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Ahoy hoy. I'm a back-story kinda guy, so just scroll down if you want the goods So when I was 16, I asked my old man if I could get a car. He said yes and asked how much I had saved up... Well, s**t. About 6 months passed and I had been doing 3 hour shifts after school when possible making woodfired pizza bases on a foodtruck for the markets. I was almost at a grand when one day someone said I should get a hatchback as it'd be easier to park and probably more economical for getting to school etc. So one day after school, i jump on trademe, searched up hatchbacks pre 1990.. Obligatory "Lowest Price First" sort order haha, first thing that pops up "1982 Honda Accord".. 5pm, I click it, search through the photos, description, location - Everything is absolutely perfect and I didn't have the faintest clue on anything car related, Fwd & Rwd were the same thing in my books and the steering wheel changed the direction you were driving. That's it. Here's the punchline.. This thing could have been an absolute bomb and I would have been completely oblivious. However, this thing had a fresh wof, 6 months rego, 50,000 original k's with receipts and reports proving so and... Was $700!!! Only catch being, it was in Tauranga and I was in Auckland on a learners. My girlfriend at the time had her restricted and was far too good to me with literally everything haha, so her and my mum agreed to drive down to Tauranga and pick this baby up. Anyway, we get down there and the thing is perfect. No rust, no missing trims or damaged parts. Sure, the carpet was a little stained and there were a couple stone chips - but that was it! Anyway, I have no idea what i'd got, years went by of being a stupid teenager and not looking after things, I leave school and acquire a bunch of buggered cars and try do them up etc, literally like 14 or 15 of them, buy em, fondle them, sell em and so on. Long story short, this thing gets in a couple accidents, gets taken to bits, rusts a bit, gets stuck in a beach, has the ol' put the back wheels on maccas trays treatments - Again. I was a textbook pleb with it. I get to about 22 y/o, my taste in automotive had drastically grown and matured, I move back in with my old man after about 4 years of flatting and this thing sitting on the road in the rain etc. I sit in it one day, looking around at the instruments on the dash, the odo reads 80,000.. Man, 30,000 k's in this thing and i'd only had to replace two front tyres and service it. That day I decided this thing had just too much in it for me to sell it on or let it get any worse. I decided this was going to be something I could have until i'm old and crippled. So this all starts around late 2014, didn't really document the dates, just kinda remember roughly how the timeline went, pictures to follow...

Link to discussion thread: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36871-shakotoms-1979-hz-kingswood-utility/ This is my 1979 HZ Kingwood Ute. I wasnt really looking for another project car at that moment in time, and I had decided that after buying my VK Commodore I was saving for something American as my next car. But as you all know the best things appear when your not looking for them. Id first laid eyes on her at a swapmeet. I had a quick look over her and thought thats sort of cool, so I had a chat to the seller and got his contact details. And about a month later..... there she was being towed home... It was a long day that day, About 13 hours on the road from leaving home to getting home. I was glad to push her off the trailer and into the garage, She was driveable but supposedly had a broken gearbox. Whenever first was selected a horrible noise would be emitted from the gearbox, but she came with a spare gearbox. so that was alright. Some pictures from the next day: Shes powered by a Mighty RED 202 and had been converted to a 4 speed floor change at some point in her life. So i named her Donna Going by her production options supposedly she has a High Compression engine, and a heavy duty diff with an LSD Pretty much with that we started to strip it apart to swap the gearbox

Use my KE26 Discussion if you want to talk about this project (Click here) Yep so my mental illness / obsession with old corollas continues with the purchase of my latest rolla: The engine is not running right and it is running very rich and carb is very difficult to tune. I noticed the vacuum advance thingy isnt holding any vacuum which probably contributes to the problem. I'll try fix the engine problems next week. Paint wise it looks to have had a single coat over the original paint (in the bonnet and doors at the minimum). And i can see numerous dents and hollows. The plan is to repaint the car in April or May. This stuff doesn't really bother me the price was fair for what the car is. Interior wise the situation is pretty good. Rips under the seat covers nothing major. So the situation with my KEs right now is the ke35 will get a tidy up to daily/cruise spec. Having this will allow me to focus more time and effort into making the KE26 as good as i can make it. The KE26 also requires a respray and hopefully between painting the 35, my mates S13 and hilux, and maybe my brothers E30 i should be able to lay down a bloody good effort on the KE26. Plus i've got loads of good advice from experinced people at weekend resto course. There has been no update on the KE26 as of late mainly because customs is fucking me around with some parts i need which should be released from their evil clutches in the next week. And also because I bought this 35 and am now broke. I also bought a 3 phase air compressor which arrives in a week or two. I'll be doing all bushing in the 26 in the long weekend that's coming up. I hope to have some more updates in the next couple weeks for both these cars. Somehow I end up helping on my flatmates drift car (200sx) than I do spending time on my rolla these days. But he compensates me in bad jokes, sober driving and scrumpy so it's not so bad.

Link to build thread: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36872-shakotoms-1979-hz-kingswood-utility/