azzurro

Crossing more things off the list Headlights the outer (lo and hi) headlamps had started to tarnish. They are noname/Repco ones i think. The inner high beams are Cibie and still in good shape and are very good The retaining rings are pretty shot tho, these ones are chromed steel, my 125p ute from 1989 in contrast has stainless ones - they are standard 5 3/4 retainers but stragly seem pretty hard to get hold of (read expensive or 'out of stock'!) , so if anyone has a good source let me know. Would like 4 but at least 2 would be good. I had jumped on a wodge of 12v car electrical stuff on marketplace a while ago, mainly for the NOS Bosch bulbs, which i was holding onto for just such an occasion Turns out they are reboxed Stanley's made in Japan, not bothered at all Stanley stuff is top notch, just pretty interesting. Pic on the box even has Stanley in the centre I took all the other lights off and cleaned everything up a bit including all their connections, and swapped out the silver grille back to the black one tidied up and resprayed and the best bits from both. Looking good sparkly eyes Crank Pulley and Radiator hoses Took the radiator out to access the crankshaft pulley Old one had this chunk missing on the rear side that I only noticed just before leaving for Nats. New one read to install along with a cleaned up and repainted balancer pulley and the centrifugal oil filter cover. Removing the radiator also meant i could swap in the new factory lower radiator hose i got in, and swap out this nonsense. Im now comfortable with trusting the factory temperature gauge, so i dont need this mechanical one any more either, but ill use this one in the van rather than the china electric sender one in there. Used some phosphoric acid to clean the top of radiator while it was out and a respray as well Lower hose in , much tidier, and the routing past the alternator is much better too, no rubbing on anything, and with the hoses sized to the different inlets and outlets its much tidier all round Clutch Pedal feel on the clutch pedal had always been a bit funny (seemed to 'stick' at the top) and when the gearbox was out checking out the clutch was out there wasnt anything obvious mechanically wrong. Pulled the master, which apart from some typical crusties in the pushrod end, seemed fine And the slave, again nothing scary, but worth tidying up and re rubber greasing everything Ended up being the pushrod on the pedal, i thought it was not adjustable but it was just stuck ! , so now thats freed up and antiseazed up and adjusted a bit and it seemed to have sorted it. Swapped out the lever arm sping on the gearbox for a lighter one too, will see how that goes. Clutch feel is like a modern car! Im sure ill have to adjust it a bit to set the bite point to the right spot once i get it off the jackstands but theres no feeling of sticking or jamming at the top of its travel now. Electrical This car has two horns from factory, there's a switch under the dash to switch between them - a Town which an electric piezo tooter that lives under the front wheel well, and a Country which is supposed to be two chromed air horns run off a chromed compressor that is supposed to live in the engine bay and point out that grille. This car didnt come with the air horns, and ive found some horns, but not stumbled on a compressor yet (i have an eye out for a cheap chinesium one but no luch as yet) Anyway the snail style horn i had was a bit weak and strangled sounding and i picked up a dual snail style horn that had a mounting bracket from some Audi at PickaPart when i was in Auckland last. Fits great! No pics but ended up chasing a bunch of electrical gremlins (turned out the old horn itself was fine, the wire at the connector end had gone green/patinad, and was letting though anywhere from 8-10V meaning it sounded sick), and tidying a bunch of wiring, including pulling the fuse box and cleaning that up too. Everything is much brighter now TOOT TOOOOT! Also pulled the plugs, cleaned and gapped them (0.40mm); pulled the distributor out, filed the points flat, degreased and cleaned, and reset the gap (0.45mm), Turns out the Vacuum advance diaphragm is blown Only makes a small difference and only at very low rpm, but ehhh. Will probably need to send that off somewhere to get fixed, as ive not seen them for sale previously. I also have 5 spare ones that all have leaks too. Also cleaned out the carb including blowing out the jets and the crud in the bottom of the bowls - quite a layer of fine silt, probably rust from the tank making it past the filter . Reset the timing (12deg), tuned the carb, timing, carb, etc dialing in on the sweetspot and now starts and runs really nice. Only a couple of things to do and it will be off the stands and as good as its ever been .If anyone knows of a place that does diaphram preplacement let me know

well done untangling the magneti spaghetti. I didnt see why you set off on this maniacal task tho? IME the wire and connector quality itself is pretty good, but the layout and logic is messed up. Is there a reason you replaced all the wires too? I mean im all for it, just wasnt sure why?

Had to go to Auckland for werk, and came back with a LOT of excess baggage My buddy sent me up with a coffin bag to get 'a couple of boards' ended up being 3 Surfboards (collected from GHS in Muriwai as a favour for my other Muriwai pal who lives down here too - a new 5'0" custom for his daughter and a couple of stockers for him), plus a new 9'2" Mal turned up for me in the post And some gluten free fake meat from Blissful Foods on Mt Albert Rd - nomnom And managed to get out to the lockup to dig though the treasure and filled my luggage with about 20kg of Car parts, including a box of 2300 treasure that id left behind last time such as a spare diff head, some starter parts and a speedo drive I also made an online order, including a starter pinion, pedal rubbers, a special 2300 only crank pulley, speedo cable and an oil pressure valve (for teh 1100T Van) Next job on the list was really a bunch of 'while im in there' tasks all requiring the gearbox to come out - gearbox leak(s) - gear linkages had got noticeably worse over nats trip, to the extent i was having trouble getting into first - get speedo going (speedodrive in gbox is busted) - clutch is a bit shuddery - centre bearing on driveshaft seemed loose So, gearbox out, first, woodwork. Bit easier than bench pressing it, and less likley to drop this cast iron deadweight right on its aluminium pan Lump out Gear box seals in stock The front and rear seals were not leaking but the linkage seals sure were, 24x14x7 btw Rear main nice and clean too, suspect a drip on the rear pan gasket tho. Flywheel clutch and pressure plate all good. One of the clutch fingers was a bit higher than the other two so i adjusted that back down to match the majority. Hopefully that's the slightly juddery clutch bite issue. More woodwork - these wood scraps ended up being ~7.5mm which was good enough to make the alternative to Special Tool A.70015, which was unfortunately unavailable. Pulled starter apart to replace the pinion drive which was running on - an issue since i originally got this going All nice and clean with new paint, new bearing and new pinion Centre bearing. Was new ~5 years ago. The bearing is still fine, and the manual suggests the rubber is supposed to be a fairly loose fit. Nevertheless it got the Sika Flex treatment whcih will hopefully protect the rubber and stiffen it up as well Bits and pieces get 2k black with a brush. Should last better than any single stage or spraycans all of which which ive used before and decided all are a total waste of time under a car imo. All ready for reinstallation, cant see but the centre bearing hanger is all sika'd up, and there is some 4mm rubber strips under the small void that is supposed to be between the gbox mount and the xmember - mount was was soft from the gbox oil leak, should lift it a few mm back to 'as new' Hight and support/stiffen the mount back up and stop it from rubbing on the crossmember. And then installation is reverse of removal as they say. upper bell housing bolt special tool with all the extensions Spent the weekend getting it all back in and adjusting stuff, including replacing a few linkage bushes and clips to tighten that up as well, and got it started up just before, and ran it though the gears on the stand. Speedo works for the first time ever! Linkage is much better! Clutch works! Starter sounds great! Exhaust doesn't leak or rattle! feels good man!

Post nats i made some lists of fixing and getting . First job, swapping the other front wheel bearing that i didnt swap before nats that surprise! had started grumbling pretty bad on the homeward leg - wasnt getting hot just noisier, i had it on board, but CBF changing it on the side of the road if i didnt have too Another original factory fitted RIV bearing and seal on this side, swapped out. Thatll do it! Probably started with small rust pits from when it was sitting all those years, and after about 5000km on a kerosene clean and a regrease finally punched though Then i put GIB on the front half of the garage ceiling/kitchen floor and some new lights. Way better! Exhaust - way too low, also, to loud (what?) The old girl sits pretty low, and we had pretty bad exhaust scraping issues around Maharau and anywhere with judder bars really. The constant battering made it bend mounts and droop, and leak and fume out the interior and i had to fix it a couple times at Nats. LOW LIFE This before shot shows why - when i first built this i put the flange at the easiest spot to do up, but its also at the lowest point, right between the wheels. It sounded pretty good , with long 1 1/2" secondary's to 2 1/4" just before the diff, into just one straight though muffler but was also pretty droney, esp @ 2k and 4k rpm, and so the drones was nearing peak about highway speed (100 is ~3.5k rpm in 4th) . Ill move the flanges and flexis in front of the torsion bar mount/x member so all that can be both flatter against the floor and loose the 10-15mm extra diameter forward to a less scrapey location Looking towards the diff - will put the muffler somewhere between the merge and the diff Also Ms Azzurro was getting headaches, and declared she wouldn't ride in it again untill it was sorted out. So thats that then. Basically need to tuck it up a bit more though the middle, by moving the flanges towards the engine, and stick in another muffler Had these bits in the stash, some left over 2 1/4 and 1 3/4 pipe and a 2 1/4 muffler ex my 125 After much faffing this is the new rear section, new muffler before the diff, and flanges moved about 500mm forward and staggered Shiny and chrome Still lower than the aluminum finned gearbox bottom plate with a dangly drain plug, but thats good. Would like to build a sump guard/skid plate one day, but for now it remains to the exhaust to protect it Loooong secondaries, but a few 100mm shorter, so be interesting to hear what that does to the harmonics - definitely had a noise peak at 2k and 4k before Nice and tucked up and flat though here, the old exhaust had lots of scraping here so hopefully that small skid plate will stop the lower edge of the muffler getting hooked on a curb and ripping the whole lot off Gained at least 10s of mms! Thats good! Fired it up once the RTV set, exhaust sounds smoooothh, much lower volume, but has lost its race car bark. Sounds like a modern car quiet. thats good to, i guess? (I must be getting old)

Have used both of these before no dramas https://www.dellorto.co.uk/ Or https://www.carbparts.eu/?lang=en The second one is the feels slightly dodgy one i think you are thinking of. Ive used aliexpress for scooter carb jets, but not weber/dell stuff When i lived in auckland I called in to weber specs a couple of times, they had what i wanted in stock, but was very spendy. murray knows his shit but both times made it pretty hard to enjoy giving him my money, so ive not since, but, ymmv

Ill have a look at mine, i have an internally regulated alternator on my 125 - from memory it was as simple as unplug the voltage regulator and plug a couple of those wires together, but exactly which i cant recall. Im probably explaining it wrong, but in my mind, the alternator light on the dash works on the basis of who is winning the Battle of the Volts (path of least resistance?) between the alternator and the battery, if the alternator is pushing out more pressure (volts) than the battery, the pixies can then take the path that avoids the lamp (which is also a resistor - that why you cant use a LED there), but if the battery is winning, the path though the bulb is taken instead (cant push though the regulator??) and so it lights up. How that relates to the wiring idk, but now my brain is mush, and you are now stupider for reading this, ill go take a look and report soon

I did not. "Count to 10 please" "Tahi, rua,... iwa, tekau" "Ok, thats a pass" "thanks, have a good night, bye!"

Good run around with some good peeps. Noone has any road legal os whips, and i didnt take many photos Sweet line up! 125p pickup, Aristo, VR6, Pulsator Loristo navigating the dips Hotttt photo shoots Then back to NZStatos sweet shed to share hot meat and do lawn equipment revivals. Many lols

So long time no update on this. After my last post I fitted up the refreshed door frame Looks really good especially compared to the other side, which ive still to do, because it would be easier with the van turned around facing the road Which is cool, because the van now has a running engine, selectable gears, brakes and all the electrics work... I could drive it out the driveway, maybe an accidental quick bimble around the crescent and then back it in to its spot. Foreshadowed above tho is needing a new oil pressure switch causing the oil light to not go out. I had ordered a cheap set of aliexpress gauges (volts, water temp, oil pressure) and wired them in too - i like being able to see whats going on in more detail than the very basic dash lets on - swapped the oil pressure one out for an old mechanical one i had, because i trust them more than the cheap electronic sender/gauge and i had some adaptors that fit the block. Anyway, hooked the gauge up, and cracked the line to let the oil fill the line and push the air out, and fired up the engine (which runs great), but oil didnt fill the line So I did the right thing and took the fitting off and gave the jandal for a bit (nothing i hadnt done before) and some sort of dribbled out. Took the sump off and pulled the oil pump out, cleaned and checked it including running it witht eh drill in the drained oil - seems fine given how much oil it splurted over the driveway. Ill probably order a new pressure relief valve to be sure even tho the other one seems fine - the spring is stiff and it seals. Tried a couple other things to see if i could trace how far from teh pump the oil was getting to but its pretty hard to tell without being an oil molecule. The oil pressure sensor is near teh end of the line in terms of oil supply, but seems it is getting to the centrifugal filter (which just upstream of the pump) so it will be at least partially in the crankshaft bearings, but it isnt really pushing up to the tappets/head at all (which still have moly grease on them from assembly) So i assume i either put a bearing shell in wrong way round at some point or the crankshaft is full of crud. Either way the engine will have to come back out to be torn down again to find out what the fuck. So yeah, its been sitting untouched for about exactly a year. And then the other day it was just sitting there looking kinda cool, so I might start the process of pulling everything out of the engine bay, again, in preparation to drop the engine out, again

Drove this on some errands the other day and then my 125 and was reminded how different they are in terms of drivability despite being pretty similar set ups The 125 sedan has a 2 litre twin cam with twin 40 deloorrtos, and its smooth around town and has torque like an electric car, This wee truck on the other hand has a 1598cc twin cam with twin weber 40 dcoes, but it's never run quite right on any carb set up ive tried especially flakey at low speed, off idle etc, and no amount of carb fiddling would get a smooth idle, and not as much torque i would expect (accepting the 2l vs 1.6 makes a big difference) and an annoying tappet noise i could never shim out. So kicked Little Blue out onto the driveway with the van (update coming soon) and drove the ute into the cave for some engine work. --- When i tidied up the engine in the truck a few years back - and put a new 'big valve' head on along with the cams that came in it as per this post ... I should have swapped out the cams then for any number of good standard ones i had (still have) , but i didnt, i guess thinking it might be a hot cam or some such, hoping it was not just a crappy regrind So anyway, finally dug out my box of cams and cam boxes - most factory cams are pretty similar profile - but there is a nice set of late model 132 2l cams in a pair of boxed id cleaned, greased and regasketed when i got them ages ago in anticipation of eventually getting round tuit Time to dive in - cam covers off, can see the shims and buckets Cam boxes and buckets off, showing the valves ' Reground cam boxes on the bench - can see how the regrind reduced the base circle, and these are early 'narrow lobe' cams too, i measured ~8mm lift There is no obvious damage or wear (probably only driven a few 1000km since new), and while i didnt really measure anything (nor do i have the tools or patience to do it properly) i think just from feel the ramp is a lot flatter to me seems like they would 'slap' like a rolling triangle rather than smoothly roll like the eggier shape of the factory ones (which would explain the noisy tappets) and could be imagining it but i suspect the lobe points not all exactly 90 deg from the others making one cylinder (or more) not quite perfectly in time with the ignition and cylinder which would also explain the choppy idle and poor running generally - crappy warranty regrinds... Looking back up through the cam bucket guide at later 'wide lobe' cams (note how the cams just clear the buckets), probably ex a 2 litre 132, with ~9.5mm lift relative to base circle - what looks like rust is my copper rtv finger prints in the storage lanolin grease the shims for setting valve clearance (inlet 0.45, ex 0.5) are on the top of buckets, need a special tool to hold the buckets down, a pick and a magnet and sometimes the air gun to pop them out, as well as a bunch of shims Tiem to dig out the shim box! including special bucket holding down tool, specially bent and ground down screwdriver/pick for poking the shims out of the bucket, and handy dandy magnet. as you can tell from my collection, most standard scenarios are in the 4.00 to 4.20 range, the ground cam i took out were in the larger end Set all the clearances - following my 'foolproof' system... As above its a bit of a faff to adjust the valve clearance, not so much the actual swapping different thickness shims on the cam bucket, but mostly the admin of rotating the cam shafts and fiddling with a bunch of quite different tools - verniers and 19mm spanners at the same time. A bit easier with teh cam belt off and pistons at half mast, but still a faff. rotate camshaft so lobe is pointing away from shim surface Measure the gap with feeler gauges, largest able to fit without forcing (say 0.65mm), write it down calculate required shim size target on these cams is 0.45 inlet and 0.5 exhaust, so if our gap is 0.65 the gap is 0.20 too big for the inlet cam, measured gap MINUS target gap = the difference from the current shim you need, positive = thicker to close the gap, or negative value means you need a thinner shim to open up the gap. required shim that is the current shim (4.05) PLUS the difference (+0.20) = 4.25 in shim collection (if we needed a thinner shim, 4.05 plus -0.20 = 3.85) Rotate cam shaft so cam is pushing bucket/valve down, insert special tool, rotate a bit more so tool holds the bucket down, dig out the old shim shim with a pick, and a magnet, a blast of shop air will pop most of them if they are vacuumed in install new shim, write down size in book rotate camshaft to release cam tool see step 1 Proof of how simple it is, i think i did each valve at least twice, one up to 5 times Next day, tuning Fired up first time and a lot quieter, and even idled from cold. Thats better than its ever done (it had always needed some throttle feathering before) After adjusting the ignition timing and good 2 hr fiddle with the Manometer, ir thermometer on the exhaust and teh wideband i even as i've ever got them. Dropped the idle jets down to 50s (from 55s) before, should be on 45s for an engine of this capacity Managed to drop the idle to (a stated) 900 at 13-14AFR, previously wouldn't run smooth under 1200, at about 11.5-12AFR but also have a mean lean spot off idle (plugs were pretty dark before) Seems to run a lot better now, need to give it a run on my 'test track' to see if it actually is, but i decided probably not ideal weather for fiddling with carbs on the side of the road today

This is coming along great, looks like its not even very rusty? I have bought the same side lamps for my 1100T van, I knew you would have some at least some joy in the older fiat parts bin Could you say where you got the tank done, and if you dont mind, how much?

Actually probably 1 drivable - lil utey might get a blast

Keen as a bean, the King George Drive is a good one in not so thin on OS rides with 3 that are drivable, but all are no reg no wof ... no worries?

sounds awesome!

stink about the pulley - I remember having similar issues when i swapped out the old pump for the newer style one on my old 1608. Swapping in a 2 liter solved most of those issues . Also had the faff with swapping to electric fan from the 2300 water pump mounted one, had to source a 1500 pulley to sort it, whcih was much easier than trying to find the old style water pump i think there are a couple of types of (non electro fan) twin cam water pump pulley, one deep one shallow (early/late or small cc/bigg cc? - i dunno ) , but if you have swapped from the big ol' factory electro magnetic one to a more modern style maybe you have the wrong pulley? Could be the cranks are slighlty different offset too? I have a couple of both here to measure if you want?

yeah, front shaft should be treated as effectively an extension of the crank/gearbox centreline and should be parallel. The guibo is only designed to deal with the engine/box moving slightly on its mounts, not suspension travel. A couple of washers between the bearing and mount will raise it, or between the mount and chassis will lower it.

Re brakes, the rear most reservoir is for the front brake circuit as this gets used first, then with more brake pedal travel the rear circuit (front res) starts coming online. If onlr front was draining while doing the rear circuit too, wonder if the pushrod is set up too long or short or something and not quite pushing the bits in the cylinder to use the rear circuit chambers? Maybe the sliding bits in the cylinder have been put in backwards? I had this issue on the 1100t van. Have had issues in the rear with the proportioning valve on the diff too, esp when it's lowered but usually it's just stuck off doing nothing. But if they seem to work fine, maybe it's just Fiat things? Driveline vibe - had exactly same issue, hard to assemble the driveshaft out of phase but try disconnecting the 4 bolts from the diff end, turn 180 then reattach. Could be the angle of the diff pinion too? Does it match the gearbox/front shaft angle? It's looking good man!

Keen as

Trip up to nats and back was awesome. DAY 1: THURSDAY, DEPARTURE Loaded the Mrs, 2 bikes, a tent, blowup bed and pump, 2 chilly bins, 2 tool boxes, food, clothes, oil water and some spares, and a million of camping stuff, To the gunwhales! Pre flight systems check, then dropped the cat off for a weekend in cat prison, and hit the road to Nelson. It rained pretty much the whole day, so stereo, wipers, heater and lights all giving the alternator a good hard testing. Dry spot on the road to Hanmer First night, we didnt make any plans as we werent sure how far we would get, or if we would get there at all, but ended up making it as far as Hanmer Springs before calling it, and left the booking to Kirsty, we ended up staying in the Hanmeet Campground, in one of the cabins. Ended up being both the coldest and most uncomfortable night of the trip. DAY 2: FRIDAY - TO NELSON Next day was better, no traffic due to a bad accident just before the turn off to Hanmer from Chch side meant we had a clear easy run up though the valleys to Motueka. Op shopping all the way Lovely roads, with the 2300 singing at about 3500, making about 85-95km/h And then Nats DAY 3 and 4: NATS Saturday and Sunday To be honest, after setting up the tent on Friday night, its all a bit of a slightly hungover blur, but lots of good chat, and cruising about, cheeky birds, looking at things, swims and bike rides And best of all won a thing DAY 5: MONDAY - HOMEWARD BOUND Packed up Monday morning(ish!) to hit the road back to Dunedin. Again, no real plans, but a 125 parts car popped up on tme on the way, but despite making plans to look, Kirsty had booked us into Leithfield Beach Campground, which had an early closing time on a Monday so had to boost it. The town is full of the worst judder bars but nice beach and lots of period correct caravans. Also not far from Sunbeams lovely house and man cave, so popped out there for a howsit before retiring back to Villa d'Azzurro Camping like we mean it. We dont travel light DAY 6 - ALL THE WAY HOME Bit of a frosty start, but keen to get rolling home, still at least 6 hours away. PHEW! Was A Big Mission, but the wagon went great! Used less gas than I was expecting, averaging 12.8l/100km (excluding the blast over Takaka Hill), and on some stretches, close to 10l/100km, which isnt bad at all considering the weight and drag from the bikes on the roof. Used hardly any oil, maybe about 1l, (in fact was overfull because i put a wee bit in every time i checked it because i just couldn't believe it), and no water. Cat was happy to be out of the cattery Sparkplugs looked really good too, very pleased with the look of those after 2000km of hard running! Have a pretty bit list of things to sort out including swapping the pass side wheel bearing (lol - was pretty grumbly by the time we got home) some exhaust tweaks, mainly to move the flanges (low point) further forward which will improve clearance, and probably another muffler before the diff to take out some of the harshness as it only has one at the rear (i feel old!) a slightly longer bolt for the drivers side torsion bar to wind it up a bit (i know, i know, but its maxed out and was bottoming out, not good, but the pass side has lots of thread and no tensing for every bump) replace a couple of ball joint covers (torn/eaten by brake fluid) swap out the inop gbox speedo drive (have the part, but need to fit, which is a box out job, which will be a gearbox seal replacement, and clutch disc clean & adjustment

Thanks duders, nice to know theres a lot of love for this old bus. I actually had a back up plan of the 125, which has a 5 speed gear box and is much better suited to both long drives and moder traffic, but turns out the hanger bearing is flogged out (that will be the drive train shudder then) so thats a no go. I have some sika flex in it at teh mo, but have run out of time. Wagon it is!

Of course wouldnt be a FIAT refresh without a wee bit of body work. This all kicked off with my pre WoF check noting only one licence plate light working, and no amount of tappy or wiggly would get it going again. Problem is, Id dented the rear bumper (backed the towbar of my old van though it DOH!) and tore it years go, and removing the licence plate lights is now a bumper off job. Bumper off means i could knock out the dent and weld the tears, fix the rust where it had dented the body, and also, remove and fix the overly complicated bulb holders. No before pics, but this is after knocking out the dent in the body line/seam that usually hides under the bumper, couple other boo boos there as well. Crazy light set up, glass semi circles under slit metal domes and M3 (!!!) screws holding this all down with a rubber gasket on a metal plate, that has pressed in bulb holders, with no drainage, facing up. Bonkers Anyway, old bulbs were rusted in, and the base was full of crap, so a soak in teh evaporust and new bulbs and we have working lights. Fixerating - hard to stop picking scabs! And newly bashed and 'welded' bumper back on. Better than a torn hole but not exactly good. Unfortunately the metal is very thin and weak and covered in chrome, so i didnt want to spend too much time breathing it in chasing holes, so it got some drift stitches. May put a sticker on it. And an actual rusty hole, passenger side rear dogleg. Chop back to clean metal Inner patch shaped up Burned in Outer bent up and in Few more pinholes to go but we are basically done here. And then, becasue i was going to have the paint out, why not pick a few scabs before the WoF man sees them? Pretty much did the same on both sides. And then time for a test run to blow the dust off APPROVED Did a GPS check on the way there, 3500 rpm is about 88kph, so its gonna be wagon time! With 4.4 gears at 1:1 in 4th with 195/60R14s, vs the equivalent of 165/92R14s as originally specced, i loose about 11% to the tyres (3500 rpm with the original tyres is 58mph), but shes for stylishly hauling all of the brats up the mountain, or parking on the beach, or just sharing a joke with on the patio, not for vmax runs on the autostrada* *the book says "maximum speed under full load on level pavement and with run in engine" is 100mph, or 160kph, which would be pulling ~5800rpm, max power is at 5400, with 98hp. At 3500rpm the book suggests 75hp, and fuel consumption of 220g/hp/h, which calculates out to ~22l of 98 per 85km, or ~25l per 100km. Will report based on actual use in due course.

Brakes sorted, time for WHEEL BEARINGS. I ordered some stuff from Rockauto a while back based on the part numbers in my 125 and 132 parts manuals, assuming they would be the same (some places list them for the 2300 as well), also because the last set i had bought for this,way back when i first got it, i actually used in the Ute becasue the ute were fucked and this was fine... once i had them in stock, Ugh nope too small, fuckety fuck where am i gonna get some of these on short notice? but for under $100 i have a lifetimes supply for my 125/125p... now with the brakes off i could knock out the seal and the races and find the part numbers. When i rebuilt this originally i reused the original bearings and seals, just cleaned and regreased so theyve never been fully out before Started on the drivers side as this was where the noise seemed to be coming from, the outer was fine as i already knew, but the inner race had a wee bit of pitting probably from when it sat and was starting to get some waviness. Now i could get a look at the numbers on these original Made in italy RIV bearings, lead me to find they are common as muck! Set 5 for the inner bearing and Set 3 for the outers! The grease seal on the inside i measured up and it was also a reasonably easy to find 48x65x10 seal not the 48x66x10 listed on some parts sites. So yay. Now i have more bearings in my box of wheel bearings, including for the pass side if needed. I could have probably just replaced the inner bearing race tbh, and i felt bad about not reusing the original 65 yo bearings but i was in there so.... INTERIOR This has a front split bench and the drivers butt had blown out and was going saggy. I mean the seat, gosh. Couldnt see anything wrong on the underside like a broken ring or anything, so must just be the splits in teh cover letting everything sag a bit more than it was Went to spotlight and got some cheap felty stuff Cover back on Carpet seaming tape on the underneath as a hail mary APPROVED! ENGINE Yep still there. Swapped out the glass 'firestarter' filter for a metal one with a 90deg outlet that fits much better, cleaned the carb bowls (quite a lot of sediment), wired the electric fuel pump to a switch in the cab (just need it to prime the lines if its been sitting for a few days), charged the battery, checked the stereo and cigarette lighter works, reglued the phone holder. After a few long idles test runs dropped the oil - this is the centrifugal filter on the crank nose - works very well at collecting (concentrating?) impurities but nothing much to see there. Nice Dropped the gearbox oil (wanted to eliminate the box as a source of the noise) and that was pretty clean too. Adjusted the tappets, couple were a little loose, checked the timing, andjusted the spark plug gaps (way too big!) and it now runs like a sewing machine and starts first crank I did notice this when checking the ignition timing - - seems like its been like that for a long time so im gonna pretend i didnt see it

Been pulling finger to get this piece sufficiently ready to drive 800km/10 hours one way to nats. Last time i drove it any distance (from the transporters yard to home back in 2021?) the brakes were a bit sticky.and there was a grumbling noise from somewhere in the front end that was speed dependant. First job on the list, sticky brakes. A combo of being parked on the lawn at Muriwai a lot before we moved down here, and sitting a lot since. These have 4 wheel disc brakes with Girling 3 piston calipers front and rear (12 cylinders!) so plenty of scope for shenanigans assumed the position Pulled the calipers and the front wheel bearings Disassembled the caliper halves ready for cleaning- at least one piston per caliper was stuck but they all came out eventually. The design of the external dust seal on the calipers creates a water trap. This was the state of a typical piston when they popped out - they are stainless steel, but the rust off the cast caliper bodies. They all cleaned up with a soak in exoff to clean them, then the bodies into evaporust. This is the worst caliper after coming out of the evaporust after a day or so, the lip that holds the external dust seal (and any moisture) is a bit chewy but the cylinder seal part and rest of the body is fine Assembly Used lots of red rubber grease (compatible with brake fluid) as the assembly lube rather than brake fluid which cause its grease will help to keep moisture out, its not hydroscopic (so wont absorb and hold water in the external side of the cylinder walls) , and its less fresh paint destroying than brake fluid on my nice new caliper paint. Cylinders x Twelve! 12! Flippin count them! Reassembled - all the pads, seals and etc were fine from last time i refreshed them, and got reused Rears back on Had a look at the wheel bearings, the inners are not removable without removing a seal but seemed ok, outers looked good, and the grease was still red from when i first restored and repacked them Bleeding didnt go so well one piston was leaking past the seal. Thought i had maybe rolled the seal, but I must have had a bit too much rubber grease stuck behind the seal and inserting the cylinder took a bite out of it. Honestly thought that that was a fatal blow for the wagon coming to nats, getting seals from Europe off ebay or whatever would never arrive in time. Went with my tale of woe down to Sims Brake Services (who have been helpful and friendly before, they did a good job resleeving my 1100T master, and supplying bits to rebuild its hard lines) hoping they could order a cylinder kit from some car with Girling brakes with similar diameter piston, that might come in in a few days, but turn out they had a big box of baggies with seals of many diameters, and handed me a couple right then and there for a total of $7, so crisis averted!

Spare post for 2022

Spare post for 2021