Gear knob looks great but you might want to make it out of Stainless steel as with the short shifter a heavy knob makes the world of difference

ver 2 might well be if i can get my hands on some cheap stainless bar... at the moment i dont mind the workout and it makes me feel more 'connected'. It was more for aesthetics as i wanted to use my leather gaiter.

Amazing work there and looks like a lot of work has gone into that polishing.

Very good job! Congrats!

spent most of this weekend doing the external coil mod. Many thanks to "silver-machine" for the modified dizzy housing and advice!
you can just about see the red tower sticking out the dizzy but everything else is neatly tucked away. should have done this sooo much sooner. smooth acceleration all the way up to the redline and so much more responsive.



also, samco hoses fitted a while back and folding mirrors re-fitted.

nice one. I really do recommend the external coil mod to people as it did make a nice difference on my car

and this is a panoramic of the mancave I can usually be found in



anyone in the local area is welcome to contact me to make use of it (subject to T&C )

Hey mate, the man cave pic is missing please replavce it, I just love man caves

fixed. officially ditching photobucket now

hey mate, thanks for fixing the pics, and I love the man cave, sure you have seen my man cave, has to be the most important part of any home, and was the first thing I checked before I even looked at this house.

Cheerrs mate

yea, and followed your build. wish i could fit a car in my garage, even empty it would be a squeeze, but it was hard enough finding a house in our price range with a garage that hadn't been converted into living space! What i would give for an American style double or triple size garage...
do we have a garage thread? might be worth starting one otherwise.

A garage thread would be a great idea

as some of you may know my long search for a set of Daiyama's is finally over. I picked up a set from R0B and Mazz, which i think originally came from col's ghost.


[before cleaning them up. Forgot to take an after picture of them all, but they still weren't show quality]

so last weekend I ignored all the weather reports of rain and got to fitting them anyway. Generally all went ok, even though I was all on my own and never done this before. Only had one bolt shear off (for the ABS sensor) which I was able to drill and re-tap. The sun even came out for a bit!





6 or 7 hours later i was done!


...well almost. went a bit crazy with the camber up front, but as I was just tightening down the last wheel nut, the skies opened with rain/hail/everything!

On to sunday, I could hardly wait to get out and set them up. Gave them a more conservative camber on the front and tried to sort out the spacing on the rear.





Don't know if anyone else had problems with the rears rubbing on the tyres, but until I can get some hub-centric spacers, I've had to set them up with a pair of 5mm spacers I had kicking around and added about 10-15mm of pre-load to the springs so the spring perches clear the tyres (by about 2mm!). Anyone know what affect this will have? Does it just reduce the total travel, making it more likely to bottom out? I can't adjust the height as the bottom parts are stuck fast, so ride height is left as col had it.

Very happy to have finally done this. The handling is so much better and with damping on full-soft it doesn't feel far off the stock stiffness. Plus, it looks f-ing awesome like this!

Looks good mate. How low have you gone I'm trying to work out how low to set mine

The fronts are as low as possible. If I remember rightly what I read a while ago, the manufacturer suggested removing the smaller spring perch locking ring (spring shouldn't be pre-loaded, just tight enough to stop it becoming un-loaded). This allows you to spin the bottom mount up a few turns higher (lowering the car more). The backs can then be setup to match. This is how my coilies seem to be set up.

Forgot to measure the height before - I was too excited and eager to fit them. If I can, I'll get a measurement to somewhere on the chassis tonight for you.

[edit]
measured to top of wheel arch (not guaranteeing body is square)
fronts are 585mm ±5
rears are 610mm ±5

she is looking good

here ya go, stainless steel version

looking quite phallic on my lathe...


New stainless one on the left. Made it slightly bigger too


Just need the short shifter now. Added weight does make so much difference (alu = 187g, stainless = 501g). Less noise transmitted through the shifter and it just seems to 'plop' into gear.


May have noticed I felt lined the box under the tape deck too (yup still rocking a tape deck). No more rattling glasses/coins/junk!

Nice updates.

Sweet

nice work buddy! I need a man-cave

Excellent progress here, I'm a huge fan of the gear knob!

cheers all.

I can look at getting a small batch of gear knobs run off by a machine shop if there's the interest, or pm me for a pdf drawing if you wanna get them done yourself. Just remember me if you wanna make money

Time for an update.
Jacked the car up Aug/Sept time to see where my exhaust was blowing from, and found both inner CV boots had catastrophically failed. Ah well - had been meaning to rebuild the front end anyway... took me till Christmas to get it back on the road though!

Stripped off the hubs/wishbones/driveshafts etc and set to work restoring and upgrading...

large socket + rear brake cylinder to press out old bush


sandblasted at work. Mmm shiney


por15. Even shineyer.


Those bushes are custom made from Powerflex, as SuperPoo failed me again (main reason it took so long).


Painted hubs, rebuilt and painted d/s wishbone and fittings all ready to go. (Shaking with excitement)


onto the brakes...

blasted, sanded and a quick lick of paint


and a first try at airbrushing


x2


rebuilt and ready


fast forward to refitting...


and finally back on 4 wheels


and yes, exhaust is still blowing!

nice work!!
We have all the bushes ready to overhaul the front and rear suspension but just not got round to it

loving the airbrushing too it's something I've wanted to try for a while!

Great updates

yep, nice work there. Good job on the brake calipers, they look lovely

cracking work, makes a world of difference, looks sweet mate

loving this car

Nice work on the maintenance, I love seeing people doing things properly! Will be following your example this summer I hope.

Arne

thanks all. after temporarily replacing the outer cv boots for every MOT in the past 3 years I decided to do it properly. I'm done with 'that'll do' jobs.

Nice work mate!