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Oct 12, 2012 22:58:33 GMT
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I've got photos at home of the inside of a Commodore engine (3 litre DOHC V6) which never had a service or oil change from new. Apparently it lasted 93,000km. Eventually killed by running out of oil. It looks hideous, a lot gunkier than this engine and much drier. I'll put the pics up when I get a chance.
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The floorpan itself doesn't actually look that bad, although I'd be checking it carefully with a screwdriver. Also check the front framehead carefully. As others have said, needs new heater channels and repairs to the inner wheelarches and firewall. None of the bits that you will need are hard to get, so if you're happy to do the rust repairs and you want a project, it looks okay.
What is the condition of the bonnet like? Good bonnets are usually hard to find. The engine lid is less rare, but still important, and check the condition of the fenders unless you're happy to replace them.
Personally I would run away from it, but I don't even own a MIG welder so I'm not in a position to do a major rust-repair restoration.
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Oct 11, 2012 23:44:47 GMT
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The property owner is claiming unpaid rent of 100 grand since July? Sounds like something silly going on. Clearly the rental of a barn and a paddock couldn't amass such a debt in a reasonable time frame. Say he was three months behind when evicted, plus three months of rent since then. Total bill of 109 thousand quid in six months? I think the property owner must have started charging per car or something, and the owner of the cars has abandoned them as they're not worth the storage costs.
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I'm not sure about the Sierra setup, but the GT-R centre diff has a variable torque bias front-to-rear, which is controlled electronically. In the GT-R, the factory computer varies it automatically, but you can get aftermarket controllers to set it at 50:50 or whatever ratio you desire. I couldn't say for sure how long a GT-R front diff will last if used in the rear at 50:50 torque split, but you are proposing to use it in a lighter car with less power, so that should certainly help.
As others have said, if you weren't trying to replicate the 6R4 layout, then RWD would be a lot easier and could probably handle the power of a naturally aspirated 3 litre V6 quite well. If you were willing to further compromise and use a transverse layout, then you could just throw in the complete engine and transaxle from any modern V6 front-wheel-drive car, be it a Mondeo, Vectra or whatever. That would save you a lot of money and driveline headaches, and the car would still be an absolute beast with that layout, it would be like a retro version of a Renaultsport Clio V6.
It will be exciting to see this project progress.
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You can throw Tecumseh engines into that category too; annual carb rebuilds FTL. Nothing wrong with Tecumseh engines, at least not the old two-strokes. The carburettors on those were beautiful, all built with proper metal castings like a motorbike carb. My dad had one which he bought used at a garage sale in the early '90s. It was already pretty old when we bought it, probably made in the 1970s or '80s. It mowed our lawn perfectly for about 15 years, the only thing wrong with it was that the latch for the wind-up spring starter was broken, so you had to jam a screwdriver in there to stop the flywheel.
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Oct 10, 2012 12:30:25 GMT
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I was trying to think of an Australian example, but all the mainstream Aussie cars have always been fairly sensible. Then, suddenly it hit me! The ultimate 'dare to be different' Aussie car. The Goggomobil Dart. A locally-bodied and locally-assembled version of a Goggomobil, fitted with a sports roadster body. The fibreglass body contained the screaming fury of a two-cylinder two stroke engine which could barely power it to the speed limit. Almost zero room for passengers or luggage, no doors and little to no weather protection. And yet, they still dared to invest money in manufacturing and marketing them. All this at a time when the average Australian car buyer wanted a six-cylinder engine in a car with four doors and as much chrome as possible. Nobody would do it now.
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So, what you're saying is that you want to accurately replicate the 6R4's drivetrain layout, including a V6 mounted backwards, then a transfer case to separate front and rear diffs? I have a few ideas: With any separate diff designed for independent suspension, you could flip the entire housing over. This lets the gears work as designed, but means you have to pay attention to lubrication issues like blocking the old breathers, working out the new proper oil level and then putting a new breather in the top. The other way to flip diffs is to unbolt the CROWN wheel and flip it over to the other side of the pinion. Whether this can be done or not varies depending on the type of differential. As far as I know, helical-cut diff gears can be flipped, but hypoid gears cannot. For example, the diff inside a Subaru transaxle cannot be flipped because it is a hypoid gear. There is an Australian company called Subarugears, who make a reverse-cut ring and pinion, allowing the diff to be flipped for $1500. www.subarugears.com/Are you going to pass one of the rear driveshafts through the sump like a real 6R4? Also, do you want the propshaft to the front diff to run in the centre of the car? If the answer to both is yes, then the Nissan R32-34 Skyline GT-R drivetrain might work for you. Manual gearbox with transfer case, rear propshaft (front for you) comes out the centre and the front (rear) propshaft heads back towards the engine with an offset. You could use the complete drivetrain of gearbox/transfer and both diffs. All you need to do is flip both diffs and it should all work. I don't actually know whether you can successfully flip GT-R diffs, that's something you would have to check with experts. I don't see why not though, from photos it looks like there is room in the case to do it. You could even use the GT-R engine if it will fit in the back of a Metro. If not, I believe that you can swap on a Nissan VQ V6, as seen in the 350Z, Murano and so forth. If the front diff won't work for you then you could use a second Skyline rear diff. As you say, Subaru WRX rear diffs should work for you in both front and rear locations. I'm not sure whether the Subaru rear diff can be flipped. The key question I would have is, how much room do you have from the back of the Metro to the point where your firewall will go? The original transmission/transfer case setup was quite short, as shown: I would guess that if you put a separate transfer case on the front of a conventional 5-speed from another car, it's going to be occupying the space where the driver's seat should go. Note that in the drawing above, it shows the propshaft to the front diff running offset on the right-hand side of the engine/box. For some odd reason almost all transfer cases exit on the right-hand side, rather than the left, so when you turn them around in your application, the drive will be on the left. This layout would require an offset transfer case, in the style of a Land-Rover transfer case.
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That V6 looks delicious, but the chrome show cage is horrible. Also, why is it fully trimmed except for the rear half of the headliner? Surely if you're aiming for a race-spec interior then you have to make a bit more of an effort, it's got leather door trims in the back with no rear seat!
Aside from all that though, the car is spot on. Get rid of the cage and re-instate the rear seats and I'll take it! ;D
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For 3/4 of a mile I wouldn't even bother with a pushbike, just walk it! As the others have said, if you're on a tight budget and your commute is only a 15 minute walk, then a commuter car is a ridiculous excess. It's possible for an athlete to run that far in less than three minutes. If you really must have a four-wheeled vehicle to do it, then there's only one thing that fits the bill. Tax exempt and doesn't use any petrol at all. And let your dog live outside all day! Surely the dog can survive without you for eight hours.
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I swear that there was a thread almost exactly identical to this posted up a year or two ago, with the same magazine scans. Interesting car though, and worth a repost. Edit: Did a google search and found it. The thread was from 2007. My word, I seriously shouldn't remember forum posts for that long. I don't even remember the university courses I studied in 2007! retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=21297Maybe there was another thread since then which I can't find on search?
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I'd be pretty happy with my current daily driver as a WROL/SHTF/zombie apocalypse vehicle. Would need the clutch and shift linkages sorted out though. Only a 6 cylinder so it's not as thirsty as it looks, and it's a low-compression cast iron carby motor so it would run on anything roughly resembling petrol. Plenty of front protection in case I have to push something out of the way, or mow down some zombies. Plenty of room in the back for supplies, carting people to safety, carrying troops into battle or whatever else is required. If somebody could just get hold of a machine gun with mount and ammo for the back of it...
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The only thing I've heard about these is that they were famously heavy due to very thick steel bodywork. I'm not sure if it's true or not.
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Can anyone name each of the handles? Gear, brake, 'chute...? If you mean the ones on the centre console, they're all gear shift levers. One for each gear, plus reverse. You pull them backwards in order from right to left during the run. It's possible to have a lot more of them if you have more gears!
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Thanks for the cool videos, yoeddynz!
Every time the driver shifted back into first I cringed though! He seemed to be going back down into first for every corner! None of the old-car gearboxes I've had would like that at all.
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The title of 'fastest street legal car' really rather depends on the regulations of your local transport authority. There's certainly no way that would be legal in Australia, so we can't hope to keep up!
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In my opinion a 1992 car is not even remotely classic, so classic insurance is a bonus if you get it. When I was insuring my 1990 Nissan, it cost more than my 1970s cars. I asked the insurer why this was, and they said that the statistics showed a higher risk of crashes for that era of car. If the average person thinks they are worthless, and they get driven by a lot of young drivers, then logically the crash rates will be higher and therefore the insurance more expensive. Simple.
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The Scirocco is the weight of a Lupo, the Passat is a huge barge, I don't think they're comparable. I don't know about that, older cars of that generation are often lighter than you think. I looked it up: 1988 Scirocco 1.6GTL= 875kg 1993 Passat 1.9TD Variant = 1265kg Okay, so admittedly the Passat is about 50% heavier than the Scirocco. It's still lighter than the new Scirocco though! I honestly would have thought that a Scirocco would weigh a lot more than 900kg.
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16x8 please. I don't get the fascination of running wheels everybody else has on their cars. So you decided on steel smoothies? A hell of alot of cars have smoothies on It's not about being the only person in the whole world to have something, clearly that would only work if you made them one-off in a totally new style. Just because there are "lots" of cars with a particular look on the internet, or in US magazines, doesn't mean that you're likely to see another car with the same wheels at the corner shop. For me, on 1970s cars I just really like old deep-dish 14" jellybeans. Preferably about 14x7" with nice tall tyres on them, 215 or 225/65 R14s. I've got a set on my ute right now, so all I would have to do is polish them and paint the centres black again. A new set of chrome nuts would be nice though. This is the sort of thing: I should probably admit here that I have never actually bought a set of wheels for my car for styling reasons. For my Beetle I did buy a set of steel Sunraysias, but they were intended just for rally tyres and I never fitted them. My first Beetle came with two sets of nice rims, a set of widened, powdercoated 14x6" steels and a set of alloy. I drove it on both sets, and then swapped the wide steels to my Type 3 and my new Superbug. All my other cars have just kept the wheels they've come with. This may have something to do with being a broke student though, and buying cars with nice wheels on them already.
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As above, taking the rocker cover off is far, far easier than polishing it whilst leaning into the engine bay. If you're polishing it, then I'd start with degreaser, then sandpaper and then move onto either polishing mops on a drill or autosol or any other metal polish on a rag.
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