1968 Viva HB + Mazda quadcam V6 - now sold to a good home!

[yoeddynz]

We just took the Viva for a drive Its very quick! Had to take it down to my local exhaust place. They will move a muffler across because where its been placed it may touch the prop shaft when it drops down with the axle if car leaves the road ie big jumps... Plus I'll get another muffler added as I want the car quieter.

Anyway. Last night I made a new number plate up to replace the missing one. Turned out really nice- in fact its too mint so will need to be 'weathered' to make it look older.
I made it by carefully cutting the numerals out of thin alloy sheet. This took a while to get them neat. Lots of fine filing.



I then masked the front of each, etch primed the back side and then stuck them onto a primed peice of 3mm alloy sheet cut to size.



with the numbers stuck down in place I paint black over the whole lot with matt black enamel. Then this morning I peeled the masking tape off and hey presto- new plate! ;D



I wish I didn't have to go through all this but such is the way of NZ where you cant get new 'old' plates and instead have to replace them with ugly white ones.

This morning it was a little rush finish off some small things. For now I have wired the Rad fan to a spare switch on the dash. I'll add the thermo switch/digital readout later.
Went to fit the wipers and then discovered the motor is wired backwards! So out with that later and sort it.

So out the driveway, up the road, no seat belts as I forgot to bolt the buckles back in, temp gauge reading fine, all good. choke still out on a fast idle as I was paranoid it might stall. First impression was 'ooooh its quite nippy' then on next street I gave it a bit more welly and thought 'crikey- its bloody fast- COOL!' I don't even think I went beyond 5000rpm and boy it gets up there quick! I was giggling. ;D

Steering wheel feels odd in the typical Viva offset to the left way. Handling on such a short drive? Doesn't roll as much as it used to but doesn't seem overly stiff either.

Arrived at Murrys Mufflers and was shaking with excitement. I just love the first drive of a cobbled together car.

Man I'm looking forwards to driving it home later!

[niterida]

Well Done Bro - Awesome work - ENJOY !!

[yoeddynz]

Cheers man. I'm well excited now!!!

Heres an update from the afternoon. Picked up car, now with extra muffler in the back. Just a longer coby under the boot. So much quieter now. Much better. Most wont know what engine it has.
I decided I had better get some go juice into the tank so stopped at Caltex. And there near Repco was a beautiful little Anglia with lotus steels in what I think is Ford olympic blue? I love Anglias!
So cool. So small too. My Viva is pretty small but next to the Anglia its large.





Back to Vivas though. Still bogging down. Then I started to notice how bad the brakes were binding. I thought maybe heat from the turbo was affecting the master cylinder? Got home and jacked up rear. Backs were binding too. Pedal had no slack. I had wound the bloody brake light switch in too far so master cylinder was not able to fully release :roll: As soon as I wiund it out and got some free play into pedal the rear wheels unlocked! sweet. Now it doesnt bog down so bad. I guess I never noticed as it needed some heat in the system before the brake fluid needed somewhere to expand- and because the master cylinder wasn't returning it couldn't expand into the reservoir so it instead started to apply the brakes? Pedal now feels softer and more normal with out the built up pressure. Brakes work well.

Sorted the wipers out. I love old cars!!! It takes like only 10 minutes to have all the heater matrix/fan and then the whole wiper assembly out. It was the arm on the motor being 180 degrees out that had the wipers working backwards. 2 minutes later and they were working fine

I've installed a washer bottle, from a Mazda b2500 I think, in place. It fits perfectly and looks like an old bottle should :wink: But my little jet nozzle thing on the bonnet has broken! jolly pain in the backside

[Seth]

Great news that its finally hit the road

Have you still got bits of rotary engine lying around from when you had to swap housings/rotors etc?

[Steve]

Yey! Congrats on the 98% sucessful first drive ;D

[yoeddynz]

Cheers Seth and Steve. i'm a happy lad.
Yeah still have the old centre plate I think, under the bench. Someone local is advertising some 13B engine parts free to a good home. I should inquire because at the very least I could have a nice rotor paper weight.

[mdh]

Looks really good outside Repco, really 70's racer looking!

[yoeddynz]

Yeah A plug for Repco. was cool spotting the Anglia to park up next too.
I'm now back in Nelson with the car still in Blenheim and cant wait to get it certified so I can bring it over.

Took car through wof yesterday morning.



Apart from the items to be cert'd it failed on RH headlight aim too high, wheel bearings a touch too loose, speedo not working.

The wheel bearing were really loose! I have tightened them up and guess that after having packed the hubs and thinking I had them set right they have loosened off. Would loose wheels bearings cause a shimmer when braking?

The speedo cable inner is slightly too short and wasn't quite engaging into the square hole in back of speedo. I never even noticed it wasn't working yesterday as I was more concentrating on other things like revs, boost..oh and the road.
I'll sort it out by shortening the outer.

Headlight aim easy.

They really liked the car at Blenheim testing station which is cool. Was noted how quiet it was. Good- a nice wee sleeper 8).

They also mentioned that some Certifiers want to see widened steels X- ray'd/crack tested.? Not sure what the law is. Will find out. Boy I miss the UK when it comes to modifying cars!!!

I'm pretty sure my wheels were built by elite wheels in Chch many moons ago but I have no receipt as I bought them second hand. They hold air and the tyre man who shod them noted how almost perfectly balanced they are.

After the test I took the long way home and hannah took the short clip of the rev counter and boost gauge. It goes up to 5psi and holds there. Sweet. Pulls really well and sort scared me in 3rd as its just an old Viva and I am only used to old diesel hiace speeds.





When the waste gate opens I can here the exhaust note change. Sort of hissy ? like sound from tailpipe- sounds cool. Quite happy.

When I got back home I sorted the bearings adjustment and fixed the speedo. The cable inner was not quite protruding enough into the speedo to drive it.

Last night before leaving Blenheim I took it for one more quick spin and the shimmy under braking is less. I think a wheel alignment wouldn't go a miss either.

[carmad]

Awesome to see you have it running and down for a test

[Siert]

That sounds great! I'm just missing the rev warning buzzer from my mate's RX-4

[kiwijohn]

Nice work on the plate. A new one just wouldn't look right.
& love the Anglebox.

[yoeddynz]

Yeah the white plates just look wrong. Its just so silly that no one in NZ is allowed to re-manufacture old plates for classic car owners!

[mdh]

So whats next?

Maybe a hot tub on the roof of the house truck? Triple rotor conversion on the Viva?

[yoeddynz]

Certification engineer to look at car on Wednesday. Wish me luck.

[knobstar]

Good luck - MOTs make me more nervous than the exams I did at school and uni!

[yoeddynz]

Yeah I know what ya mean. Hopefully the fella will like my conversion and everything will go OK. Its already had its NZ MoT and I have sorted the things that popped up with that. Now just needs this certification and all will be legal! cant wait. Itching to drive it on the roads here in summer!

[yoeddynz]

Back in Blenheim to get the Viva ready for its cert. I have borrowed some 13 x 6 alloys from a fellow Viva owner in Nelson - cheers Andre. They are actually quite rare Vegas? which were fitted to the Twin cam HS Chevettes and the droopsnoot Firenzas. I've never really been that keen on them but now they are on my car they look quite nice (but I still prefer my steels..)
Anyway- now I have legal wheels to get my cert with But no photos of them :-(

Because they have 185/65 tyres I have had to do the clearance mods to my footwells as per the DTV sports part manual. It involves very careful, controlled swinging of a large hammer.

With the wheels sorted I fixed a leaky exhaust flange and then turned my mind to tuning the engine in the hot Blenheim sunshine. I had got it much better last time but when I adjusted the timing I had forgot to take off and plug the dizzy vac advance. With that done I advanced the timing by about 10 degrees and then lowered the idling. It now idles much better and doesn't bog down anymore. Sweet. I still think its ever so slightly rich and its idling around 12-13 on the meter. I'll see if I can get it better tomorrow plus use cert man Kendall's meter when he checks the emissions.
Took it for another quick spin and its much easier to drive about now without constantly bogging down. I do think it will always be a touch fussy at low revs with the street ports not helping much with suck at low low revs. Time will tell.

I had also lowered the brake pedal with the help of a hacksaw and the welder to match the clutch pedal. Its much better now. In all the old road tests back in the days one common complaint was the height of the pedals. They were noted as being too high and often easy to catch your foot under the brake pedal when coming off the throttle pedal.

Finished off with a spot of cheap carpet I was given over the tunnel just to make it a little bit less 'painted metal' and a bit more cosy. Its black carpet and I have always planned that it will get black carpet but now I think I'll keep it original and fit some nice red carpet for that full on 60's feel.

Cert tomorrow. Wish me luck.

[niterida]

Good Luck with the certification.

Looks heaps better with your steelies :-)

[elmotheewokking]

Good luck mate!

[yoeddynz]

It just passed its cert with flying colours.

Certification man Kendall Bradley from Nelson turned up this morning in a cool old hotrod and went over the car top to bottom. He was pretty impressed the the build and just made sure I had done the right things like fitted crush tubes were my engine crossmember was bolted through chassis. I had taken photos of that and showed him so he was happy.
Then we went for the drive. He loved it! After a good decent drive with some brake tests of course 'acceleration testing' we headed back into town. He then said " I'm really impressed with this car.. its so quiet and smooth that you would never guess its anything but a standard old Viva"

That was cool. Yep I'm a happy man. Car ran well and gets better every time its driven. I think months of rich cold starts are getting blown out and the engine is settling in too after being cobbled back together after the rebuild.

I also showed him my widened steels and he reckoned they look well made. He said its up to me but I can just put them back on once the cert plate is in place etc as the sizes on both wheels sets are the same 13 x 6" but to cover myself I could always get one crack tested and see if it comes up cool.
He also said "now don't go out and drive it till the plate turns up because you don't want to get a green sticker!" But thats cool because we are heading back to Nelson later anyway. When the plate arrives hopefully next week I'll come back over and do the wof recheck. Cant wait!

Oh yeah- its was all nice and sunny for the whole process and then just after he left it began bucketing it down. Lucky.

The only thing noted was the rear bushes are soft and under really hard acceleration the axle moves and self steers the back of the car across the road. He noted down that I need to replace the bushes so I'll get a set...... Coggers?.....