Continuing on from Archangels epic build thread (
http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=22654), I thought I'd start my own, seeing as it's now my build I guess ha ha.
Picked the car up from Tricky a couple of weeks ago (it was purchased off him back in October of last year, but I had to wait for a convenient time/situation to get down there to pick it up, finally had 2 weeks work in Maryborough which gave me the opportunity I needed. In the meantime Tricky carried out a bit more paid work on the car for me). I also ended up purchasing his old trailer to carry it up North as well. As I was expecting monsoonal rain on the drive home, I wrapped and trussed it up within an inch of its life to try and keep things dry, luckily the feared major downpours never eventuated, but there were a few heavy showers to drive through so the tarp was still a good idea.
2016-03-16 15.43.52 by
ten_sim, on Flickr
The drive North was non-eventful thankfully and El Gato arrived at his new home safe and sound, they're not as salubrious as his previous digs, but nice enough
2016-03-21 17.24.06 by
ten_sim, on Flickr
I'm super fortunate to have two really good guys up here to help me complete this build (well, when I say help, I mean that they're pretty much doing everything, I'm basically just the go-fer and the guy paying the bills, you could write my mechanical/electrical knowledge on an A4 sheet of paper most likely!) Lee is an experienced mechanic and Tom is a skilled self-taught car nut, with a particularly strong knowledge of Starlets and the 4EFTE motor (he even has a complete spare 4EFTE powered Starlet GT just lying around, which has come in very handy as he's happy to cannibalise it for spare parts as needed, which has been a game saver already!)
I won't go into any detail at this point as to what work they had to carry out to get it running (primarily because I'm no expert and would probably explain/detail things incorrectly.) All I'll say at this point is that there was a no small amount of things to do/complete and rectify, but over the Easter Long Weekend, with the aid of a few pizzas and one or two (or three or four) tasty brews, this is the result!
Tom & Lee now have the car starting and idling fine on the stock ECU, and it moves under it's own steam! We can't locate the accelerator setup that Tricky fab'd up (I think he modified a Starlet unit to suit?), so the only way to rev it is to pull the cable manually where it penetrates the firewall (or via the throttle under the bonnet of course), so this is just slowly moving the car by riding the clutch and using the idle revs (Tom is sitting on a milk crate also, and the steering is shonky as the uni joint isn't set up correctly, plus the steering column needs to be mounted properly).
Ran a compression test and all is fine there, I think Lee said something like 145 on all cylinders except number 3 which was around 135, but he feels that as the engine runs a bit that'll come good (it has been sitting for a loooong time idle remember!).
So, a lot has been achieved over the weekend, super happy that the car is now running and the motor appears to be in good order. This week should see the dash electrics and instrumentation being at least partially completed (Tricky has done a fair chunk of it), have an auto sparky mate of Lee's coming in to help out with all that.
Once that's all done, it'll really just be the interior and putting all the trim bits back together (rubbers/glass/chrome etc etc) left to do, then RWC and rego! The aim at the moment is just to get it on the road and driving, not fussed about a flash interior or anything else at this stage, just want it registered and ready for fun asap. Fingers crossed it'll all happen fairly quickly, stay tuned!
Handbrake's a little harder to get at but who cares...