Bling

Could be worse, Mof is probably still driving Oh yeah mean skewers / cake, both went down a treat.

Good times as usual, cheers all.

Half day here so plenty of shed time working on the car. Which in reality means lots of standing around doing not much.

I'm rolling in something uncool, so probably not much point me convoying. Safe to assume @bigfoot hasn't been pashing people at that covid church?

Will try get to this. Just need to find a Mitsi to purchase I guess.

Maybe, first brake fitting i've used that doesn't have a flare inside. Well it does have one, but the caliper doesn't. I'd be surprised if it didn't leak fluid, but maybe brake fluid is thick enough to not matter. Will google. edit - dug through my paperwork and found instructions for the kit, says to use loctite, so I guess i'll do that. So long since I read them I didn't recall that step. As you were.

Have been chipping away slowly. Torqued all the the bolts on the front strut's up to cert specs. Then had to pull both struts apart as a ~0.5mm spacer wasn't needed. I had previously found it was needed as one pad didn't fit. This time I found it wasn't needed... so hopefully a drive around the block will sort the slight rub of one pad. Without the spacer plate, the pads have a gap sub 1mm, with one slightly touching, still easy enough to spin so I think that will sort itself after a drive. Installed the diff back into the car, nightmare one man job. Took a lot of pissing around as some of the arms are super tight. Got there in the end. I stripped the surface rust off all the arms and gave them a couple of coats of paint. No pics of this as I spent too long cursing and losing the will to live. Bolted an adjustable MRP panhard rod in for the first time, shocks bolted up. Still need to work out what i'll do for bump stops, not being able to chop some down is a bit of a ball ache. Have left handbrake cables flapping in the wind for now as I need to bleed the brakes first. Drums were completely rebuilt, so that side of things is done. Hoping to get the brakes up and working this week, then I can get it off the axle stands it's been on for months and get it outside. Boring update, but just trying to keep the momentum going. I've also installed the dash back into the car and hopefully plugged everything back in correctly. Brakes together for hopefully final time Heater ducting, couldn't find a duct in the parts pile for this section so made one up with some 75mm flexipipe stuff. Had to flatten it below the emissions ECU as it's a tight fit between that and the glovebox. Hub installed with bolts for brake upgrade kit. Ticked and torque written down so I know it's done. And wheel arch repair. Was the only part that needed replacing, due to a prang which caused it to rust out. The rest of the arch has some surface rust so I gave it a really good clean up and sanded off what I could. Then put some Brunox over it. Will epoxy prime the inside too so that any moisture can't get to the area. It was either that or replace the whole rear arch for the sake of some very light rust between the skins. A: that's above my paygrade B: seems a bit extreme as it won't get any worse. The repair I did took an hour to weld as it's so thin I could only do a couple of spot welds at a time, while letting it cool again. Relatively boring update done, if you made it this far, you've done well.

Simple one today, what product am I best to use on the thread on left which goes into a caliper? TIA

I need a bit more epoxy primer, so figured I could get extra and do the underside guards, and areas that aren't seen. Is it legit to just slap a couple coats on and leave as is? Really don't see the point of top coating something never seen if a decent coating of epoxy will be fine.

Wait for a special / shop around, I got my oil last week for half price.

Pretty sure I was told DOT4 is sweet for road usage. Had a yarn when I was getting new master cylinder and mentioned the upgraded front brakes etc. Unless you're going to race the car I got the impression it wasn't necessary. If you're boiling DOT4, then sure, but at the point i'd be looking at the brake setup overall. In this case i'd say pedal feel is down to shitty old brakes, assuming all factory and old as fuck. Pop in and see Undercar Services for a chat, they were super helpful. edit: these guys https://yellow.co.nz/y/undercar-service-hornby

Oh yeah you can swap mechanically identical parts no worries. Just confused me as you were talking about the rusty one being on hold, so I thought you were going to keep the plates or something. If it's basically a parts car for your good one, then thats basically all oldschool cars. Not much is kept original when a car has been around the clock a few times. At a certain age, the revin is easier as it's more of a strict WOF check. For newer cars, they get pulled to bits a bit more. Like I say though, not sure what the cut off is. Any company like VTNZ (If they do revins) will let you know the cutoff date for that. If the engine is flagged, which i'm not sure they care or not. Just explain the old one shat the bed and so you replaced it with a donor engine the same.

Which car are you talking about revinning?

Ah didn't know that. Had my last one done at Fiddymont Seatbelts. I'll go look back a few pages cheers. Edit: may have been my link? lol

Bit of a random seat belt question, to tag along with the above. I have the seat belt "droppers" that suspend the belt at shoulder height (due to pillarless car). Can I paint these without causing a stir? Someone has "camo'd" one of them, and i'd like to paint it a more appropriate colour. It's basically a metal dropper with textured plastic coating and is fully factory spec. The plan is to also have all the of webbing replaced because old belts are a nope.jpg.

Not surprised with how the Mericans' tend to bog a whole car before paint.

Me too. That must be for the big jobs!

Yeah so it wasn't that sound after all... pwned. 10 months since I cut sections out of the doors, not much has changed there. Not really sure where the time has gone. Had the radiator recored with auto trans cooler removed. Had the heater core remade, reusing a couple of parts, but new core at least. A bunch more coin spent on new parts has chipped away at savings. Still chasing a few bits, and getting pissed around by people on facebook going back on deals. Shortened time frame due to next years addition (kids fred) means I need to properly pull finger on this. Dropped the diff into undercar service centre a while back, had them freshen it all up with new cylinders, shoes and skimmed drums. So that is waiting to go back in currently. Have some rust to sort in rear wheel arch, so will do that while diff is out due to bonus space. Not sure how to fix it though, so i've been putting it off. Battling a few other issues too, but will cover those in later updates. Anyway, some pics for fred. Those following along on Insta will have seen many of these. I removed the whole heater system, stripped it all down and cleaned it out. 38 years worth of grime wasn't pleasant. Had the heater core sorted at that point. Most of AC system has been removed for paint work, i've left all of the inside parts installed though so can easily put the engine bay parts back if wanted. Heater core and replacement brake master cylinder. Master was pretty gummed up so rather that fart around with it, I got a new one. Recored radiator, another thing off the list. Amazing how fast money goes down the hole. Gave the booster a good clean up too and paint job. Tested it before doing that though, seems to be functioning as it should. As it sits now, minus the diff. Space is limited to the point I need to be a contortionist to get to passenger side, which the guard needs fixing. Yay. Aiming for another update in a couple of weeks. Weather / motivation dependent.

Those spacers and extended ball joints are pretty lol. All of the flex, scary stuff!

Try the Facebook pages for old toyotas based in NZ, quite a few around, someone might have one lying around you can use the parts from to make a good one.

Could you cut a leg off each support, leaving just the top flat section? Seems like it would be strong enough unless you're loading up huge pots.

Yeah unless they like the idea of a padded cell spec track car... At least the killmat doesn't look like you're a frequent flyer at craft stores.

VTNZ would always be a crap shoot, even with a stock car. I didn't realise NZTA would block access to the photos. So any progress towards allowing inspectors / new purchasers from actually checking vehicle setup vs what it was certed as would be a plus IMO.

You may have already tried this, but you might be able to sweet talk the LVVTA to provide you the photos / some documentation to keep in the glovebox. Worth asking anyway. KKtrips would know.

Could run some 200x50 from the gate concrete foundation, to the house. Then pay a student to come in and dig out the ground level to suit, backfill with at least some base course and then pave it up. Job I was at this week had pavers all out of level, so i'd want to do what I could to avoid that. Dug up dirt can be filled in either side of the new parking area to bring the level up a bit. Just thoughts. That carport looks well built for sure, dressed timber FTW.