altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Back in the shed we had to remove the screen from the rally car (easy- its already smashed) and remove the good screen from the spares car (Hard- can't afford to smash it) Anyway, a guitar string and some bits of wood soon sorted it out. I hadn't done this before but in the end we developed a method that worked beautifully. With a good screen it was back on the truck rack to pull the pillar back up to where it should be. This time I chained down the scuttle panel above the firewall and hauled on the top of the pillar. I swiped the jack out of the ute and gave the pulley some help. After more creaking and groaning I left it overnight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Now, Steve's dad Pete lives by himself on the farm, both boys are at UNE, so Steve and I had been doing some cooking to give him a break. He had a pork roast sitting in the freezer so we defrosted that one day and roasted it. The idea is to slice the pigskin (incredibly tough) rub it with oil, then rub salt into the cuts. Into the oven at a hot 220deg for 3/4hr to crisp it, then cut it back to 180deg, and in 4hours you have this massive roast with the most addictive crackling! It actually lasted 4 guys three or four meals. (except the crackling which lasted 10minutes!) I can't remember, but we made stirfries of the rest of it. Over 3kg to start with. Next door to the garage (which has a concrete floor) is our spares and tools store- Stuff we use often. Behind that is the less-likely spares store, stuff we don't need just now. We've expanded into the shearing shed area to start stacking the ever-increasing bits too.. Plenty of room in there, but we also have plenty of old stuff to clear out of the garage when we get time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Anyway... Next day the screen pillar was high enough, but more diamond-shaped than we could use, so dash out time. A pile of junk made the car lighter.. ...and inside, I found no dash cross-brace at all, its all made of plastic! So I decided it was time to strip the loomb as well and throw out more weight. Then I could get down to re-shaping the slight diamond shape of the screen surround! The screen has to be within 5mm of the metal underneath it, all around the frame. Also, it needs about 5mm minimum gap all around the edge so it can't be touched by metal when glued in and when the car lands after a jump & twists and bends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) After that I put the jack horizontally across the A-pillars and cut a brace to fit in and hold that shape. Now I had the screen fitting perfectly, and we welded the brace to a tag on each side. Its under a lot of compression, a random bit of steel fence picket I found outside! I'd taken the precaution of cutting the weld between the cage and the A pillar, and now a sizeable gap had opened up. We will bridge over that later to hold everything in place. You can see how trashed that pillar is by rust and repairs in the past. Speaking of rust, we decided to panel all of it out as we found it, so a day was spent cutting little bits of steel to weld in. Not a good shell to start with, but we should have done a Steerfast job on it to start with! Edited June 30, 2013 by altezzaclub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) Steve's mate Matt came to visit and said his welding was crap. Instantly he had the MIG handle put in his hand and told to do better! ...which he did have a fair crack at, but he wasn't much better, and said his welder at home was much better... so a phone call to beg it off his dad and.. To be fair, the enormous old yellow welder in the back corner was bought to weld up bulldozers and tractors, not 0.9mm steel panel, but this new one was such an improvement! Still not Steerfast rallying, but much better than we had been doing! We had already sliced the top chassis rail off the spares car in the past, so we had to reconstruct that. Some 1.6mm steel was lying around so I shaped it up and hit it with the new welder. Edited June 30, 2013 by altezzaclub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Where the roof corner had been severely crushed I couldn't straighten it, so I cut it out and sliced the spare car roof up. An hour with the welder had it butt-weld spotted into place after this photo, but being a roof it will never be perfect. Steve finished chasing moo-moos early and came down to weld over all my spotwelds, then grind them back to invisibility. Then it was time for our next road trip, a 7am start through pouring rain down to Sydney to pick up a 3SGE and a 4AGE-powered AE71 wagon, some rims and then out to Orange to drop me off and stay overnight, then back up to Armidale with Ashara driving the ute and Steve the AE71 (dunno if they swapped, they must be there by now!) ... and I don't have any photos! A 6-week semester in which time he will spend every weekend at home working on it, then two weeks holiday before a rally down on the coast! Its a tight schedule! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
67Rolla-Ken Posted June 30, 2013 Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Great work as always! I thought all that rust was more weight reduction :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snot35 Posted July 1, 2013 Report Share Posted July 1, 2013 Love it, I'll probably need to know that sort of repair one day. I've got a head start now! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted August 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 OK! We're back into it! Its Monday 19th at 11pm and we have a rally this coming Saturday, which we have to be at on friday night... I've been here a week now- When I arrived the car still looked like this. I took a look around the farm.... Steve had obviously been buying shit as usual! A wagon, just 'cos it has a 4AGE A little ol' lady's white KE70, just 'cos it has low KM ...and his little bro's barge is still awaiting the 1J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted August 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 I started in on the wiring with The Girl, seeing she had just finished the Uni semester and had a couple of days on the farm. We stripped the plastic off, unwound all the tape and took out whatever wires I didn't think were needed. Sadly, the wiring diagrams in the manual were NOT exactly what was there, so I'll be soldering a couple back up again! Seeing the weather was great we did some of it on the front stoop in the sun, and it was hot so I took my pullover off... 15minutes later I looked out and there were farm cats all over it! It just took days and days to get the wiring sorted, and there were many interruptions... The little bro's KE55 had died so I spent a day and a half sorting that with him. I'll post THAT story up next week, but I did too good a job and he snapped the rear UJ and dropped the driveshaft while being a typical young man the night before last! Then Nell said her little blue 1960s Datsun ute was playing up so I said bring it over to the woolshed and that was another day and a half gone.. I'll fill those details in next week too. She's most impressed now, reckons its never gone so fast.. but if you're a little ol' lady of 88 and mainly blind,,, well, that's not hard! Anotehr distraction was from Steve's Mum, something we had talked about for ages... A winch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted August 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 (edited) I drew up a plan on the truck deck, mocked it up into place with a jack and some clamps, and found an old bull-bar in the metal heap. Then it rained overnight! There was enough chalk left to sort it out- The big boy finished at Uni on Friday, so it was straight into welding to finish off from where we were 6weeks back. Meanwhile I'd started assembling a dash, the usual minimalist version.. we cut the dials out of his Dad's Mazda RX3, one that last saw rally action in the mid-80s. I tied it into the steel picket we had holding the pillars in shape. Then I added the ignition switch, a start push button, and a couple of spare switches for spots later on. Today we welded the mount on for the winch, & got that sorted.... because a certain young man was ALSO being typical and blew up his Corona up last week, so we have to drive up to the University in Armidale & winch it onto the truck! ..and here we are. Tomorrow Steve is back onto making the passenger's door fit, I'm stripping the crazed paint off the spare's car bonnet and driver's guard, then we have to make the passenger's guard fit around the door he's hung, AND he has to go and fetch his heap of crap Corona, AND then we have a lot of painting to do.. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and part of friday left.. and we NEVER get time for testing! more photos tomorrow! Edited August 19, 2013 by altezzaclub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supra2 Posted August 19, 2013 Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 Will you guys be ready for the Bago rally? Thats still a lot of work to finish. Craig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted August 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2013 (edited) If it was 3weeks away instead of 3days... sure! Steve reckons one day will assemble suspension, fit a motor & box and get it running.... lol! Its all the panelbeating that still needs to be done, and the wiring is nowhere near finished, never mind tested. We will see. Steve's mate Tommy came up to the farm for a visit. He's a keen photographer, so we have some great shots taken around the place. Pete took him up for a ride around in the chopper, so here's the layout- and here's the layabout- Here's the Wizzard and his apprentice... Thanks Tommy! Edited April 1, 2014 by altezzaclub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
67Rolla-Ken Posted August 20, 2013 Report Share Posted August 20, 2013 If any team can manage it, I believe you guys are it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RO78IN Posted August 20, 2013 Report Share Posted August 20, 2013 (edited) Scratch that :oops: I wont be able to drive that far to see it!!! Edited August 20, 2013 by RO78IN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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