Stu

I've got the book in front of me and they made 193 trackers between 83-85, and the third wheelers were made from 85-89 and they made 89 of them. "Third Wheeler - only vans in New Zealand to run a three wheeled tri-cart. Pop-top and full-bodied vans. Similar shape to the Tracker" Yeah theres a few bits about them, can scan the pages if you want. "1986-88 (278) Liteweight aluminum boats (2.5, 3.2, 3.8, 4.5, 4.9m Standard; 4.5, 4.9 Sport; 3.85, 6m Pontoon) Good info thanks! Ive got the calipers in a box so will take a closer look at them when I get a chance. They look to be in pretty reasonable condition, hopefully they free up!

Nah, that wasn't this model, but they did start making those in the same year /barry

Caravan barryness has been achieved through joining the Liteweight Caravan Fan Club on FaceStalk, and reading the below cover to cover over the weekend. The book is a pretty amazing story, but what a shit ending to a pretty awesome company! I've made a bit of progress and spent a few hours making the wheels turn. Once I got it jacked up and out of the lawn where it had sunk, the wheels actually turned which was a bonus as I was expecting them to put up a bit of a fight. Shit wasn't pretty behind the wheels but I pulled the hubs apart, cleaned up the spindles, repacked the bearings, wire brushed everything and sprayed everything with brakekleen and then WD40. I've left the calipers off for now but the wheels spin pretty smoothly - enough for now anyway and will replace the bearings and seals later on. No photos of them cleaned up but imagine its about 50% better than what you see. The tires held 40psi of air although I did hide behind the recycling bin when they were pumping up. I didn't have anything other than a tape to measure the stud pattern but I'm pretty sure it is 4x108 as @azzurro mentioned above. So I'm eyeing up a set of turbos on trademe unless something else turns up. Will be worrying about that and new tires once its in the yard at work and I spend more time on it. So for now its down on its wheels after managing to get the leveling supports retracted, and the duratorques seem to be moving too when jumping around inside. The brake lines are goosed so will get a roll of hard line at some point and make some new ones, but the first job is to replace the coupling which has seen better days. I managed to get the coupling to rotate but there wasn't a shit show of getting the thing to release so I could hook it up and try to move it. Have priced one up so will likely make that the next purchase unless I can find a good second hand one. Unfortunately the jockey wheel was seized solid so I lopped it off with the grinder - I'm trying to find a replacement but not having much luck finding a straight replacement as yet but confident something will turn up. I plugged the trailer plug into the car and no smoke escaped which was a bonus, a few of the lights actually worked so I've ordered new ones, thanks @locost_bryan for the heads up. Through one of my work suppliers is was less than $100 for the lot including bulbs. Anyway, next step is to find someone to transport it across town to work and then the real work can commence.

I just ordered the book /barry

Don Jessen? If so he wrote a book all about them, almost tempted to buy it

Awesome thanks for the heads up @locost_bryan I want to keep the look period correct so that will do the job nicely! Ive just found the front corner markers on their too so will order the complete set. Thanks @anglia4, I signed up to that page this morning, awaiting approval Semi looking forward to the impending barryness that I'm sure will ensue. Yeah they are weird! Im pretty keen to get it back on the road as close to original as possible then maybe make a few updates to things like the lighting/fridge etc.

Thanks man! The shroud is pretty sweet, its got one chunk out of it but should be easy enough to fix. Keen on turbos for sure! Anyone got any? Haha single fin is spoken for by my cousin - I was hoping it would come with the caravan.

Yes, yes I know, I should be working on the 86 or the 71, and not trailers and shit. Yet somehow I ended up as the proud (maybe?) owner of a 1985 Liteweight Tracker 520 caravan. Why? Yeah not sure really? Do I really want it? Probably. It could be good with a growing family. Anyway, it was previously owned by an auntie and uncle who used it a fair bit then parked in in 2008 and proceeded to not touch it again other than using it as storage. Sadly my uncle passed away a year ago and my auntie is selling up and moving on from the family home, so for some unknown reason I thought it was a good idea to make an offer on it. So there you go, I've got yet another project to deal with. I've been giving myself a crash course in Caravans and so far understand that Liteweights were made in NZ but the company closed up years ago, I know very little else. I'm hoping I will bump into a good barry who can take me under their wing and school me up. Aside from all the gunk and fade from sitting outside its actually in pretty reasonable condition as far as I can tell. The panels are straight and appear to be sealed, its dry as a bone inside and I can't find evidence of any leaks other than the step inside because the bottom of the seal has come away from the door. The windows and rubbers appear to be in really good condition, the floor seems solid, and most stuff inside seems to be there. Externally the lights are pretty fucked and the chassis needs work but generally its not bad (well, what I can see anyway). As mentioned its filled with junk but the awning is there, along with a fridge, chemical shitter, and piles of other bits. Plans? Get it mobile (or at least transportable) so I can get it to work and up on stands to take a good look at the chassis. Its a bit manky under there but looks reasonably solid so hoping a good clean up and zinc paint will sort it. The coupling is fubar so will get a new one and probably have to run new lines. Im expecting to need to replace all the lights so if anyone has a lead on replacements or upgrades in a similar style that would be great! Im also expecting the gas system and electrics to need work, but im hoping the later is at least serviceable. If the wiring is not able to be certified or what ever is needed I might just change it all to 12v as Ive got a big solar panel spare the same as on the trailer. Anyway, will make a start and see where we get to. Any advice will be appreciated!

Dear DaveScienceTM, I feel that with the forthcoming higher level of data acquisition (via strain gauges) that we the viewers need to blessed with higher level MS Paint graphs... these screenshots of Link fuel tables and VVTI vs VE tables are just not cutting it. Bonus points for incorporation of cock and balls insignia into said MS Paint graphics. Kindest regards Stu

Backup option I have the flatbed cnc for flanges, and a metal glue gun for an ali version as required.

Yeah the trailer is super handy and similar deal I need to be careful where I park it. We tend to only unhook in camp grounds which are reasonably low risk. I've got a couple of hunting trips planned this year where it would be amazing to take it but haven't decided if I'm keen to risk it. I lock up the coupling and have a wheel clamp but dunno if that's enough. Had quite a few people come up for a sharn while away last weekend #trailerbarry. I'm tempted to get a 12v ice maker but shit they are expensive! 240v ones are ~$140 for a cheap one but that means the inverter will be running all the time and its fan annoys me so would rather have a 12v one. If anyone has any leads on one new or second hand let me know. Damn that tipper trailer is awesome! And yeah that's a pretty good idea for the charging setup - could use one of those dual battery controllers if you were feeling rich. My next project will probably be rebuilding my car trailer - may even remake the whole thing from ali this time. But I'm keen to setup a battery on board the same as your tipper for the winch etc and also have a decent set of reverse lights on it.

We're off on another adventure this weekend so have sorted a couple of small things on the trailer. I've added a flood light onto the front that will be over the sink etc when its done and wired it up using the last spare switch. Made up an extension lead for the cigarette socket so we can pump up air beds etc in the tent rather than having to do it next to the trailer. Im also replacing all the button head fixings with countersunk and will put round white vinyl dots over them to clean things up a bit. Also put it thru a wof and got a clean sheet. Will work on the tank on the front etc before the next trip. The anderson plug at the front is for the washdown pump. The socket on the left of the volt meter is a cigarette plug and the one on the right is a couple of USB charging ports. The solar charger is just a Jaycar MPPT one - seems to work alright and its a got an app for monitoring the solar panel, battery and load voltages/current etc. You can set the ideal battery voltages and I've seen it pump ~20amps into the battery so the panel must be 350w or larger I'm guessing. Its old but seems to work great!

I have some 15inch Wedssport TC's that weigh 2/3rds of 5/8ths of fuck all if you want to run them on the rear? These ones:

So my partner and I enjoy camping, its great exploring and finding new spots etc. But due to the large number of kids we have somehow acquired, there seems to be a not small mountain of shit that needs to be associated with taking them away anywhere. Gone are the days of just chucking the swag in the back of the car and splitting 10mins after getting the idea to go somewhere. These days its more like "lets spend the next 24-48hours stripping the house and packing the car to the roof till there's literally breathing space only", and its been seen for all passengers to have bags or cookers or boxes of shit on the knees when driving anywhere. And there's also the required clean up afterwards, including storing tents and chilly bins and crap under the house where's its not quite tall enough to stand up. It usually takes me a good 10 steps to straighten my spine out enough to stand upright after crawling out of said under house void. Last year we semi remedied the situation by stealing the in-laws trailer. Its a pretty well built generic box trailer that we've been using while landscaping etc So for summer 20/21 we loaded it up to the gunnels with gear, threw a tarp and cargo net over, and hoped that nothing fell out. Its worked reasonably well but we still managed to have too much shit and the car was still pretty full. It was super handy though, and at one point we had to change camp sites so instead of taking the tent down we threw it on the back and towed to the new site much to the amusement of other campers. Anyway, late last year I decided that our setup was still dumb and that I'd close the trailer in and make it actually work. The whole idea is that it all needed to be removable so the sides etc can come back off and the it can be reverted to tip dump duties etc. Luckily the trailer has the vertical square tubing in the corners that you can see in the top photo so I figured I could make sides that slot into those, then make the ends and top slot into the sides. Here's the loose drawing: Then got to work: Its a bit hard to tell from the photos but the ends have welded on plates with key ways so they slot onto fixings in the longer sides and tighten up. Basically loosen the bolts and then lift the end up and it will pull out for flat packing. The roof has 32x32mm SHS down inside the 40x40mm SHS corner uprights so it can be removed too. I picked up some hinges, door seal, and lockable latches from UES and started to make doors and clad the thing. I was fortunate to be given a couple of fucking huge solar panels for free so slammed one on the top to run the electrics. And this is pretty much what it ended up like. I also got a couple of lockable drawer slides and made up a support frame that runs across the trailer and supports 2x 12v fridge/freezers Ive got. One of them is a very old Waeco which we use as a freezer so put that at the back and the newer unit on the front as a fridge. I bought a solar charge controller from Jaycar, and mounted up a switch board, inverter, washdown pump and large AGM battery that I'd be given, along with some LED lights inside. End result looks like this: So this year we had all our shit thrown into the trailer which took half the time, and hardly anything in the car. It has been a total game changer and now we leave all the gear in it ready to go for next time. We've been a few places so far and looking forward to using it as often as possible. Its pretty much glamping now. Next step is to make a enclosure that fits on the draw bar that holds a couple of 25litre water tanks and houses the water pump rather than pulling it out when we need it, and make a triangle shaped board that a collapsible sink can go it. I'm also going to put a flood light on the front over the sink and possibly look at a retractable awning rather than taking the gazebo. #glamping

*cough* NOS *cough*

Youve already sorted it but FYI the radiator fan should be controlled by the factory relay and temperature switch that is on the thermostat housing.

Try to find some Cynos seats, they sit a bit lower down. Performance wise I'd guess it has the electronic dizzy already over the points setup the early ones have, but a half decent cold air intake and exhaust can help. There's some place in Thailand that sells exhaust headers for them from memory. Its been so long since I've mucked with a 2e. Other than that your best bet requires a bit of work and get something like a 4efe or 5efhe in there with EFI.

Small update time. With the 86 I wanted to try and use CAN wherever possible as I haven't used it before and if it goes wrong its only my car compared to someone else's. So in the above pictured pile of junk is a Spartan3 CAN wideband with the ADV sensor, an ECUMaster CAN-EGT amplifier, and a Maxxecu CAN-PWM module. Eventually I'll get a CAN-GPS module and a possibly a dash but that will be a loooooong way off. I've started with the PWM fan speed control and as mentioned above, with the help of DaveScienceTM @Roman and his fancy 3d printer I now have a mounting block that fits to the underside of the battery tray. This will do for now but I have in mind a two piece mount so it has a cover. Anyway, wired up the module, relay, output and can circuit including terminal resistor which is inside the sealed off deutsch plug at the bottom. Mounted up under the battery, 60amp fuse is on the side, can bus runs through the front then parallels with the chassis wiring under the guard and into the cabin. And sorted out the fans themselves: And then, with the help of Dave we got the data streams roughed together and the fans running with varying speed: There is still some sorting out to be done on the data streams as the PWM module transmits an internal temperature, amperage load, and an error state, which are showing but not in the correct scale yet. Still learning so it might take me some time to sort out but its a promising start. The whole reason for the variable speed is that the battery is quite small (will eventually be a lithium one) and want to limit the load where possible, plus ramping fan speed is kinda rad... Till next time.

Agreed! Dreamy

#ingredients #broke So yeah, short of the injectors turning up I should have everything for the engine wire up now. Huge thanks to DaveScienceTM @Roman who 3D printed me a super sweet mounting plate for the CAN-PWM fan speed control module. Just gotta find some time to wire it - there might be a few "sick" days off work coming up...

Lockdown didn't quite provide all the spare time I was anticipating due to picking up a heap of essential work, but I have been ticking away at this thing. I've been wanting to get into the wiring so have been putting in a few hours here and there. Wiring is something Ive done alot of over the years so while I don't enjoy body wiring that much, I am looking forward to getting into the ecu side of things. The whole idea with the wiring is that the engine/ecu wiring is plug and play so if I ever wanted to go back to a stock engine/ecu (I wont) then it wouldn't be a total nightmare to do. I hope it means the car will retain its value better this way. Way back when I stripped the car for painting the front end wiring loom ended up stashed in a box which gathered dust, but I hauled that out and started pondering things. I wanted to make a few small changes to the factory front wiring like shifting the washer pump wiring from the factory location behind the passenger strut tower where it will melt due to the heat from the headers, over to the factory 85 location on the drivers side. I also wanted to take out the air con wiring, re-route where the loom runs and tidy up a few other things. So the loom got stripped back, I traced all the plugs so I've got notes on what goes where with wire colours, then got to work. I removed all the aircon wiring but kept the circuits intact with notes on what connects where so if I want to later down the track I can overlay that loom and plug it all back in. I laid in the new washer wiring but de-pinned, insulated and hid the original wiring so it can be uncovered and repinned later on if the washer ever goes back there. The drivers side wiring route usually runs through firewall into the wheel well then in through the inner guard, down across the inner fender to the head lights and along the front under the top radiator support, but I've changed this so its all hidden under the guard, runs under the headlight and along the lower radiator support so none of it is seen. The alternator wiring is now re-routed to enter the engine bay below the head light so its a short straight run along the chassis rail and is far less noticeable - its actually shorter wiring along with being neater. Wrapped it all in conduit and then taped up and clipped back in using as many factory fixing points as possible. A large number of hours later shortening and lengthening etc it looked like this. I quite like the fact that I know what all the plugs do, where the wires all run and that there isn't any un-used plug or circuits. Lots of time spent doing things that no one will ever see or care about And other than the short section of alternator wiring this is all you can obviously see - its not finished yet but you get the idea. While I was at it I took the dash out and hauled the dash wiring loom out for a once over too. There was only a few minor changes I wanted to make like reconfigure the wiper wiring so instead of running through the engine loom like factory its part of the dash loom instead - Its spliced in so a factory engine loom would still work if needed. Fixed a few broken speaker wires and sorted the stereo wiring too. After that it all got a once over with new wrapping and replaced the odd plastic clip and it went back in. Quite satisfying that everything is in the right place, clipped back into factory points and theres no random wires. While I was at it I ran another separate loom next to it from the ecu area over to the dash for the Link inputs/outputs I want to run including a canbus circuit for future proofing incase I run a dash in this thing. Dash all went back in and at least for now its all buttoned back up properly. Then with the looms all plugged back in and the battery temporarily connected I powered the car up and after replacing a few bulbs everything seems to work and the smoke didn't escape so that's a bonus! I'll give the interior a good clean once the ecu wiring is done as its dusty as shit but it looks like a car again. I'll update on the ecu side of things soon but stuff as been arriving so im hoping to get onto that sometime soon. Other than wiring I also got the EGT setup pretty well sorted - have welded the compression fittings onto the exhaust so that can go on for good soon too. Thats all till next time

Sweet car and nice progress! One of my old mates had one of these for quite a while - it wasn't slow! But it did eat gearboxes - lots of them from memory! I look forward to seeing your progeess.

Twisting the circuits inside looms is handy for keeping things tidy etc - Poor mans concentric twist. I tend to use Deutsch plugs for most stuff, you can buy bulk packs if you hunt around which makes the plugs much cheaper.

Ive used divider circuits before into a link when using ABS sensors and it worked fine

Shit yeah! So good!