cleaned everything up ready for @oftensideways to drop me off another sump just after lunch! Chucked that on and the old 24 hour old oil went back in. Wound the torsions up to nearly full tension which raised it a good 40mm and went out for the last couple sessions on track. Have a couple videos of wide open throttle doing 100kmh down the straight lol.

Thing are a lot more busy under there now. Temporarily added a second breathing cam cam cover (temporary enough to not require paint matching)which is plumbed into a vented catch can while @Roman whips me up some trumpets suitable to add a barb fitting to route the pcv back into. Other additions to the bay are the overflow hose going over back of cam gears and the fuel pressure regulator mounted directly to fuel pump. The electric fan is now on a double relay setup to switch on 85-90° using the 4ac thermostat housing.

Needed to do some prep for manfield. Somehow I've misplaced the original overflow tank so I sized up the one from my mark II. I have a few cressida ones which are a bit different but couldn't locate the matching bracket. The mark II one fitted using existing captive nut on the top and adding a longer bolt to the mud flap and a nut on the other side. This also moves it to a location I'm more likely to regularly check as it was next to the battery which is a pain in the ass to get to.

These require some maintenance first...

Haven't broke anything for a while (a full tank of gas) so purchased some speakers since I pinched the TS-X10 from this for my mark II They have a few scratches and bruises so are perfect for the work horse and shall provide some luxury on the trip to Manfield next weekend for the CJC Grip Fest. Did a test run to Hampton Downs last weekend and sat at around 3500rpm @ 100kph on the 185/60/13 rear tyres.

Pretty upsetting to find in my driveway this afternoon. Must have happened last night as it was normal when i used it yesterday Bloody lucky they didn't get in as I had more stuff than usual in there. Given me a bit of a wakeup call to keep shit hidden ( I'm usually a lot more careful) I'm guessing something spooked them as there was about 15k worth of building equipment sitting there. They didn't even damage the lock enough for it not to work Tools have been put away like they should have and looks like the van is narrow enough to tuck inside the gates with some creativity.

Have been burning around in this a bit recently, fixing small issues as they come up. The Carter fuel pump has a knurled fitting that the leads slip onto. These keep jumping off resulting in pulling to side of the road and lying down and reaching up under to put back on. Probably need a better solution before I get snagged on motorway. I can't seem to get the heater to blow hot, think there might be air trapped in it. Need a tall ass funnel to be higher than the top of the core to bleed it. Orderd a 21/5 speedometer driven gear to replace the 19/5 just waiting on that to arrive to hopefully get me in the ballpark.

With the rear panel being modified to take late model mark II tail lights I doubt the matching garnish that houses number plate and number plate lights would fit so I'm going to take the opportunity to attempt something similar to this Inspired by Instagram user alkku_ Mine will be a bit harder due to inner inward edges on x6 tail lights having a beveled edge not 90° with the top bottom. Hoping to use two spare lights and slice them in the middle and get the bevel right on outer then glue them up

Couple of photos from the Trademe listing. 1981 Toyota Cressida RX60 It's had a full panel and paint with all the door jambs and everything done as well as underside. JZX81 steering rack mounts and engine mount towers have been grafted onto GX60 engine crossmember and 81 rack fitted. S13 front coilovers, hubs and castor rods have been fitted up front, I'm just having some brackets made up to locate castor rods onto factory cressida body mounts Ae86 coilovers have been fitted to the rear with the E series solid rear still there. It's had a late model chaser sedan front installed and late model mark II tail lights have been grafted on. There's a 2JZGE VVTI with the gte covers fitted, W55 and a flywheel has been located to manual convert the motor.

Not likely to be a problem for you but when slotting motor into my van I ran into sump clearance issues with the ground when dropping motor to clear the seat due to running 13" wheel with a 175/60 up front.

We have a new project! We won't share too many details until we have made some progress of our own but we have secured a project that a friend was not able to see through. Looking forward to finishing it with some of our own touches. A real credit to the hard work he has already done

New muffler and rest of the exhaust in 2.25" and driveshaft hoop fitted Idle problem was seat pushing front carb down and creating vacuum leak at the soft gasket. I have used a big hammer to fix that. Things I need to still address: Speedo out by 10% so need to see if I can get a cog with extra teeth for the speedo drive or increase rear tyre size by 10% (5% to get within the threshold) See if I can get a legal sized tyre for the brx rear wheels (13x7j) that fits in guards and doesn't further mess with speedo. Pcv from cam cover to a non vented catch can returning to fittings pressed into all 4 trumpets with a gauze filter on face of trumpets like so There's a bit of renewed enthusiasm from hooning around in it, it goes pretty good even with 3.9 diff and 165/80/13. From memory ae86 diff ratio is a 4.3

Don't forget to calibrate your speedo, bash your guards and change your bumpstops to suit

Tune went alright. Definitely blew the budget. And the muffler...about 200 meters down the road from webers specs into my 30km journey on the motorway back across the Harbour Bridge. It definitely has a decent pull to it but is horrible to drive due to the engine touching the seat, the obvious noise and the poorly set up linkage. It also isn't idling by itself after that backfire, the idle is so low that the oil pressure safety switch kicks fuelpump on and off. Hopefully it's just a small adjustment needed. I've got about 4 weeks to sort driveshaft hoop, legal size tyre for the rear wheels that corrects speedo, big hammer the seat cover, new muffler and definitely hone the suspension. There's a definite temptation to track down the rest of the floor shift shit tbh.

I had this thing running and warmed up until thermostat opened and tried my best to bleed air out of the system. Carbs definitely need tuning so it's booked in to get taken to weber specs to sort it out. They advised against running the engine at all until they've rejetted carbs. I've also booked in for driveshaft hoop to be made the following week and a certification check for early may. Hoping it all pans out Enjoy this photo from facebook i found a while back on the NZ car relates scenes 1950s-1980s page

Have tried contacting them numerous times over numerous years so preferably someone else

Seeking reccomends for a central Auckland workshop to carry out driveshaft hoops on both of my vehicles. Hoping for a drive in/ drive out solution.

Today might be the day. Once the battery is charged