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Thanks mate



This car laughs at your [at my] attempts at positivity. Have been busting arse on it lately to try and get it ready for the nationals which, as people that went would know, this car did not make. The c*#t of a thing does not want to be resurrected.

I only really get Friday arvo and Saturdays to work on the car; lists to get it driving/on reg again are as follows:

-Finish assembling interior inc fix cluster, fit centre console, fit plate and boot over gear shifter hole.
-Make rails for front seats
-Fit stereo
-Fit front bumper
-Rebush front suspension
-Fit exhaust [which, sadly requires dropping the diff because the f*#cking stooges that made the stupid thing made it in ONE PIECE after i told them 10x it needs to be flanged]
-Sort out wiring issues [have no RH indicator circuit or wipers]

Not that bad right? Two weekends left, should be able to do all that AND get it into rwc on time...

So I figure best I go over it mechanically if I intend to drive it almost 10 and a half hours north. Gave it an oil and filter, new plugs, went to drop the coolant and discover the stupid thing has a leak.



See shadowy section of thermostat housing. Cracked riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight through the manifold. Which means now this needs to happen.



And this is basically where it all turns to s*#t. Got an inlet manifold off a spare engine [the one my mrs blew up in her TE]. Stripped it, put the carby on, got rid of the EGR s*#t, new thermostat, new gasket, put it together.

1. Battery has now decided to call it quits, so i cant start the f*#cking thing to find out if there is an airleak or not [used a different sealant to usual]
2. THE f*#cking THERMOSTAT STILL LEAKS.

Gave up at this point so started playing with other stuff.

Got myself this.







Awesome little unit, problem is its only 25w x 4. So i have 2x75w amps hidden under the dash to power it.




So now we wait and see if it makes the next deadline....

the sooner the better

Ok so, another irrelevant-not-much-achieved update. That "next" deadline I'm trying to make is my wedding....at the end of November....around 4mths away....f*#k! Really behind the 8ball with this stupid thing; im at the mercy of everyone else atm sadly and its pushing me further and further back. Anyway.

You may recall [if you dont, scroll up] the issues with leaking inlet and non starting. Threw a tantrum, inlet came off again, changed starter motor, new gaskets [again] this time sealed with hylomar, new battery and it now runs. Thank f*#k. Drove it out to wash it because the rape dungeon, sorry, carport its parked in leaks. Then drove it back in again to strip the suspension down.



Went to press bushes out of spare control arms, ignored Joe and Steves warnings to just pay someone else thats not them [they refused to touch them, i see why now] to press them out. Proceeded to flatten/crush/destroy control arms. Didnt matter how what or why they were supported, they bent. Massive tantrum again, threw them in the bin and sulked. Which now meant i had to pull off the non-spare set off the f*#cking car and give them to someone.



Yuck. Overspray and s*#t everywhere.



Better.

So lately ive got a bit nuts with the whole trying-to-look-period-correct thing. I figure im less likely to get hassled by the TMU, morons in VN V6s wanted to race etc if it looks unassuming. Plus i like sleepers. So the aim/theme is to make the stupid thing look like it was built in the early 80s except for under the bonnet/brakes. And what looks more 80s than having a clearly modern set of speakers ruin an interior you've gone out of your way to make look original [see photos of radio]? Those blue pioneer 6x9s totes fit the look brah. Into the bin they go.

Bought these via Import Monster at a not-inconsiderable cost just because they look cool and are from the right era. Seriously. Im stupid, i know.



Did this, because lets face it, cardboard speakers older than I am were never going to sound any good



Mint condition.



Bought a set of these; Alpine 4" 3 ways to jam inside.



Except the little stiffening ribs got in the way of the magnet which is bigger than the original speaker cone. So razor blade plus spacer = it all fits.



Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand no pic of it finished. Refer to picture above for now.

So. Got the radio in, rapt with how it looks/sits.





Before anyone says it yes i know the cluster isnt in properly. Annoyingly, i cant get to that side of the car where its parked at the moment with no front suspension on it. Speaking of annoying, this:



The pedal pads on left are what was on, aftermarket replacements this thing copped some time in its life. I hated them. Ugly, oversized, didnt fit properly, kept coming off. Fortunately, someone now makes copies of the originals which i do like. Needed a little bit of a tidy up, but nothing a quick scrape with blade and sand paper didnt fix



Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand betterer. And also, yes i know the pedal arms are dirty and need cleaning.



This was f*#cked. Heater tube from heater box to demister. Probably why it never worked properly



Quick hacksaw and its finished. Speaking of finished, so is this post.

N-

It's dirty clean it

also lol'd at
Went to press bushes out of spare control arms, ignored Joe and Steves warnings to just pay someone else thats not them [they refused to touch them, i see why now] to press them out. Proceeded to flatten/crush/destroy control arms. Didnt matter how what or why they were supported, they bent. Massive tantrum again, threw them in the bin and sulked. Which now meant i had to pull off the non-spare set off the f*#cking car and give them to someone.
Months.
Just dump it at pedders and get them to do everything is almost worn into my keyboard from saying to

T-2months and counting...

Now, front speakers. Same issue as far as im concerned as the rears - no point going to all this effort to get a fancy headunit that looks standard and then whacking hektik grilles on the door. So a long, long time searching on ebay yielded absolutely f*#cking nothing suitable. Had to go wrecking yard hunting where i eventually found a set of Pioneers that someone had fitted to a VB Commo on the rear shelf. Also had Augner rear louver, Globes and other awesome 80s accessories.



Because of the way the Alpine 5.25 3 ways i have area, i actually needed a 6" speaker grille to clear the mounting lugs. Which also meant i needed some way to attach the bigger grill to the door...



Had to hacksaw the ring off the metal basket. Yes. Hacksaw. 30sec in i realized this was going to be an absolute ass caver. Oh the joys of not having a garage any more and having car stored in one location, and proper tools in other.



c*#nts were manky as. So a lot of scrubbing, silver paint pen marking, flat-black paint later...



...we had this.



Which brings us to the next saga [seriously, nothing is f*#cking easy with this car]. Steering wheel. Had a Nardi Personal wheel which some f*$kwit in the past has slotted the bolt holes on. 20yr old me would have ran it no worries, #yolo and all that. Almost 30yr old me is a bit less stupid and doesnt want to die because the steering wheel has play on the boss and the steering wheel came off in my hands.

Really, REALLY, like not-normal levels of really, wanted a SAAS 4 spoke wheel. Could not under any circumstances find one that was any good. Did find a small, dished SAAS 3 spoke though. Grabbed it, whacked it on, at which point i discovered someone had redrilled this one to larger holes.



Seriously. What is people and f*#cking redrilling steering wheels?! Was somewhat annoyed, so now I have TWO steering wheels that are basically wall art.

And then, holy grail moment. Through the help of an ozgem member, i was put onto something id long given up on finding. Genuine JDM ZZ/R Steering wheel.





Gave it a good scrub, painted the horn buttons, redid the lettering in silver again and whacked it on. No need for a boss kit anymore.



Rapt with how that looks and feels. Speaking of rapt. Sent the car to a mate as i couldnt be f*#cked dealing with the electrical side of things. Came back fixed, and he also did the seat mounts for me as well. Interior just needs the rear parcel shelf and front kick panels done and its finished. f*#cking stoked with how it looks/feels.





So the march to RWC and rego continues. Just need upper control arm bushes, a few exhaust clamps and a front bumper and its ready to go. Have decided not to tempt fate by attempting the engine conversion before the wedding, so for now will put around with the stocky, drive it on our honeymoon and then early next year, swap in the angries.


N-

Awesome! MX5 seats?

Yep^

Sweet, i have some NB MX5 seats to go into my panelvan and I'm curious what the mounts situation is..

Yep, NA MX5 seats. Already sucked in 3 people that couldnt work out why standard Gemini seats needed brackets made....success! As for mounts, dunno, havent looked tbh. Im not light but the seats/rails feel solid so whatever Ricky did, it works lol. When i had a look at doing them myself, the Gemini rails bolted straight to the bottom of the MX5 seat just the spacing was either too wide or off centred - cant remember. Rick reckons the passenger side seat is slightly different too.

So the march to RWC continued. Few items left to complete, some id been putting off for a while like fitting the exhaust [i f*#cking HATE slip joints].



Decided while i was under there to do the rear sway bar bushes as well. What a prick that was to do - bushes used to be one piece, so youd squeeze the new bush in then drive the bolt sleeve through the middle. Now in two halves, which is easy to fit...except when you push the sleeve through it keeps popping em out. So two big washers and a long bolt got them in. Neck was sore as f*#k from sitting on an angle though - either im getting old or i desperately need a hoist.



While underneath i was reminded why i persisted with the stupid thing in the first place. How good is that boot floor for a gemini! [yes i know i needed to cut down the bolts for the battery tray]



Had a bit too much pedal play in the clutch, couldnt work out why...until i noticed there was no pedal stopper, i mustve stolen the bolt for something else f*#k i was a giant hack when i was younger



Last few items to do before roadie - fit stainless sill trims and rear parcel shelf. The stainless trims were a bugger - the sills have a plastic clip [if they break off, good luck] while the quarters have a metal clip bolted through the gaurd...which goes rusty and falls off. Which is precisely what happened to mine. So. These became a godsend.



Which look like this.



So cut them down, glued into sill trim and bolted on. Worked like the real thing. They also came in handy for those damn speaker boxes ive obsessed about for the last 11ty posts. Was wondering how i was going to mount them...



Speakers needed something to mount to. Break out the jigsaw and piece of MDF.

Trace



Cut



Hole through for bolt/mount stud, including a bit of speed bore action to make a nice flat area for the washer and nut to sit in nice and tight



Tada.



Rapt with that.




Which brings us to judgement day - took the day off work to go register the car, knowing full well that id probably go for a drive for the rest of the afternoon. After much wrangling and headache at Vicroads because the engine number wasnt perfectly legible - geminis are notorious for losing engine numbers because its stamped on the top surface of block so it gets mangled or wiped when someone preps surface for new headgasket or machines block - I finally got rego.



Went past the fiances work, took her to lunch. It might seem insignificant to some, but when i met her 7yrs ago I was driving this. Back then it had the injected DOHC in it, many lols were had when her high school mates picked the wrong fight so to speak. Was off the road when we first started hooking up, and then returned with an EFI turbo setup when we went our separate ways. Ever since we've been together, its been off the road so this car has always been a sort of unicorn mythical thing to her. I reckon her grin was bigger than mine all day.

Took it to mum and dads after that. Mum cried when she saw it [their Gemini was the same colour].




So this is no doubt where youd expect me to tell you everything is ok, and everyone lives happily ever after and all that. The car will make my wedding in 6 weeks time, that all ill be doing is putting the Borbets until next year when i hopefully have a bit more time to start doing the engine conversion.



Except for one, small little thing. This isnt a f*#cking fairy tale. Call it fate, call it a curse, call it whatever you want to call it - it makes no difference to the outcome. Seeing 10yrs of your life, 5 years of blood sweat and tears, thousands of dollars and countless hours spent end in crumpled metal just hours after what started as a really good day is just f*#cked.

f*#cking devastated is an understatement. Long story short, the lady in front of me decided that amber means come to a complete halt regardless of how fast you were going at the time. No word of a lie, she was stationary BEFORE the light went red. No amount of pedal modulation could get any significant speed scrubbed off nor could i go around her because i had a car in each lane [literally the only 4 cars on the road at the time]. Smacked the front RH corner into her LHR.

Cars f*#cked. Bonnet and apron might be repairable/salvageable, gaurd is well and truly f*#cked which is going to cause immense headaches because finding good early gaurds is like scoring a date with Jennifer Hawkins. The issue is the bumper mount took the brunt of the impact - in a way a positive, because it saved the radiator support and front rail/suspension/crossmember. What that does mean however is its transfered the impact right through the inner gaurd








And now for the real ugly. [ps yes i know the engine bay is a mess...car was due to be detailed this weekend ]

Inner gaurd closest to firewall



Inner gaurd upper corner - theres a big dent caved in under the gaurd lip thats most bent, and another crease to the first gaurd bolt left of picture



Pass side Firewall lip to shock tower centre....



Drivers side/side that got hit



Kinked A pillar/lower door hinge which is why the door is now crooked





Its pretty ugly. Yes the hit was hard. No i wasnt going too fast/too close. Theres just no way i could stop in that distance.


Hoping that by pulling from the bumper mount that it could possibly be pulled back and square up. Guess ill just have to wait and see. Everyones quick to tell me to reshell it, but its not an option. This may sound childish but I dont want another Gemini, i want MY Gemini. Ive been through hell and back with this thing and am far, far more sentimentally attached to it than i should be.
So. I had a few days of sooking and people humoring me, letting me be grumpy and s*#t and got on with it. Mrs deals with a panel shop through work and put me onto him to have a chat given the guys i used to use for work i was incapable of doing no longer are in the trade. Had a chat with him and took the car around on monday and he is confident that it will pull back fine so i guess thats some good news. Not getting too excited until it actually pulls out again but heres hoping. Should be going in next weekend

Figured i may as well start finding parts i need, given that the old girls are a fair bit scarcer than the later models. Please excuse the s*#t photography getting worse, at this point i was still fairly grumpy with the whole ordeal.

Jonno informed me that, despite being in another state, sorry territory, he knew where to find the bits. So this ugly thing and i got acquainted for the next hour.
An hour for a quarter removal?! Yes, because some f*$kwit in the past decided to spotweld the quarter to the front apron, so i had to cave-man it and break welds/tear sheet metal using a flat head screw driver and a nearby rock. Somewhat ironic given that the last time i ventured out to this particular wrecking yard [its on the other side of town] was when i was 17, and my father spent the next 3 hours cutting a chassis rail and boot floor out of a Gemini for my coupe the EXACT same way.



So remember when i said finding a good, rust free gaurd was like scoring a date with jen hawkins? Anyone got her number?



Not all fantastic though, because it looks like a tree branch or something has fallen on it in the past, leaving this c*#t of a crease in the gaurd. Probably why no one had taken it.





Shallow tapped out easy enough however crease was in the WORST spot for access. Father inlaws neighbour came round for a chat and gave me a hand by holding the gaurd in position for me while i scorched it with the propane bottle and wailed on it with hammer, dolly and chisel [yes chisel]. As good as its going to get i reckon. Need to dress the edge slightly and skim with filler but as good as it will ever get with a hack like me.



Bonnet needs to be saved as well. The one on the white car was absolutely f*#cking rooted; they all rust on the front edge on the inside of the bonnet. Found a NOS one.....1k!!!!! NO f*#cking CHANCE.



Pull on edge, push on crease and it leveled out. Can get decent access from behind so should be able to tap the dent up. Little one on the nose of the bonnet however is strictly a fill job - no access, and i dont own a stud welder.

Speaking of salvaging as much s*#t as possible, TX grille [twin nostril type] - no longer easy to find. I f*#cking HATE the TC type, and not a huge fan of the TD egg crate one either. Again, not easy to find.



Busted out the araldyte. Hoping it holds.




Thats about it for now.

N-

This makes me sad but happy. Good to see it coming back together.

Glad you aren't closer or i would have had to dive into my stash to help you out
I bought a set of good guards and apron a few years back off ebay.
Told the missus we are going on a Sunday drive down the coast fora nice lunch, she was less than impressed to find out my real reason for the 3 hour drive was to pick them up

LOL!!! Yeah they don't like that.

"ohh yeah we are going up to the Central Coast to sus stuff for nationals but pack light we don't need much really"

Nek minnet FR17s in the boot. I wasn't supremely popular for the drive home.

That's some s*#t luck, Nick.

Glad to see you're perservering with it though. Very admirable

Thanks Bryan. Ive actually managed to track down ALL the bits i need, managed to save the grille somewhat but i think itll need to get replaced eventually because its a bit s*#t tbh Jonno just needs to send me the headlight surround subtle hint

Thanks Mick. It is a bit s*#t but what do you do? Ive never crashed a car ive owned, and it had to be THIS f*#cking car didnt it. Was pretty dirty and grumpy for a while about it; still am a little bit actually. But anyway.

First port of call was establishing if it could be saved. Took it to the guy down the road from my mrs work, he had a look and said no drama. Not sure if he used his caroliner or the old school rack but doesnt really matter as long as its square. Needed to get a guard first though; missed a NOS early one on ebay [ffs phone died] so me and this ugly f*#cking thing became mates for an hour or so.



If your wondering why it takes an hour to take a quarter off, its because some f*$kwit spot welded it to the apron. No rust in lower skin [plenty of surface on backside] but this is probably the biggest issue.





Got the little propane torch out and went nuts with the hammer. This is as good as im going to get it.



Took it to the rack, got these photos from mrs. Fella doing it reckons its spot on side-to-side. I told him it pulled under brakes a bit so he tested it up and down the street a few times by locking it up at speed - all good.



No more gangsta lean





Dropped the car off with adam on saturday; hes f*#cking cursing me at the moment. Wedding is [from that saturday anyway] exactly 2 weeks from when i gave him the car - This gave him 10 days to straighten whatevers left [little bit of bonnet, front apron], filler/dent work, rub car back, and respray the whole thing. Yes....the hole f*#cking thing again. That makes it the 3rd respray in under 500km travelled.... This all leaves me 4 days to reassemble the whole thing again.

Going to get pretty busy this next week or so.

N-

Hoping these work seeing as someone hasn't updated his post...