This very worn out suspension bush came from an ‘87 model Merc. It’s no surprise that the rear suspension was very vague and floaty!

I searched for replacement bushes, but in the end it was cheaper to get a whole new suspension arm from Mercedes Benz, much to my surprise!

I finally got around to doing a bit more work on the electric motorbike - so it now has a top battery box!

Once I finish it off and add some brackets I can put the other ten batteries in it and the bike will have full voltage

A nice quick job, just a pair of aluminium brackets for a race seat.

The water taxi has a hydraulic steering setup, which was connected to the engine with a linkage made from old GTR swaybar links and a piece of stainless steel rod.

The geometry wasn’t quite right and it could foul on the steering ram bracket when the engine was tilted, which caused it to break a couple of times.

I made a new linkage using some stainless steel rose joints, bolts, and tube.

It looks a lot tougher (and less rusty) than the old linkage!

This required getting the ex-scrap lathe up and running to make some aluminium spacers for the bolts

This car is running a 2L turbo Cosworth engine, and the old exhaust had proven to be a bit too restrictive for the desired power output.

I made up a 3″ stainless pipe and a custom 3″ straight through muffler. The casing is 0.6mm thick stainless steel so save weight (most mufflers are 1.6mm or so) and it’s a lot longer than a normal muffler, to keep the noise levels down.

The front end cap is riveted on, so it can be removed to repack the muffler with new insulation material if necessary in future.

This time it’s a set of GTR Brembo brakes on an S15 Silvia (200SX).

It’s the same story as the handbrake cable adapter plate I’ve made before for S13s (180SX / Silvia) but it turned out that there are some differences in the handbrake cable mount areas on the car.

Fortunately I didn’t just make one from my previous measurements!

This is the adapter plate. The studs on the plate hold the brake lines, and the slotted holes at the bottom of the picture mount on the original studs in the car.

Note the slight bend in the middle, necessary to line it up with the shape of the car chassis.

This is the plate installed:

The brakes were shuddering a bit on this car, so while the rest of the work was being done I sent the brake discs off for machining.

just for a change I went and helped put up the frame for a big shed / carport.

We didn’t stick entirely to amish methods

Small cranes for use on the back of a ute are pretty cheap and easy to get, but they are usually just bolted onto the tray - which really limits the amount they can lift without causing damage.

This ute has a fairly thin aluminium tray, which wouldn’t be able to take much crane load at all, so I made up a mount that supports the crane entirely on the chassis rails.

The white bar in the photo is bolted onto the tow bar mouting bolts on both chassis rails, and the tube the crane sits in passes through it - with extra reinforcing.

The whole setup will get a coat of rust proofing paint once it has been tested thoroughly.

The support tube sits flush with the tray, so when the crane is not in use there’s nothing in the load area.

This car was overheating, mainly due to gradually leaking all its coolant.

The filler cap fitting on top of the engine was leaking where it bolts onto the thermostat housing - which was also missing a bolt, the rubber hose to the overflow tank was blocked, and the pressure cap seemed to be leaking.

I removed the water / air separator, which is prone to leaks - and replaced the filler cap fitting with an earlier model with the overflow outlet. This simplifies the cooling system a bit and is a fairly common modification on these cars.

After also replacing the thermostat and sealing the housing the cooling system was working properly again