TOM

It's probably worth noting that depending on how many k's your car has done, removing the axles themselves may not be as easy as it sounds and can be a frustrating job. Sealed rear wheel bearings usually begin to fail at around 200,000 kms depending on how the car has been used. I've had numerous blokes with numerous tools over numerous weekends trying to get the axles out of my KE38 which has so far only resulted in a lot of swearing and a few bruised backs and egos - wagon/van axles are usually harder to get out in my experience. In many cases you may need to heat the housing up using an oxy or similar - this is my next step as everything else has failed. Also be aware that when using a slide hammer, if you have the car up on axle stands a lot of the energy you're trying to "shock" the axles out with will be absorbedand wasted by movement in the stands - if the axles are tight the car will just wobble and possibly slide around on the stands. If the gods are happy and the stars are aligned correctly and/or you're just one of those lucky bastards your axles may just fall out with a light tap, in which case I recommend buy a lottery ticket Good luck!

Have seen a number of similar looking K-engined open wheelers at our local (SA) Collingrove hillclimb - they still hold regular events there so I'll try to get some happy snaps and info next time we head out.

Spotted Philbey the other day up top of Belair road - tooted but you didn't see me (was in the gold 38) Saw a young dude with dreads driving what looked to be a fairly clean Silver KE55 sedan up Goodwood road Also saw a slammed baby blue KE70 wagon on Daws roday yesterday - looked pretty nice Have also spotted an older guy using a KE38 wagon as a painters car, seen it a few times recently - ladders on top and all. Same blue colour as SLO-038 when purchased.

There's a little park on Norton Summit Road called Valley Reserve - if we don't get too many people that should have enough room - I've taken pics there before and it has a nice setting in a little valley.

I'm keen to bring my '38 so long as it doesn't drag the quality of the shoot down haha Would be great to meet some of you guys

my god...this just gets better and better...stop now before I start having dreams about this car :yes:

Big update for the rolla - thanks to below I am now using this as a daily until insurance sorts out whether I get a fixed, or new company car. This happened day before Easter break - was well pissed off as it was partly my fault. Boss was very understanding though and everyone involved is ok. Assuming this will be written off So now I've been driving the rolla, and it's done two trips to the barossa and back with very noisy rear bearings and buggered shocks - not fun through the hills but fine when driven accordingly. Rockin the factory AM radio and cassette deck - audio quality in spades! Got a few piccies seeing as it's the first real driving I've done in this car. Also went camping at my family block in the barossa last night and slept in Hotel le Corolla - a bit squeezy but fun anyway! Lots of assorted motorcycles to ride, lots of meat and beer and a feed of yabbies from below creek made for a good camp! Poor old Ian rocked up in the MS123 with a blown tyre due to the dirt road - check this sucker out! Inner guards are sharp stainless steel and these tyres were a bit too flush...ouch! :o Bikes of interest included a Russian Ural 650 solo (in foreground and a very interesting amchine indeed), two 1970's Bultaco's, a 1984 Husqvarna 500cc single two-stroke suicide machine, a honda CT75 monkey bike and my newly acquired Yamaha IT250 basher. Yours truly on one of the Bultaco's - 1976 Alpina 250. And now I'm off to New Zealand for a week for work - two days in North island and 3 days in Christchurch, where I sincerely hope the ground doesn't shake too much!

Didn't end up picking this up yet due to crashing my work car on the day before Easter Friday (see update on my KE38 for a pic!), so this has been put on the backburner for a few weeks at least. Can't wait though!

Thats a good point man - was meaning to address that. Due to potential legal issues it is not possible to whitewall over areas of the tyre that have lettering on them - the preparation process scrubs the writing out. Essentailly the tyre still needs all identification and branding to be clearly visible. We've found that most tyres (barring low profile sports tyres) have enough room for a whitewall without the need to cut into the lettering, but it generally helps to see the tyre(s) first to make sure. Incidentally, it also helps if the tyres are not brand new (6 months or 1000k's) as they can stain from underneath the paint when they have that new tyre "shine" to them. Cheers, Tom and Karl

Friend's newly acquired daily MS123 Crown limo - fitted with original Tasmans for shits and giggles. Find another one that looks like this!!! :dance: Considering the wheels are way older than the car, we all thought it looked freaking awesome! They may even stay on for a while...

Have to agree with Scott - this thing is what dreams are made of. There are few, if any cars on here I would rather have in my driveway. I wonder if the designers at Toyota ever envisaged that these little cars could evoke so much enthusiasm and render people like us speechless and in awe of such beauty! Looks amazing without the visor Troy and really does clean up the lines - it's actually a gorgeous shape I think.

I'll be in otuch Shady - might grab them if you don't want them... Haha thanks Brenton, I've never driven one of these so I'm yet to discover how slow it is... Should be ok - apparently will sit on 100kph quite comfortably, and if it can haul over a ton of wood it can't be all that bad! And yeah the stylside tub would have been infinitely preferable, but the alloy tray is in really good nick and finding a good styleside would be...difficult. Already have what I believe are a set of original hubcaps to go on, and also a pair of huge spring-loaded chrome fender mirrors which actually came off one of these in the first place (found the mirrors at the same place as the Stout in my av...you know where)

Great score Luke, gotta love Crowns!! This colour could look good with some mags on it (like the Tasman's in the Crown ute in my sig), but Crown 'caps with whitewalls should look a treat too! Owner of that ute has 7 Crowns now (with 2 utes and 2 wagons) - he just picked up a cheap '83 MS123 Royal as a daily!

Picking this up from an uncle on the weekend, can't wait! I just couldn't pass it up - especially given I'm paying almost nothing for it. The car hasn't been registered for 4 or 5 years but has been in regular use carting wood around the block, and I'm hoping to drive it home (from the Barossa - usually 1 hour but will take at least hour and a half in this thing) on the weekend after a service and check-over. Gotta love SA rego laws :yes: just hope the clutch holds out - apparently it slipped with the last load of wood (although uncle reckons he had a 1 1/2 tons of wood on it!!!) It's got the trusty 12R with column 4 speed manual, and check out the custom high-sided tray! It's huge!!! :lolcry: Odomoter reads just over 1,000kms which is super cool, and it's only been around once - local owners since new and has a known history in the Barossa. Body is quite straight but has rust in the usual places, although it's certainly better than I remembered in most regards. Black vinyl nterior is amazingly clean for it's age and from memory the dash isn't cracked! Plans? Dunno yet...probably historic rego and use it whilst fixing the rust as I go! Will probably be kept standard (or period) looking though...no mini-truckin' here lads These are all the pics I have for now...she needs a good scrubbin' :laff: Driver window is still there...just stuck down!

Wow - this car hasn't been registered since December and I've only driven it three times! Having a full use company car means I don't really have a need to use it, but once time, funds and health permit I'll be getting the old girl registered and driving. Other projects and toys came up... I did manage to find a more period steering wheel - $10 from a swap meet, a quick paint and a small teq sticker over a painted horn button I had lying around. Looks the goods I reckon even though it's quite used, but it may end up on something else in the next few days... :hmm:

After waiting ages for new and improved equipment to arrive from the states, Custom Whitewalls is now doing regular jobs with great results! Most recent was today - Tally's recently acquired '25 Tally - I love how the wheels are rusted behind the hubcaps - so rat! I thought they were painted that way when I first saw it...

Good stuff! Must have been cool when she clicked over to all zero's! Well after the straightening of the inside of the tailgate, work started on the outside. This panel has consumed many afternoons/evenings and several cartons of beer, with many weeknight sessions of filling and sanding completed. Some tapping was done to remove the worst bits, but no amount of tapping was going to prevent the inevitable layers of filler! Some ingenious wooden blocks were also epoxy'd into place for extra bracing Mmmmm...bog You may notice something odd at this stage... The strip in the middle is being left for...ideas... At this stage will be buzzed back a bit shinier and then cleared over so it looks pretty much like...THIS!!! :dance: Other ideas are japan black laminate or stained timber. Other ideas welcomed! The chrome strips and tail-lights were dummy fitted to fully demostrate what we're on about here... Some inor filling to go then the final body prep takes place, but for now we put a few coats of primer on as we're taking a break for a few weeks. Then once that's finished, work will probably start of Ian's next aquisition, this early front ute... Cheers, Tom

Hi Dave nice work on previous 38's and on this beast so far, who would have thought it would come up so well after seeing the ebay pics! I love the colour too - almost as much as my gold 38... Can't wait to see it painted and done - seeing this gets me more enthused about doing mine. It's funny as I need to fix the same gutter on my wagon except there is a small hole which has gone through to the inside, and my arches have gone in the same spots too except slightly worse again. I was hunting for gutter moulds at a local wrecker today but couldn't find any originals or substitutes that could be fashioned to fit. I notice your old 38's didn't have them and they both looked fine without, but will be keen to see what you come up with if you manage to put some on yours... Hope it's all coming along well! Cheers, Tom

Yes indeed that Cressida wagon is a damn shame... Has already been pilfered pretty badly, except no-one saw the extremely rare 4M extractors which we took today. These pics are from Elizabeth yard, today 12/2/11 There were a couple more KE30's and a KE55 hardtop I didn't get pics of... This shell was quite good rust wise... :yes: Full set of these on the pano

Uncle Shady has a good point - here in SA we have some incredibly dry wreckers where scorching UV rays are the main issue, but many shells survive...albeit with badly sun-damaged interiors and plastics. Some of the cars myself and Tally have posted (from a particular yard here in SA pages 14, 15 i think) have been there over 30 years and are perfectly salvageable for restoration - once you remove the 30 years of moss growing on them! The Stout ute in my av is the perfect bloody example of this - despite missing the rear section of the chassis and lots of other stuff, the shell and bosy are in awesome condition...I want to buy it as a garden ornament :yes:

Looking good guys, great to see the progress pics! Keep 'em coming!

Awesome score - saw this on Gumtree and was wondering what he wanted for it....obviously it wasn't much!!! Looking forward to seeing those wheels on this!!

What paint u using? Prep is important, but the paint needs to be flexible and made for rubber for it to last more than 5 minutes.

Hey Folks, Forgot to mention this earlier, but I was at UPI Elizabeth on Saturday (22/1/11) and there was a complete white KE36 pano there, it has 13" jellybean mags on it and I think it had wingle windows on each side. Looked worth saving. Was also a fresh 55 hatch and fresh 55 sedan, another 55 hatch which has been there for a while, another 55 sedan or two, couple 30 sedans and a couple 70 wagons and a few sedans. I love this place - was awith a mate who needed a heap of Toyota Acorn-style wheel nuts. After a while he came up and said "I can't see any on cars...bugger!". I said "look to your feet for guidance, my son", and less than 5 minutes later we had 60 excellent identical wheel nuts rescued from the dirt!!

No need to ring regency as far as I know, just go to a Transport SA office and fill out "change engine number" form. Done - if they have questions THEY can ring regency (who will just tell them the 5K is a legal swap), and all will be peachy! All the best