May has seen the Factory as its usual busy hive of activity, albeit one man down. Our sheet metal worker Bruce is off work tending to an injured leg which has unfortunately halted progress on the two new Frasers that are patiently waiting to have their alloy bodies fitted up. Although it is outside anyone’s control, it is still frustrating for us but especially the owners who are understandably chomping at the bit to get their hands on their new toys! It will be worth the wait however as Bruce will do a beautiful job of the body work when he returns!
Chris has had the final approval to get his bright green Caterham road legal and we look forward to handing him the keys shortly when he picks it up. It has been a lot of work but we got there in the end! Essentially a race car that was owned by his father in the UK, he gifted the car to Chris who imported it and brought it to us to get road legal. Being a race car, it had been in an accident at some stage and repaired, this meant most of the body had to be removed to expose the repairs. Most were fine but there were a few areas that needed a bit of touching up. Other than the accident repairs, it had the usual list of remedial work that is required to get a Caterham to comply with NZ regulations. Things like the brake pedal needs to be remade as it is too thin material, seat mounting, brake lines, PCV system to name a few items we had to address. Hopefully Chris will join us at club events in the future and we will see his green machine out and about (you will hear it first!)
We have had a bit of a run of 1950’s Ford F100 trucks through the shop recently. They seem to be flavour of the month and most of them are modified in the US prior to importation. This is a risky way to buy a modified vehicle as while underneath most are solid trucks, some of the modifications that are deemed okay in the US are somewhat dubious over here. One such vehi\ce that we are working on currently looks amazing however as it arrived it basically couldn’t drive. Luckily we can step in and sort most problems out one way or another for this customer. Like any self respecting hotrod, it has big wheels and tyres with a leaf sprung live front axle which means a power steering conversion is a must. We have followed that up by removing the “vertical gate” shifter that had been installed and replacing it with a conventional H pattern shifter. For those of you unfamiliar with a vertical gate, it converts the shifter to a for and aft pattern similar to a motorcycle 1,N,2,3,4. Sounds good in theory however practically clumsy and confusing to drive. As it has had an engine and trans conversion the crossmembers to mount them did not comply with regs. This is a common theme in these trucks so we have developed a universal set of crossmembers that will take any engine and trans combo as well as allow for a brake booster conversion to help them stop. Work continues on this truck but we are making good progress.
Kevin’s Volvo C303 overlander that I wrote about last month has seen more progress, we had a bit of a hold up waiting for parts to arrive but it is now sitting back on its new wheels with disc brakes all fitted up and the new power steering box fitted to the chassis. Next up will be mounting the power steering pump to the engine, which will definately be a challenge! There is not a lot of room in there for it but I have faith that we will find a way!
Howard’s Lancia Integrale is starting to come together. This had a right hand drive conversion done in Japan prior to importation. The biggest challenge so far has been figuring out what parts have been used and why! That done we now have a clear path forward and it is just about putting in the mahi to get it done. Currently we are working to alleviate the bumpsteer and get the steering rack sorted as this is the main hurdle and we are tantalisingly close to that!
