retro-classics - automotive blog » kyteler

Authors Cars; So close to enough [KHR30]

kyteler — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:11:31 +0000

I’m just waiting on getting some tyres sorted for the SSRs, they just have to arrive. Once they’ve done that, I’ll get them on and adjust the suspension to suit the tyre and wheel combo. In the meantime, this is it. Big ups again and always to Ewan. Without his help this would still look ...more

Author’s Cars; KHR30

kyteler — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 03:38:03 +0000

So I got this damned thing all legal and warranted. Then the pulley came off at high speed which wasn’t fun. It’s working again now but still needs a lot of work. I have a few cosmetic pieces that will be heading my way shortly ex-Japan. I need to get the height and the wheels sorted and I need to get it not drinking all the fuel in the world. Still, it’s fun to drive if not a little slow.

From the Front

…the side…

…the back…

The inside

I also have some photos from the Classic Speed Fest. that I will post up in the next few days so look out for those.

-Michael

Author’s Cars; Rust, always somewhere.

kyteler — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 08:04:20 +0000

Previous owners, they’re special people.

Author’s Cars; The KHR30 gets some attention

kyteler — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 03:25:49 +0000

Attempts to find a motor on it’s own for my newly purchased coupe a whole sedan came up on trademe, it was de-registered but completely stock. This meant it was an ideal candidate for a motor and everything else I require, as luck would have it, it was also red!

HR30 Skyline sedan – Donor car

I won the auction and drove to Ashburton a few weekends later to pick up the new acquisition, seeing it in person it was even cleaner than the auction had let on. The previous owner was sad to see it go, he’d replaced it with an R33 GTS25t coupe some years ago, de-registered it and then used it to tow around a horse doo-dad which it had been doing quite happily for some 8 years.

I managed to get the trip to collect done in a single day, leaving me at least on day of the weekend to recover and relax before returning to work.

The subsequent week at work I managed to pull a muscle in my back. Not ideal as it has put somewhat of a halt on proceedings to get the precious parts switched from one to the other. I did however cautiously and gingerly waddle about removing as much of the easier to remove stuff as I could on the coupe, leaving it looking like this…

Stripped down KHR30

The eagle eyed of you may note that the coupe and it’s older siblings are situated in their new home. It’s been a fairly exciting last month or so getting it all sorted but having my own house and a decent sized shed to work on my cars is pretty damned magic. Shelter and space means a lot more of the menial labouring jobs will be getting done on the cars, however mortgage means that some of the parts gathering might not happen quite as quickly as I’d hoped. Still, onwards! Hopefully these muscles in my back settle themselves down a bit and I can get onto the nitty gritty of this swap.

Here’s some proof to show that the L20ET in the donor car is in OK condition;

Shed skids, complete.

Stay tuned (but not too regularly, you might have noticed the updates have been relatively infrequent, I’ll try and change that but I can’t make any promises as now I have to work on a house as well as the cars)

-Michael

Events; Bathurst 1000, 2012 – Part. 3

kyteler — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:40:19 +0000

The viewing of the motorsport at Bathurst was surprisingly tame, the crowds didn’t have anywhere near the ferocity I expected, the muted Holden and Ford fans seemed content to simply watch the race as opposed to get in each-other’s faces about whether the oval or the general was winning. The campsite as well seemed devoid of the expected rivalry and shenanigans, with only the occasional jibe when a car was driving past to “Get a Holden”. It’s worse at local NZv8 meets at Teretonga! This might speak to Australian bogans being slightly more civilised than New Zealand ones.

Anyway, enough jibber jabber, on with the photographic evidence;

The Classic Muscle Cars lining up on the Mt. Panorama grid.

I really wasn’t that fussed to watch the V8 SuperTaxi’s but the Australians throw their muscle cars around in this grid way more than we do in NZ and the racing was quite entertaining.

Jim Richards in the Javelin came into contact with a silly Mustang.

Before the racing on both race days, there was entertainment from an Australian AirForce jet, it was super loud and super badass to watch

Leaving… on a Jet Plane, don;t know when I’ll be back again…

In front of the museum on the main days were a gaggle of Torana, I believe it had something to do with some kind of Anniv. but it may very well just have been a club in attendance, needless to say there was a whole lot and this photograph misses out half of them;

GT-R mate, XU1. How good is it?

I only took a few static shots of cars about the place, paddock or camp-site and here’s a couple of the better ones;

Awesome Peter Stuyvesant RX7

The 7 was either legit or a very, very fine and committed replica of the actual car, whatever the case it looked damned fine.

Mustang Fastback

The fastback itself isn’t so wonderful but it came rumbling into the paddock area whilst Parker and I were walking about and it managed to get itself into a pose position quite well. Everything else was under cover in the sheds behind so it’s easily the best photo I have of these critters.

Blue Meanie Remake

..from the back

This modern re-hash of the popular VK Blue Meanie is surprisingly staunch in person, the 19″ vented alloys are a brilliant touch. Normally I’d not blink at such a car but I have to admit that I was quite impressed by not only this replica but the later VL SS replica to it’s right.

I do have one photo from the great race…

Tander broke a wheel doofer on his Taxi.

That essentially sums up the coverage, there were a few nights of sing a longs on the camp ground and it was great to meet some new oldschool people and catch up with those others that I only get to see on occasion due to living at the bottom of the world. With much pissing about we packed up the camp-site, gave away some of it, burnt other parts of it and left for the massive journey home, dropping off the Sydney bound at the train station along the way;

Farewell fine chaps and chapettes!

With that done, I continued to skipper the Buick freighter back to it’s abode in Brisbane. Non-stop, as Spencer had done on the way down, the difference of course being that Spencer had now spent way more time awake and drunk than before the journey down, which lead to this when he got home;

Passed out cold.

Cheers for the good times everyone. Hopefully I’ll see most of you, if not all, at the oldschool,co.nz Nationals in April next year. If not, then boo. You suck. I’ve already booked my time off for it so I have to come, this also means YOU ALL READING THIS have to come. You can find out more details on the forums.

-Michael

Automotive Die-casts; RX7 & 2002

kyteler — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:01:23 +0000

I wandered out to the shops today to get my little nephew a gift for his second birthday, I decided on trying to find some sort of sweet garage or dinky car play-set. I ended up with a “Motor Max” one as the selection of such things was a combination of terrible and horrifically ...more

Author’s Cars; Suspension Check, Check Check, 1 – 2

kyteler — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 06:45:16 +0000

In an effort to find some replacement suspension for the back of my R30, I decided to remove the rear springs to get some measurements, they’re there, so why not get an actual measurement of what was in it as opposed to what the internet says.

The result of removing my “Monroe Gas-matics” was this;

There is no space for your jack, sorry.

No guard gap. (primarily due to the massive 235/60 tire)

Tempting to remove the front springs too…

Hah! So hilarious. I’ll get something back in there ASAP, a closer level to this than the previous though.

-Michael

Events; Bathurst 1000, 2012 – Part. 2

kyteler — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:38:52 +0000

First thing in the morning (Friday) I woke up relatively early in the day feeling surprisingly refreshed, especially when taking into account the entire night of sleep missed that was filled in by co-pilot Buick missions. I joined Mr. Grotty McParker in a brief tour of the area as everyone else was still asleep. We wandered the merchandising tents and found very little worthy of caring about but we also took the time to visit the paddock and the museum.

George Fury’s 1984 Pole Position grabbing 910 Bluebird of Z18T wonderment

The first thing visible at the museum was the sweet, sweet 910 of Mr. Fury which was sitting in the window as you entered, I had a good wee nosey around it but it was all closed up so I couldn’t scope out the interior or underneath the bonnet. Further inside the museum were other amazing cars.

Sweet little Mini

This little Mini was nestled amongst the motorcycles, most of them uninspiring but there was one in particular there that grabbed my attention, unfortunately it was propped up in a glass cage and so getting a photograph wasn’t the easiest of tasks.

Wayne Gardner’s Rothmans NSR500

I grew up aspiring to be Mick Doohan or Wayne Gardner, so seeing one of these in the metal was one of the best things EVER though as with the Bluebird, all locked up made it impossible to have a good look around it, it would have been great to have some of the cowling off and peep at the sweet, sweet motor.

Some kind of Toyota? I think it had a wheezy little 4AGE in it.

The 1976 Bathurst Winning L34 Torana of Bob Morris & John Fitzpatrick

The 1968 Bathurst winning HK GTS Monaro driven by Bruce McPhee & Barry Mulholland

The HK, HT & HG Monaro’s are easily my most favourite of Holden automobiles, there’s just something terribly staunch about them it wouldn’t bother me if they were 6 or 8, though a 327GTS would be a fantastic ride to have.

The #2 1977 XC Falcon

Perhaps the biggest reason this car is famous was the set up 1, 2 finish, back in 1977 where Colin Bond could have easily passed the #1 car of Alan Moffat was ordered to stay behind and roll over the checkered in the 1, 2 formation. I can imagine how hard it would have been to forfeit a Bathurst victory under team orders, ridiculously hard.

There were obviously more cars and a few other nick knacks or amazement in there but the conditions to photograph (as you can see) weren’t exactly fantastic, especially when you’d deliberately bought a camera of lesser quality to take along just in case you lost yout=r DSLR.

Outside the museum but inside the on site Supercheap Auto store were another few gems;

The Gibson Motorsport R32 GTR

As was to be expected, the GTR wasn’t drawing much of a crowd but rather angry glares from here and there. It was good to finally see it in person though, so much smaller than the majority of the cars about.

The Marlboro sponsored Peter Brock A9X Torana

I was making my way around this car to take photos when a very kind lady asked if I would like a photo of me with the car, thankful for her assistance I declined the photograph beside the A9X and chose this instead.

Tony Longhurst Ford Sierra

You’ll have to excuse the bag, I grabbed it from a new-stand person so I didn’t have to carry around the programme awkwardly for the rest of my wandering. Benson & Hedges cars piloted by Tony Longhurst are seared into my memory of watching the ATCC championships when I was a child.

After Parker and I had finished making our way around the museum and infield, etc. We made our way to Murray’s Corner to enjoy a little bit of the racing, I’ll post up some pictures that I took of that in the next post. Stay Tuned.

-Michael

Events; Bathurst 1000, 2012 – Part. 1

kyteler — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 04:55:53 +0000

The Mountain

After many years of watching the “great race” the 50th Anniversary of the 1000 combined with a proposed road-trip with some good people from the oldschool.co.nz forums lead to me finally attending the event. Although it was not so simple as showing up, it never is.

The plan was to fly into Brisbane a few days before-hand and meet some people, talk some crap, drink some liquor and then roll down to Sydney to see more people before embarking on the final leg to Bathurst itself. However, the two classic wagons that were to be our steeds weren’t quite ready to be broken by their masters just yet.

I got into Brisbane on the Sunday evening, a day after D. who had already spent two days solid helping Spencer with his Buick Estate Wagon and no doubt giving Sam a hand with his Ford Country Sedan also. Phil picked me up from the airport and after I sussed out what was going down on arrival, I got stuck in too, so much to be done with such little time. Spencer had only just got the car back from being painted a little while before-hand and the motor had been put together mere days before I arrived. It had been running once to check the timing, etc.

Unfortunately I was far too busy during the build to take pictures of the progress, it wasn’t until we had got the car a roadworthy and a new set of plates that I had found the time to take a photograph.

Spencer’s Steeds; The legal Buick with a parts donating XF Utility in the Background

Though hard to see in the photograph, if you look closely at the RHS of the firewall you’ll notice an grey section. To this piece of steel is mounted the wiper motor from the XF in the background, it took a lot of fucking about with the original motor before giving up and turning to the XF and even then there were all kinds of issues and delays but we did sort it along with everything else and we got that baby ready to rock.

With both cars getting a few last minute things done, we left only an hour or so after that photograph was taken, of course we were in Brisbane who do not utilise any form of daylight savings time and an hour after then it was dark, so started the 1,100km journey south.

Night-time departure

As the sun started to rise again over the horizon, we were getting a lot closer to the target destination.

Highway Rolling

260km to Sydney with sleep deprived Pilots and Passengers everywhere.

With only stops for refueling of both cars and people, we arrived sleepless in Penrith to meet the other contingent of NZ folks. With some shuffling of luggage and passengers due to various reasons, we rolled over the Blue Mountains towards Bathurst.

Traversing a Mountain to get to a Mountain, that’s how we roll.

A less sleep deprived driver, Mr. k-trips, formerly of ZZ-Top.

Once we hit Bathurst we set up camp, got some liquor and then settled in for the night, trying to drink a little before the attempted catch up on a missed night of sleep (the first).

Camp-site (excuse the Holden’s detrimental aesthetics)

I’ll leave it at that for now, prepare for more in the coming days. I’ll try get it all down and documented whilst it’s relatively fresh in my memory.

-Michael

Author’s Cars; The search is over.

kyteler — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:54:50 +0000

In a slightly disappointing note, I had to sell my Bluebird recently as another car popped up on TM that I have been searching for a variant of for many years. It’s not exactly what I was after but I’m still pretty stoked as it’s the most important thing.

Stopped outside Hinds awesome car garage on the way home.

In case you’re unaware, it’s a 1983 Nissan Skyline GT-EX Coupe. So. Freakin’. Stoked.

It’s currently not running and needs a few bits of work done on it to get it up to scratch. The trademe ad claimed it wouldn’t take too much to get going but it’s got no sump or pick-up and the engine is in an unknown state of repair, no exhaust system and monster truck tyres. The manual conversion is average at best but nothing that can’t be fixed. It’s factory L20ET, R200 rear-end, disc brakes all round, awesomeness just waiting to happen.

The first thing I did after I got it home and the weather allowed was to re-attach the driver’s side door card which had been taken off to look into why the electric window wasn’t working. I’ll get onto that later after I’ve bought a battery to see just how much of, if anything, of the electrical system is still wired in.

The interior is in pretty good condition, for its age very good, really.

In between more weather I managed to “repair” the passenger door pinching on the fender and not opening/also bending the fender. Then today I got a little lazy and rather than trying to repair anything I thought I would try on the SSR’s I have on the Sunny.

This is how it looks with it’s monster tires and wheel combo that’s on it;

Fat tires bro! 235/60R14 on the back, 205/60R14 on the front.

…and if you use your imagination in lowering it, this is how it will look later;

195/45R14 all round, 7.5 -13 rear, 6.5 +12 front with 7mm spacers to clear the brake calipers.

The springs and shocks in the back are mismatched, it needs some serious coil removal all around but at the end of the day I have the most important thing, the car.

1963, 1973, 1983.

Now… 1993 32 V Spec II, 2003 V35, 2013 GT-R? …one day, one day…

-Michael