KiwiBirkin

A couple from Summer Camping http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/7ec4b7c0.jpg 3 day South Island Trip http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/25b16788.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/cde4a2b2.jpg

Skip glad to hear your on were able to get a drive in your car, nothing helps a recovery better than being able to get back to something you enjoy. Take care Kiwibirkin.

Skip I have to have the radiator coverd to get some heat in to the water otherwise it stays too cool, the 4AGE is normaly a E/W config so has very short water pipes to the radiator with turning it N/S I have longr pipes taking the water from the back of the engine thermostat to the radiator and it cools down quite fast, at first i thought it was a big issue but after taking the car to a couple of cooling experts they have run a few tests and say its running the correct temps and the thermostat is opening and that its all ok, others have reported simlar situations over at OZClubbies with the same engine. Also the Birkin Ali radiator is very efficient too so that didnt help with getting the car hotter.

By Roxburgh it the weather was starting to break from the cold Southerly on the Otago coast to NW and warming up quite nice, by Alexandra we had the hoods of again and it was hitting 28deg (they sure do get nice summer weather there) We headed down to Cromwell and on through the kawarau Gorge Rd to the start of the Cromwell Crown range Rd for the drive over to Wanaka. Coal Creek Flat just after Roxburgh http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/f12b6e0d.jpg Here I put the GoPro on Clives car as he was looking forward to driving the tight S bends and hoping for clear traffic on the way up, we waited for a good clear spot and he set off with Don giving chase and me following a slightly slower pase (one incident is enough for me) as I wanted to enjoy the road my way. Once over we stopped at the iconic Cadrona holtel for a couple of beers and to chew the fat about a very intresting day before heading into Wanaka to camp at the local Top10 campsite. http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/b728df7d.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/9a1386cd.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/d0fca7eb.jpg Anway its a bit long winded this post but thought I would give a running report on the trip, the run through the central Otago roads were great the sceanry was fantastic and the road conditions were great, I will definatly come this way again on a road trip to explore some more of this area again. Cheers Stephen

Once again we aligned the steering boss so the wheel was back to TDC whch was now within a couple of deg or the orignal TDC position before the crash and we head off on the trip again looking for a place to have breakfast (total time in Mosgil for tyres and weld repairs 2hrs), after breakfast at Waihola the weather had set in with rain and after driving about 10kms in it I had had enough and pulled over we put the hoods on, we then decided to turn inland at Milton up the Manuka Gorge HWY8 and see if we could get away from this rain and we had also lost 2 hrs in Mosgil repairing my car it would also get us back on track for getting to Wanaka for a intended time. It rained stead all the way through to Reas Junction where it started to clear, my car was running fine and all the vibration had gone from the steering wheel so all was good. http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/c6c70d15.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/276437b2.jpg

Day Two Woke up in Dunedin and it was a nice warm morning and looked like it was going to be a great day for a drive through to Wanaka via the Central Otago townships, plans were to get my LH front wheels reblanced as the guy who took the stones oout at Palmeston put the tyre back on in a different place and I had a slight shimmy through my steering wheel a quick 20min job, then leave Dunedin and check out a public ferry crossing on the Balclutha river and then head to Roxburgh and on to Alexandra and then on towards Queenstown and over the crown range to Wanaka for the night.....oh how plans change. Leaving Dunners we tried Firestone & Baurepairs who wanted us to wait about 1 hr before they could do the LH wheel balance so we decided to flag it and call in at some tyre place at Balclutha on the way, leaving Dunners though my steering wheel was vibrating more and more and and had also moved from a TDC driving position to a about 20deg to the R of center....now I must explain that after the crash into the bank when I pushed the car back on the road the driving position of the wheel had moved from TDC to 180 deg to the L, when we reset the steering arm plate at Palmeston we managed to get it back to about 300 deg position and then took the boss off and reset my steering wheel to TDC so at least my steering wheel was straight too look at while driving...so something had moved while driving through Dunedin or settled over night as really the wheel was back to where it would have been TDC before the crash (Hope you guys understand this explanation). Anyway to cut a long story short I was not happy with this and we decided to pop into Mosgil and get the both front wheels re blanced and have a look at the steering mouting plate while it was being done... then decide if I should head home or carry on. Found a nice independant tyre shop who would balance both wheels right away and while they were doing that we got under the car and had a look at the steering plate and noticed that all four welds that are in the corners of the folds had split and the steering plate had now settled back to where it sat prior to the crash, I was not happy though with the splits as they could have carried on along the steering plate and the whole plate could snap off..BUGGER. Wheels came back from balancing with a report that the LH side one was buckeled too and that wascausing the bad vibration through the steering wheel, they had managed to balance most of it out and advise was it would be ok for the rest of the trip... but what about the split welds. We had a chat with the tyre place owner to see if any local fabrication shops were open too see if I could get in and weld up the splits and he suggested we had down to see a guy at Preformance fabrication just down the road from him, so we headed along and he was open, Chris Hey was the guys name... he was such a nice bloke and was more than willing to help out and weld up the splits so the car was jacked up he proceeded to weld up the cracks for me, after we checked the steering arms were level coming out of the car. Chris runs a nice buisnes down in Mosigil and had a lovley SR20 powerd MR2 with 320hp at the rear wheel that he rallys all over the South island. Here is a link to a article about him and his car. http://www.performancecar.co.nz/articles/toyota-lexus/the-nissan-link-1986-toyota-mr-2-127 http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/6afa9920.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/1554ae00.jpg

Next we went to the Macreas Ocieana Gold mine in South Otago and got a personal tour of the opencast mine from Dons son who works there, we got to go right to the bottom of the opencast pit and swathe massive 350 ton diggers working, after that we carried onto Middlemarch where it was a schorching 30deg, switched from jeans to shorts and drove the last leg to Dunedin for a overnight stay with Clives other brother. The steering on my car seems fine so I'm carrying on the rest of the trip. 390 Tonne digger http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/73a76adb.jpg Gold smeltter http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/59123eb9.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/th_744473ae.jpg Tommorow we are heading inland to Quenstown and up to Glenorchy and back for a stay in Wanaka via the Crown Range Rd. That's my report I'll post more tommorow.

hi guys I thought i would share this here from my NZ Lotus forums as I know a few of you have been to NZ. Anyway last week a I asked a mate if he was intrested in a 3 day Lotus Seven road trip down to the central South Island lakes district and with him and his brother intrested we decided to head away for 2 nights planning on campinh where ever and just driving where the weather was good. The following reports are from the first 2 days, We had a very interesting 1st day guys. Day one Breakfast at Orari South Canterbury HWY 1 http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/ee64ab8e.jpg Christchurch to Omaru was pretty straight forward and the usual drag that South Canterbury straight roads are, 2 small breakdowns with a lose heatsheild and a lost bolt in my remote shifter setup. We then headed off to the coast rd from Omaru to The Mill House and back onto Hwy 1, this was a great road and really a nice drive. Old quater Oamaru http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/25b16788.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/a9e59d6b.jpg We next cut of HWY1 up the Trotters Gorge rd to Palmeston, it's a very narrow rd with plenty of great bends, trouble was the road was in crap condition and very bumpy. I had a big off on this road as I came over a rise to 85km marked corner to discover it was coverd in shingle and large stones, slammed the ankers only to start sliding towards a very large drop off and decided it was better to head into the bank on the right than kill my self on the big drop off on the left so put the power back on and brought the backed around and into the bank and up it to a very hard stand still. Anyway managed to inbed lots of stones between the rim a and tyre wall on both left hand side tyres and slightly bend the steering rack mounting a wee bit a d damage under my nose cone. It could have been much worse as I checked out the drop off that I decided I don't want to go down and think if I hadn't put the power back on I would been killed or hurt really bad, a bit shaken up we carried on to Palmeston where the local garage sorted the tyres out and we managed to get the steering plate straightened out so I decided to carry on with the trip as the car was still driving ok and the tracking and steering felt fine. It has given me a big wake up call though, even though I know this car is like a small gokart and will handle corners faster than most normal cars it still needs to be driven properly on public roads, I think I was carrying far too much speed on the section of road prior to the blind corner and made a very stupid mistake doing so.

Happy New year guys, lets hope for some great weather and good roads where ever you are. Cheers Kiwibirkin

Does the GoPro 2 come with external mic connectors ??. Also FYI GoPro are making a bus expansion pack that will hook up to IPhones and Android phones like the Contour does, it's due out in Febuary.

Nothing for my Seven, but he did give us 5 great days of weather over Christmas and I managed to get out in the car for a couple of blats, Santa did bring me a new home theater amp though which is a Onkyo 709 which is great as I needed a upgrade after 15 years with my Yamaha amp.

Thanks for the info Croc, we will do some research around those areas. Cheers Stephen

Thanks Croc for the offer, I should be ok I will be coming over on a Kiwi passport which will allow me to work if we decide to relocate. We are looking at Brisbane at the moment but we keep hearing conflicting reports of the work situation in Aussie with lots saying its heading towards depression unless you head to the mines. Still we are both skilled which helps and I have a trade background. Once againg thanks for the thoughts.

Hi guys id like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you all have a great day, we have just woken up to Christmas day here and it looks like were in for a nice day. All the best guys :party: Cheers Stephen http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2124/christmasinaustralia1.jpg

Hi guys. 2 big ones on Friday that hit after a really quite period of about 7 months, both came thru our house with a real force and shook lots of shelfs but nothing damaged which is great. The easter suburbs didnt fair well again with lots of liquifaction, this is the 4th time they have had to clean the mess up again and its really getting to people now. We are at the point of moving on and looking to maybe relocate to Aussie because of the ongoing quakes.

Damm thats cheap whish it was RHD may have looked at importing it to NZ.

The Birkin winscreens come apart really easy, 2 rivets each side that you drill out and it pulls apart and then replace to put back together, be carefull with the Birkin glass as its heated I broke mine and had it replaced with normal glass and I sure do miss the heated fron screen.

I have had a beltronics STI for a few years now and it's a really good detector on par with the valentine V1.

I use one of these works really well and very programable too http://www.ecliptech.com.au/ http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th7.jpg

Martik6 I can tell you that Birkin don't do a clamshell car but have seen clamshells retro fitted to a Birkin so it can be done.

Lovely car nice colour combo and great specs, some will get a ver nice car. Good luck with the sale.

Nice car love the IRS Birkins and will own one someday.

MMTX I asked on my NZ Lotus forums and We couldnt find any info about the cars other then it was built in NZ and certed there. Sorry I couldnt help more.

Small video of what we came across on the way to the snow. All up there were over 400 in the heard that we passed thru... well actually they passed us we only drove through the last few. Clean the cow shit off before we hit the snow http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Christchurch%20Snow/P1030477.jpg

Mike I run Toyo TR1s 195/50/15 under my front gaurds of my Birkin and had to make a small 5mm wheel space to help get them under and away from the guard stay, the reason for this though was they had a anti curbing rim on the tyre that mad them slightly wider then a normal 195 tyre. I think 205 tyres are far to wide for the front of these cars anyway.