Finally taking the plunge

pete wood wrote:That's why people put chevs in holdens, same manufacturer.

That is such crap. I mean it's true but shouldn't be. GM may own Holden but then that means I can stick an Audi R8 engine in my VW as it's the same manufacturer?!?!?

Still GM and Holden both make crap so is it making a Holden crapper or better? :P

For the OP I love the idea of this engine swap 🙂

General_Failure wrote:yeah, um I called the brake place a few towns over. nope.
The local mechanic said they could do the ends for about $50 but I forgot to mention it was bubble flare, so I have an awful feeling it would be a no.

Ah mate, I've got a professional pipe flarer in the in-laws garage/storage but not back in Oz till March. I even have some left over kunifer pipe so would just need the unions.

I know it's ages away but if you are still in need let me know. Brake shops in Oz charge way to much. Paid $45 for enough unions for my entire Beetle and coulda shipped em from UK for $15 all up. 25 ft kunifer also dirt cheap and legal in OZ as meets some Oz J standard. Anyhow, let me know aye?

I read the entire thread. Thanks for the pics of your radiator. I'm going to install mine the same way. Mine's thinnner so I shouldn't have any trouble with the fans.

I feel your pain on the parts finding and waiting! It's tough waiting and waiting and trying to keep your enthusiasm up!

Fastie wrote:My experience is from talking to my engineer last week. His justification is that even the most basic of Jappa cars have vented discs now for the reason of safety. If you are going to convert then it isn't a matter of can you stop - but can you stop over and over again without fading your brakes - and the 70s setup wont cut it.

This could just be my engineer though - and perhaps Victorian rules over other states perhaps?

That engineer is just being lazy cos it's what the Jap car had. Take into effect weight of the 2 vehicles and for a bus you need better brakes and for a bug lesser brakes to have similar braking capabilities of the Jap Car. Also the Jap car's weight is in front so you get more weight transfer under braking that a T1 or T2. Therefore you need larger rears to compensate for the extra engine weight etc.

For the money you pay some of these Oz engineers aren't too crash hot and just do things lazily. Yes there is plenty involved in designing brakes but if you gonna get advise they should know this stuff otherwise why pay $200ph????

For a Bus I'd suggest looking at Porsche brake systems to try and get an idea of the bias needed for a rear engined high powered vehicle. You don't have to use porsche stuff but oonce you know MC and Caliper piston sizes you have the front/rear bias and can figure other manufacturer brakes to fit your need 🙂

Wow I get the feeling I missed a lot here somewhere.
Since when do engineering signatories actually design anything? Review and sign / say no is about it as far as I knew.

If I had the money to pay for all the ridiculousness of the long trek and paying for the signatory you'd better believe I wouldn't be putting an EA81 in there.

Didn't realise I left you all so far back. As far as I can tell the random smoking stopped. If I recall correctly there were a few things at play.
Some charcoal from the canister had gotten into the vac diaphragm and was jamming it open.
yet another pull down of the carb, replacing the needle and seat with one of a different design, totally revising the jetting, adjusting the float to different specs and replacing the power valve with one that didn't have spring shims more or less did the trick. Oh and changing the air filter.

I don't even see cabinets in those photos! Or LED gauge illumination. Damn. Okay. Here we go.

I finished adding LED illumination to the gauges. Admittedly for all the extra gauges it was a bit of a hack because I was missing bulb holders, but I made do. I cut the center on a grommet blank for one gauge and pushed a holder in. Electrically isolated. The other gauge was plastic so I cheated and used a gob of blu tack. Another already had a holder. I pulled apart the PWM controller and made up a nice fly lead for the potentiometer which i mounted next to my driving light switch. For now the PWm controller is ziptied to the underside of the steering column support bracket. It's powered via the headlight feed wire which is unfused. I added an inline fuse because I couldn't have been bothered running another wire to the fusebox.


Here's some shots of the cabinets, repairs and test install.



I cut out the rotten bottom section and substituted some pine which I coated with flooring urethane. it looks pretty good.
A couple more shots, featuring my son's xmas pressie.




One of the pop top lifter pins broke. I fixed it.


the bolt was too short and I was in a hurry so I got creative.

I want to mount one of these at least to the back and possibly shift the spare there. Either that or put both holders up back. I cut them off the trailer.

The rivet on the sliding door block broke. I fixed it. I also lubed everything with a hellish mix of bearing grease and GL4 gear oil.


Let's go camping!

(kidding). i do use it to move the caravan around the yard though.

Hoping to pick up the P clips today so I can hang the rad hoses properly.

Still struggling to find a decent solution to a front heater / demister.

I patched together the remains of teh front kick panels and reupholstered them in cheap PVC vinyl. The old plastic had shrunk / peeled off. The passenger side one broke further because I think its actual shape had changed so wetting and squashing it didn't help. Still it looks a little better than before.


Does anyone have any late bay 1600 tin lying around? Crappy stuff I mean? I asked on KC but that's usually not much help. i don't like the gaping hole around the EA81 and want something I can use as a basis for my own special tinware.

I'm sure there's more to add. I'll put it in later.