An Australian's Version of an Early

G-Man wrote:How about some new pictures

Yeah...What he said!!

Congratulations!! Your truck is absolutely beautiful!! You've got to feel great!! Congratz again!

Joel

Well it made the trip without any problems and the local Hot Rod community seemed to think it was OK.

Ok from them on a non-Hot Rod is good enough for me.

We had a heap of fun in the traffic wth people giving us the thumbs up and talking to us. Kids were pointing, and probably punching each other.

All round had a great day.

Car now has 200 miles on it and other than a small coolant leak from a hose and the engine torquing over and hitting something (I've yet to invvestigate) it is running very well.

Couldn't be happier.

You've done yourself proud. Now it's time to reap the benefits of all that hard work. Enjoy, my friend. You deserve it!

The car now has 500 miles on it and hasn't shown any real defects, such as bad handling or brakes.  In fact the brakes are brilliant.

I've got a couple of niggling problems but nothing that will stop the car being driven.

I still have the coolant leak which I first thought was from the Corvette radiator header tank so I ordered a new one from the States and fitted it.  No joy.  Oh well keep looking.

The other problem has been a small leak from the tail-housing of the transmission.  I suspected a shot oil seal as the spud shaft that couples the two trans together has pins inserted in (one part is forged the other cast so they couldn't be welded together) it that could be damaging the seal.  I took the transfer out a couple of weeks ago and put a speedi-sleeve on the shaft, a new seal and reassembled it.

Here's a photo of the shaft and the pins.  You can see where the seal has wiped over the pins.



Unfortunately it still leaked.

I took the transfer off again on Friday (it takes around 10 hours to remove and replace it) and found a pin hole in some welding I had done on the housing.  I had this re-welded today and now have it back together.

You can see the area with weld on the right had side of the tail housing.  The steel plate is what joins the two transmission together.  You may also notice I didn't remove the end of the sleeve as it wasn't in the way and had less chance of getting distortion by leaving it on.



Hopefully I now have the problem fully sorted.

Whilst under the car I found a loose hose clamp so I've gone over all the clamps in the system (there are about 20 of them!) and checked they were tight.  Hopefully it will be another problem sorted.

Some good news is the car has been accepted for Motorex ( http://www.motorex.com.au/ ) which is Australia's premier custom car show so now I'm in full swing to finish off the paint work as it has a few scratches from when it was assembled that I need to get rid of.

I'm looking for new front wheels for it as I'm not happy with the ones on it.  They don't fit the 70's image of the car so tomorrow I'm off to a wheels re-seller to browse his stock and see what I can use.

I'm really happy with the way the car drives.  It handles and stops well and while it's still a forward control commercial vehicle it has much better road manners than most of these little trucks over here.  Somewhat faster as well.

One thing I haven't done with it yet is try any drag starts.  I know the front suspension unloads a lot when you first move off from a standing start but not sure if I was really aggressive if I could get it to lift one or both front wheels.  Maybe I'll find out after Motorex, just in case I break something.

I'll try and get some more photos of the car and some video of it on the road and post them up.

Awesome job!

Later,
Rip

Over the weekend my car was at Motorex 2013 which is the premier Custom Car Show in Australia where it was well received.

At times the car was disappearing under the crowd of people looking at it.

The general comments were along the lines of "cool" and "thinking outside the square".

The car was built for fun and it was good to see others smiling when looking at it.

I'm now waiting for a photographer and Journalist to arrive so we can set off and do a magazine article for Street Machine Magazine which is the biggest magazine of its type in the country .

Sounds like a great time and very good achievement !! ^5's  

Congrats Zuffen on the well deserved attention that you and your creation are receiving. Thanks for the updates and pics. Now you're inspiring others!

Here's a photo of the car at the show.

This was taken before the doors opened.



I had a couple of 7" digital picture frames running for the 3 days with all the build photos I had. I ran them off a 12volt car battery as they only needed 5volts at less than 1amp.

Whilst all the Trailer Queens were arriving I drove in with my whole my display stand on and in the car. Blew a few minds that a0 I was driving it on the road and b) that I had it loaded up.

The fence was supported on two pistons and rods bolted together than fastened to some checker plate.

Nice showing!

Your truck looks like it belongs there without a doubt. Ya may want to check your springs on the passenger side...looks like there sagging a bit.  jk. Congrats on the magazine coverage as well. That's really cool.

This has been a long time coming and it's pretty average but it shows the car can get up and go.

The final few seconds seem the best to me as I was driving it then!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcSg8Rm5HTU

The car was driven by my 18 year old son.

Legally he can't drive a V8 until he's 21 so this is a treat.

I'll try for some more and may fit some throw away tyres (tires) and see if we can have a bit of smoke!

Zuffen, that is anything but average! The look and the sound are a Fantastic Combination! I think it's going to take a week to pry the smile off your son's face! Being from the States, I've got to tell you my hands were sweaty watching you drive on the left side of the road!  

OUTSTANDING JOB LOOKS and SOUNDS GREAT but I have to side with vanny it is odd on the other side of the street...AT our shop we service a fleet of mail trucks and its hard enough staying in my lane especially on corners let alone in the left lane.....Keep Up The Great Work.  you have completed a great task only a very few can do or even think of doing you will enjoy it for years to come......