Mounted

Well then meet my new best friend - mr Tube Notcher - plus a REALL big drill - its a great partnership!

Oh yeah we were making engine mounts!!!! See - I may actually weld these rather than retain the masking tape and gravity clamps

lurve that drill.... its a loaner but its lovely

funnily enough I usually hate this part - the firts notch is ALWAYS right the decond one is the killer

This install uses the Fiat engine mounts all round - the car has not been cut at all

more later

w

coming off life support

So almost a year - whats the bloody bomb maker been doing then? lots!
the orange thing in the corner is coming back to life

it has fluid lines and brakes, glazing and mirrors, belts and switch panels it has an engine and box waiting to go in and a dummy unit in the hole.

tyres are stacked waiting for mounting

almost there family almost there - just waiting on the final maching of the diff and drive unit ... mind you I have been saying that since MARCH....

and for the first time a look at the home for this thing - its okay - you have to step out to change your mind but its okay.....

Stoppers

Okay - piccies of the car on its feet - all pretty much ready on the suspension front - RF wheel bearing is poked though!

also pics of of the brake packages
willwood twin pots on the back - willwood four pots on the front... hopefull y this will stop everyone doubting what I was saying - wheel spacers are 15mm all round and are hubcentric to the performance minilites - thanks Millers Mule in Texas the front brake Kit is from whoa Brakes also in the USA - the rear kit I developed my self - real simple actually!
Also note the radical castor angles on the car - i fixed that later :-)
Camber needs to come back a bit as well...
next step... lots!

Shifty

Work is progressing on the assembly of the car - at last.
Fabricated a new internal/external shift linkage ( which looks suspiciously like a bent piece of tube) and started hanging the flares. Doors are ready to go on as is the front and rear suspension just waiting on Koni to send my rear shockers back.

yay

OHMYGODITSORANAGE!!!! now how did that happen?

Well quite apart from anything else I am well pleased... the car is ready for assembly - and at the last moment at the paint shop I decided that instead of balck it would become - well - orange - really - its a PPG colour in commercial transport grade paint... no particular reason other than I drove past a VW Polo that was a nice shade of orange on the way to the painters... duh
the paint crew at New Zealand Panel and Paint in New Plymouth did a very nice job... I spent four days on the sanding blocks and they only managed to tell me "its not worth the effort your just going to bend it anyway" about five times each day....

Overall it took 40 hours of sanding prep and 30 hours of painter time..... now thats alot - 8.5 litres of material on the car - end result there is no trace of the previous Fiat blue - anywhere - and I am broke - again!

so there you have it - check the pictures while I go and get a roll of bubble wrap so I can wrap the car up so it dont get scracthed.

So now its assembly time... with a stack of moinor fabrication - fitting up and general mucking around to do... little stuff like the fluid lines and the wiring loom... dash and switch panels finish the gear shift linkage glaze the car.... did I mention that I am broke? The engine is doing my head in - I have a 1600 Tempra that is only just run in at 440,000 km that I can pinch the engine out of - chuck in the FT7 cam and adjustable pully - scab a set of headers from somewhere and a set of bearings and rings - flywheel and clutch off the 1500 in the parents in laws shed and Bobs your Aunties live in lover! Sticking with the four speed as long as its still okay... if I can beg and borrow there is still an outside chance of running at DeHav drive in October - I really should start hitting up some sponsors... which could be a bit of a laugh :-) Starting from this...

Yes it looks pink!

But pink sands off to be orange...
Then it was masked (about four times!)
And - yes that is a bloody great dent in the left front guard.... heavy handed handling - fixed straight away

Ending like this - you can just make out the panels tucked in behind the car....