The Three Rs

The Three Rs refer to Restoration, Roadworthy certificate, and Registration.

All three are now complete, but it's stretching a point to say the thing is "restored". It is cleaned up to the point that it's no longer embarrassing or annoying to drive.

There are still plenty of problems waiting to be fixed, but they're all minor, and strangely, some of them seem to fix themselves once the car is regularly driven. I'm using it as a daily driver, including a recent 350km round trip along the Warrego to Brisbane.

It performed well, with the exception of getting a little bit hot and bothered driving up the range at the hottest part of the day - nothing nasty - just an elevated temperature for a few minutes.

As a consequence of that, Ive 'now included a clean and flush of the cooling system as a job to be done.

Apart from that, it's always started first time, trundled around quietly and anonymously, and generally done everything asked of it. I've also had a great time resurrecting old cassette tapes that have been in storage because there's nothing to play them on.

Given the original equipment tape deck, there is now, and the sound quality's not half bad.

The other great feature of this car is the frosty air conditioning. I swear it's quicker to cool than the units in our later model cars.

 Anyhow, to give you a better idea of how it drives, here's some dash cam -

There are an amazing number of these things still on the road, and a fairly large proportion of them are Toyota White, like this one. They are the perfect vehicle if you wish to remain anonymous, and get from A to B safely and cheaply.

They simply don't rate with car enthusiasts, and this can be a massive advantage. Despite Toyota's holding their resale well, machines of this vintage are pretty cheap, as they are now part of what might be called the bangers market.

They certainly don't have any value beyond that of a useful appliance, and running one avoids all the petrol head wankery that surrounds makes favoured by enthusiasts.

I've decided to drive it to Adelaide over Easter.

Now that should not be boring.

Agghh - Panel Work

After panel work - but before a cut and polish

There is no rush now to get a roadworthy certificate, so I'm using the time to clean up the panels as much as possible.

As mentioned before, only the roof, bonnet and bootlid were unbent.

I have a record of epic and abject failure when it comes to panel work, so I bought two rear doors rather than try to get the dings out. An exception was made in the case of the driver's side front door which had been dragged along something solid.

Each corner of the front mudguards had been buggered up by someone putting some kind of tape on to hold the broken lamp assemblies in place, and this had to be fixed. Both front and rear bumpers had all sorts of marks on them.

Driver's door before

Despite my record of past failure, the results weren't too bad. I think I have learned the technique of feathering new paint over old, but of course the age of the old paint (in this case 18 years) is always a problem. It you look closely at the pics you will see it.

Driver's door after

Rear panel before

The goal, however, was to finish up with something that I wouldn't be embarrassed to drive.

Rear panel after