It skipped my mind to suggest that you could have got a small spool of mig wire and I could have come back with the Argon bottle (although its a medium it is still real heavy because its full). Just remind yourself that this old exhust is merely to get you from home to the exhaust shop - then have the headers fitted up and a new centre muffler fabricated. I don't know if you intend to retain the rear muffler or not.

- and don't forget you threw out the other muffler system i gave you from the green coupe!



Don't forget your windshield visor. And if you are getting soda done - I would like to get a couple of performance challenger rims cleaned up. I have some brackets to get powdercoated satin black too.

went to powdercoaters and the fence was padlocked.

Came home and moved about half a ton of rocks with my neighbour, then tried a bead blasting place that aaron had suggested, the guy was still open, had a chat and I gave him my front apron to be bead blasted. It should be done within the next few days.

kinda lost my temper:



thats a small camping axe buried in the rear muffler after I threw the muffler across my front lawn.

HERE'S JOHNNY!

Got the panel back from the media blaster, it came up looking very straight, only some tiny areas escaped the media (ie behind the mounting brackets), mind you I'm talking about a total surface area smaller than a 5 cent piece (or nickel for our US cousins).

I gave it a rub down with some prepsol surface cleaner, wiped it down again with a clean cotton rag and it's now sitting in the sun after two coats of Cold Galvit.

Front apron fitting did not go well, the curves on the bottom of the apron got scratched by the sharp cutted edges of the wheel arch where Ian has cut the guard to fit the old fibreglass chin spoiler.

I'll sort it out next week, but for the moment, I laid some quick colour down to cover the areas that used to be yellow. (look back through my posts to see if you can spot where)





I just have to get rid of that sticker residue.


Also, birthday presents!

From Hoges:



She'll be our lucky charm.

Period picnic set to go with the wagon from my family:






I also bought something small while I was down at Phillip Island for the racers but I won't unveil that for a little bit.

BEWBS

What's with the hole in her leg? :s

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

it's a little solar panel for the motor that rocks her chesticles back and forth.

Th...that's...that's nice.

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

so this was the front apron back from the media blaster:



I'm pretty happy at how straight the panel was:



There was a tiny bit of old yellow paint left, but a bit of light sanding and it was gone:



I gave it a coat with cold galvit:



and celebrated with a chocolate crackle.

This is how the apron is at the moment, hopefully I can fit it this weekend without scratching it again!

I've been reading your thread as a guest for ages now Geoff... I can finally say it's an awesome build and you actually inspired me to source new steering components after seeing your upgrades!

thanks kurt! I've finally seen what your wagon looks like!

shoot me a PM if you get stuck on bits and stuff for your wagon as I had a PRICK of a time working out what fitted for my old FA. In the end I used parts off a RX-2/capella, a STB and a FA. Some stuff interchanged, some stuff would only fit a FA etc.

I ended up buying NOS Capella tie rod ends (all four) and a pitman arm. The look exactly the same as the STB 1300 stuff so I'm hoping they fit straight on!

I'd say "yes" to that as Jed/Buzzme thinks (and I tend to agree) that there is STB front end style, early FA style, then back to STB style on the very late FAs.

by Style, I mean the size of the hole on the ackerman arms, the drag link etc. Being a late FA, my car actually used STB bits but from memory I changed it over to FA early bits, which meant using different tie rod ends that had a larger OD "thread" on the bit that slides through the ackerman arm. Very confusing at times, especially if you find a car that has one size on one side and one on the other!


As for the green wagon, I did scratch the front apron putting it back on, bit annoyed at that, but its right up close to the indicator/parker to I may get away with people not noticing. More pictures coming soon.

Powdercoated parts came back last week:



exhaust brackets:



I put the rear snubber on with its little rubber pad





This stops the exhaust hitting the rear of the chassis/bodywork

I also got a bracket that can be bolted to the rear muffler done, but then I realised that, erm, that was the muffler that I put the axe through. So that will be going to the exhaust guys, if they can use it, great, if not, I'll give it to someone that can use it. I also gave aaron the bracket that mounts the exhaust to the gearbox as I could not for the life of me undo the two bolts on the gearbox that hold the bracket on. Rather than strip the bolt head off, I went and had a beer and put the bracket back in the cardboard box.

Unfortunately my jack started leaking, so I've got to sort that out too.

Front apron fitting redux



I'm not sure how this is meant to line up, maybe the green front guard tab has been bent back? It was like this on the other side too.



Hmmmm.


A bit of test fitting:



and some aligning:




I can't get the headlights to sit perfectly in the grille either which is annoying:



I took my time and refitted the bumper, plugged the looms back in etc, then noticed a small scratch on the apron under the park/indicator light. Dammit. I'm a bit upset about that, but its good in a way as it's prompted me to look up how other people line up painted panels etc. It's all practice for the next project!


As it sits:



The black really sucks the light in doesn't it?

I took last week Friday off and had the car trucked over to an exhaust shop and back again.

Prior to that I pulled out the factory system from aaron's white parts wagon and bolted the headers back on:





I gave the head a clean up, there was lots of carbon around the exhaust ports, I wanted the gaskets to sit flush against the head



you can also see how the gasket and the exhaust port aren't perfect in terms of being in-line. If the engine in the car was going to be a proper all out racer, I'd break out the die grinder, but for the moment, I just wanted everything bolted up properly and the car to keep moving towards registration.

Exhaust specs:

I really wanted a 2 inch system all the way through with mandrel bends, 1 resonator and 1 muffler. The exhaust shop advised me that their machine can't mandrel bend pipe as small as 2 inch, so press bends it was. If it was a rotary, I'd be concerned about the back pressure, but for a 4 cylinder, a little bit of back pressure is ok. I also wanted a flange where the headers end and one before the diff and after so that if I'm in the middle of nowhere on a rally and I smash the exhaust on a rock, I can unbolt it and leave it there.

The last tiny thing I wanted, and this was purely out of vanity, was twin chrome peashooter tips. Unfortunately the shop only had big boofy chrome ones to suit V8s (ie commodores and falcons), so I got those. I think I'll find some small peashooter ones and cut the big ones off and have the small ones mounted. I thought the big ones would grow on me but they haven't.







^ you can just see the header and main exhaust flange, just under the drivers seat.





I as hoping to get some underbody shots and stitch them together but the guys at the exhaust shop had the car finished before I could get back there.

Next up is probably the headlining, some roadgoing tyres and some other small bits and peices. I think I'll get the car trucked to a really good brake and clutch workshop as I checked out the brakes again yesterday evening (I love daylight savings) and the pedal almost sinks to the floor before the brakes come on, that's definately a no no considering all of the consumables are new...

Those exhaust tips look ok mate, don't fret about it.

It's coming along nicely though.

_________________
1971 1300 Wagon Deluxe
1973 1300 Wagon

thanks bloke

yeah, I think I have OCD or something I swear. Dropping past a potential trimmer this weekend.