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I was just thinking I haven't heard anything from panel Barry for a while and then bing, email arrives. He's been busy. Passenger side is pretty much buttoned up now, the outer rear quarter is not welded into place so still the little touches to go but man.. what an improvement! And just a reminder of what it was beforehand. He's already charging away on the driver side as well so shouldn't be too long then it can go back together in the back end.

Back from WTAC and my wheel guy has completed the SSR MK3 wheels I gave him to put together a little while back. They ended up being 14x9 -22 and 14x9.5 -28 (approx). They're pretty crazy but also it's a problem and apparently I can't measure properly because the 9.5s will no way fit on OEM body. Because I'm kind of indecisive and trying to put a 155/65 on a 9.5 isn't working very well I asked to borrow a longchamp that he's just rebuilt in 14x9 -15 spec to have a measure up too. Might have to buy them, damn. Anyway, some photos of various fit testing with the 14x9 front and rear. I removed the springs in rear and disconnected shock so it's basically on bumps at that height, looks sick. But I think maybe a slightly less chunky tyre might be the go. Perhaps a 165 55 or something, not sure 100% on the sizes of tyres which are available so a bit more research required. Oddly the longchamps fitted better on the rear and the MK3 better on the front? Probably our measurements are off. I am definitely loving the longchamps..

Panel Barry's been hard at work doing various small patch jobs and finishing up some chassis work on the Skyline as well as rebuilding basically the whole rear end. That's all very exciting but what's really exciting is this. The Ford Escort inner arches look like they will fit up really nicely with a little bit of finagling and a bit of extra metal. The curve is amazingly close. Might be a smidgen wide for the outer skin as I think it pushes it out slightly so it cannot join quite correctly but in the grand scheme of things I think that's fairly small all things considered.

Strap in kids this one is image heavy. I received the spacer adapters during the week and this is how they work. There are two parts with the outer part being bolted to the inner part using those allen head screws. Not super into those allen screws as they have a tendency to round out but probably limited for choice. Apparently in 1965 M12 wheel studs were not invented yet so the S600 just has M10 and the spacer place didn't have a suitable small nut to use however the OEM nuts probably can work but they protrude past the spacer, along with the stud. We cannot machine anything out of the other side of the spacer because of where the studs are for the 4x114 portion so for the purposes of this exercise I've just used some washers. This makes the effective spacer 35mm instead of 30mm. So now, feast your eyes on a large variety of wheel testing in the rear. These are all 6-7 inch wide in varying offsets. Anything more than 6.5 is pretty much a no go due to the width and the spacer so no super deep dish sadly. In the front I knew it'd be a struggle so I didn't go crazy and just mounted up this watanabe which is 14x6 and it still pokes out a bit.. maybe I can find 14x5.5 or find some way to put a little camber up front. I also noticed a lot of grease and fluid up front that I decided to ignore. I like the look of the watanabes as the faded black coating that the used ones usually have matches the 30 year old dulux paint job on the car. I'll have the machine shop make a slightly wider inner spacer portion so I don't have to go cutting studs up I think and we'll go from there. Worst case maaybe I can find a smaller nut and cut stud but would prefer to avoid that.

Speaking of momentum, a bit more work getting done on the Skyline while we wait for those arches to be made. Bit of a hole in the back chassic leg here and the other side wasn't looking super flash either so some new bits being made up.

Not a huge amount happened today but in the interests of keeping momentum going there is a little update. I have taken the wheels off the Celica to get the new lips put on so while it was in the air I sprayed the rear wheel wells with underseal. It's not perfect but it's better than it was. Found out some of the rear guard pocket is made of fibreglass.. not really a surprise. It's probably not perfectly coated but it just has to be better than it was, that's all. Next task is working out which wheels to put on the S600. Because it's 5x130 (yeah I know, wtf) stud pattern I'm getting some spacer adapters made up but they have to be 30mm because of the way that it's done so I'm wondering what kind of width I'll be able to get under there. I don't think we'll be able to do big dish however the rears have been widened by some Barry in the past so not sure how wide they even are.

It's Sunday! That (usually) means workshop day. For the rear wing on the Celica because it's fibreglass and generally averagely put together I had the problem of the passenger side contacting on the rear guard. I thought maybe it was to do with the rubber boot seal so replaced that which did make a different, just not in the area I needed. Ended up just trimming a bunch of stuff off the edge which was the last step really and that's probably going to be good enough. As you can see the fit is pretty terrible on the back but I decided to make the top fit best then deal with the back fit later. When it's a bit warmer I'll Sikaflex it on.

Whoops, realised I posted the other Skyline post in the wrong thread! The Skyline is back on the cutting block after a long hiatus and struggling to find somewhere to work on it. As you can see the rear inner arch is mangled and it's basically same on the other side. Repairer suggested getting some old Ford Escort reproduction pieces as they look fairly similar and he thinks he can make it work. Saves trying to remake that whole lot from scratch and considerably cheaper so a set of those have been ordered. He's also started working on chassis rail repairs as well so things are steaming ahead!

Remember me? Not surprised if you don't. I forgot for a while too. First time Hako has left the storage in years! Off to it's next money draining adventure as we try to restart the restoration

A few items arrived last week to get some more jobs ticked off on Barry's list. Actually neither of these things were even on the list I made but you know how it goes.. start doing something then you see something else you want to do then rinse and repeat. First up was to get that water temperature gauge connected. After draining the fluid out I was able to just swap out the Barry metal pipe that was there for the usual radiator hose adapter and that fits up nice, no leaks. Problem is when wired up the gauge goes flying to the maximum temperature. It even does that when it's not grounded so I can only thing that maybe there's a short somewhere or the sender is broken or something. I think the only way I'll be able to test it is to take it out and put it in some hot water or something and see. The reason I'm not scared of it actually being over 120 degrees is the second job of the day, which was actually the first. A friend of mine noted that I didn't have the fan relay actually powered so that was a simple job with some terrible wiring and crimping. I idled the car up and it turned on so we can presume that it isn't getting overly hot as the fan does turn off again. I don't know what was going through the mind of Barry when this wiring setup was done. I tried to undo the bolt to re-route the wire but it seems fairly well rounded so seems like the solution will be to pull the hose but I don't want to do that just at the moment until I take off that sensor for the gauge which will happen sometime in the future. Previously I mentioned that our shifter bushes were gone so these are the replacement items. Left is what came out, right is what is in the kit. This kit is for a whole bunch of Mazda RWD gearboxes so not all of the bushes were needed for mine but I replaced a couple of busted/missing ones and the difference was amazing. Of course there are some different bolts for the top plate, because why wouldn't there be? Was snooping around and found some wiring hanging down on the exhaust so that's cool. Tucked that up out of the way. One of the other things that was bugging me was the rear bump stops. As you can see, they are not the same. The red ones I will replace them with are for a Hiace but the idea is the same, simply a stud through a hole. Problem is said hole on the car is smaller than said stud so it needs to be drilled out. Job for another day.

Most of the big dollar stuff that I want to do on the Celica has been taken care of for the time being so now we can start tinkering with the time intensive jobs. I spent a bit of time with getting this rear wing to fit up on the back and into shape as it's a bit warped. It's not stuck down properly yet but that's about the position it will be. It still warped but also the boot is shutting unevenly so I've ordered a new boot rubber seal as the current one looks quite old and crusty. Reason for doing this is the wing hits considerably more on the passenger side rear quarter than driver side so before I start irreversibly cutting more out of the wing to get it to sit flatter I thought I'd at least try to get the seal even. Barry got some love this weekend as well. Where the oil pressure gauge was located was prime position for smashing it every time getting in and out of the car so I decided to move it to the left and also temporarily mocked up where water temperature gauge will live. Don't look too much into all this as remember we will be remaking the top gauge panel soon and gauges will live up there; this is just more a proof of concept for senders working. I also investigated that short shifter I found in the box of spares and it does indeed look like it fits but the shifter bushing is long since gone out of business. Thankfully it looks like these can still be purchased and they aren't expensive. Not sure it will make shifting better though, probably not but we'll see. I also found a mirror in the Barry box that came with the car and fitted it up. Yeah that's not going anywhere near the car ever again. Seems like my seats are made of paper as well.

Bit of Barry love today. I'd not actually ever taken the wheels off yet to check what's going on under there but I wanted to paint them anyway to get rid of the crusty rusted bits and just try tidy it up a bit. Let's see what we're dealing with under here.. That's not looking good That's not looking good That's not looking good And that's just on one corner! All of the shocks need replacing, bump stops are different between the corners, springs are tiny in the rear.. it's just money right? This shot you can see how the rear originally worked with that chain drive. The shocks on this car look very much like motorbike items, or most likely some very close iteration of them considering the history of Honda. The spring I can compress with my hand so.. might need an upgrade. The rear wheels have been widened it looks like.. one of them runs wobbly but the tyre is big enough to absorb it. Anyway, to the main event. I fired up the paint booth and my favourite paint (Rustoleum) and go to work.. I kind of like it with all black.. shame there's a bunch of stuff that sticks out that looks terrible So this is what it looks nice now with the trim rings and the centre caps. Just a little bit nicer than crusted old rusty wheels I reckon

This weekend was actually doing mostly proper work related activities but I did manage to squeeze in a couple of little things. The S600 being a race car needs race car parts. I didn't like the look of the old Ramflo filters on there so ordered some trumpets. They didn't fit. seems like they were for a larger model of SU than mine. Fixed it. Aside from a visual change I'm happy to report this has made zero difference to sound or performance, clears the bonnet though and looks cooler so that's the main thing. Sometimes life is too simple so let's add some danger. I mentioned earlier that the bolt on spacers wouldn't work on the Celica properly on the front due to the stud being too long and hitting the wheel. I had a genius idea to put a slip on spacer behind the bolt on spacer, now it works. Before After Makes quite a difference being 30mm wide instead of 5mm. I still have a couple more 5mm slip ons so I think I will add additional danger.

Had a pretty good week "finalising" the Celica for the time being. After doing a bit of screwdriver tuning it runs happy enough and I did a full brake bleed using a stack of new fluid but now about 95% of the existing brake problems are resolved. The rest of the slightly strange braking may be down to worn out bushes or simply alignment. I'd ordered some 25mm spacers that also arrived but sadly the front studs seem to protrude too far out and the wheels do not have cutouts in the back. I didn't want to cut the factory studs down so will probably just try to find larger spacers as it needs it anyway. In the meantime it's just got 10mm slip ons up front and the 25mm bolt ons in rear. It doesn't look super duper low but now this is annoying, future Alex problem. Overall, happy with the direction things are heading.

Delinquency is tiring when you get older so for today's effort I just wanted something a bit less physically taxing to deal with so I'm doing more wiring/sketchy experiments on Barry the S600. I ordered some max China gauges for my dash panel mockups and decided to make use of one of them. The Speco oil pressure gauge that came in the car was a mechanical unit and the oil in the line basically wasn't moving/seemed solid. I couldn't trust the gauge when it was telling me 20psi at all times. Of course the sensor was in a suboptimal place so I spent 20 minutes removing skin on my forearms getting it out. Much to my surprise the electrical sender actually threaded right in. With some more mad scientist wiring I did a test. Looks like winning to me. A few posts earlier I mentioned my temporarily permanent plan for the wheels was to black them and put trim rings and some trim rings I ordered arrived during the week. With some massaging of these tabs I was able to push them on. Whether they stay on or not, yet to be determined. I'll order in some more paint soon to complete that look but the trim rings look great! Really makes those rubber air valves stand out though. So now I've got the OEM fuel gauge working, that tractor tacho and the oil pressure gauge. Now I just need to work out what kind of gauges I will go for and complete the mockup for final new dash panel. Thinking that for a winter project I'll remove the whole dash and make a new loom for all of the gauges, switches and lights because it's definitely a mess under there.

Sit down and get a coffee folks, this is a long one. WEEK ONE: A couple of posts back I mentioned some new springs came in for the Celica from Japan. These are ZOOM brand, and I've used them in my Hakosuka as well. However in this instance they didn't fit the Celica properly. For some reason the bottom curl did not match the mounting of the Celica despite being for Celica (so the box said). Additionally, I asked for 50-60mm lower which definitely did not supply so I'm not sure if the springs sent were wrong or what. I did some super sketchy cutting of the bottom coil to see if it helped but didn't really. Once installed with shorter shocks it was exactly the same as what came out! Frustrating to say the least after spending all weekend on it. Speaking of shocks, this is what we have to work with. The inserts are SW20 rears which require some spacing either at the top or the bottom. The most common way to do that is what I've done here with a stack of washers at the bottom. Seems sketchy but works fine. The other recommended thing to do was wrap the top of the shock in some aluminium tape which I did to stop it moving around in the housing. This is what it looked like AFTER I put the Japanese springs in. Yeha it's basically the same as with OEM springs! Unhappy. My only thought at this point was maybe the rear settled down a bit more which made the front go up but really, was over it. Another reason I was over it was the front brakes. Took me forever to work out how the caliper worked and get the pads in, oh and I had to do some custom grinding as well because of course bolt on parts didn't fit. Sticking on the brakes for a second, looks like this has been leaking for some time based on the paint beneath it. I will bleed the brakes and make sure the levels are correct at sometime in the future. WEEK TWO: After getting pissed off last week I wanted to test a theory. Seems like nobody in Australia makes TA22 specific front springs anymore but you can still get TA23/RA23 front springs. I couldn't find conclusive evidence to suggest these would or would not work with Barry wars erupting on either side of the battlefield so naturally I had to find out myself. Enter some King Low (super low seems discontinued) springs for TA23/RA23. They mounted exactly how you'd expect, unlike the Japanese ones. However when installed.. the height didn't go down! Thankfully I had a solution. 3 Coils deleted and re-installed. Finally we have a somewhat acceptable height. You might say why didn't I just get coilovers for the front? Even after all this I'm still about half the cost of a set of front coilovers but that is the ultimate goal eventually. So this is your conclusive evidence that YES, you can use TA23 springs in your TA22. I've also ordered some spacers for the wheels until I get around to widening.

Today we're team red! First up, while the front end is apart on the Celica I decided it would be a good idea to put some undercoat spray in there. First I cleaned up with some scotch pad and soapy water and glad I did as the water that came off that was nasty. After that simply waited for that to dry off and spray on the stuff. I used a Sika product and it sprayed really well but was only enough to do light-ish spray on both sides. As you can see on this side it's still a little patchy so I've ordered more. Not sure if people usually do the guard side as well? There's no guard liner so might as well. Made some great progress on Barry too. I was able to work out some more of the wiring situation by doing some sketchy shit and got the tachometer working so that's cool. No idea how accurate it is and it's some kind of machinery unit as it has hours in the digital bit below which is funny. Then I started to do some CAD (cardboard aided design) work on the new dash panel. I had to do some clearancing behind to get the furtherst right 2" gauge to fit but looks like my plan will work great in general. Unfortunately it seems like the speedo cable is not connected at the gearbox end as it doesn't spin when the car is in gear so I couldn't get the speedo working today. Bonus content

Are they R160 ?

More hackery on Barry the S600 today! At the advice of my auto elec friend I was able to get the fuel gauge working which showed a full tank, sweet! That's like $50 of value right there; it'll probably last 2 years. Kind of another waste of time though as that will be replaced anyway with the new gauge set once I work out what I want to do there. What I did do was manage to "fix" a shifting problem. 2nd 4th and reverse were niggly because the shifter would hit the surround area of the tunnel. I started to do some choppy chop (don't judge too hard, grinder wouldn't fit and the dremel went for a walk) then I realised I could just unscrew this cover. Shift problem resolved! I'm not opposed to replacing that panel with something else and just screwing it back on, as long as it doesn't hit stuff. At any rate I need to find a replacement for the boot around the base of the shifter. In the box of spares I did find what I suspect is a short shifter so perhaps this car had this installed at one time and it didn't foul but then for whatever reason the original shifter was replaced but nothing else changed to accommodate. Might try to reinstall it and see if it's actually for this car or not. You can be sure this disaster is not going back in though.

For the S600? I imagine trying to find an LSD, or even a diff from a Leone might be tricky but definitely something to keep in mind. That said.. it might need the larger diff for future plans. lol yeah it's life is destined for retirement/occasional outings. It seems like it was more of an old boy thing to do but I presume shock technology has improved a little bit to make it not necessary. Most people don't seem to do it from what I've read when replacing the shocks so I don't think I will and just see how it goes.

Hmm I did read something about the antifreeze thing the other night but wasn't really sure what it meant. Is it necessary to do it again when they are replaced?

We learnt some interesting things about the Celica today while tearing into the front end. Not sure if this was mentioned previously but any time I would hit the brakes the car would duck and dive and generally behave very dangerously. I suspected that the shocks were screwed and I was not disappointed. These are obviously not original but they are very old. I'm no suspensionologist but I'm pretty sure the fluid is meant to be inside the shock. Driver side was surprisingly not too bad but passenger side was swimming in escaped fluid. Yeah that won't be helping the driving experience at all. I knew there was a brake problem but I did not count on finding this. I suppose that explains why the brakes didn't really work properly either. Can't say I've ever seen this before. I've not yet started investigation into why this happened or if there's a calliper issue or they were just fitted wrong or what. Either way they look super old. My replacement discs and pads look to be correct so that's good and I also discovered the wheel bearings on driver front are screwed so have ordered another set. Passenger side felt like it had been replaced because that one is smooth. Not sure these will be low enough.. might need to delete a coil.

One of those days where you spend all day just looking at shit and not really getting much done. When I got the car none of the gauges worked and the previous owner mentioned that they were all bypassed because of some short circuit/fire (see previous posts regarding burnt wires). I was trying to get some of the OEM gauges working like fuel and temperature so I spent most of the day trying to work out wtf was going on with the wiring. After talking to my auto elec mate he told me that I basically wasted my day because they were all wired in series after the ammeter so without that they won't work. I did find the Barry bypass so the ignition would work so I reckon I should just be able to tee into that to get power for gauges but by then I decided to do what any budding Barry would do and just re-twist and tape the original Barry bypass and go home for some Whisky. What I plan to do is actually remake the gauge panel as it's basically just a piece of flat metal (there are some bevels around the edges but I don't think they are necessary) but with different size gauge holes to match more modern gauges. Likely 3x 2" gauges on the left then the centre two will be speedo and tacho depending on which size I can get to match the style I want. That way I can delete Fahrenheit and mph. I did get the wipers working though.

Someone recommended this kit - https://www.bunnings.co.nz/josco-grinder-accessory-metal-mirror-finish-kit_p6310310 I've got the pads like that but haven't got that compound bar of soap looking stuff so maybe that's the key ingredient

Went up to the shop again over the weekend to basically see what I'm working with and give the car a clean as I don't think it'd really been washed for years. Not sure if it made much difference but the glass is a bit nicer to look out of at least and the interior is free of dog hair now. I did a little bit of polishing as well to make the wheel caps a bit more shiny and then did the headlight surrounds too which turned out ok. I can make semi-shiny things more shiny but can't make cloudy things shiny. Probably that just comes down to patience/not having the tools to do it. I'm contemplating investing in a DA polisher but not 100% sold on that yet. I did however use the old Barry tinfoil trick to remove the rust spots from the front bumper so at least that doesn't stand out quite as much. Might hit up old mate car detailer next door to see if he can have a go on the bumpers. None of the gauges work in the car (except an aftermarket oil pressure gauge) and the box of spares included wiring for said gauges which were clearly melted and on fire so that's fun. Reading up on it I think it may be due to the ampere gauge needing an alternator in a certain range and it probably is outside that range with the different motor. Hopefully I can get the fuel level at least back working without too much trouble and probably the temperature somehow but in the long run I will probably just cut another dash panel out and put aftermarket gauges in. Old Mazda nerds, is this just OEM 70sish Mazda RWD gearbox? Can you tell with the world's worst photos? Not really relevant to anything I guess but just curious if it's been a full engine/transmission out of the one car and into another as a set or not. I've also decided to paint the wheels with my favourite Rustoleum black then get some chrome trims for the edges. That should look a bit better than crusted out how they currently are, like this but without the full smoothieness. This should tide me over until Watanabes. Also totally random is these rear struts. These days the struts just have gas in to push the window/boot up but these (presumably have some kind of gas still) actually lock in when you turn that bit in the middle so they can't come down which is neat.