The time seems to fly by but we have seen great progress on lots of our projects over the last month. We are stoked to have completed the latest Fraser #347, which is very close to shipping down to its new home with David in Nelson. It’s looking great and with approximately half of the build packages going down with it, I know David is chomping at the bit to get into it! The next Fraser #348 is now in the alloy bay getting its body work fitted and it shouldn’t be long before we can hand this one over to Wayne from the Waikato. You can follow both these builds on “The Pit”, it’s always good to see them grow.
A large project that we have been working on recently and mentioned last month is Kevin’s 1976 Volvo C303 troop carrier. This has been a really interesting job to do and not really the sort of thing we usually work on but it is very cool. We have designed and built a power steering conversion using a Mercedes G wagon steering box and pump from a late model Dodge, we also did a 4 wheel disc brake conversion, along with a bunch of smaller jobs. We took it for its maiden test drive this morning and so far so good, some more km’s under its belt to bed the brake in and we should be ready to send it for its certification inspection.
We have also been building a beach buggy for a customer, it has been a long winded process however we are tantalisingly close to getting road legal. This is a bit different looking than your average beach buggy, it runs 20 inch wheels, has a satin grey and carbon colour scheme and drives better than any other buggy I have ever driven. So all the effort appears to have been worth it and we look forward to giving the customer the good news and handing over the keys soon.
Howard’s Lancia Intergrale is coming along nicely too, with the steering all sorted and provisional approval from LVVTA on the design. We now need to get it back together, on the ground, wheel aligned and driving so it can go through its road test inspection. Fingers crossed we are through the tough bits and on the home stretch but we will find out this Friday when the certifier goes over it.
Our KE25 Toyota Corolla is stuck at the sandblasters, it has been blasted and epoxy primed but cannot get wet. Anyone not living under a rock will know that it has been raining everyday for god knows how long so we are at the mercy of the weather currently on this project before we can get it back to repair a few more rust issues. Then it will be off to the painters to make it all beautiful and shiney. We have been tapping away at some of the parts that can be assembled without the car like the diff and suspension in between other jobs but there has not been much downtime lately!
We have begun work on Joe’s Hillman Avenger. The body has been acid dipped and we have now fitted the Nissan SR20 engine and Gearbox. Next step is to design and build adjustable suspension all round and fit the shortened Hilux diff. So far everything seems to be going a bit too smoothly with things just fitting instead of fighting with us!
