bellett.net

HEY GLENN WHEELS LOOK GREAT ....CAPS NEXT $70 FOR FOUR IN BLACK OR SILVER FOR YOUR WHEELS www.watanabe.com.au cheers davo

Yes I saw them Dave but they are ugly. I emailed them for details and a better picture but no reply.

good ole 'squirts' cans. my whole Honda is done with them! cheap and pretty good results
the frame on the Honda is even the same colour as your wheels Glenn. looks great out in the sun.

Hint carby clean hates pressure pack paint. A rag with carby clean will wipe overspray off in 1 wipe.

all wheels are now done. Looks pretty good actually for a spray can. One can does all wheels too.

ok on the solvent. No carby clean here but have thinners which works too but i masked them up pretty good so all ok.

found some centre caps on eBay but not bought them yet..... painted the grease cap on the fronts with same paint though.

Glenn ,
Instead of masking you can just wipe the tyre with silicon spray before you paint - works pretty good.
KB

KJB wrote:Glenn ,
Instead of masking you can just wipe the tyre with silicon spray before you paint - works pretty good.
KB

plenty of good ideas here ! I have plenty of paper and tape but no silicon spray though. What exactly is that stuff used for normally ?

I think what I used was some sort of non stick frying pan spray. I have also used WD40, oil or just water for the same purpose on other occasions.As you know it does not take much to stop paint from sticking.
KB

KJB wrote:I think what I used was some sort of non stick frying pan spray. I have also used WD40, oil or just water for the same purpose on other occasions.As you know it does not take much to stop paint from sticking.
KB

Are you coming next weekend to the car Museum BCCV outing ? [we can compare wheels]

Small progress update. Chipping away: The tail light surrounds on the car are pretty grotty (chrome) and I have 3 brand new ones that came with the car. The new ones are different though, as they have a grey outer and chrome inner section. The originals are all chrome. Luckily, with all the spare parts, I found a reasonable grey surround one to make up the 4th light. In fact the only other grey one.

So today I fitted the four surrounds. Looks much better ! OK, no big deal, plenty of other things that need some TLC too. In looking through the NOS, also found front 1/4 window new rubbers. That was a ncie find but a fair bit of work to replace them, which won't happen for the all Japan day.

another update, slowly slowly.

Had the Sport tuned up in last few days. The problem with the flooding carbies was both floats had petrol in them. One half full. Also, the damper spring(?) was missing in one carbie ! He replaced the missing one with an SU part, and changed the other one too so they were a matched pair.

The 'tuner' got some NOS floats for me. Not Bellett but so close it doesn't matter. They also found the dissy was not giving full advance and fixed that also.
The rear diff seal was replaced and the rubber donut on the tailshaft was found to be split and replaced too. Luckily I had a new one. Probably the only new one in Australia!

They had the car three days and I picked it up this morning. As luck would have it, it started to surge and carry on just 2km from home after a trip of 30km or so. I pulled up on side of the road as it was getting worse and then it cut out totally. Here I am, thinking i got a bad tune ! But a quick check of electrics etc and my diagnosis was out of gas The good part was, I had stopped right outside a petrol station 7-11 though which is not preferred stuff (see thread on premium 98 fuel)

I had only put in 10L of BP and it was using way more than I thought, in the old state of tune. Happy now though.

But does it go better............?
KB

KJB wrote:But does it go better............?
KB

Hi Kerry,
well, i only drove down Eastlink but it seemed happier at 100kph than before and smoother. A quick burst of acceleration it seems to pull better too.

Next thing to look at is the Speedo and Tacho. I did fix the speedo's Odometer some time ago but the actual speed indication is way out. At 100kph indicated, actual is about 86kph. I wondered why all the cars were zipping past !
The tacho reads fast too. I have a spare instrument panel and will check it out, but in the meantime, my electronics background got in the way and I decided to have a fiddle with an electronic speedo, based on a GPS.

Most of you will be familiar with the GPS units with mapping display, but you can also buy the bare receiver modules (about size of a postage stamp) used in the GPS on eBay complete with antenna. (170979281074) They receive the signals but present raw data to an output pin. There is no display.

I coupled this with a small microcontroller (simple very small computer) called an 'Arduino'. These are easily programmed [in the 'C' programming language] to read data out of the GPS module. To display it, I used another eBay item, a tiny 1.8 inch (diagonal) full colour display. This is about the size of a std. Petrol gauge to give you an idea.

The picture shows the result with the display in kph. Colours will change too, over 100kph it will change to a red display. Final version may vary a bit from this. For example, it could also display RPM. Since the unit is sitting on my work bench, the speed shown is the static speed. Note that although people believe a GPS speedo is absolutely accurate, in fact it can vary by typically 2kph just as a GPS cannot be absolutely accurate in location. (unless you have the Military version) But its certainly more accurate than my current mechanical speedo ! Typically, the speed shown on a commercial GPS unit will be averaged over a number of readings. I will probably add this also later.

I won't be replacing the gauges in my Sport with this. Its just a way to verify speed when i either fix the current speedo or fit the spare one which is also unknown accuracy. But its a bit of fun.

Excellent. I love gadgets but can't programme.

I'll just have the iPhone velcroed somewhere with a speed app running.

I found a GPS SPEEDO from speedhut.com which I will probably update with in the near future.
Have a look:

They can do just speedos or clusters with fuel and tacho, indicators and high beam etc.
They are custom faces with your logo and can do old school look or modern look.

redback wrote:I found a GPS SPEEDO from speedhut.com which I will probably update with in the near future.
Have a look:

They can do just speedos or clusters with fuel and tacho, indicators and high beam etc.
They are custom faces with your logo and can do old school look or modern look.

that's pretty nifty. If i was doing a new build, might be worth a close look. Lots of sizes and scales available also. That 400kph one might be handy !
But mine is just for testing, not primary gauge. And my cost is under $50.

UPDATE:- I compared the GPS speedo with the digital one in my everyday car. It (GPS) reads about 2kph slower at all speeds up to 100 which would accord with most manufacturers having slightly fats reading Speedo's.

Strange how speedos seem to read fast sometimes. Tyre size doesn't explain it as we generally fit larger than original which would make it read slow. All this electrotalk is hibblyjibbly to me, but I know George fitted electronc guages that looked good to some of his cars.
Most of my cars read close enough - I reckon if I go about 10 to 15kph slower than everyone else I'm probably on the speed limit.
Shrek is the exception, when I drove back from sydney, the speedo read 60mph, and it sounded about right. But there was no door cards, weather seals, headlining or even floor mat, so ot was LOUD! Tracy following said I did get up to 80kph once, for a short distance! I reckon he has a sedan cable drive sprocket in the gearbox.
Cheers, Matt.

Another small update. Hope you guys don't mind.

The rear parcel shelf had some huge speakers in it when i got the car. The fellow who installed them cut big holes in the plastic shelf. Non-repairable holes. I got another one, also with some holes but smaller. Taped them on the back and filled them, then painted the whole shelf with a very close match vinyl spray. Came up pretty well all round. At least anything left in the back does not end up in the boot.

The radio that drove those speakers was a Japanese one of course with non standard frequency ranges so was tossed in the bin, leaving the original AM radio which still works fine.

Nice bit of work
KB