Banter

A bit of a pic dump of progress/new discoveries ;

Thanks for the encouragement J. I'm in P town, I'm usually busy on tuesday evenings (looks like thats when they're going to be happening now?) but I'll make an effort to get to the ones I can. And thanks for the heads up on Spartan, no doubt I'll need something else along the line. toymotor, I've got some more pic you might not want to see coming..... Next stage is patching the thing up!

Had some spare time so tidied up the cam cover. Also I think I have sorted a rear screen so may not be as painful as I thought it would be. //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38684-banters-ta61-celica-of-yesterdays-future/

I had lots of photos but they've gone missing from my phone. Just been cutting out rust and stripping everything. The front windscreen came out great.... Dammit. Might have something to do with the tools we were using. I'm worried a spare will be impossible to find.

Kinda on topic, can anyone recommend a good glue/sealant to put a front windscreen back in?

New pictures! Alex (wo0kie) and I went to the wreckers at foxton to try to salvage some bits off an old MTE Celica XX. Didn't get much useable stuff but saw a few interesting cars there: 2nd gen Celica looking very sad Lada which was in good nick, as far as we could tell it was complete minus the wheels Starion Bedford (?) Ambulance Got home an continued the strip down Surprise bog/tape/paper rust fixes around the hinge panels/a pillars. Wooo will be fun to fix. Thats all for now, expect another update tomorrow.

Hey Bene, yeah surprises there are, I've got some photos to go up showing the extent of the damage. Pretty much all the interior bits are there actually, they were just sitting in the boot. The water seems to have been a recent addition as the only damage is soaking carpet underlay, no rot in the floor pan. New pics will be up later tonight. Chur.

Oh man I love those! That restoration is truly inspiring, the amount of detail they went into is crazy.

Yeah I'm in the process of doing it now. The glass is a bit of a pain. I've been getting lots of great advice on how to tackle this project so thanks to everyone out there.

It sure does have a lot of rust! But definitely resurrectable. Just gotta find some cuts.

Hey guys, feel free to discuss my new bad investment. Project thread: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38683-banters-ta61-celica-of-swiss-cheese-and-pure-80s-style/?p=1097243 First thing; does anyone have a suitable diff for sale? I'm not sure if it's T series or F series but it is IRS. Just looking for a cheap open one at the moment. Also if anyone has any pannels/a parts car that I could pillage for cuts please hit me up. Cheers, Andrew

Hello! This cancerous lump just landed in my driveway. Some of you may have seen it on trademe a week or two ago, I'm the sucker who ended up buying it. Its a 1981 TA61 Celica GT Rally. The GT was the top of the range, GT Rally having the same 2T-GEU, IRS and LSD but with poverty spec accessories. Motor goes/splutters, will need a good tune up and a strip down at some point. A previous owner has taken out the factory LSD and put in a locked diff head which is a bit annoying. Replacing that will be the first thing on the list. Interior is pretty mint, just a few popped stiches on the driver's seat. I'm actually really excited about this project. Its something that I can really get into, I will be trying to do the work by myself including metalwork and painting. Got a family friend who will lend me a welder and I have painting stuff from a previous project. The plan is to get nice and tidy and add a few 80s touches like a digital dash etc. Will stick with the wheels for now cause they look alright and have decent tyres on them. Need to install some low. Now to see what I've got myself into: Discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38684-banters-ta61-celica-of-yesterdays-future/?p=1097251 Thanks for looking, Andrew

Just thought I'd share my latest experience with reregistering a vehicle if it helps anybody. It's my impression that you need proof of previous registration to make everything easy. This can be a wof sheet or sticker or licence etc. Otherwise you may need to apply for an exemption through an alternative documents form (I believe thats what its called). Proof of ownership is not required, all I needed was to go to a court and sign a form in front of a justice of the peace to declare my ownership. Take those to the testing station and thats should be sweet.

I finally got the mini road legal and going nicely, but now I have to sell it to get something a bit bigger and more reliable. If any one is interested, here is the trademe listing: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=530538756

Oh wow it's been almost a year since the last update. Since then it's been re-registered and wof'd, and is now for sale unfortunately I'm starting a new job so I need something more reliable. If anyone is interested: http://www.trademe.c...px?id=530538756

I'm down at Christchurch uni at the moment, 3rd year mechanical engineering. As for keeping the 1100, I'm poor. A 1275 swap would mean upgrading to discs too which gets expensive! (for me at least) People seem to prefer the 998 over the 1098 cause it likes to rev a bit more (so I have read, I had learned to drive in a 998 but I was always gentle on her). But torque is fun! how about this for a comparison Same spec (not standard with those figures), different displacement. Bottom curve is a 1000. I got that figure from this article on the 1100, its worth a read! http://www.minimania.com/web/SCatagory/ENGINE/DisplayType/Calver%27s%20Corner/DisplayID/1128/ArticleV.cfm

Thanks for the encouragement. Hopefully you'll see a bit more progress in a week or two when I am back from Uni. Andrew

Moved house in 2007 I think? I can't quite remember, but transporting everything was a pain. That got the gears moving again. Also my dad was tired of having the yellow 'scrap heap' in the drive. The time came to strip it of the good bits and move it on. And off it went to the scrap yard. It was quite sad really, but the shell wasn't worth saving. But it lives on! The rear subframe was stripped, sand blasted, painted with red oxide and underseal then stored for later. Not quite sure what this thing would have been towing.. The front subframe with engine etc was left outside covered by a tarp because there was no room in the garage. It must have sat there for over a year until I finally got around to cleaning it. I had a mint subframe all painted and ready for it, as well as sweet unbent rod arms and all new bushes to look forward to. I finally got around to swapping the engine over and sorting the whole subframe out, and by the end of the weekend it was on all fours! Note the primer on the door, it was off and a gust of wind dropped it onto the concrete, did wonders for the paint. She lives! I reground the valves and swapped the head gasket, changed the oil and she purred back into life. Installed a nice mini spares inlet manifold to match with the fancier exhaust system. Everything is still moving very slowly, but now most of the interior is in and its very close to being ready for the wof man. Wildcat steering wheel. 10x5 Hotwires are Wildcats too. Made in New Zealand! Wrapped in Dunlop Aquajets. I read somewhere that these where hot back in the day. And that's about up to date. While I was back home on uni break I sorted the paint and tuned the SU carb. I just bought a new factory windscreen seal to replace the one I bought off a roll at para rubber, it doesn't seem to fit nicely. Also treating it to a Ramflo filter with a mini ram stack for the inside. I might have to change the needle. Hmmm. By the time I've done that I'll have an 1100 fitted with what is essentially the same as a stage 1 kit that all the mini suppliers sell in the UK. They claim about 20% more BHP than standard, which for an 1100 is supposed to be about 46Hp (standard). I think I'd be lucky to squeeze out 40 to be honest. After all the engine is 35 years old and probably hasn't had any major work done to it. What I have read is that these 1100s don't like high revs, but because of the long stroke have a lot more bottom end torque than a 1000. Sounds I deal for a daily which is what this will become hopefully. I will be updating this again in a few weeks time when I get home after exams, hopefully it will be on the road before Christmas!

So time went by and the thing got painted slowly. I've grown up a bit since then if you're wondering. I got some plastic flares to cover the 10x5s and painted them body colour. And things started coming together. In traditional mini fashion the roof was painted white. The bonnet and boot lid were too, mainly because I didn't want to use what little blue paint I had left. Those clips are holding the headlining in place while the glue dried. I took it out of the old blue one and painted it with grey vinyl stuff from a can. Worked brilliantly. I never considered a full respray because I was to poor to afford enough paint. BUT this meant I could keep some of the trick bits like the wheels and the exhaust system: Yeah, so LCB headers are probably overkill on a factory spec 1100 but I don't care, they look cool.

Just stated my build thread. I'll get it up to date soon. //oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=29946 Thanks! Andrew

After a bit of encouragement from ProZac I've decided to post up my project in all it's mediocrity. In 2005 I decided I wanted a mini for my first car. I would have been about 14 then, didn't even have my learners licence. This was always going to be and still is a budget project. It is not going to be concourse quality anywhere in the near future. I just want it done and on the road, then I'll start prettying it up a bit. After a bit of hunting I bought this from Rex on Napier road in Palmy. If anyone knows the place there is a guy there that sells bits for minis, the place is a graveyard of mini bodies. This one was complete and apparently had ran well before the rot had led the previous owner to sell it for parts. I thought the stripes were pretty cool. Running for the first time. A bit of petrol down the air intake never hurt right? Turns out it did run pretty well. No blowing smoke and started first turn of the key after that. Couldn't drive it since the brake line to the back had been cut to remove the rear subframe In my youth (being so much older now..) I had no idea how to do anything. Turns out the shell had cancer quite badly, and having no equipment or knowledge to repair it it started looking for a donor shell. Along came this thing on trademe Absolutely perfect for me. Came primed already, absolutely rust free. Came with the 'added bonus' of another mini. So I was now in possession of 3 cars at 14 My parents were always supportive, mostly. It had nice wheels. That was pretty much the only good thing about it. Now as the poor and eager teenager I was I decided to paint it myself. I bought an air compressor and spray gun from super cheap. The paint was even budget too, it was a mismatched tint that I got for half price. It didn't come out too badly Along the road we got another mini, a brown 1980 city which I did learn to drive in. Can't find any pics at the moment though. Briefly we had 3 minis in the drive and one in the garage! We decided to go with the original donor car, so the rusty blue one was taken away. I'll update this later, a bit of a while to go before 2011... Discussion //oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=29947

I'm almost ready to get my mini licensed again, but I have a few worries. I started out with two minis, one was just a bare shell with chassis plate, but de-reg and no history what so ever. No licence plate, nothing. The other was rusted to hell but was all good mechanically, also de-reg. This one came with an old window licence label and one matching licence plate. They are now one car, nice shell painted by myself and rebuilt with the components from the other. Looking through the NZTA stuff it seems that I need to prove that the car has been registered in NZ before and I must provide proof of ownership. Reading through the posts here it seems like proof of ownership shouldn't be a big deal as i can just get the police to say it hasn't been stolen or something like that. The problem is proof of previous registration. I have no proof that the nice shell has been registered before, but I do have proof that the other one has (but the plate doesn't show up on carjam, I guess cause of being de-reg?). What do I do in this situation? Are there records of chassis numbers that have been registered before? I thought about just swapping the chassis plates but that seems a bit under handed, the crap shell has already been scrapped however... The engine number would then match but not the original colour. I also have no idea what year the shell is. I'm really confused as to what is legal and what kind of records there might still exist of either vehicle. If anyone could offer any advice I'd greatly appreciate it. Oh and while I'm at it, anything particular I should watch for when the inspection time comes other than usual wof stuff? Thanks, Andrew Edit: I have two tags for each shell, the factory chassis plate and a smaller plain metal tag with a short serial number consisting of two letters followed by four numbers. I haven't ever seen these in pictures of British minis so i'm guessing they were added here in NZ.