9 hours ago, Fitzy said:

I got home late last night for a very brief 4 days off.

Fun I will be having whilst 'relaxing:'

Get mower going, cut grass and service mower.

Clean up cyclone debris (service chainsaw & sharpen chain first.)

Change oil in Yaris.

Change oil in GP.

Install new GP parts (incl hood counterbalance springs.) Note to self: update life insurance first.

Fix generator and do complete service.

Re-engineer downpipe plumbing so that rainwater does not continue to overwhelm single pipe during big storms.

Install shadecloth partitions to stop us from roasting alive in afternoon sun.

Drink beer.

So far, I have achieved ONE of those tasks.

Oh oh let me guess !!!!! 
the last one 

Today, I accomplished the following:

Took ute & trailer packed to the gunwales with cyclone debris to the Tip,

Fixed mower. Cut grass, drained oil & serviced it,

Completed generator makeover. Started first pull,

Fixed patio blind,

Drank more beer. Alcohol induced dopamines are now being released. Aaahh...that's better.

It’s 29! Here today 

so that means it must be in the high 30 where you are mate 🥵

It was a stinker yesterday. I hobbled into the shower a broken man at 4pm - I'd had enough.

My new hood springs were here when I got home, so now just waiting for one of my many friends to come over and support the hood and call the ambulance when the new spring flies off and takes my head with it.

Today, I accomplished the following:

Installed extra downpipe to rainwater tank,

Installed shadecloth blinds to both dwellings,

Sharpened my 10" chef's knife,

Looked at Yaris (will change oil tomorrow,)

Fitted new sunvisor bits to GP. You know the little end pieces of the sun visor arm that snap into the rear view mirror support? Mine were never there, so when I ordered the hood springs, I scanned the Ames catalogue and added a few bits & pieces to make the postage worthwhile. They offer a sun visor 'kit' which is the 2 grey moulded ends that snap into the mirror support plus the nylon sleeves that fit into the end where it rotates. Sliding the moulded caps on was a cinch, but do you reckon I could get those new nylon sleeves in? Not a chance. Even with everything dismantled they were never going to fit in there and then poke the visor arm through. The old ones were still okay, so that was that.

Now happily enjoying a brewskie as the storm rolls in.

The hood counterbalance springs. These things are TOUGH. You know brake shoe return springs and how tough they are? Pfft. They are like slinkys compared to the hood ones. A friend visited today and I got him to support the hood whilst I brandished a V belt and attempted to stretch one of those springs across it's pivot points. Ha! Mr Universe couldn't stretch one of those suckers. After he left, I decided to try inserting washers in between the spring coils in order to stretch it. I unhooked the regular springs on my hydraulic press and swapped them for the hood ones. I stretched them with the bottle jack and inserted about 20 washers. It took a few goes - you have to insert from different angles to try and keep the thing straight. I was wearing safety glasses, a polycarbonate face shield and gloves! I gingerly took the spring to the car, supported the hood with one arm whilst positioning the spring with the other. Gently closed the hood and listened as the washers fell out. Job done! I present this as a Public Service announcement. I have no idea how I'm going to remove the other spring. I think I'll just wait until it breaks!

Took the car for a short run on the weekend. My aftermarket voltmeter is reading 11.5V. It's wired into the fuse box. I checked the reading with my multimeter and it's spot on. Alternator, regulator, starter & battery are all near new. So I look it up and a bad earth is one potential problem. I can also report that after a run, when it's time to restart the engine, there's a momentary very slow cranking speed until the engine catches and she fires up. Apparently, that's also a sign of a bad earth. So I look at my battery earth lead. For the first time, I notice it's gauge is not as large as the positive one. I can also see a bit of rust where it attaches to the block. Now, it dawns upon me that all those little earth straps dotted around the engine bay actually earth the engine to the chassis. Mine are 60 years old. Firstly, I am going to upgrade my battery earth cable to a larger one and will spruce up it's connection point. Secondly, I'm going to inspect and test all my earth straps and their connection points for excessive resistance and rust or paint that may be inhibiting their function. If that doesn't improve things at the fuse box, I'm going to jump from the battery to fuse box and see if there's not a crusty old feed wire that's causing the issue. If anyone would like to wade in with any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Battery holds it's charge in between runs (about 12.7V) and all accessories (lights, wipers, etc) work fine.

I have also read that ammeters, especially old ones can catch fire. I believe an ammeter is wired so that current flows through it. If it's mounting points are compromised in any way, it can get hot and can barbecue your car. My 60 year old factory ammeter has never worked. I am happy to disconnect it altogether. Any experiences with these old things?

I'm back to work this afternoon, so any response from me will be delayed - don't think I don't care. I do!

Mate . Your alternator should be putting out way more than 11.7 volts .. should be more like 14 ! 
thats your staring point 

second . What a battery lead looks like doesn’t tell you  squat ! It can look good but the solder in the connection can be crap . 
dont dick with either the positive or negative leads off your battery . Replace them and the one from the terminal on the inner fender down to your starter motor too ! Drop your alternator off and get your auto sparky to bench test it 

it doesn’t sound right to me 

certainly clean all the earth leads off the motor to the body. Think mines got 3 !

Same old story .. process of elimination 😜

Like Kiwi says and if you really want to find where the problem is ( could be more then one) you need to break your voltmeter out and do some voltage drop tests, if you aren't familiar with how to do this check with your local utube school, easier then to try to explain it here. 😁Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Ohh yes just for reference my new internal powermaster alternator puts out almost 14.5v.

Hi Andy !! Where ya been ? 

17 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Hi Andy !! Where ya been ? 

Hi😄 yeah you know life happened and that Christmas thing and and.

I have been thinking I need to update on the progress not that it's that much but anyway, I Will get to it soon.

 

Got back home late last night after a week of excruciating temperatures and humidity. My contract finished yesterday so I am now officially unemployed. Yay!

Thanks for input re electrics. I don't have the energy (pun intended) to even think about that damn thing right now - other more important things to attend to...whilst having a beer, of course. Will post something at the appropriate time, like when I short some wires under the dash and it ignites.

13 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Got back home late last night after a week of excruciating temperatures and humidity. My contract finished yesterday so I am now officially unemployed. Yay!

Thanks for input re electrics. I don't have the energy (pun intended) to even think about that damn thing right now - other more important things to attend to...whilst having a beer, of course. Will post something at the appropriate time, like when I short some wires under the dash and it ignites.

Sounds like you need to grab a beer And find a air-conditioned space to hang out in😄

Fitzy , I see on the news there’s another big cyclone coming , is it heading your way or is it further south in Queensland ? 

Yo Bro, it's headed directly for Townsville which is almost 400km south so looks like we got lucky this time. Might get some more rain though.

Safe as then 

On 1/24/2024 at 2:45 AM, Fitzy said:

Will post something at the appropriate time, like when I short some wires under the dash and it ignites.

So have you stashed a smores kit or some weenies next to the Crimson Terror so you can take fully advantage of your impending conflagration? Literally, food for thought. 

Yes Frosty, never waste a good barbecuing opportunity. You can be sure I'll be chargrilling something as the Poncho burns to the ground. It'd work out cheaper for me to let it burn.

Promise me that you’ll save the tach!!!! It will look good on your next Nissan! 

Don't you worry- the FMT will be torn from it's mounting as the flames lick my face.

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

Promise me that you’ll save the tach!!!! It will look good on your next Nissan! 

awww are you impling Fitzys buying  a nissan leaf the stick the tach in 

Yeah - the needle will point to 'Trees Saved Per Minute.'

There is a guy who cruises the Woodward Dream Cruise every year in a ‘68-69 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon. It has a 455 in it. He has a sign that says “This car makes up for 10 Priuses”

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

There is a guy who cruises the Woodward Dream Cruise every year in a ‘68-69 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon. It has a 455 in it. He has a sign that says “This car makes up for 10 Priuses”

I can confirm that!!!  

Got sick of walking past my car and not driving it so thought I'd take her for a short run. Started off nicely, then when I went to turn around I thought I was imagining some stumbling (misfiring.) As it turns out, if actually was. It got progressively worse (does this sound familiar) and whilst once on the highway it cruised almost perfectly, once I slowed down to use the smaller road back to my place, it really started to play up. Parked it and whilst manouevring into position, I had to keep a little gas going in to stop it from stalling. Before shutting it off, I idled it for about 10 seconds and it was rough. What is it now? I closed the hood and walked away from it, thoroughly pissed off with it.

Today, I thought I can't just leave it floundering - it has to be fixed. This is going to be a slow steady process. Started with spark plugs & HT leads. Took each plug and it's lead off in sequence and inspected the (new) NGK plugs. Checked the gap, inspected the electrodes & insulator and reinstalled them. But, before reinstallation I thought I'd check the resistance of all leads & plugs. The fancy pants Blue Streak ones from Rockauto look the business, but their resistance was off the scale, compared to my original rat chewed solid core ones that showed almost nil resistance. Strangely, after attaching a spark plug to one end and retesting resistance, all the leads came up with about the same value. What's happening there?

The pics tell the story. Any ideas why a lead's resistance should drop once a spark plug is snapped into place? I repeated the exercise with all leads multiple times and wriggled and played with them whilst watching the multimeter. No difference. I have decided to reinstall my old solid core leads and haven't had time to start the car yet.