gaijin

Got one door sussed, called Dave Turner for some tiny collar thats missing. Gas pedal showed its face, along with some new strikers I ebayed gas pedal rubber more like super hard unbendable material Butcher it as I do so well. Kakimoto style Keep way away from welds. put it the vice see where it bens most and keep away from that area too Spray some acrylic etch primer then some single pack tungsten, then some decent clear chuck a new rubber pad that slips on like a glove strikers came up good. New ones have a spring mechanism, while the old ones had a rubber insert sort of shoved in. As for the centre console, pretty fugly, BEFORE Kind of after, some paint, new leather boot gator thing I got from the UK, had to trim it hard as the leather is quite thick, hard to get the clips around it all. Used some resin to fix some cracks

So some NOS stuff turned up to get into the doors, new rhs window regulator, minor miracle to find one of these... door card bungs, door handles, other things I dont know what they are called, maybe dove tails Sprayed some Dinitrol stuff into all nook/crannies, wax cavity slime I got from the supplier who sells the stuff to the navy down Devonport for the ships there. The doors by themselves are not really that heavy, its all the stuff going into them that loads them up. Forget the carbon doors to save weight, be easier to mould up some acrylic or polycarbonate windows. SInce I dont have key locks, Ill need to mount a solenoid in there to the lock arm coming from the closing mechanism. Bought a stainless steel bolt kit for the doors and front of the car. most there, but some nuts/bolts not there. I use a sniff of copper grease so they dont bind up later being dissimilar metals. The rest of the fixings I have I went and had tanked and plated again. This is ok for non structural fittings, but not so suitable for structural as there can be hydrogen embrittlement. Door catch mechanisms, have a few, made the best one out the remains of the lot. Where the left door stops for a moment, trying to find this little sucker to space and hold the door catch pivot. Ergh...Might go call Dave, Im sure he has a few hundred down Manukau way..part number 82515-78500 where for art thou? Its called a collar - bell crank. anyone out there with one spare please holla. Windows and frames next....new felting here, but old glue in the frames is not easy to remove... Went and had a chat with Sheepers yesterday, he is keen to make the first Celica TA22 rack an pinion power steer kit that is easily certified. As he offers this awesome service I'll keep playing with the zed. Havent heard from the Celica re-wiring as yet, no rush there then...

To aid productivity to the zed, get rid of the culprit! Free some space up in the garage too. I've spent the last 2.6 years working on this car, thats what I've been up to. That and house renovations and working and family etc. Promise. ANyway, time to move on Celica, you have had your time black death. 4th engine, 3rd turbo, 4th throttle body, 2nd injector set, 2nd rear end rebuild, 5th gearbox, 3rd interior re-trim/re-build ETC ETC. I bought some 280zx headlights to use the H4 lights instead of the sealed units of the stock car. They share the same headlight bucket which helps. Had to modify the steel panel thats joined to the f.glass guards. Bit of grinding and they are in. Drilled holes to mount lights, which are close to being right with the g nose back on. This took me ages, as having recently sprayed the outside of the house, a fair bit of overspray came through the garage onto the zed. Doh. A few hours had it all off using light pressure and water. Idiot... Bought a part of the wiper arms pivot mechanism NOS, so decided to rebuild the rest of it as the grease thats gone hard mixed with sandblast residue probably not the best. Clean paint grear install. Smooth as now. Motor getting checked over now. I pulled out some spare napa leather I used in the CElica dash and other interior to cover some zed kick panels and doglegs. Seemed to work out ok. Used some beeswax polish stuff bought at the Taka markets to lube them super soft. Enough staples? Good timing with the courier, finally some new door bits. Almost everything about the doors are shagged. Windows are good, SS window frame good, some window guides ok. Thats it. Felting for door panel, window frame and outer SS trim ready to go in. Slopped silicon onto door bottom seals. Given windows a super clean and polish, paint up window structure. New window regulator arriving soon amongst all the seals, rubbers winders, door handles, window rollers, etc. Then wifey happy doors can be put away out of living room. Also bought SS nut/bolt kit for doors, hatch etc from States, flag using ancient fixings that are either orange or green from donor cars from yesteryear..... My first zed after serious buthery....the certifier almost had a heart attack when he saw this ....evidence that Papua New Guniea is not the best atmosphere for a zed... Since the overly heavy, complicated and likely to block to much air flow, I ebay'd this cheap intercooler. Will do for now. Anyways, I've proven in the Celica that an undersized intercooler is ok if supplemented with cooling water meth spray. Intercoller sitting to high for airflow, will drop it 30mm. The current mock up manifold brings 68mm turbo much further forward than the last 60mm setup. When thie BG EFR turbo arrives, it'll need to be forward, as these new thigs are really LOONG, like 350mm. Next jobs; - gearshifter installed. Have short shifter around somewhere. - Build doors as gear turns up over next week - build up center console. Needs modification with top mounted gtr handbrake. You can see the jobs Im doing are small to start with. Easing myself back into it....

Since owning the Toyota, I have been driving around like a hooligan. I was chasing a motorbike - newish CBR1000 from Kopu to Hahei turn off, before the tick tick time bomb went off, 20kms later (100m before the Whitianga town sign) the rod from cyl 1 went through both sides of the block spitting sufficient oil out to cause a fire on the turbo side. I put the fire out with cabin mounted extinguisher and drank the three cold beers still in storage on the back seat. The biker was in some shock as to what the f**k was following him at those speeds. I had to laugh so as not to cry. Engine out, new 2 piece rotors and new pads ordered, new engine arriving this week, light flywheel etc etc. It should be together by next weekend. SO now that car 3 is down, back to car 2. Now the GF has flown the coup, I have no more excuses. Begin then! Thanks Glenn Martin for the crane ! Enjoy the vinos and the smelly nappies! All I need in the garage that reads over 30 deg Celsius in the day Note the welded up water pump, it runs the housing but nothing inside. The electric pump same as the toyota will do the pumping and job of the thermostat. New cambelt, idlers tensioners etc. Timing needs looking at later. Apparently good for 400ps, we will see about this. Copper mix, should be driveable though. Light Cro-mo flywheel from Japan Replace and clean up thrust bearing and fork in gbox completed We have a problem. As per usual, change one thing buggers up everything else. Im sure I said this before. The new frame rails had a slight kink in them increasing the overall width between them. The new ones dont, so the radiator needs to be chopped and re-welded at the lower end. Thanks Hayley for the welder use approaching. More wine required. The above shots and work were completed over a period from 8am until 4am on the zed. One long drunken shift. The toyota will absorb some time this week when all the parts turn up so wanted to fulfill the promise of getting the engine in the zed at least before going back to work Monday. Happy New Year to all, make the most of it, life is short.

Since owning the Toyota, I have been driving around like a hooligan. I was chasing a motorbike - newish CBR1000 from Kopu to Hahei turn off, before the tick tick time bomb went off, 20kms later (100m before the Whitianga town sign) the rod from cyl 1 went through both sides of the block spitting sufficient oil out to cause a fire on the turbo side. I put the fire out with cabin mounted extinguisher and drank the three cold beers still in storage on the back seat. The biker was in some shock as to what the f**k was following him at those speeds. I had to laugh so as not to cry. Engine out, new 2 piece rotors and new pads ordered, new engine arriving this week, light flywheel etc etc. It should be together by next weekend. SO now that car 3 is down, back to car 2. Now the GF has flown the coup, I have no more excuses. Begin then! Thanks Glenn Martin for the crane ! Enjoy the vinos and the smelly nappies! All I need in the garage that reads over 30 deg Celsius in the day Note the welded up water pump, it runs the housing but nothing inside. The electric pump same as the toyota will do the pumping and job of the thermostat. New cambelt, idlers tensioners etc. Timing needs looking at later. Apparently good for 400ps, we will see about this. Copper mix, should be driveable though. Light Cro-mo flywheel from Japan Replace and clean up thrust bearing and fork in gbox completed We have a problem. As per usual, change one thing buggers up everything else. Im sure I said this before. The new frame rails had a slight kink in them increasing the overall width between them. The new ones dont, so the radiator needs to be chopped and re-welded at the lower end. Thanks Hayley for the welder use approaching. More wine required. The above shots and work were completed over a period from 8am until 4am on the zed. One long drunken shift. The toyota will absorb some time this week when all the parts turn up so wanted to fulfill the promise of getting the engine in the zed at least before going back to work Monday. Happy New Year to all, make the most of it, life is short.

Now please pardon the shift in brand. Ill have a link some stage soon to the appropriate site for the continuation of this cars build and development. Its a 1973 Toyota Celica Ta22 It has a 4cyl 2.0l engine from a ST215 Caldina GTT (the ugly station wagons). Engine is totally stock internally. All power adders are external. The chassis has heaps of work done to it, coil overs Bilstein and Carrera rears. Camber, castor plates, bushes, Evo 8 brakes, LSD... It has 400hp at the rears, it weighs complete all fluids/fuels 1060kg. TD06-25G turbo, 800cc injectors, Link G4 ECU, Elec water pump, elec boost control etc... It will teach me plenty about what driveability Im after in the zed. This car requires some work before Im completely happy with it. Car is completely legal and engineered. Collection location Not ready for the PepperTree just yet Just to state the obvious, I didnt build this car. I bought it as is. I will start mucking about with it. It will be kept driveable while I put the zed together. Other random car shots that were in the same location as the collected TA22, FD3S race car 550hp @ wheels, Corvette, engine blew up soon after purchase, go figure... 1UZFE & GT35R would work well.... To replace the love of the TA22, try a Datsun 1200 instead, 12A PP, mid mounted, flat floor = lovely car!

The below is a piss take to some retarded purists giving me **** about my mods, WARNING THESE ITEMS ARE NO LONGER OEM GENUINE NISSAN ITEMS VIEWERS BEWARE Before, sophisticated templates cut out with kids snips, welded in using 2mm plate paint applied Had to press out one bush again so it didnt melt out I believe Ive spent more on this rear end than a 2nd hand skyline complete...ergh. Subframe bushes in - Autolign in Carbine Rd Good fast service, cheap prices. Diff mounts are not listed under ER34, but S14 Silvia, but fit well. Rear end shoved together with little love. Some bolt threads stripped from panelbeater/painters lack of love. Ill need to replace a few of them Might even need to get that one camber arm the right way round, doh. Dug up the rubber trim that heads around the FAKE super wide ZG arches and gaurds also used the clips that cover the screws, looks pretty tidy. Could do with a minor adjustment later. While AUtolign were sweating over the bushes, I mucked around with the rear end. Need plenty of parts, rear lamp rubber gaskets, straighter lamp garnish? panels etc. Decided to keep the original rego plates, look period. Rego still live, smart boy... Stainless roof channel chrome given some lovin and clipped in Ill get some new quarter panel badges for xmas if Im lucky. Thats it for this week. Collect TA22 0800 tomorrow. Will post a couple notes on this little badboy soon

Thanks people, Bentley - tungsten all over - anthracite for flimsy bits standard paint, no flash custom shite here No mucking about here. Start at the easier end for now. Take out rear subframe Bushes for subframe to body need swapping over Easiest to do them now... diff bushes need to be sourced and chucked in rear brakes need completing, been rebuilt, just a quick spray and in. rear lower arms could do with a strengthen. Its a gaijin copy of the Nismo options. Very high tech stuff this cardboard. Since Ill get a local engineering shop to press in/out the bushes, they can weld up some plate to the lower arms until such time as the TIG turns up.

OK no.2 What happened. Court action is completed, great outcomes for me, house is sold, ex is gone burger, kids back home. New projects, new house, new GF, blah blah blah Welcome home Gaijin, I have missed you. The silly thing is that it now has a brother. It arrives next Sunday. It is very similar in nature to this car. I couldnt say no. 1972 TA22 480hp 980kg Street 5 years on the road being developed. Street/strip/road/track semi automatic weapon Anyway, wrong forum for this little lucifer, back to the real deal. the colour seems to make the chrome work standout, which was the plan all along you see.

OK. Remainder of pics from Bazs shop where the car was painted. The shite camera makes it look brown. Its a really straight light gun mettalic grey with darker gun grey for the flimsy bits.

Baz called me and asked for more paint. A good opportunity to check out the progress. Upon arriving, my car was the only one there, they said I was an angel with my timing. - perhaps a large hairy smelly one. We are up to 1litre of caprithane for the roll cage, 4Litres of base colour, since I will paint all the underside, rear end, cabin etc. Otherwise they have blocked back some of the panels and body a few times, so its starting to get a smooth skin. Baz and Clint reckon they are on time to get it out in another 2 weeks. The rear subframe needs to come out to spray the rear end of the car, covering over the tar based underseal. They will apply some more modern based underseal that is sprayed on, before the colour goes on. This will help minimise stone chip damage underneath. The wheels, those dodgy black n red stripe jobs, are to get their rubber removed, sanded up, and painted a single colour. Then we can vote 'the money or the bags', or perhaps the lack of either.

Finally rolled up to the painters. He reckons 3 weeks to complete the job. I dropped all the materials off, of which we have; - bar coat - to join old paints with new in just a few areas, - etch primer - to cover bare metal in just a few palces, front inner gaurds etc. - high build primer - to cover all the outside, in prep for the colour after blocking some amount of times - colour - clear - thinners - hardeners - masking tape - etc the sandblaster did a good job, and took him 36hrs from car entering shop to car being towed out. he etch primed all the sanblasted areas 30 mins after completing the blast, letting it dry off overnight.

Right, we may be looking good here to keep to almost a two week wrap up. It hits the sandblaster Monday, Painter Tuesday. No paint colour chosen still. Ill drag the misses down, she is good with colour combos. 440CCA , 5.5kg battery. Grunty n light. But no good for playing the stereo outside the milkbar while doing some bird watching. It is mounted behind the passenger seat, Motorsport NZ requires 4x8mm bolts. Will be strapped with some foam and a cover of some sort. Roll cage to firewall holes filled using these hoops, cut with a slot, fitted and welded. Make the bonnet catch shorter to fit the rough bonnet mount to keep the thing upright. On this note, Mike I better get your gas strut unit back, this will work fine, while even my kids could lift it in place. Main chassis rails were not really rusty inside, but were slightly crumpled, thinwalled steel, and detract from a moderate quailty package. These may be 1.2mm steel thickness, rather weak. Cut n removed, new sections in place, levelled to be straight each side, mounts for cross member the same, sway bar mount swapped from the existing rails, since they were modified and were strong and suitable for use. These have been replaced each side, from the radiator support back to the replaced rails around the castor arm pickups. For the people in the know, these rails will suit a RWD setup, not a 4WD one. Let it be heard, this car will be completed as version 1, RWD. To start. Steel is 1.6mm, with additional gusset plates welded on thereafter, way stronger stuff. Some good comparisons old/n/new chassis rails. Under front gaurds should be heated and scrapped of old tar stuff and ready for sandblast smooth ready for paint. Ready for lift off Showed Dr Greg Taylor the recent updates, he seems impressed. He manages/funds the Kiwi Team Nurburgring every year, knows a thing or two about race cars. He has also helped me with car storage (for many years filling his barn full of precious Datsun cr*p), advice etc. He does reconstruction surgery, breat augmentation and general tidying up of body parts if your interested, or needing a bit of this help. Not one to need this help, give him a bell if you do. Dr Taylor - The Dad inlaw Pity that his son Alistair needs some driving advice after righting off the Audi RS4 then setting fire to the thing at the 'ring da ring burner Tired and ready for the pub now, checking out the Hawkes Bay this weekend, a great place.

Wow, things are looking good. Scott is the young chap working on the car currently, and he is doing a great job. Its more fabrication now, not exactly smash repair. The list of work still needed to be done has been agressively dealt to over several days. Keep it up Scott. Aluminium Mirror backing plates so they dont disappear first squeeze of the pedal. You can wind up the spring tension to keep them holding on tighter. Exhaust cut out looks spot on. Plenty of room for heat sheilding, perhaps a bigger exhaust later if needed. Some intrusion into the passenger cabin space, thats fine. Handbrake mount welded in. Underside connection needs attention, was setup for the existing setup. Shorten the cable and modify the mount will sort this. Little bits n peices sorted out, fill holes, cover old mistakes etc. Filled the bolt holes to the old bolt in cage that I bought of Mike, I still have this chromed half cage at home if anyone wants it. Dont want much for it. Its certed and looked great in the car. Ruddy beutiful floor supports kind of more like frame rails from firewall to the existing rear diff mount. 1.6mm steel folded from sheet. The frame protrudes into the cabin by maybe 5mm, and lower under the car by 30mm more then the old bits, which were more sad than that that vampire Robert Patinson. Nothing better than this in the boot, RB26 block and a bottle of NOS. Block $50 on auction site, a dummy block for fitting purposes, since it has some rather viscious damage to bores on several cylinders. Chuck the GTR box onto the dummy block and we have our fitting kit ready to go in. At this stage I will fit this kit in, but continue to complete the car in RWD format first. Probably. BUT firstly, Im dubious of the front frame rails being any good, actually, they are rubbish. One area under around the front crossmember is crushed somewhat. Better sort this now. To be made from 1.6mm sheet steel. We can make sure they will be level each side, making the cross member, suspension pickup[ point nice and level. old rubbish coming out of the car; the magazine is for the vampire mad misses. I still dont get it, really. Im feeling the love here, this is almost ready for colour. Im hoping to get the car out from here in about 10 days or less, with current progress, this looks likely. Its only been here for coming up a couple of YEARS............. Most likely watchers will die of old age before these wheels ever turn