The Bronze

I'll try get down to the shed this weekend. I bought a door at some point and stripped it. Can't remember if it had a mirror, if so I know where to look. You asked that kook falconfutura on the Tard?

I still have a few boxes of assorted metalflake krylon at clearance prices. dm for deets

Today I picked up a rebuilt wiper motor and ended up chatting to the geeze at the autosparkies, and chanced upon the fact he had a brand new in the packet wiper arm upstairs he was happy to sell me. Much joy.

By some weird-arse miracle I started patching in the last part of the pillar I've been working on, and it was going supr sweet. My patch panel was sitting bang on, and my welds were sweet, and only half the sparks went in my hair and burnt my head. It was the best day ever. Pre bog pics shown here. So I gloated about it on spam here about how good my day was going. I was stoked; such a sweet, smooth process. Then I decided to take off some trim on the A Pillar to prime and respray it as part of the general overhaul. And of course, as soon as i pulled off the trim I found a big rusty fucking hole... Beware the jinx of Gloat

Note to self: Wheels like this.

either way, your rolling through it at a cracking pace. it's embarrassed me into doing stuff.

top work on that 1/4 window area - I cut that shit out and got someone to shape it because of all the complex curves; looks like you got it nailed.

Oh yeah, ran reasonably well in spite of the carb hoses all being disconnected and better yet, it blew fuck all smoke, so the stem seal job seems to have worked. It doesn't appear I ever documented that, but I did the rope in the cylinder trick with the head on and found that two seals had disintegrated, so now it has new ones, and it is much happier. And the LPG tank and system is nearly all gone except for the filler hose which I haven't got around to crawling under it to remove. When I do the 50 tonne tow bar is coming off too. I hate excess weight. Hopefully between the lighter arse and petrol power it'll do some skids soon.

So, as above I got some rattlecans made, and they were average, but I didn't realise how average, (and by average, I mean utterly shit) until I grabbed some balls, and blew a coat of paint over the guard using a paint gun, something I've only used for hi-fill primer so far. Farrrrk, I felt like a pro. Suddenly I realised how much better it could be, so I sanded it back, and sprayed it again, and sanded, and clear coated, and sanded, and sanded and clear coated, and cut it back, and realised it needed to be better, so sanded and clearcoated a few more times. It's still average, and would benefit from a proper cut and polish by someone who knows what they're doing, and I can see all the shit bogging I did, but for a shitty old coon ute, it'll definitely do. First blast from the gun: About 4 rounds of clear and wetsanding later A rough idea of how bad the fade is on the door vs the bonnet which was resprayed a couple of years back and looks quite good. I can see where the bog spots are sunken and shit. #fuckconcours to celebrate all this I fired the old thing up, chucked a beer crate in as a seat and drove it half out of the shed for the first time in over a year and washed off the dust and suddenly it seemed like progress was being made. Before with dust: After with no dust: Also good to check all the drains under the guards are working. Also before the excitement of paint, and in between coats, I finished a ratshit weldjob on the B pillar and bogged it and sanded, and bogged, and sanded that into a passable state. Still needs another bit welded in when I have some money for a gas bottle. All in all, possibly the best holiday I've had in years. And the next one will probably involve a crack at painting the rest of it.

tridents are like mustangs and belly buttons. factory snowflake fairmont wheels ftw.

that could be handy if it's an nz one - I have an aussie manual but they have all sorts of emissions shit nz new didn't so it's not much help. I just need a rough guide as all the hose is all over the show and the idle is sky high.

I'd be keen for some pics of how your carb is set up with plumbing to emissions cannister etc too. I removed the lpg and need to replumb the mess.

that rust situation looks familiar. I should post some progress pics of mine. surprised you're swapping in an xe dash - the odometers fuck out routinely I've been through 3.

All the under the bonnet stuff is tidied up. Haven't taken many pics, just this one mid job. It's not perfect, but it's cleaner, and that's all i'm aiming for until I have the urge/time/tools to pull the engine out and do it all properly. The wiper motor is off getting rebuilt at the moment with mr Ron Wood

Also got some rattlecan touch up paint made to tidy up some of the surface rust. Tossing up how to best use all that space there beside the fuel tank. I feel like I should indulge my desire to make loud sounds and tuck a fuck-off big amp down there. Just coz. Open to other ideas. Seems wasteful. Remote battery?