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Can you adjust out the clutch pedal pushrod to try and get a little more throw on it? I guess you don't want the bite point too much higher though 

7 minutes ago, Bling said:

To be fair, many people on here have many projects that will never see the road. So it does have merit. It's cheaper to buy one already done usually too, so i'm with kws. One should not bite off more than one can chew.

yeah I'm to-ing and fro-ing about whether to spend the extra on a running legal one but I keep coming back to "but then what would I do with it?" 

buying a project means shopping for car parts on the internet which is 200% hands down my favorite pastime (miles ahead of "working on cars")

"if you can't afford a decent one, you can still afford to pay three times as much over eight years to make a crap one marginal"

1 minute ago, kws said:

IMO having dealt with trying to import a car that was flagged at the Japanese border as rusty, unless you need to have that one or its some amazing deal where you can afford to jump through many expensive hoops for the repair cert, i'd probably look for another.

Does it have any of the import paperwork? If you don't have the compliance paperwork from the first owner, and none of the import paperwork, i feel like that might become a world of pain come your turn to comply it.

yup I've asked for the paperwork, no reply yet though

Deep down I think it's a case of "if you can't afford a decent one, you can't afford to make a crap one decent" 

thanks guys, we are already into second hand news regarding what was actually said and done and by who, so yes I will be proceeding with caution

OK so my recent revelation is that there is a border check, and a compliance certification process, and they aren't one and the same. the current owner says that the car "went through compliance" which I guess is the certification check. presumably it didn't pass otherwise It'd have plates on it and be worth twice as much. anyway I did the sensible thing and asked for a copy of the border check, compliance paperwork and the rust repair cert, which despite this being a deal worth thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, I am sure will be seen as a totally unreasonable demand and I'll never get a reply

meanwhile he is being offered swapz for everything under the sun 

can someone please spoonfeed me like little baby

Looking at a car. was bought into the country, issued VIN, flagged for rust, first owner then pinched the engine out of it then sold the body. second owner sat on it and now wants to sell it. along comes a sucker:

1. does the original compliance inspection have a deadline? or can I just get them to ring up the VIN and they'll know exactly what to re-check.

2. is there any significance in it having had a VIN issued? does that mean it's at least passed some level of scrutiny?

3. does the original compliance crowd need to do the recheck? guessing it'll be someone in auckland

4. does the car have to be presented complete in order to finish compliance? (ie do I need to find a replacement engine) if so, would the replacement engine having a different serial number cause problems? do they even check?

if it's a big enough slug of air you might be able to pick it up by tap-testing it? you'll feel like an idiot tap-tap-taparooing down a zillion meters of pipe though

I would probably do a proof of concept first, half fill a couple of meters of spare pipe, cap it, bend into an arch and test to see if there's a difference in sound 

she moved out of Hamilton 

compressor ran good, except it seemed to be rigged to cut out at some stratospheric PSI. manual was in italian so I was trying to look up the pressure adjustment and it was like a night at the opera. got there in the end though 

I'm going to start bonging wires together as soon as I r finished this coffee so I hope not. the old motor had a triangle on the dataplate so delta I guess 

Its all three phase... there was a manual with the new one but books are for dorks. perhaps I should read it (like a nerd)

wires and shit, plz help 

change of subject, I've just finished replacing our 90 year old American compressor with a brand new Italian one. Got to the wiring and much like a guy at his first orgy I have got no idea what's supposed to go where

7 hours ago, 440bbm said:

Slab 40k?  my 108m2 shed floor i getting quotes for is between 8 and 12k. so much be a big concrete pad!

The slab would be about 20x5m so probably about the same area as yours although I was allowing 10mm plus depth, at least in one patch where I'd want to put up my hoist. I pulled 40k out of my ass, good to hear it can be done much cheaper, we already have compacted gravel on the site so that probably helps too. 

But given that I already have the containers, that 8-12k money for the slab would probably cover the costs for getting them gutted and joined, and of course they already come with a floor!

Thought about the canvas archgola thing but I've only got a 6x20 site to play with. It's basically going to be a lean-to on the side of the workshop, I already pay lease on the gravel patch so kinda dumb to do nothing with it 

anybody have any experience chopping up shipping containers? I've got two 40ft containers sitting next to each other, I had a fever dream about cutting the walls out between them and turning the whole thing into a giant paint booth or something. Maybe raising the roof too? Basically I want more workshop space but a slab alone is like 40 grand

looking at buying a new water trap / regulator for our paint gun at work, anything I should look out for? some of the fancier looking rigs have auto-oilers for air tools, I suppose you can just leave that off?

when I pulled the head on the starion I found that the head gasket has a couple of holes in it that don't line up with anything. thanks to these holes, coolant (or rather, straight water by the looks of it) has been allowed to sit against the head and has started eating into it. in fact the whole area around it looks a bit corroded and I think I'll condemn this head

I pulled the head off a spare engine and found the same gasket, same corrosion, same problem (but significantly less bad). the corrosion pit is pretty gnarly but isn't anywhere near anything, probably a good 10mm from the gasket fire ring so I think it's OK to run again? just wondering if there's anything I should/could do to prevent it getting any worse. A blob of silicone to close up the hole in the gasket?

this is the old head:

I think you need some angles to trig it out... or sketch a full size mockup on the floor. or yeah CAD 

many of us squeeze a year out of our 6 month wofs 

I'll have a spot in a hangar at the airfield (Whangarei) after next week. Under cover and pretty secure but you'll need to give notice to get it in or out 

supposedly more predictable clamping force, probably pretty important on the bleeding edge of automotive performance, probably less so in an 80s mitsi donk 

ah, I think I probably do... I just saw "sohc 4g63" and figured it was the old model but of course they probably kept building them forever. 

Oh well now i have a set of new TTY bolts on the way, I suppose I'll use them - the engine was rebuilt not that long ago, can't be sure that the head bolts that went in at that time weren't TTY too 

stuff it, a whole replacement set is like 80 bucks lol. cheap insurance

edit: $40 bucks through Segedins

hmm I've found a manual too and it doesn't say replace, but the torque figure is 20NM plus 180 degrees, isn't that a hallmark of torque to yield bolts?