Tiger Tamer

And still we wait for the electronics, engine loom etc to be sent. I do have the drive shaft being done as well so that's another thing I am waiting on, though no great hurry. I still have a list of to do's. I need to weld up and fit the passenger side seat base, find a new handbrake cable or try and free up the one I have, make up some more fuel line clamps etc. I probably won't pull the diff out and weld those bump stop stops yet until I have the car moving and the suspension height settles. The diff needs a new pinion seal and axle bearings so I will do it all then. Maybe even a Qaife lsd unit if the engine and gearbox are behaving themselves. Anyway back to the waiting game.

and then a pic of round 27 of 58 fill 'n sands, still a few wobbles to smooth out... And I thought it was just me that had to go through this slow painfull process. I feel much better now. Nice work. It's good to see another old HQ Holden being repaired. For the amount that were built you rarely see them anymore.

Do you ever sleep?

I would glue the rub rail on. I think it would last better and once a bit bashed around you could plane it back a bit and glue on a new thinner rail. The coaming doesn't look bad like that but me being me I would have to lower the hump to about half the hump so it's less pronounced.

So, thinking about the amount of suspension travel I have in compression and the amount I had to flare the guards to accommodate it I thought I may as well find out if I am allowed to limit it some. So, I made up a cardboard template and sent it through to the certifier. I got the ok to do it which is good. I made up the bump stop stop out of some 5mm box section I had and have tack welded them in place. I suppose I should at least drain the oil out and remove the crown wheel cover before welding it fully. I have been doing a bit of googling the subject and some don't and don't have any problems welding on a diff with the oil still in.

I pulled the car out into the sunshine today and gave it a hose off while I am busy waiting. I did contact them, and they are busy waiting as well which is good as we are all busy. I am quite tempted to lower the front valance and bottom of the front guards so that they cover the front X member. I don't think I will be destroying any structural integrity as the valance is more holes than steel. I think it would quite good with a mesh type grill there under the front bumper. I don't think it will be that hard to do. I have done the flare on the passenger side so it gives clearance through full suspension travel which is huge, but I don't like it. It's fugly. I have been looking on lvvta site and suspension drop is measurement of 40mm is given but not compression. I see a lot of cars with flares so close to the tyre that I can't see how the don't rub. How do they get around this. Can I limit travel in compression with longer bump stops, stiffer rear springs, both?. I like the driver side flare as it fits nicely with the front flare but doesn't allow full travel in compression.

I fitted the Haltech display mount into the dash panel I made and tried it in, but the shape was not close enough to the rest of the dash panels (first pic) so in the bin it went. I seem to like doing things at least twice, apparently. I had another spare gauge panel so I cut that up and welded in new steel to fill the gaps and some from the center panel that I removed when fitting the radio. Then fitted the Haltech mount to it. Now it fits in as well as it always has. I had to use some filler to smooth the shape out which was tricky with the shape. Not perfect but ok. As the old saying goes a blind man would be pleased to see it. I also altered the gauge pod so it is now symmetrical and gave that a coat of paint to match the dash. Looks much better now. I am also very busy waiting on important stuff to arrive so I can get it going. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Fingers crossed for a couple of weeks.

With the modification I have made with the Hillman minx from a leaf spring rear to a Hillman Avenger 4 link coil spring set up. The shocks are not inside the springs and I have read in the LVVTA (somewhere which eludes me know) that the springs will need some sort of fastening so they cannot dislodge and fall out. They can't as the shocks limit the amount of travel so the springs are still held in place. The lower arms are Avenger and so are the top perches and the distance between the two will be very close to the avenger. But I suppose rules are rules. I have seen clamp type that hold the lower coil to the bottom arm and strops to limit travel but is there a LVVTA accepted way of doing this or can it be measured at cert time ?.

Watched this interesting video on Quaife diffs on how they work and the amount of work to build them.

It's great to see you have a short list to do for the cert requirements, BUT how does factory built and fitted seat belts, fail NZ certification ?. That makes every Hillman imp etc in NZ not roadworthy and none should be able to get a WOF. Because the car has been modified and can go faster doesn't matter as the speed limit is the same for both. Just curious.

Originally it probably would have had a voltage stabilizer for the temp and fuel gauge to reduce the voltage to what the gauges required as they operated on less than 12v. But of course, that would been for smiths' gauges. Is this what you are trying to do with adding resistance. Or am I totally off the ballpark here.

The 4 displays of the dash unit as they didn't load with the other pic's. Not sure about the white display with the handwritten bits below.

I bought the speakers as Jaycar had the 5" front on sale for less than half price. The 6.5" were at normal price but I grabbed them as well. Today I fitted the front, so now I have sound. Tomorrow the rears. I have also made up a new dash panel. It still needs work and is not a perfect profile match to the rest of the dash but close enough that I will be able to fudge a blend between them. I don't have anything other than a vise, a couple of bits of angle iron and hammers so it's turned out quite well for using the cave man technique. The reason for the new dash panel is I have gone digital with the Haltech i7c. I did want to keep with Smiths gauges but to be honest I got SFA information out of Robinsons, so I decided to go plug and play. The Haltech display has 4 different displays, or you can create your own if you want. Since the audio unit is digital It will all fit in ok.

Stage two for the day was more wiring. I managed to get the vintage air to get the air direction flap to open for the cars interior. So another win for the day. Then it was onto the audio unit. I opened up the instruction manual and there was no wiring instructions in it. So I did a google search on it and in about 3 seconds AI provided the answer. Strangely I couldn't find it anywhere myself. AI has been quite helpful with the wiring as well. I know you need to be careful and check the information but man it's fast and quite often gets it from reliable sources. So equipped with the correct wiring for the audio unit I extended the wires and connected them to where they needed to go, and it worked, and also NO SMOKE. Another win for the day. Yes I did fit the head unit in the dash upside down but I can soon fix that as it won't have welded itself in there through a short as there was NO SMOKE. Time for a beer.

It is time to tackle the wiring. Something I have not delved into in any great depth before. I did rewire the Tiger myself but that was with a kit designed for the car with the wires having their function printed on them. Anyway, I mounted the battery in the boot and probably should fit a fuse here close to the battery. Not sure what to fit here so any suggestions welcome. In the engine bay I fitted a double terminal connection which I thought both terminals would be live when one was connected, WRONG, but it is now. The second terminal is a big fat bastard as well which makes connecting wires to difficult due to wire to terminal size but I worked out something that will work for now. I have seen better distribution blocks now so will change it later. for now what I have will work. From there I used a 30amp wire which connects to the ign wires that were connected to the generators control box. That has a 30amp fuse in the circuit. That gives me the main power supply to the ign. Then from the ign I have used the power wire that feeds the wipers, horns interior lights, voltage stabilizer through a fuse box that gives them all their own fuse. Originally they all went to one 30amp fuse. Then I hit the bravery button and connected the battery and NO SMOKE. The lights came on and I had the light switch upside down but that was it. I will take as a win but if anyone thinks I am skating on thin ice, let me know. Cheers.