1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro caravan..

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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:35 am

So because its near the end of the year and I wanted to finish it off by showing Hannah a lovely time we went to the wreckers together. Again. Honestly.. she does love taking cars apart. It is fun.

So yesterday while out in the wagon I popped into my local wreckers to browse for engines..as ya do. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse on a Duratec from a 2001 Mundano. 75 pounds for whatever I need from the car because the engine was unknown and that's what it was worth to them to sell to the Middle East (where pretty much all their engines go). We checked it turned over fine with no horrible noises and it seemed fine. I thought it was worth a punt as I could on sell the gearbox and it it all turned out bad I could make money back on the alternator and starter etc.

So I paid the money before I changed my mind and came back with Hannah near the end of the day our trusty old van filled with tools.

I wanted to get as much of the loom as possible. Even though I will most likely run it all on speeduino with those ITBs it would still be nice to have the option to go somewhat factory (except I'd bin the horrible plastic inlet for a home made nice alloy one!)

There were also some other bits we wanted. The dash cluster is quite nice. A bit modern but still good to have in case.

Hannah fell in love with the cup holder. Yeah.. seriously. It is quite cool the way it pop outs and would be so neat to build it into a centre console really neatly. So that had to get removed too.

So some photos of the afternoons work and later in the evening in stripping the engine...

The Mundano in question. Sans heart. Looked it up on carjam and the car has done only 136,000 kms. Barely run in. Or trashed within an inch of its life with no oil changes and spun bearings. Who knows. Its a gamble. Its had two owners.

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Fun times for all..

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One engine and box...

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Back home and out with the old hoist..

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Uglyness with all the *Bleep* on...

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I started removing bits. The exhaust cover came off and revealed a not too shabby looking set of headers! I reckon they might even sit in the bay without much hacking needed. Time will tell but at the very least I have a decent flange and start point to build my own if needed.

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I pulled the remaining bits off. Power steering pump, FWD engine mount. Left it as a complete engine including the very very heavy dual mass flywheel. Lowered it onto my scales and it came up at 120kg.

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No starter but the hoist chain on top would easily equal the starter. I think the single mass flywheels are about 10kg lighter. Here's the horrible boat anchor flywheel I speak of...

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I had weighed my complete spare Viva engine setup a couple of months ago. That lot came to 106kg. So there we have it- if what ever inlet setup I use stays close to the weight of the stock Duratec (horrid) plastic affair I am reckoning on adding no more than maybe 10kg over the front axle. I can handle that. Other things to consider are how far back I can mount it and how heavy an mx5 etc box is. But its all pretty close.

The alloy sump will need cutting and shutting and I'll need to fabricate a new thermostat housing to get the stock one out of the way. But as it sits its already looking like a neat unit. I love the fact the inlet is on the passenger side so I'll have plenty of room for what ever inlet setup I decide to fabricate.

Here it is sitting ready. Waiting. Next thing is to spin it over and see what the compression figures are.

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The strip will continue.

Oh and the dash. I quite like its gauges. I might use it in bits. Maybe. I have a fondness for the old strip speedo but I did like the gauge setup I made in the last Viva.

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Back soon with more engine photos to delight you all.
yoeddynz
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:35 am

It may well yet get a v6. We stripped the engine down and although there was no sign on the head gasket of blowby the head had a .010" warp. Banana shape, low in the middle. OK I thought.. Not too bad. Valves came up fine with a clean. Hannah put the camshafts back in place without valves to make sure the warping was not causing any binding and they came up sweet..

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My mill is too short in travel to skim it in one hit and I thought I'd better get a second opinion anyway. Better check the bores we thought. Hannah cleaned them out and discovered this...

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Not sure but I think it's just corrosion from where the piston sat a while with water in the bore. Took it along to machine shop and yeah they think so too. But costs are now adding up. Having a re- think because the car is just so damn sweet even as it is. Hmm. Could avoid certification and added costs by just fitting a Chevette engine and playing with that instead. Or maybe a v6 again. Got all excited about the prospect because I have all the parts I need so I decided to weigh one again. All up, starter, alternator, manifolds, injection etc the v6 comes in at around 145kg. Really light for a complete v6 but still 40kg heavier than the stock standard viva 1159cc as it sits in the bay. (plus the mazda gearbox is 10kg heavier)
So how can I save weight over the front to offset this?... Fibreglass bonnet could be a start. Hmmmm.

No rush anyway. Cars projects are playing second fiddle right now. We've been given enough heaps of decking so itching to start on our cabin build up here...

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yoeddynz
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:36 am

Enjoying the lovely simplicity of the little 1159 for now. Perfect car for the beaches we cant be bothered to ride to or shopping etc. Still gets nice comments every time out. Hannah jokes that we have to add 10 minutes onto every journey to allow for the conversations with folk about the car.

In other news a few weeks ago my brother and I met up in Tapawara with our friend Andre who has a lovely Firenza Droopsnoot and a HB GT. We jumped in his car and travelled out to a place near Murchison where a fella has a few old Vauxhalls and Bedfords sitting in the bush.

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There's a Viva HB sitting there and luckily Andre had covered it with a tarp a couple of years back to keep it better protected. We both needed parts off it. There were also a huge amount of Sandflies and they wanted us. So we covered ourselves in Deet and cracked on with parts removal..

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I scored this lot. Very happy with it. All very much needed!

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First bits to be fitted were the vents. Hannah cleaned them up and swapped them over. Now we have working vents that can be closed. All last winter we'd have to stuff rags in the holes to stop the cold air. They are grey, not green as the originals but they'll go quite well with what will most likely end up as a red based interior colour scheme.

Next job was the bumper. The one my brother managed to get off the parts car is in good condition but for a slightly dull finish. It also has two holes where spot light brackets had been mounted. Not really noticeable and anyway- I now have a front bumper.

Hannah took charge of this job too. She cleaned it up, wire brushed the surface rust away from the back and treated it, followed with a coat of paint. Then she fitted it and the only photo I have is of her cleaning it after fitting...

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Next job to happen will be sort the door locks..which don't lock.. then swap the quarter windows over. The new ones have proper good seals in them. My current ones don't have seals at all..

Then the door cards. One of the ones we grabbed was really warped. I had an idea. Hannah soaked it with a hose until it was sopping wet and then we squashed it flat between two sturdy bits of plywood.

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I have been moving it about and its slowly dried out nice and flat. Happy with that outcome.

We have also taken on some pretty extensive scientific road testing. When one goes out in experimental sports cars like this with a 30kg bag of potting mix parcel taped onto the bonnet you are bound to get a few odd looks. Which we did.

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I have also confirmed three things...

One : The extra weight does indeed affect the steering somewhat, but not in a huge way. Enough though to lose the easy turning of the steering wheel with one hand and make the twistys more of an effort.

Two : It was really noticeable how the extra weight mounted up high promoted extra roll at the front in corners. From this I have deduced through some clipboard scribblings and man maths that I will mount the next new engine below the bonnet line, as per original...

Three : Brown parcel tape makes a sticky mess that nothing seems to touch easily. I now have vertical stripes on my front wings. (really, they should be called guards. But Blighty terminology eh) Now I have to spend some time cleaning the marks off to return the car back to its former glory!
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:37 am

I will soon be entering the OCD zone. I am preparing for an afternoon of much deliberation and careful planning. It wont be perfect and will end up getting changed over time but I have to start somewhere. 'Start what though' you say?...

Organising my boot is what, for I have 'compartmentalised' my boot floor area. I have been planning this job for ages and looking forward to it. Since getting the car back on the road the various tools, jack, spares have been rattling about in the back, wedged with towels so they don't slide across side to side when taking corners at great speed (20mph..). Without a false floor in place it meant that the level of the folded down rear seat was higher than the current floor. This is just unsatisfactory and will not do!

Hannah had already made a lid for the battery box so that was sorted now. No batteries will be falling out when we do barrel rolls for laughs.

So to the floor. Take one sheet of hardwood ply. Mark out. Cut. Trial fit. Mark again. Cut again. Trial fit. Mark some more...cut again......

I ended up with this nice level floor...


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With little compartments which I can now carefully compile tools, jack and spares and then stow them neatly away into...

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Hannah has been painting the old floor and we'll put some sound deadening down before the plywood goes back in for good.

Then last week NZ got hit by a cyclone. Lots of damage on the west coast where the storm came across from the Tasman sea. The low pressure system combined with a very high king tides caused by a close moon. Add some very very high winds into the mix and you get stuff like this along the West coast, near Punakaiki and further south near Fox Glacier

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We came off fairly lightly at our local beach 3 km down the road. There is normally a nice wee beach over to the left of this photo...

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Not far from crossing the main road in...
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With the horrid weather that morning Hannah decided to drive rather than ride her treadly. I got a phone call 5 minutes later... "the car has stopped... its just cut out. Now the battery is dead"

I drove down in the van with another battery and found her in the Viva with waves lapping at the wheels. It wasn't full tide yet and the waves were coming in quick. Most of the places along the front there got waves into their yards later on.

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We pushed it up the road, swapped the battery and it started straight away. I suspect one of the big salty puddles Hannah drove through splashed over the dizzy and shorted it out. Then with a couple of minutes to dry off from engine heat it was fine again. Further up the road she had to drive it through a 30 meter section a foot deep of seawater. Poor little car! So when it returned home, storm now past, I spent a good deal of time giving the whole car a good rinsing off...

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Then wd40 into any areas I deemed they needed it.

This all reminded me so much of the days spent in the UK with my Rx3 where I would carefully hose it all down after a winter drive if they had salted the roads. The car would never seem to dry out at all in winter though.

I don't miss road salt. Not one bit!
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:38 am

We have both been using this wee car heaps as our daily and apart from the rev counter dying, creating a short to the coil and cutting ignition its been reliable as. That one took a bit of head scratching to work out. I checked everything and finally had a guess at the rev counter. Well it did only cost $7 secondhand 6 years ago..

That has now been disconnected and every thing is back to being tickadyboo :-)

We got bored with sliding sideways in the original vinyl seats when corning enthusiastically and I had a pair of Mx5 seats waiting for the Imp project. Decided I might as well fit them and put them into use rather than just sitting there wasted. I made all the mounting points to certification standard as it'll be going through the cert process when the Duratec is fitted.

They are so much better in for driving with! Not as heavily bolstered as Recaros I have had in the past but good enough. This pair will find their way into the Imp when its ready and I'll keep a look out for other seats to fit the Viva. The mounting points looked so similar in placement to the points for the Momo branded (but actually Recaros) Alfa Romeo GTV seats I had fitted in the Viva. So I'm am figuring that Recaros might hopefully fit in place fairly easily using the new mounts.

Seats...

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Now the eagle eyed among you might have spotted the Motolita steering wheel. Yep- its the one I had in my V6 Viva. I kept it as part of the sale agreement and made a boss to fit it into the wagon. This time I have moved it backwards even further and its great to have back in my hands. Much nicer the than skinny, torn bus wheel that was originally there.

Here it is with the old seats in place...

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Yep- this little car has been great to use and is even better now. Handy car for carting mowers (I do quite a lot of mower repairs in our valley as one of the bread earners)...

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But the car is gonna be so much better with more ponies. So I have been slowly chipping away at collecting things. I cant do the actual engine swap until the Imp is on the road though. No pressure then :-)

On this front I have to shout out a big thanks to Chris and Steve who picked up and transported the gearbox from Auckland down to Nelson. Chris picked it up from the seller, packaged it onto a pallet and delivered it to the airport. Awesome. Then it got a first class flight in Steve's private jet.

Steve then brought it out to our place. What a neat wee trip for an NA Mx5 gearbox...


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Thanks fellas!!!

I opened up the packaging...

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With the box here I propped up an Rx7 bellhousing next to it. You can see the difference in length that will allow me to use an adaptor plate without having to space the flywheel back.

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A lot of work? Yeah but I have continued looking for a bolt on NC box and they just aint cheap here in NZ. I have looked in the UK, much cheaper..but in the UK. So for now I will continue down this path. It's one I have trodden before and its pretty easy.

Next up... the elephant in the room that is the Duratec that needs a rebore.

Not any more! Another big thanks goes out Glen and Chris who found a free Duratec engine, offered it to me and then Greg brought it down in the back of his Falcon on the way to the Oldschool nationals.

Its in good condition but the head has been popped off bu the previous owner for inspection/cleaning. The bores are really good and the block is very clean. Its what appears to be a good honest engine. So I am back on track. I'll be getting a headgasket set and new headbolts from England very soon and will build this up over time. Its great that I now have a spare engine which I can use for the mockup. Much nicer lifting a stripped out lightweight block and head.

New engine...

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Also- Nick J was one of the fellas who came up to collect the Datsun 120Y. He brought up a collection of electronic components he had spare from building his Speeduino ECU and he and Hannah sat in the morning sun and sorted through bits I needed for my ECU build. I just need to get the main Arduino Mega chip and a few other bits then assemble it. Right on track for a decent $100 ECU though :-)

Thanks Nick!..

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But for now...its back to the Imp.
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby lord13 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:12 am

Jeez that was a lot of update to read through...brilliant stuff though, those duratecs are great engines and will sort out the viva no end :D
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby 1972nail » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:55 pm

Phew! Exhausted....need a cuppa.....that was some update there! So much so that I've forgotten some of the things I had thought of commenting on!

Anyway, one that I remember, the door card flattening method was discussed here either on FB or in a thread here. The same method was suggested but so far no feedback on the results from that direction. However, you have just provided confirmation that it does work and by the looks of it very well indeed.

I haven't been following the Mazda engine swap scene lately but am I correct in saying that a Duratec will mate to an NC MX5 box without mods? How far is the gear lever back in relation to the original 1159?
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby lord13 » Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:52 am

I think it depends on which duratec you use....Ford in their wisdom decided that 'duratec' was a name that could be applied to any 16v engine at one point, so some of them will use the old zetec block...as far as I know, the blacktop zetec SE is the one that will fit directly to a mx5 gearbox, as it is based on a yamaha designed block, and the 2 litre zetec (black or silvertop) won't...but then the duratec is based on the SE i think so a 2 litre 'duratec' will...maybe...However, this is in NZ so all Ford engines are probably the Yamaha SE block and all that I've said above doesn't count...I dunno...Ford are strange. I'll get me coat.. . .
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby Kraken » Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:41 am

I love that you drove around with a bag of potting mix taped to your bonnet :lol:

And regarding the door card warpage: I flattened out my HC cards without wetting them. I just sandwiched them between ply and put a couple of spare wheels on the top to weigh them down and that seemed to work okay, may have worked better with a little bit of water though, who knows?
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro carav

Postby yoeddynz » Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:53 pm

lord13 wrote:I think it depends on which duratec you use....Ford in their wisdom decided that 'duratec' was a name that could be applied to any 16v engine at one point, so some of them will use the old zetec block...as far as I know, the blacktop zetec SE is the one that will fit directly to a mx5 gearbox, as it is based on a yamaha designed block, and the 2 litre zetec (black or silvertop) won't...but then the duratec is based on the SE i think


The zetec engines are iron blocks with a cam belt and will bolt up to a type 9 box. Yeah there was a zetec labled as a duratec but it's not actually one.

The duratec is a mazda designed engine (called an L series or mzr), is all alloy with cam chains. Mazda have moved on to an evolution of this engine and ford have retained the rights to continue using this design.

The only rwd boxes that fit are the nc mx5 box or the Ford ranger. Both expensive in nz. Hence I'll adapt a mx5 na box to suit :-)

However... I am in the uk for a month so I'm looking about for cheap boxes and frieght to suit.
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