Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Work

I started a new job at a workshop down the road. Here is my toolbox. Please forgive the mess as it's 3:30pm. All tools are put away at 5pm. You can see the transmission jack that I used to swap a transmission in a Fowel can, and the big drum of TQ95. The workshop specialise in Porsche, VW and Mercedes, but I end up working on everything else. Today I had 3 sausage rolls and a instant coffee for morning tea. For lunch I walked to the corner shop and got the chicken salad sandwich for $4, plus a lemonade.

I can't think of a bible verse to put here because I don't know any. I just go to work and come home, and in the evenings I am a little less intelligent from it.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

My hachi-roku

My favorite car is the '83-'85 Toyota Corolla Levin (or Sprinter Trueno), Toyota model code AE86. Or the "hachi-roku" (meaning eight-six) as it is known in Japan and among it's cult followers.

Here is John Smith racing one at Bathurst back in the 80's. I have the same wheels.

This is Keiichi Tsuchiya, or the "drift king", with his TRD prepared Trueno. This old man has played a big part in making the AE86 legend. I have his how-to drift DVD called "Drift Bible".

And here is Takumi Fujiwara with his fathers Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex, just after delivering tofu or something. I have the same wheels on my blue Corolla.
And this is another AE86 at Bathurst only a few weeks ago. No roll cage!

Here is my very own AE86 at Baskerville racetrack, with panda paint. This was over a year ago, and lap times were only about 76 seconds. After driving it a bit with the slow engine I bought a twincam 20 valve engine for it. So I set about pulling the old engine out, most of which went in the wheelie bin. Then I wanted to take the sound deadener out (to make it lighter). I did that, and kept pulling bits off it. Now the car is a bare shell waiting for me to make the roll cage, and the rest of the car is in my bedroom.

This is what my car would look like, back together again. But I could change my mind on colour. It will be a race car with full roll cage and race seat and harness etc. I have most of it, just need to make the roll cage and get it painted. But since I'm sort of at uni this could be a long term project.