altezzaclub

That is true, but Konis are serious shocks at a serious price. On the Altezza you can get the Konis grooved for several perch positions, so you can alter the ride height as well as the usual stiffness adjustments they have, but without coilovers that is not an option for the KE70. You can also change the valving on the stock wet shock in the front strut, that's not hard to do and you can build whatever shock rates you want. However if you are into rallying or khanacross then having the gas function will be more use.

Nah- the Govt doesn't pick up the rubbish now, a private contractor does. In typical Govt fashion they demand the money off us, pay a handful of bureaucrats to sit on their bums and pass the rest to a private contracor to actually do the work. The private sector would solve the infrastructure problems, the free market always finds the way. AND monopolies are usually the result of big companies pushing Govts to grant them special status like import restrictions and startup barriers. Without the heavy hand of Govt the competition would be stronger, so prices lower. If the Govt stopped at the law that said "you can't force another citizen to do something" then the whole place would grow faster. That is all the umpire does, not write so many rules that no one person can every know them all in his lifetime. Most of those 3rd-world places have a corrupt ruling class propped up by some Western country while the country gets ripped off for any resources. They mainly suffer from a lack of private ownership of land, the great downfall of tribalism. Without private ownership you have no captital and no way to borrow money to develop anything. We need to move into the next stage of civilisatiuon, where the rest of the power is spread downwards to the people, not just a vote once in a while.. ....and well well, suddenly we DON'T get any tax relief as promised, but we DO get to keep paying the carbon tax! What a surprise! Just another grab at private people's money by a Govt....

Often the rules only apply to cars, not vans, utes, trucks, SUVs etc. That's why there has been such growth in those markets as manfacturers tried to dodge regulations over the last 20years. Can we squeeze on some better-looking plastic ones off the FWDs that followed us??

Ah- why do we need a Govt... well, to hold you up and steal your money, then buy themselves power and jobs for mates with it of course! The parasites in South Aussie were sold a pup when deperate for water in the last drought, and raided the cash drawer for a desalination plant. Naturally they asked the rest of Aussie to pay for it through Canberra, who said 'no, its just a small local bit of hardware, do it yourself'. So SA doubles the size of it to something completely not needed, then goes back to Canberra, and now that there are elections coming up Canberra says "fine, look how wonderful we are, vote for us!' The extra kick in the guts for the taxpayer comes when the plant has to use heavily subsidised green energy, so not only do we get screwed to build these useless wind farms, we get screwed again to pay extra for the power to run the water plant. Water bills going from $300 to $900 !! All this would be typcally corrupt and ironically laughable, but to top it off the plant is not needed and will be mothballed!! Just like the motorway bridges that led to nowhere in the 1970s! Expensive election bribes that never added a dollar to anyone's wealth except those cronys involved in building them. Auckland had them, Cape Town had them, and I'm sure they were here too. Now, if you've ever bought a car that has been sitting in a shed for years you will understand what "mothballed" really means... it means ruined and useless, and needing massive rebuilds before ever being used in the future. AND of course technology races ahead while the car sits there and it is completely out-of-date and not worth using when you go to get it. The only value of the desalination plant will be as a monument to Govt stupidity. If the private sector won't tackle it, then it will never work efficiently. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/federal-auditor-general-blasts-decision-to-double-size-of-adelaides-desalination-plant/story-e6frg6n6-1226636757321 http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/water-customers-pay-for-mothballed-desalination-plants-costly-green-electricity-deal/story-e6frea83-1226537887265

Go for it- I asked Ironkin if it should be anywhere in particular, I've managed to spread writeups all over the place and they are only linked through the build thread. Half of them, including the RA60 diff swap, are in KE70.com ..and the really really good news is that today I found out one slave cylinder is leaking, so I'll have them all apart again tomorrow! :bash:

$2500-$3000. no-one is going to appreciate the new interior, the new paint job will make it look nice, but its still an old old car with a 1300cc pushrod motor. You know someone will buy it, paint it matt black with a rattle-can and gut out the inside while they chop the springs to nothing... Keep it and enjoy it.

Ah- So it was unused but definately not superb when you got it! Nice work.

I've got Monroe GT Gas in the back, came off a KE70 at the wrecker because they looked brand new. Its quite stiff on stock springs, and handles well although it does have a Celica aftermarket sway bar fitted.

Rear Springs!! When you're under the car can you get me- the outside diameter of the coils, right across the spring. maybe 120-130mm the wire diameter of the spring wire itself. maybe 10mm the number of coils that are 'free' (not touching) when the car is sitting normally. (Jack under the diff) maybe 5 or 5& 1/2 to 6. the total number of coils in the spring. Maybe a coil or two more than the free coils. Then I can calculate the spring rate and see if we can use KP61s in the RA40 rally car. I've been hunting 1980s small cars at the wreckers but most have skinny stiff springs from being FWD. If you ever replace the rear springs we would love to buy them if that are less than 100lb/in rate! ..and I don't know how they keep cars in such good condition in Japan! It looks superb.

.and here is how to swap the rear shoes when one wears faster than the other. The 3.9 is definately taller around town, I cruise in third too much! I think I'll keep my eye out for a 4.1 and try that too, maybe have a diff for around town and another for trips away! I can't say I've noticed any difference from a wider rear track, but that will only show up on the next trip North I expect, through the mountain passes around Kandos. http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/65762-how-to-replace-rear-drum-brake-shoes/

Then you can assemble that shoe onto the backing plate. Put the ratchet arm on and the other C-clip, fit the ratchet spring and then put on the hold-back spring. That will hold the shoe in place. Clean and lube the thread in the middle of the adjusting rod and slip that into place.. Now comes the hard part. I put the bottom spring on next, so the other shoe gets held on, then the hold-back spring, then the top spring.. No matter which order you do them in, it is still a battle for the top spring. After you have them in place the last job is to adjust the shoes outwards to touch the drums. You can do most of this without the drum on, just wind the adjusting wheel out until the shoes touch the drum as you put it back on. You'll have to slap the shoes around a little with the drum to get them even and centered, remember the adjuster pushes the top of the shoes out more than the bottom. Put both drums and wheels back on and press the brake and haul up the handbrake a couple of times. They will both be loose, so climb underneath and use a flatblade through the slot in the backing plate to turn the adjusting wheel. Spin the tyre as you do it, you will find it grips in parts of the turn and is free in others. Hit the brakes again to center the shoes and then spin the wheel, and adjust it some more if the grippy part of the turn vanishes. In the end the pedal should be high, the handbrake feeling good and the wheel should have most of a turn without friction. They will wear in within a day or two, and someone who rallies an RA40 said they used to adjust them up fairly stiff before stage one and by the end of the stage they were free! So- add anything I've forgotten!

Here is the C-clip opened up and you can see the thin spacer washer behind. Just swap your new shoe straight into that position and close the C-clip up with pliers. I gave it a quick clean-up with brakeclean and a brush, but I wasn't that fussy.

Now both shoes come off the backing plate. You can see the other C-clip holding the handbrake arm onto its shoe, and the ratchet spring holding the ratchet arm in place. Removing the C-clip will take the handbrake arm & cable off the shoe, allowing them to be fitted to new shoes.

I used vice-grips to lever against the hub and a flat-blade to push the top spring out of its hole in the shoe. There is a lot of grunt required to move the spring, or maybe I'm just getting old!

Now remove the soft C-clip on the outside of the handbrake arm pivot. There is another C-clip behind the shoe, they hold the little axle in place that the handbrake arm pivots on. C-clips are soft alloy that get crushed into place, I re-use them once but I wouldn't re-use them again, so buy them when you get new shoes. Use a flat-blade driver to open the 'C' up and pliers to push it off the axle. With the C-clip off, the ratchet adjusting arm will be easy to move away from the adjusting wheel and you use a flat-blade to wind the adjusting rod back in to its mnimum. This makes fighting the top spring off much easier! You can see that when you use the handbrake it pushes the adjusting arm down on that adjusting wheel, and if it moves far enough it clicks the wheel over once. Ths is how the rear shoes are moved outwards as they wear. There is a slot in the backing plate to adjust new shoes up into position, but of course with the ratchet arm in place you can only tighten the shoes up, not adjust them back.

Then the lower spring. I used a flat-blade screwdriver to push one end back into the brake shoe hole and then pliers to free the spring.

You start with the two hold-back springs. On each shoe a pin comes in through the backing plate from behind and has two washers and a spring fitted via a slot in the washers. Just hold the head of the pin with a finger behind the backing plate & use pliers to push the washer down and turn it 90deg. They will release the two shoes, that are now just held together by the top and bottom springs.

Here are the components that you need to take apart. Ths is passenger's side, so although the parts are the same the picture faces the other way.

OK, this was a little side-job when I fitted the RA60 diff to the KE70. On this style of drum brakes there is a leading shoe and a trailing shoe. The leading edge is the one nearest the hydraulic cylinder in the direction of rotation, so that is the edge that gets pushed out onto the drum and bites. It is the one towards the front of the car. As the shoe pivots on the bottom pin, the bottom of the shoe does not get pushed out as much and does not work as hard. Obviously having a slave cylinder at the bottom would fix this, but be more expensive and complicated. The trailing edge is the top of the other shoe, it gets pushed out by the cylinder but the edge does not touch the drum first, the contact point is further down the shoe. This means the leading edge shoe does more of the braking, and wears more. I thought that seeing I had everything apart for the diff swap, I would swap leading to trailing shoe and even the wear up. You can do the same with single piston (swinging caliper) disc brakes, as one pad always wears first there too. This job is the same as fitting new shoes. Sadly the one picture of the components that I took is of the passenger's side, while the other pictures are of the driver's side. Remember this when the direction things face has changed. First up is getting the drum off. Car on stands, handbrake off- As the shoes work they wear the drum away, so a lip forms on the very edge of the drum and that has to be dragged over the shoes. There are two holes threaded for 8mm bolts that you use to get the drum outwards.

...which is strange. It is only of a detriment when someone runs into you at 5kph and your car gets more damage without bumpers than with. At 60kph they just transmit the shock to the chassis and bend that a little more. I can't see them helping any pedestrian either.. and only the chrome ones look OK, the black ones were a world-wide period of absolute ugliness started by America. Still, in a tyranny you are stuck with the rules.

yah- and the 2-door Ke70s...

Either of you guys made a remote booster setup on the other side of the car?? So the pedal rotates a tube that works the master cyl/booster on the pass side. Jusr something I'm thinking about... I like that reservoir idea, maybe not low but it gives some space.

What sort of carbs? Twin DCOEs for that price would be expected. I suppose in the end you sell a hot 4K to someone on here to gain some moey back. Yes, but that sort of conversion is pretty big- suspension, brakes, gearbox, diff.. it wll take time to assemble it all and get it done.

If the timing is retarded it overheats, so that could be part of the problem. Easy enough to check with a timing light. If you mark the pulley with white correction paint all the way around to 45deg and use a tacho, you can generate a timing curve from idle to 3500rpm, by when it should be at max advance.

..and then read this- http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/42407-the-girls-ke70/ What you really need is a conversion to manual, the 4K has hopeless performance as an auto. If your rebuild includes a re-bore see if you can get 1500cc 5K pistons, and don't forget to lighten the flywheel and have the crank balanced. The extractors can be bought here on Rollaclub for $220odd, the rest of the exhaust cost me $350, the cam can easily be regound with followers for $170, and you will need to decide what carbs to use- quad bike carbs, twin SUs, twin DCOE Webers, single DCOE Weber, 32/36 downdraught Weber are all used on here. There's even a couple of guys with gilmer drives I think too. Have fun!