1986 Daihatsu L70/L80 Mira/Handi

Roadrunner · **Posted:** Sun Jun 03, 2012 12:47 pm

The top one does seem to be a bit cleaner really.
Is it custom made or what's it from? Quite a difference you got there.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Jun 04, 2012 12:16 am

Nah, they're a standard item out of another Daihatsu. I'll hold onto which model for now, but if you know how to search Yahoo auctions, you can probably find out fairly easily. The picture above shows how the front end sits at full droop. Ride height is much the same as it was previously, but the ride quality is greatly improved. Very pleased with the outcome.

Roadrunner · **Posted:** Mon Jun 04, 2012 2:49 pm

Usually use other auction sites over here. I guess I'll be looking into Yahoo then :-)

They seem pretty damn short for a standard item. Nice :-)

I actually going to have a look at a '89 Mira. Of course going low would be step one ;-)

Keep up the good work. Love the look of the 10's

ill-minded · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:31 am

Yahoo auctions are pretty much the only place to get aftermarket/cool parts for these things, as unfortunate as it is. However, it does feel somewhat rewarding knowing that I've got one of a handful of modified ones in the country. Also the only Mira in Australia with ITBs that I'm aware of.

If you do get that Mira, let me know and I can pass on what knowledge I know.

In other news, I finally identified and fixed one niggly issue that's been annoying the hell out of me for the past month or so, which was not being able to start the car easily from a cold start. Initially I thought it must have something to do with the cold start settings or enrichments with the Megasquirt, but I discovered today that it was more a case that the cam sensor signal was all over the place when cold cranking, so it'd throw all sorts of readings and the Megasquirt basically had no idea what was going on. A few little adjustments on the VR sensor circuits and everything is starting and running well again.

Picking up some new bits for this next week, so keep an eye out.

Roadrunner · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:09 am

I'm afraid the little Daihatsu was too good not to take home.
I'll take some proper pictures later and stuff 'em in a topic.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:26 pm

That looks immaculate for it's age. Very nice score, indeed.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:42 pm

Picked up some new kicks for this.

10×5J +5 SSR FL-II.

These will eventually replace the Mk Is for daily driving duties once they've been repaired a little and cleaned up.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:58 pm

Also, for the novelty.

inb4 yo dawg

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:25 am

Nothing new on the car yet, but I did pick up this sweet new hoodie from a mate who does custom apparel.

Camshaft · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2012 9:31 am

That's some incredible hair action you've got going on there, no homo. You look like Jemaine from "Flight of the Conchords." (Americans haven't figured out that Australia and New Zealand are separate places yet)

What color are you going to paint the centers of those SSRs?

ill-minded · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:38 am

I had a comment at work the other day that I looked like Greg Brady, haha.

I'll probably be getting the centres painted the same gold as the meshies I've got, which coincidentally, is the same gold that my engine bay is painted.

Camshaft · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:08 am

ill-minded wrote:

I'll probably be getting the centres painted the same gold as the meshies I've got, which coincidentally, is the same gold that my engine bay is painted.

I'm starting to like red & gold more and more every day. :tu:

It's part of the vision I have for my Celica when it's done.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 9:57 am

I'm still largely undecided about colour choice for the rest of the car, but since it'll be some time until I actually get it painted, I figure I can sleep on it for now.

I intend to make the gold coloured centres somewhat of a theme for my cars though.

Camshaft · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:01 am

ill-minded wrote:

I intend to make the gold coloured centres somewhat of a theme for my cars though.

Do it, it looks good with literally every color car.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:28 am

I do like that gold is a pretty universal colour for wheels.

In other news, the starter motor on this has started to to start crapping itself by throwing the pinion gear back out of the flywheel while cranking, which makes cold starting even worse than usual, so I went out to the local Daihatsu wrecker and picked up a fresh one to replace it. I'll probably throw it in sometime later this afternoon (given that it's 3:30AM...

) before I go about trying to replace a freeze plug on an L24.

Hopefully I might be able to trek down to the wheel repairer sometime Friday and get all these wheels straightened out and cleaned up, but we'll see how things go.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:31 am

Oh, and here's a bunch of pictures a mate took a month ago while on a small "box car" meet.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 5:00 am

ill-minded · **Posted:** Thu Sep 06, 2012 6:53 am

Not too much to update with the car itself, but I finally got around to doing a bit of work on an old bike muffler ('01? R6) I bought last year to use on the car. Basically, I took one of these...

... and with a bit of grinding later, ended up with this:

So I probably ended up taking about 12" out of the body length and did away with the standard piping on the front side of it. As you can see though, it needs to be welded back together (I don't have a welder unfortunately) and the hole on the "in" side needs to be plugged up and sealed. Considering it's nigh on impossible to get any kind of muffler this small without sourcing from Japan, I think it all worked out quite nicely and as an added bonus, only cost me $50 from recollection.

So once the muffler is done, I'm thinking I might borrow an arc welder from someone and a bunch of 1-1/4" stainless tube and attempt to tack up an exhaust manifold. Should be a fun little exercise for me once I've finished buggering around with my brother's Datsun replacing a freeze plug at the rear of the block.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Mon Oct 15, 2012 8:24 am

So I ran into some issues.

Long story short; I managed to split the rear engine mount and the motor rocked forward, breaking my throttle cable and dislodging the fuel return line. Not too much damage thankfully, but it still means the engine has to come out to replace the mount. Going to try and get the chassis rails notched properly while it's all out to alleviate the clearance issues with the driveshafts.

ill-minded · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2012 5:40 am

Small update. Got the engine out and got new mounts, replaced the CV boots on the existing driveshafts because two out of the four were either ripped or throwing grease. Spent some time with the angle grinder and made some little plugs to fill the extra missing material in the struts where I had to slot them to fit the Mira hubs and cut the brake line mounts off so I can re-mount them a bit lower and offset so they don't foul on the flexible brake line.

Things yet to be done include borrowing a welder and getting some steel pipe to notch a bit out of the chassis rails. I was originally going to go across the full width of the rail about 1" deep, but decided it would probably take a bit too much strength out of the rails and am now only going to section a corner at a slight angle, since the driveshafts sit at a slight upwards angle at the height that it sits. Hoping to have all of this done over the duration of next week and with any luck, back on the road by next weekend, but I'm not in any real hurry.

1986 Daihatsu L70/L80 Mira/Handi

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