samstain

the cast spider hub is broken... to break that its taken a pretty big hit and few or the arms are probably gone also, you could get all those parts and a drive shaft for maybe $250 - I would have them if you need them. You might also need the wheel bearings - another $100. The thing you need to take a closer look at though is if the sub frame has been bent also, if it had been its a lot more work to replace. If you go to a workshop I would estimate $500 minimum - but quite possibly up to 2k if they have to repair the sub-frame etc as there could be a full day of labor, all the arms, the strut, wheel bearing assembly, drive shaft etc.

This is the important bit, most alarms out there are absulute crap. I helped a mate remove an alarm from his s15 the other day that he just bought - as it wasn't working. Although it looked like a mess of wires under the dash and I thought it was going to take me all day to remove and get the car running again. In the end the way it worked was stupidly simple, and it would have only taken one wire to bypass it all any semi profesional theif could have bypassed it in minutes. But to make matters worse, what ever dodgy installer put it in there must not have been able to get around the factory smart key system, so they sticky taped the original key to the ignition barrel and put the cover back over the top. About the only thing any alarm system that I have ever delt with has been good for is drainig your battery if you leave it parked for more than 48 hours, and making sure your cental locking never works the same again

Saturdays effort on the Mill. Need to look at making a tumble polisher, took far more effort to clean them up than to machine them.

They seem to be hard things to get, cant find anyone in adelaide that deals in them. Vehicle Components in QLD don't handle them any more. Found one online shop that has them - about $2000 for a pair of 1000kg axles with 10" electric brakes on one axle.

It seems to be mostly Qld based mobs that handle them... I have to ring them and get more details, but from what i can work out the smallest braked axle set is 1100kg, and the largest un-braked is 900. Which I guess means if you get one of each you can only really run 1800kg on it, or you have to go for a pair of 1100kg ones and have all 4 wheels braking - which probably isn't a bad thing. I'm yet to find out how expencive they are, if the get a bit rediculous I might have to go with drop axles with leaf springs instead.

Has anyone made/used a car trailer with independant suspension - using a al-ko/avonride type pre-fabricated trailing arm system... like these: Im about to build my own 2000kg car trailer, im thinking about giving them a go to get the trailer lower, lighter and smoother towing.

generally you can do it off experience, just make sure its strong enough that the original bolt is going to be the first thing to break, and its stiff enough not to vibrate or do anything dodgy. There really isn't as much force going through brakes as most people probably think.

Once it is all finished you will see why... there is some more stuff to fit in there yet. But it was also easier to just trim it back to the rails then re skin it in flat alloy, otherwise you end up with floppy edges of the original metal work that you have to weld something to to stiffen it.

Cost me $12k + GST for the machine... would have been about 15k inc GST once I had it on site, power to it, lubed up and filled with fresh coolant. Since then I have spend about another 5k on tooling. But yeah being able to make stuff like the above when ever you want is pretty much priceless.

I did say 'no name' - I don't consider the good quality asian stuff to be 'no-name' anymore... The mill I bought is made in taiwan - but it is made by a company with a long history of making machinery. So yeah, buying chinese stuff from a dealer that has been selling that same brand stuff for a few years and has a good reputation should be fine, but buying one from some guy on ebay that also sells shoes, random eletrical goods and toys probably isn't a good idea, as they would have no idea how to pick a good one from a bad one and are just reselling the cheapest wholesale stuff they can find to make a quick buck. If something breaks on it chances are it will be a throw away job.

if you end up getting something, when you need to get some tooling I have found this place very good: ctctools.biz They are about half the price of my local 'cheap' supplier, and more like 1/3 the price of the local brand name stuff. So far I haven't broken a single cutter or drill from them - which is more than I can say for the stuff I have bought locally. My advise is get something sooner rather than later - I was lucky I grew up on a farm (had a lathe, very basic mill, MIG etc), I then had access to a tooling shop while at uni - and actually ended up working there for about 18 months after finishing uni. Then the next 6 years I worked at a place where I had access to a very nice bridgeport when ever it wasn't being used for work. After that I moved jobs and the last 2 years I basically had access to nothing... and it was killing me. I would design and draw up all kinds of stuff and it would take ages to get anything made. I finally got jack of it and bought the mill above and a TIG welder and have been loving it ever since. Also IMHO a second hand industrial spec one is probably going to be way better quality than a new no name one. I would be very wary of buying a new lathe over the internet without seeing it first unless it was a very well know brand with lots of positive feedback on forums etc. I have seem some that have so much slop in the slides etc they are pretty much useless, you might as well just sticky tape a cordless drill to your bench top and hold a butter knife in your hand

been driving the car around a bit tonight with the ally sheet just sitting in there - while making up the exhaust. It was actually suprisingly quiet, I was expecting it to resonate like a drum. I think Ill just leave it till I strip and paint the interior, then just rivit it down with a bit of silicon or something.

don't know if this classifies as mini? Picked it up at the start of the year.... 5 axis (though I have only used 3 so far), 16 + 1 tool change, 12,000 rpm My mate made his own mini 3 axis mill - so far it has cost him about 3/4 as much as mine, and it doesnt have tool change and is about 1/10th the speed and power, on the up side though his doesn't require air and 3 phase.

anyone used -227 before? seems to be recomended for the job. http://www.sika.com.au/cmi/pdfs/TDS_Sikaflex227.pdf

The panel in question goes around the battery box and the tank filler... so it can be quite permanent, there will be a foam sealed hatch over the fuel filler for obvious reasons. I guess Ill just have to ask at the shop what particular compond to use, as there are a heap of different ones available?

Im about to pot rivet in a new firewall over my fuel cell in the back of my track car. I want to use some kind of bonding material (like the factory stuff) to seal it, stop it rusting and resonating. What to people recomend? Im assuming you can get some kind of sikaflex stuff in a caulking tube? It will be bonding a 1.2mm alloy sheet to the original metal floor to fill up this space:

my brother has a 25x40' shed we put up ourselves... we lined one whole side with a heap of interior doors - full size door at the bottom, 1/3 of a door at the top to make one giant 'built in robe'. In the middle we had a bench section about 2.5m long with the same 1/3 height doors over the top. The whole thing is about 900mm deep, so we still have room for 4 cars in the garage, plus room to walk down the side comfortably between the cars and the storage area. Some sections have no shelves - so that we can store long bits of wood/steel vertically, others have a shelf at bench height and another at the height of the top of the door. Sadly though I still don't own a good shed myself (submitting plans at the moment), so my CNC mill is at work, and my race car is in a mates shed 30 minutes drive away - makes it very hard to get stuff done.

I had the same thing happen to at least one of my tyres (235/45R17 595RS)... at the time I thought it was just a cut from sliding over something sharp at motorkhana, didn't really look in to it any further, but after seeing your photos that exactly what mine looked like. Didn't seem to cause any problems, thought the tyres have only seen a couple of short sprints to 200km/hr, they have never done any real hard sustained track work. They were fairly old stock - 07 build?

As a lot of guys have said, the big problem will Collingrove is its a lot of waiting around to only get a couple of clean runs for the day. Its something the really need to do something about IMHO. I have been up there maybe 5 or so times in the last 5 years. Luckily it has been dry every time I have been up there, but even then generally you get 5 runs up the hill max for the day. The first is an un-timed practice at the start of the day (on a very dusty track) so it of no real use apart from helping to clean the track up. The first timed run you can start to get a feel for where your car is at and try and get some feedback on your tyre pressures. Second run you try and dial it in a bit more (by which times the track conditions have no doubt changed a lot anyway), then if your lucky you get 2 good 37odd second runs at the end of the day... $90 is a lot to fork out for a couple of clean runs =( and if anyone happens to spray some dirt on the track or dump some oil then your back to square one again with a dirty track. For me Motorkhana is much better value for money... $25 and you will generally get 12 runs for the day, and it can be every bit as intense as Collingrove once you start getting serious about it. I have however had one great day at Collingrove, I think Nissan Datsun had a day there a couple years ago, we only had about 30 entries, the official were on the ball and everyone got 10 passes for the day. Getting a run every 30 minutes makes a huge difference, normally you are just getting your car and eye dialed in when its time to pack up and go home, but with 10 passes you can get yourself all sorted out in the morning and then have 5 clean runs in the afternoon to really attack the track.

im not sure if the plastic they are made from is suitable for welding - possibly you could have an alloy sump/surge tank made up and bolt it in there with flanges either side and the appropriate sealants as i did with my 040 in the other post.

almost finish mounting it in the back of the 180.... got to finish the support for the battery box, then can skin it all and make a hatch for the fuel filler.

Wanted: A pair of rear twin pot calipers - R33? to suit 296mm disks.

what do you want to do to it?

yeah the tank came with a couple ~80mm sheets of foam, ill trim at least one of them so it has clearance for the pump and slide it back in the tank.

^^ generally around 1k give or take $200 - depending on rim condition and if they include tyres with usable tread.