So since before I could legally drive I've wanted my great uncles Gloria wagon, well he passed away in Labour weekend and the wagon was left to me!
I only really used to see it once or twice a year at most and remembered it as immaculate, so we went down to a small town past Wairoa to pick it up the following weekend, and well I found that it had kind of gone down hill a bit in the last couple of years since I saw it last and can no longer be classed as immaculate
This is how we found her, parked up since last October besides the odd little run to keep everything working:
Hard to make out in the pic but there is a massively thick layer of dust coating the car here!
Also found when we went to start it there was a lot of fuel pissing out of various places on the diesel pump and it had a near dead battery.
So after pinching the 3 week old HD battery out of the Toyota dog kennel and getting the diesel leaks down to one drip every 5 seconds it fired up and promptly enveloped most of the district in thick blue smoke! -guessing oil had seeped past the valve stem seals while it sat, it cleared up pretty quickly.
With that it was time to hitch up the trailer that came with it, drive the Toyota Kennel to it's final resting spot, thank my auntie and head off to Wairoa for some diesel and a $7 "Ultra Deluxe Supreme" car wash
Looking a bit sharper for sure!
Here is about the point near the top of the Wharerata's that I realized turning the heater on full and thinking happy thoughts was NOT going to get the temp needle out of the H zone or the speedo over 40 lol
So once we got to the top of the "Whares" it was discovered that instead of water the rad was full of a slurry composed predominantly of rust and that the radiator cap whilst shiny didn't actually fit or seal at all
20min cooling later we were good to go again
Next day:
Today's progress has consisted of 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
Cleaned out 20+ years of crap from out of it = step forward x1.
Getting the roof lights working = step forward x2.
Breaking the window winder handle while resetting its position = step back. (it dug into my knee when the window was right down or up)
Getting the tailgate to close against the seal = step forward/step back if the car was intended to be a covert gas chamber?
Found the motor for the "side loading window" while not dead, isn't far from it. Apply power and it makes a sick humming noise but nothing else notable happens. It looks like a pretty standard window motor, but its tucked in a pretty crap spot to get at with big hands!! -just realized I've got a 9 year old with little hands and a taste for pocket money...
Nothing else of excitement to report as of yet, but stay tuned...
Ooh yeah figured I might as well show you guys the insidey bits too!
The vacuum in our workshop = less suck than a $2 prossie, will give it a proper clean out soon.
I'm sure that's still a relevant map!
Brand new/2 year old fender mirror
Sounds like an what I imagine an RB gargling a bucket of ball bearings would sound like ie: Awesome!
A krafty piece of Kiwi ingenuity
It's only about 1/2 a meter longer than the Altezza, it feels about 5 meters longer to drive though haha
The eagle eyed among you will have noticed the factory AM only radio and possibly the 1" speaker siting in the ash tray thats connected to my ipod.
Plan there is to install a period correct tape deck in place of the AM set up, some modern speakers in the doors covered with old grills that are yet to be acquired from a local wreckers yard.
If it's a working tape player an Orion style line in will be the go, otherwise I'm thinking of stashing one of those mechless headunits in the glove box.
