JDM55

i shaved the sides of the rubber boot and the metal frame that holds it in place , since i pulled the guts out of it,it got a bit flimsy so need to make a strenghtening brace, heres one of the broken mount holes want to make a single sheet that covers the entire console front, so started with some cardboard to get an idea of how to go about that, creased up the card so that it could follow the curve of the console taped it on and this is what i got,sorta like a sk8 ramp back to the brace idea, cut out a small piece of plastic and positioned it and glues it in place, this made the console all strong again :) next cut out a piece of plastic the ruff shape of the cardboard, after that i sanded both sides ,one side was sanded 500# this make it easyier when i go to paint it,the other side was sanded 180#, that gives the glue something to grip to , the next idea was i want to take the plastic piece i cut out and make it conform to the shape of the console, didnt even know if this would work or not , but gave it a go any way, taped down the console so it wouldnt move around while i do the next part and also to give me free hands to work with with the console taped down and not moving , i taped the plastic piece to the top , using a heat gun i carefully heated the plastic and using a hard roll of cardboard pressed down on the plastic when it was hot and rolled it like a rolling pin,it soon pressed the plasic into a ruff shape , getting the shape closer as i moved along the shape i taped it hard against the console so when each part cooled off they would stay in the new shape all heated shaped and taped down

first thing was to remove the old stereo frame thingo , for the first modd i need to change the position of the gear stick hole, i found under the console that the whole centre part could be removed by drilling out the melted plastic pins and removing a few clips, so went ahead and ripped its gutts out first test fit ,i found the rubber boot and frame were to wide for the console to fit down properly so they have to be modded ,also the boot was too big for the gap

well ive starrted on some wiring , there is a lot of it to do , i should say a hell of alot ,spent all friday night to 3 in the morning and then all saturday to 4 in the morning , and ive pretty much just made a start on it, theres just so many dam wires!!!! havnt takeen many photos of this , casue its just wire after wire after wire running all over the place!! i took the steering wheel off to give me more room to work,so at least ive made a start on it, waiting on a few wiring bits and pieces so i can carry on , i have a head unit ,an alarm system , a gps tracker ,and gauges and switches an other random things, so need heaps of wire and solder and tape and all that other electrical stuff , but while I'm doing that I'm also fixing up a centre console , i was going to make a full custom one , but at this stage i don't want to spend another month stuffing around realy want to take this thing for a drive!!!!! so cuting down on alot of things i would have liked to have done , plus money isnt allowing me to do lots of extras, also i got hold of a smashed up ke70 hand brake console, which I'm going to modd. quick story, went to the wreckers in search of a ke70 hand brake console, was in luck there was 3 ke70s there !!! how ever all 3 of them had the console broken !! couldnt believe it any way i found the best of the 3 and found the broken parts and took them with me lol, was going to need to chop it up a bit any way but first i need to repair it , centre console ::: so idea being with this is i want to use it in its factory position ,to house the head unit and 2 gauges a bunch of switches and the gear stick boot, but as with the ke70 console, this one was a bit damaged, the plastic around the mount holes was all broken away so need to fix those bits so it can actualy screw on, the other small problem is because i changed the postion of the gear stick and modded the tunnel, i lost the holes for the console brackets , and also the gear stick is in a different position , and the metal shape i made to cover the hole is also different . so even tho this is a stock 55 console it needs to be modded a fair bit, turning it into a custom console lol heres a few things i done so far with it,:: this is the stock console i raped from my daily 55 , in prety ruff shape ,with a few broken mounts and an old stereo frame

haha thanks man , it was bloody hard! was confusing when you have a bend not only bending to the left or right but up and down as well, done my head in a fair bit , but at least i have some form of an exhaust now , and yeah laying on the ground or should i say rolling under the car then getting back up and rolling under the car then getting back up etc was a fair efort lol musta done it a few hundred times , but yeah finally got it done ,still mite exhaust wrap the pipes ,just so i don't have to look at the multipul random bits of stainless lol but its actualy a big step forward! now i have fuel , brakes , air intake , exhaust ,all the basic mechanical side done:) next is a whole lot of wiring ! another mind bender and time consuming exersize, think I'm going to plan out the next bit in detail before i jump into it so i don't get lost in the world of spagetti

thats a good question ,may have to swap it out for something shit for engineers,either way its staying on the car

more??? keen to see keep it up

heres a quick vid ,even tho its thru a shity phone mic you can still here how much change the varex makes to the noise level, but I'm loving the note its got, nice and low with a slight pulse , not what i thought it was going to sound like thought it may have been a bit tinny with the cannon , but its not check it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpj84uWQd6U

+1

well small update, just been working on the exhaust system , basicly i wanted to do this myself and not pay some one to doing , i got some 2.5' stainless steel tube and a hole bunch of bends, 45 degrees, 90 degrees , flanges and gaskets, and some steel rod, and some exhaust rubbers, some advice : let the pros do this ! I'm managed to complete the hole system in 2 days , but that was working all day and all nite and into the early hours, and well the result was much less than i hoped for, if i had some bending tools and maybe a bit more knoledge then probably would have been a much better job, that being said i didnt do to bad in the way of being my first exhaust , just my welding skills still need improving i didnt have acess to the hoist so i done the hole exhaust laying on the ground! first i started at the dump pipe , got a flange to fit , then to work out the shape of the pipe , i drew up a cardboard shape of the floor and designed the shape keeping in mind clearance from the floor to the pipe, was a bit tricky and very very time consuming!! but worked out a ruff bend , then using the card board template of the pipe shape , i cut the pipe to match, then welded it up, since i couldnt use a bender i ended up with lots of little pieces welded together, this was the only way i could match the floor pan shape , or at least close enuff. the front pipe from the dump pipe looked pretty horrible, the welds were a bit chunky lol stainless wasnt welding together to well, so i wraped it in exhaust wrap, with made it look alot better, think I'm going to do the rest of it in exhasut wrap as well, but i ran out so need to buy more, more money again haa i flanged the front pipe and flanged the cat converter and bolted them together,then put the first set of rubber mounts on , for the mounts i used 2 nolathane rubber mounts and some round steel rod, cut the rod up and bent it in to some hook shapes, welded the hooks to the bottom of the floor, and welded some hooks to the cat , and fitted the rubbers to take the weight of the cat and front pipe, tho at this point it was very sturdy and wasnt moving round much. next was the pipe from the cat to the back, yes it looks horrible,just didnt work as well as i planed , mite have to do this one again, the shape of the floor and how i had it sitting was all up and down and weird ass angles ,was pretty hard to work out ,so it ended up a bit shit. then i flanged the end of that pipe and flanged a short hotdog muffler , and made some small brackets that bolt to the floor , and onto them i welded the steel hooks, this was alot more stuffing around ,but avoided welding on to the floor ,later on i found the 3 bolt flange hung down too low for my liking, so i choped the flange out and welded the hotdog straight to the pipe, then same again , made a cardboard shape of the floor going over the diff and designed a shape to go over the diff, again chopped up multipul pieces of pipe and welded them together and flanged them , that took me to the back end where i fitted a frigen way monsta of a cannon muffler, this muffler is a varex its got a butterfly in it that opens and closes , theroy being that its spose to quieten down the noise, and it actualy does work , tho the size of the thing is a bit rediculous , ut I'm getting use to it, for a tip i welded on a dumper, just casue i like that look. back on the gound :)

cool beans where you from ?

I'm from melbourne, yeah i was guessing trophies would be hard to win, spose you need big dollars to make ya car all fancy like , any way I'm just keen to go and enter and be in a show, think the last 3 years plus of hard core work is worth putting up to show , yeah i tryed to join on there once, ill try again soon, be cool to cruise up with some other rollas too , :)

cheers man ^_^

HAHAH!!!! thanks a bunch i will indeed :)

thanks there mate, i hope theres something useful in amongst all the babbling haha,ive tryed to supply info that ive personaly confirmed that works, any questions you can all ways email,i don't mind helping out fellow car builders :)

hey this is nice an tydy good to see a bit of custom work thrown in as well! ,pm sent re engine, looking great tho!

cheers guys, much appreciated :) feel like ive come along way in the last 3 months with it,think it was just be fore christmas that had the block fitted into the engine bay and now everything is attached and hooked up, and its looking great, a few of my mates think I'm mental doing all this ,but hey its the way i wanted to go with it ,and i think its realy paying off now all the extra work. still a way to go yet before she hits the road, but feel like ive reached the peak and now its all down hill from here, apart from the usual stuff being done ,i hope some one gets something out of these 37 pages of me rambling on haha, tryed to make things easy to understand for people that are maybe starting out and just learning the ins and outs of how cars work, i know ive learnt a huge deal taking on the task bymyself, but like you said nisrola,when you know exactly whats been done and going on its much easyier to work on the car if a problem does arise, i think just keeping things as clean as possible also helps to spot if theres any leaks or things not going right, mind you , i have the thing of if you rebuild or change or paint one thing nice ,then you have to do the rest nice as well or it wont look rite,lol my main goals from here are to build the entire exhaust system myself of corse,then move onto some serious wiring , ive got alarms and a gps tracker and head unit all to be wired in,then theres the final tyding of the igntion wires , and a huge amount of dash board wires and gauge wires all to be done yet so i can see several weeks worth of making looms and running hundreds of metres of cable lol then from there start finishing off the interior, seats ,carpet, dash board any trims that are left over, also have the rear suspention set up to do , so heeeaaapppsss to keep me busy as few a good few months yet, main goal is to get it done by september, I'm hoping to drive up to sydney and enter in the toyota fest show there, just for something differnt, never realy had a nice car to put in a show before so be new thing for me ,and just be great to see what other peoples have done to theres as well, some times I'm working in the week end and ill look out the window and its an awesum nice day, mannnn i wish i could just jump in the car and go cruise and enjoy it, and then i would also wonder i must be the only mental that works on there car all weekend and devotes mental number of hours into building so be nice to see other peoples hard efforts as well! pics can only show so much , seeing things in real life is much better :)

just done a coil over conversion to xt130 struts , on the last page of blogg may be of some use for info any way

so heres the engine bay fairly well completed!!! just a few things to wire up ,but the general set up and parts are there, what you guys think??? i think it looks tops , ive put ALOT of hard work into getting it to this stage,as you can tell if you have read thru my blogg,

haha yeah they are ,hopefully they do the job, but I'm happy now the camber problem has been solved and having adjustable stuff means i can set it up how i need to , but yeah man these calipers are big ass ʞ©$ɟ lol , can't wait to see how they pull the car up

cool beans, black and dark greys are always a good colour choice for intereiors, unless your doing a show car then white or tan ,and as from the green colour on the out side i think that mite be something differnt, show do it,what sorta skills you have??? alot involved in rebuilding cars

so back on the ground , and this is where its sitting at the moment,will go lower after engineering, also i have finished all the vacumm lines, there was alot of them ! going al over the show, but got them all sorted and thats pretty much the engine bay completed!!! :dance: still have a few thngs to wire up here and there, the set up is fairly completed now ,which is good ,frees up my time to move on to other things needed , i noticed after all the vacumm lines were fitted up ,i asume i done them right , was going off a diagram in a manual so they should be all right but i notice how much the idle has improved and starting up seems alot easyier too , all the emmissions parts are in place and next i need to build the exhaust system! yip going to try build the exhaust my self, don't feel like giving some one 1500 cash for welding some pipe , so going to give it a go, hell ive done everything else my self, can't see why i can't . got rid of that camber problem of the xt130 struts

and these are the hilux caliper, there a 4 pot set up, very heavy tho ,but should have good stopping power, i painted them a while ago,but i do need to rekit them with new seals ,they been sitting around for a few years and no doubt a few years before i got hold of them , but for the mean time i just want to get them set up and see if i can get them working with my brake system, got the caliper bolted on ,jesus its big, comparing it to the mx62 one is like lol can see how chunky !! i like it, how ever i couldnt fit the brake pads, since the pistons were to far out, i figured out a little custom tool to help press the pistons in, just a piece of threaded rod,2 nuts ,2 washers ,and 2 small pieces of pipe i put the magic tool inbetween the 2 pistons and winded the nuts towards the pistons ,this forced the small pipes hard against the pistons and pushed them in :) fitted the pads ,and the brake hoses, i was very lucky there, the brake hoses were set up for the mx62 caliper, the guy that made the line said if i wanted to use the hilux later on i would need to make up new steel lines ,between the caliper and the hose, but ... the hose fitted the caliper and was long enuf just to reach the strut bracket , so that was a bit of luck , by now you guys would know how found i am of making steel lines with flares 0.o on this side you can see the charcoal canister that i sneaky mounted under the wheel arch , but there you go , full custom!!! hopefully every thing will work as it should,i did find a small drip of fliud from one of the calipers, but i suspected that would be the case,would have been all dyed up and probably cracked when i winded the pistons in, not to worry i have a seal kit for them ,which ill do later, but for now there pretty much done, so again the parts on the conversion and set up :::: XT130 STRUT XT130 HUB HSD COIL OVER KIT CUSTOM SPRING TOP WITH BEARING KONI SHORT SHOCK GAS INSERT LN106 HILUX CALIPER PEUGEOT 604 FRONT BRAKE DISK T3 CAMBER PLATES BEARINGS BRAKE LINES

so alot of parts !!!! and thats not all theres more, calipers ,brake pads, bolts ,just for a pair of struts, any way on with the build, so struts striped sanded ,threads welded on and now painted ready to go inserts fitted to the struts, and the spring nuts fitted, they actualy fitted realy well over the cleared thread, coil springs fitted and t3 camber plates sitting on top, they look pretty cool :) both fitted to the car camber plates bolted in, happy with the colours i went with, these plates were well worth the money spent, great quaility ,and most inportantley have totaly removed my camber problem with the xt130 struts, now have the adjustability that i need :) now the first drama of fitting all this stuff, the dust plates wouldnt fitt, reason they wouldnt go on is using the ae86 arms ,they sitt slightly inward,as compared to the xt130 arms, this makes the dust cover hit the edge of the lower arm so i could bolt it on but it wasnt moving to well, to work this out it took me most of the day ,i started by bashing the shit out of cover where it was hitting , this just gave me a few mm clearance,which i thought was ok , but what happened later on is when i went to put the disk and hub on the disk was hard up against the bash out portion of the cover and wouldnt turn :bash: :bash: :bash: a very long story short , i ended up cutting a slot in the cover ,then bashed it all flat again, this let the edge of the lower arm come thru the plate slightly , got there in the end! dam thing , any way onto the next part assemblying the peugeot disk to xt130 hub ,after the small modds it bolts right on nice these wiegh a fair bit ,but are frigen chunky !! here can see the slot i made in both dust covers, i could have just not used it ,ive seen alot of these done with out them, how ever i needed the cover to keep it road worthy apparently , dam vic roads and there nazi laws another modd that needed to be done to the dust covers was to trim the opening for the caliper, these calipers are frigen huge so need to cut out the opening to suit, easy job just snip snip :)

so 2 coats of black unmasked the threaded tube and put one coat of clear over the whole lot, reason i done this was ive heard alot of storys about the threads rusting up rather quick, so hopefuly the clear will hold that off for a while,only thing i see wrong with doing that, is maybe the nuts wont go on because of to much product,??? so starting to lay out the parts!!! now can start seeing where the money side comes into this conversion, cusco i think it was a te37 model, that was about $$$$ 200.00 i think ,tho not part of the conversion the springs and threaded tube and spanners etc was $$$ 300.00 koni adjustable gas inserts were $$$$ 550.00 the xt130 hubs , with new bearings bearings were about $$$ 60.00 these are toyota ae86 power steering arms , these are getting hard to get ,took me a while to find a good deal on these, they cost $$$$ 85.00 these are the T3 camber plates , i painted them silver and blue to suit the car a bit better,they were gold and red ?? wierd ass colours but yeah , they cost $$$$ 180.00 these are the disks I'm running, there from a peugeot 604 , these ones are vent and slotted,there chunky as , these need to have 2 things done to them ,first the mounting holes need to be slightly reemed out by about 1.5 mm,tho the centre of the xt130 hubs fit the disk perfectly,the second thing is the outer diameter of the disk is too large and needs to be machined down a bit , can't quite remember how much it was ,12 mm??? it wasnt much tho, reason they need to be machined down is the hilux caliper wont clear properly,, the machining cost 25 dollars so not a big drama. so puegeot 604 disk ,machined down, and mount holes reemed out slightly, total cost $$$$$ 325.00 also for the spring tops, these are machined alloy with a needle bearing in the top to suit the t3 camber tops, price $$$$$$ 60.00

next step was to paint the strut black and clear over the hols thing got some etch primer on the struts ,ready to be painteded black after the black was done i removed the masking from around the thread... and cleared the entire struts