Calebyte

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've moved back home to the mountains, and taking the Brumby with me involved a very busy weekend, 10 hours of driving and a few cases of thank you beer. I've also been busy finding a new job, but me and the car are finally in the same spot again! So I finally had a chance to take a crack at the rust in the bumper. What I found was not good... Looking at it initially I thought most of the rust was in the corner of the bumper; it would take a few weekends learning to weld and the result would be serviceable, but this car was never going to be perfect anyway. Actually ripping into it, alot of what I thought was metal I found to be expanding foam... The amount of time, money and effort required for this project has now grown beyond "first project car" territory, however this sudden revelation of rust doesn't detract from the good parts of the car, what was once a good project car has turned into an excellent donor car, I just wish I found this out before I lugged the rest of it with me...

I'm planning to do it in sunshine orange, here's my crude impression of what that should look like; And I'm gonna drop in an ea81 that my Dad pulled from a Leone 20 years ago. the car it came from was completely rusted out from use on the beach, but the engine is in beautiful condition. We've pulled the heads off, and there was no ring ledge. I don't have any photos of it, but I've replaced the valve stem seals and cleaned off the carbon build-up. I think for the moment, I'm going to try to mostly finish up the exterior first, to stop the rust damage from getting worse, and then move on to the mechanics.

Hello world! Way back in 2019, I purchased a beaut little 1989 brumby as my first project car. It has a 5-speed transmission, air-con (de-gassed), a new exhaust, an aluminium radiator, relatively fresh chunky tires, and barely any rust or under-body damage as far as I can see; so when I saw it on sale for $500, I knew had to snatch it up! This isn’t to say the car doesn’t have problems, it’s currently unregistered, has no interior, blows smoke like a 2-stroke, sustained many dents in use as a bush-basher, and I don’t appear to be the first amateur to attempt to restore it. I’ve documented the major problems below. The car was all the way down in Batemans Bay when I bought it, so my Uncle had to pick it up for me. The plan was to go get it after a couple of months, but of course, rampant bush-fires and global pandemics conspired to keep me away from my newest pride and joy, to the point that the first time I saw it in person was in August. As things worked out, I am now in Batemans Bay staying at my Uncle's, and I started on the bodywork in October. Unfortunately, as much as I love this car, I have a long history of unfinished projects, so I’ve started this build thread in order to both give myself some accountability, and draw on the knowledge of more experienced enthusiasts to help me finish. Here are some pictures of the project; (I am terrible at documenting things, so I don't have any pictures of the exterior from before I started) The car as it is now; The worst of the rust; The tailgate before, during, and after paint stripping and panel beating; A full centimeter of putty off the tailgate; A small sample of the wiring I will have to deal with; The Interior when I got the car; What I found when I removed the floor vinyl; (The newest newspaper was from Dec 2016) h As you can see, my brumby is currently in that dangerous stage all project cars seem to go through, where they sit un-worked for an indefinite amount of time, while the risk they go unfinished grows as parts slowly disappear. So hopefully this thread gives me that extra bit of motivation to keep going. Thanks for listening!