The Man was fine in the end. I am a bit behind and the student loan people have decided I don't meet the criteria for "course related costs".

I've been sneaking in first thing in the morning to use the spray booths with no respirator. I then turn the lights out and leave before the tutors arrive.

And that's just one thing of many that I don't have the money for... It's a hard life alright.

I've got projects due in the next couple of weeks and I have not even bought the materials to start making the bloody things yet. Crap.

Have made some more improvements to the firewall plates and have now found the EL harmonic balancer from the EL Ticky donk (which is now EF Ticky) along with another EF balancer. This means I can test out the under driven front wheel.

By my calculations the serpentine belt will still be at enough tension to drive everything, but it will all be 10% under driven.

That is to say - By making the balancer "smaller" it drives the belt less, which means you drive other functions (water pump, air con, power steer and alternator) a lot less.

Again, by my rudimentary calculations, this is within working tolerances. Basically, if you're at 1,000 rpm you will be pumping all the bolt on accessories similar to a standard car doing 850 rpm.

The water pump could be an issue in certain driving conditions. But hey - Then again - It leaves the water in the radiator for longer too, so therefore it gets cooled more.

And hey - Today I got interviewed by the cops - again.

But it was all good. She was cute... And she was interviewing me because I ran out and tried to stop a guy with a knife who had stabbed a shop owner, taken all the cash, ran up the road and hid in the laundry at my flash new abode.

When he heard all the cop cars (I thought he'd ran off up the back and up through the bush) he broke cover like a a*** (knife still in hand) and ran at the shop owner on the street (about 50m) and I (like a dumb a***) ran after him and was just in time to see him do a Grand Theft Auto on some poor guy in a silver MR2 and smash into two cars before realising he cannot drive a manual.

Amazingly a cop got there and started smacking the guy in the face with his baton (10-20 times) and he was still trying to drive. Ended up with cops all over him, tazers being drawn and ... Well... A few coppers looked at me real odd...

But hey, I'm going to give a guy a crack around the back of the noggin if he's stabbing some innocent guy... I may not think highly of the coppers, but I think even less highly of f**k wits like this guy.

And then one of the neighbours comes down and says "I've found this ski mask on my steps" and the female pig goes "hey Detective - There's a ski mask up the stairs" and the f**k wit detective just stands there until I say "go and f**k have a look at the the f**k ski mask Sherlock".

Unbelievable.

It's amazing that I, or anyone else in New Zealand, has ever been caught doing anything.

f**k that sort of s**t only happens in the movies or Americas dumbest criminals.... your lucky he didnt freek out on you or your missis and take your waggon.

Seriously If they had a job that they didn't have to deal with total f**k wits all the time... alot of the time...New cops would be the biggest percentage that people give the most complaints of having a hard time with.... Lets face it sometimes we were are all d**k behind closed doors.


My POV

Glad to read "The Man" was ok in the end.

I bet you surprised the hell out of the coppers chasing that f**k down the street! Great stuff mate.

It's been a couple of posts since you have had a pic, so you should pop into my build thread & check out my latest mighty boy related pic. I went to Albury to meet up with a fair few other East Coast mighty boy owners, we went to the Ettamogah pub up in NSW for a meal & a few drinks on Saturday night. Anyway, more in my thread....

Cheers

ToranaGuy

There's a photo for ya then Mr Mighty.

Looks good Fiend!

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Here Phil Death takes his community spirit seriously and saves another Wellington motorist dollars.

Nice work dude! I love it.

I wonder if we can get them booked for drawing on out car's without our permission?

Cheers

ToranaGuy

*puts hand up for phenolic spacer *

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. It was tested in court once, and the judge was on their side - it is, after all, on chalk on a tyre. It's not like it defaces it permanently or with malice.

But yeah, if they have the right to put marks on tyres, then we have the right to remove them.


Sent a PM your way, just in case you're really keen... I've been too broke to put new listings on EBAY or TRADEME lately. They take about 10% of the purchase price too. When you're a broke a*** student you really don't need to give those multimillionaires money...

But hey, maybe I can sell a couple and make twenty or thirty dollars.

(and then the inland revenue department will be after me for unpaid taxes on that too most likely)

Groan.

Fair enough man.

Anyway, you gotta try & make a couple of bucks on the side, to help get by, being a student sucks in the income department, so go ahead & see what you can make on the spacers & clutch cable brackets, if inland revenue pester you, keep your receipts for materials & so on & use them to offset any tax you may owe them, as those items are the "cost of business". Then you wouldn't have to pay them so much, if anything at all.

Anyway, on the topic of being broke, i'm still sans job, i've done a few small I.T consults here & there and made a couple of $$, but not enough to write home about. I've been looking at a career change, and have attended a couple of interviews this week, so maybe next week i'll have a job again.

You should have a quick look at my latest pics in my build thread, i've been doing some "bush panel beating" with a chain block. Has worked a treat. Cheaper than an oxy and a good professional slide hammer, and the results are good, i've got the firewall close to where it needs to be to weld it back up. But it's too late tonight to keep making noise outside, so i retire for the night & will do some more another day soon.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

I got cut off by an old gent on the way into the gas station yesterday and there was a low concrete wall (about ten inches) that smashed in the dog leg bit on the left between the rear wheel and door. Bummer.

Add it to the list (long and growing) of panel damage.

The blue re-spray is such a necessity!

Damn man, that sucks. Did you report it to the cops?

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Nah mate. He was just an old codger who probably did time in trenches to save our fair Islands from some perceived threat 60 years ago. He didn't even know what he'd done. How he missed seeing a great big multi coloured Ford wagon is beyond me, but he managed it which meant I had to turn into petrol station sharp... I couldn't see the wall as it was so low (and I only caught the end of it with a*** end of the car)... Anyway, as I didn't know the wall was there I didn't just slam on the anchors (I hate slamming on the anchors as it means stopping to re-arrange tools, sports equipment and children)... I thought I could just turn sharper into the petrol station, and then heard a sound pretty much similar to a large can of baked beans landing after being dropped from a carpark building...

Ooopsies.

ur welcome

`


in the first pic it shows ya front eye of ya springs .....appears the second leaf is too long & needs ta be shortened a little [wear/rubbin]

Fair call dude. If you were local to me I'd say come on over, use the tools you need to get the job fixed. I think it's a little far for that trip tho.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Hey mate - You're up to thirty messages or something. Good effort --- You found some stuff on page three of this thread that is still relevant (as I have not touched the rear springs again, I don't think)....

The springs are made up of a standard wagon top spring and the rest from a one tonne truck... When this photo was taken they'd only been in a few weeks, and have now been in for about 60,000 trouble free KM.

I agree with what you're saying, in principle. I must go have a look at a standard wagon and remind myself what they were like.... The difference between the wagon and the one tonne truck top spring was that the wagon has an elongated bush and mount, where as the flat deck unit had a circle shape, which probably left an extra half inch between end of leaf spring #2 and the front mounting position.

Only trouble I have had with this spring set up is when the Firestone idiots didn't do the U bolts up very tight and the left wheel moved forward when launching it.



I've been looking at some places in Aussie recently. I like Melbourne area... And it's only 1,000k's or so from Sydney. I don't know about you lot, but that's a weekend round journey to pick up car parts in the making. Sheeez, there's some good looking crap on Google Earth and Maps... I'm beginning to feel like an Aussie already.

Yeah mate, melb to syd & back again is a weekend trip to pickup a car / parts, been there, done that. 30hrs round trip, inc a couple hrs of sleep in a hotel in syd.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

I'm so broke... Sigh.

I'd be pulling the T5 out sometime soon and doing a whole heap more rebuilding on it than last time... Fourth syncro has gone missing in action, third is now pulsing like the gear is an egg shape, second just grinds and sounds like someone is playing with marbles in a ceramic teapot and as for reverse.... Well... If you hold it in reverse and release the clutch you move in reverse, sure... It reverses. Rough as guts and sounds horrid, but you do move backwards... As long as you keep your hand on the shifter.........

Ho hum.

Still, it's fun to drive! And if anyone ever stole it, they'd probably just wish they hadn't and ring me to come and collect it (if they even managed to get it through the three point turn to get it out the carpark........)