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A lot of folk here watched this get built over the years, Now it is together and street legal and to top it off it won best Hotrod at a show on the weekend

As you know my 32 is to all intents finished my other car is a '12 gt500
Anyway I went on a run and one guy in a rouch had a yellow mustang in the back window on the parcel tray
I couldn't find one so I made one out of 6mm alloy
Cut it out with a drill press and hand filed will paint same red as the stripes

https://www.facebook.com/kerry.bree.7/media_set?set=a.10153236753400766.1073742009.619770765&type=3

Here is someone else's picture of the 2 day show this is the carpark

Heading over your way on the 20th Jan for 10 days first 4 days in Anaheim for a trade show then heading to Vegas . So far only have the Shelby facility on the to do list.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206533398788407&set=pcb.10206533399468424&type=3&theater

Hi guys I am looking for some ideas
As you know the 32 has a SoCal screen , I am planning a ragtop but need some advice on fitting it to the SoCal screen
Preferably not agricultural lookingb

I am coming over for a trade show in January thought I might catch up with the Pomona swapmeet anything else I should be planning for?
will be there 17th - 25th

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10201081638377804&set=a.1567783149192.2082327.1073829509&type=1&relevant_count=2&ref=nf

My cert guy reckons my exhaust hangers were too light so today I gusseted them 15mm stainless and a bit of tube for a neoprene bush

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200280089059572&comment_id=5231345&offset=0&total_comments=2&ref=notif&notif_t=video_comment

Not sure if this will work or not the roadster is nearly ready for its maiden voyage
All lights work , steering done brakes work just a couple of gearbox computer issues to go

here is where i am up to for those that have been following it is in the national hotrod show next month

As per usual I am coming over for the Namm show in Anaheim what is on around LA in January I may be able to attend at the same time ?

Will be in the US from the 7th - 20th of Jan for the namm show in anaheim will probably go to Vegas first and do the canyon thing

Whats to do around that time ?

I hate the plastic knobs on both my engine oil dipstick and the trans dipstick so I got some old new stock guitar knobs from when we made guitars and wrenched off the volume and tone bits and made up a new set of knobs will smash off the plastic ones and jb weld the sticks into these

I have one Vol for the Oil and a Tone for the trans

I have been taking my time over these as I wasn't really sure what to do but I am happy with the result

I cut them out of Stainless and put a slight bend in them with a mates bender so they hold down the carpet and cover the wiring
Today I sunk 2 T nuts into the fibreglass and glassed them in then drilled the plates to suit and countersunk them
Then a polish and waalahh ( is that a word?)

I plan to sand blast the ford logo into them by sticking the reverse of the logo on in vinyl then light blasting I have tried it and it works great looks like a factory piece

Pushed the rod out of the garage today lucky the handbrake works or it could have ended up in the tide

I decided to make some stainless trim to fill in the recess in the grill shell where the side panels would go if I had any

3 pieces of stainless tigged together and a lot of finger burns and one side is done now I have to polish it and do the other side

The hood isn't closed in this shot hence the huge gap

I have never been too happy with the two large panel washers behind the button head stainless bolts that hold the front spreader bar to the chassis

So today I made something a bit sexier some 3mm stainless and a bit of polish thrown in with a lot of elbow grease and now it looks a bit cooler

I have always hated black rubber hoses so I got some material for a mock up

In this case I saved up some toilet roll centres much to my wifes amusement

They were easier to cut and tape than anything else plus they were free

Once I had a shape that would work I went to the stainless bends place in East Tamaki and purchased some bends

I also cut up some 5mm bits to tig on the ends to stop the hoses sliding off

Last weekend I spent all the two days changing my mind

I figured the 3 way bonnet hinge from finks was just too hard to integrate with the alloy bonnet
So I brought home a keyboard stand from work which was roughly the right size of tube I cut it up and made brackets out of stainless to bridge the gap between the firewall and the radiator and decided to use the original fibreglass bonnet instead well it took me all of the two days to get it all set up and I was planning on using a few dsus fasteners to hold the bonnet on then I figured no I will just whip up some hinges how hard can it be ...

Anyway fast forward to today I spent the morning fine tuning the fibreglass bonnet ( hood) then if figured I already have the dan fink hinges set how hard can it be I mean Americans can do it :-)

So another whole day and I have the rear brackets finished sort of, they need prettying yet and some holes for the button heads to attach them to the alloy bars that go from the firewall to the grille
I may cut some holes in them to get a bit carryed away  all the bolts are hidden I welded an extra layer in behind to tig the bolts too so you can't see them

picture shows last weeks brackets and this weeks . last weeks was quite complicated as it actually bolted to the firewall with hidden bolts lucky I didn't drill the holes

I have spend most of the day making these little things out of stainless to hide the end of the tubes carrying the wires from the headlights a bit of tube and a panel washer

I am sure what I am doing will have to be done again such is the way of rodding so I thought I might save myself some time and check with you guys before i weld them in

They will weld to the stainless cross tube that holds the fan to the radiator

The tubes then bolt into them hiding the plugs from close scrutiny my wife also took some better pics for her lotus friends as I am hopeless with the camera she posted them here http://www.lotusbuzz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1153&highlight=hotrod  eventually

Can someone tell me the prcedure for fabricating the hook up from a shifter to the transmission

The shifter is a heavily modded Lokar floor mount swapped over to make the arm on the right and the trans is out of a lexus

I am scraching my head as to which end to start at do I leave the original lever on the trans and fab a lever at the shifter end to suit and if so how?
Or do I make a lever at the shifter end and fab the lever at the trans end to suit

As I have manualised the auto I only need the shifter for PRND

I am having trouble getting my head around the variables

Finally bolted the body down for the last time today not a job I want to do again in a hurry I chased the job round the garage all day everytime I put a shim where I thought it needed it I was wrong

I like this a lot how hot rod is that blending a different engine from a diff continant into the opposite end of a car

My Father in law has finally finished his 34 coupe after a 10 year build it was the highlight of my summer holiday down to the South

here are some pics scratch build just about everything the chassis most of the body even the grille painstakenly made each bar and tigged it in

word is he is looking to sell it and start a new one now so he may put a card in the window at the show in rangiora

well the painting drama is now complete I have sanded filled blackened and glossed the underneath
I turned it upside down on an old mattress bought off the net and put a couple of litres of 2 pot etch primer a litre of black basecoat and 2 litres of 2 pot clear

I also did the firewall as impossible to paint later without taking the body off again

After the first application of clear I got my wife to airbrush a pair of chequered flags on it then another heavy coat of 2 pot clear

After I had block sanded this flat again I put one last coat of clear last night

a few neighbours helped me put the body on this evening with their kids feeding the hanging down bits over the chassis

now I am in the home stretch to getting it running final paint and upholstery will have to wait as I have just bought a Lotus Esprit sport 350 and hotrodding money will be tight for awhile

at least no-one will be complaining about the smell of paint through the house for awhile now I just have to clean up the garage

I have started the long reassembly now the chassis is painted some of the things I couldn't mock up are also being fabricated now such as the rear brake lines which I couldn't do easily with the body on

It is surprisingly hard to run brake lines on round tubing chassis I had to make some small widgets to hold them doesn't look like much but it took a whole weekend

I have also made the brackets to hold the Trans cooler I changed my mind where to put it and decided to mount it to the chassis instead of where I originally wanted it I just can't bring myself to mount it to the radiator and run ugly pipes all the way there

Well it's not rusty steel anymore

The chassis is now a glossy black with a purple pearl in all the centre section
Most of the pearl is actually underneath so that when I put the black body on it ( when it's painted) the chassis will stand out when viewed from underneath

now starts the long put it all back together properly phase

My wife has always been a famous NZ landscape painter with brushes but recently she did an airbrush course

I am stunned by what she learnt in 3 weeks full time at a course run by an Australian called Tony Vowles

she has big plans for the roadster

I have now bought her two airbrushes and built a laminar flow cabinet so she can spay with no fumes

Finally finished polishing the motor for the 32 I don't want to do it again that's for sure The dremel is pretty much on it's last legs so I finished it with an air die grinder which was way easier

The black dust went everywhere and the garage is a mess my wife was less than impressed with the mess and the noise but that's our job as men to drive them crazy

The sump is missing because I am still in the process of painting it , Toyota paint it with some yukky crinkle paint but it wipes right off with thinners so it's all good
Gearbox is painted and the bellhouseing is polished to match

Not sure if polishing the engine is modifying it but here is the result of many evenings so far I haven't polished the head yet hence it is still a bit dull just need to give it a dress up with some 1200 grit then buff it

The hardest bit is getting all the ridges off the whole engine is covered in them not sure what they were there for but whatever it was they are not there now

still have a lot to do have actually worn a dremel out the front bearing is so knackered that it gets too hot to hold

The chassis is at the painters and the auto is being rebuilt I might even get to drive it before we run out of summer

Finally got the roadster to run
Had a few problems to start as I had wired the two coils round the wrong way my interpretation of left looking from the front of the car didn't match the instruction manual unwritten sitting in the car left

Of course I ran all the wiring under the injection so had to pull it off to rewire it

The back fireing through those 8 trumpets was a frightening thing as it was 180 degress out effectively

Then our fuel problems turned out to be not enough in the new tank for the pump

Only ran it for 30 secs as the trans is empty or nearly but it sounds nice with those 8 throttle bodies and 2 inch headers

I have never really been happy with the headlight brackets I made even though they looked good and were shiny stainless they just looked a bit agrcultural so I started again
some bits of stainless tube a couple of bends and I had the makings of an idea I also built in a place to put the Harley indicators as I had no idea where I was going to put them

tigged all the bends together and a lot of welding for such a small item
I can't bolt the headlights on yet as the Harley davidson lights need a 3/8 unf thread in the bottom and I need to change the one they came with to a cap screw to fit inside the tube
The lights fit onto the top of the tube where I hade to weld the small flat

Hi guys I have been a bit busy with work and travelling overseas but I have been squirelling away at bits and pieces I have sorted the fuel lines mostly and have made all the stainless clamps to hold it drilled and tapped the chassis and fitted lines

Made a small time consuming bracket to hold the ignition switch it sits just behind and under the dash so when the dask is fitted the key ends up flush with the dash

I have also sorted the seat belts they are new mazda mx5 belts made some brackets and fitted them they are all just tacked at the moment as I still have one little thing to do  and that is a small bolt in crossmember under the car for the seatbelt receivers to bolt into I should have that done by the weekend

And on to the pics !!

I knew that I was tired but I went ahead and did some work on the 32

I bought a new 2 channel igniter as the ones that came with the totota v8 were two big and the wireing was confusing me so I got a 2 channel one from the company that made my engine computer here in NZ

So i worked out where I wanted it on the firewall marked all the holes but before i did that I put a spirit level on it to make sure it was level as I didn't want to trust my eyes as I was tired

So I drill all the holes now I hate nuts so I made a small plate to go on the other side out of steel drilled and tapped it for all four bolts and glued it to the fibreglass with some 2 pot glue when it was all set I bolted the igniter to the firewall

I stood back to admire my handiwork thats when I noticed I still had the car jacked up on one side from where I ran the battery cables the night before

Jeez I hate doing things twice that steel plate was a mother to get off

I bought all the fuel line yesterday and as the most important bit didn't fit I was halted till monday or tuesday as I am in ozzie on monday so i looked for something else to do

After putting a six way multi plug on the headlight / front end wiring I looked at the Russel fuel filter I bought on friday I didn't want it flapping in the breeze against the chassis so I made a wee billet bracket for it

Drew it up on 6mm alloy then cut out with a hacksaw and a file then ploished it I couldn't find any small bolts to hold it together so these are chrome guitar plate screws which seem to do the job

One side has three holes in it as I snapped a tiny drill bit in one of them

I was in Anaheim last week at the4 namm show just around the corner from our hotel was a tiny speed shop that I dawdled in

They made cams I think but they had a small block chev in there on an engine stand and on it were a pair of billet hemi heads with a billet 8 throttle body injection set up on it I was just to scared to ask what it cost I of course forgot to take a photo

It was quite a sight

I am pretty fussy could be why my 32 roadster has taken 4 years so far I am up to the wiring stage armed with a kit from the US and an engine computer and a gearbox computer and a dash comput... get the picture


Anyway I just couldn't figure out a tidy way of running the wires through the firewall

Don't really need a grommet as it is fibreglass besides it would look awful

So armed with my trusty drillpress and a file I made this little billet piece to tidy up the place that the wires come out, a lick on the home polisher and it looks pretty cool

Add acouple of polished stainless button heads and this will look even better when the body actually has paint on it

I must have way too much time on my hands

I started with a flat bit of stainless pressed it into a wiggly shape courtesy of the fatherin laws big press then cut drill polish and a shiny clip emerges I have three so far with a few more to go

I have never liked the way the 32 grill looks on a highboy so I set about modifying it I hate the way it finishes in the middle of nowhere on the sides

So I jammed in a bunch of foam set it up in the vice and carved a better shape then I covered it in fibreglass when it was nice and hard I chopped out the foam and tidied it up now I am much happier

I have started on the seats I figuered I have to build the seats so I can figure out where the seat belt mounting points go

I started with some scrap timber and made a base then a top for the base and finally a back now all it needs is some foam some leather and some hinges

Been busy moving house and setting up my new garage

However I have made a little progress on the 32 I have found a company in the US via the street rodder who make flappy paddle things to make my whole tiptronic nightmare thing work so very happy with that

will post some pics later when I get home

I am currently fitting a Dan Fink 3 way hood latch system to the 32 and I discovered a small trick that I will share with you

When you are drilling holes in alloy and or steel it is often hard to find the centre of the hole for drilling especially in this case as the bar goes inside the hood so I couldn't even get a drill in there and drill thru the hole this would also damage the threads

So I got a nail and trimed it to slightly longer than the hole then I wrapped it in tape so it was the same diameter as the hole

When I had my bar exactly where i wanted it on the hood I clamped it there then i dropped the tape wrapped nail in the hole and sqeezed it with vise grips so it made a perfect centre nipple on the other side this gave me the centre so I simply drilled and all the holes lined up perfectly

Made the stand offs today and partially finished the braketry to tie it all back to the chassis

Roughed these out need to finish tigging them and then polish before welding them to the bar as it looks like it might be hard to polish later

Had some stainless 50mm tube mandrel bent last week and fabbed some braketry to hold it inside the body
Drilled two holes through the body and it all seems to work now I just need to tunnel in the high stop brake light

I am having some smaller tube bent up to make a rear nerf bar

I noticed a pic in feb's street rodder of a corvette (99) fuel filter that had the tank return incorporated and only one line feeding the engine

It occurs this will save me a lot of plumbing not to mention the nightmare I have getting the original return valve to work with my hand made throttle bodies

The question is there anything else out there that does the same thing as Corvette stuff is hard to get here Japanese would be useful I am using the lexus in tank pump

Here is the finished product I got some time in the shed while the missus was doing a triathlon on the weekend the progress pics are in another post way further back

Since I have mounted the brake master cylinder under the dash on the 32 I have had to make a remote filler as the orginal one was plastic

I had a oil fill cap I ordered that didn't fit so I got a mate to thread a bit of stainless to suit


Once I got that I found a scrap bit of stainless pipe cut it in half and tigged on some sides then lots of drilling and fileing later I had a top and a bottom

The pipes out the back were cut from a music stand at work the bolts are welded in from the inside so the whole thing mounts to the firewall with no fastenings showing

A quick polish and it looks like a storebought item I have to drill a descrete hole somewhere as it is airtight something I never thought of till I posted progress on this item here and someone mentioned

I ordered a billet oil fill cap with my last shipment from yogi's it of course didn't fit as it was for a gm and I was guessing it might be the same as Toyota

Anyway I got a mate to turn up a threaded boss out of stainless and tonight I stated to make a resevoir (sp?) for the remote brake fill that will mount to the firewall

I cut a scrap bit of stainless pipe in half and tigged two sides on to it then welded in the floor
I cut a hole with a drill and a file for the boss to fit in in the top ( not shown )

I cant weld in the back untill I have welded in some hidden bolts and some pipes to hook up to the master cylinder

I have about an hour in this so far when polished it will look like a comercial  piece

I now have the exhausts mostly polished they still need another linish and buff to get rid of the welds and get them to a higher quality finish

The ends have been cut

Tigged the exhaust up today only burnt myself in a few places

fabbed the other bracket for the other side and tigged both of them to the pipe still have to cut the end of the pipe down to get the right angle

Also have to build some mufflers to go inside the pipe not sure about how to do that but not high on the list at the moment

Spent the night in the shed making brackets for the exhaust pipes on the 32
Finally found something I could use to fit the vague picture in my head that I was looking for I boult these nolathane suspension bushes then made these brackets round them

One side bolts under the frame on the 32 and the other I will tig to the 4 inch stainless pipes that run down the outside of the chassis rails

The hard part is making the other side the same I am also undecided wether to cut some slots in the curved one that is the verticle part

Just got back from a trip to Hong Kong and China boy what a culture shock
I thought of Carps in Hong Kong as every single Taxi was A Toyota Crown Comfort with dedicated LPG and red and there were thousands of them would have loved to have the commision on that sale

China was the biggest culture shock we went a fair way in about 3 hours from the border in a industrial town stayed at the flashest hotel I have ever seen surrounded by poverty

Did a factory tour of one of my suppliers they have several thousand workers living on site saw hundreds of motorbikes with no brands I recognised and no known brands I even saw Harley copies with obscure names on them

A really good idea is they have huge counters on the traffic lights telling you by the second when the lights are going to change

Pretty scary traffic they can't seem to decide which side of the car to put the wheel so they have cars with both (not in the same car ) and different toll booths on the freeways to cope with either this of course is chaos at the toll booth approaches as cars swerve to a booth that accomodates left or right hand drive

Roundabouts were the craziest 4 lanes round with no markings trucks busses bicycles and pedestrians and sometimes cars going round the wrong way traffic backed up for miles and No-one gives way ever

I bought some flamed billet number plate surrounds off the net turned out they didn't fit our plates unless with a cunning plan I could get one with 5 digits

Trolled around the site and I couldn't beleive my luck I got 3otwo

Can't beleive it wasn't already taken it is going to look cool on the back of the 32 roadster

Going to Hong Kong in the morning anything I should be looking for there ?