In NZ
1966
1, 1948 Austin 10, Same age as I. My dad showed me how to do a valve job on this one & set the points etc. a good first learner in many ways. LOL
2, 1953 Hillman minx convertible, can you imagine 15” rims with only 3 wheel studs with brass nuts, British engineering at its finest, LOL.
3, 1955 FJ Holden, did major mods to that one, replaced all the rust (learnt to weld on that one, Headers, twin solex carbs, first set of Firestone wide ovals in NZ on this one, but the cluster shaft in the tranny was the weak point, converted 3 on the tree to 3 on the floor, lost count on how many times the tranny came in & out, but could pull in out in 20 min using ramps.
Now in Canada 1972
4, 1965 Corvair Monza Coupe, great car but Ralph Nader killed it, all one had to do was lower the front tyre pressure to just below 20psi problem solved. Covered many miles around BC in this one.
5, 1969 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 hard top, 3 on the tree ant the 4x range selector on the dashboard??? After a year I rolled this one 460 miles north of Vancouver BC. Only the roof top and the windshield where damaged so discarded them and drove the 8 odd hours back to Vancouver wearing ski goggles, fortunately I had friends in another LC on this trip and got back home ok. One of our 4x4 club members owned a 4x4 rental and repair shop, so we calculated that with the ins’ money we could put in a Chev 327 v8 and put a sort top on it instead of the hard top. With the right bellhousing and input shaft the tojo 3 speed would bolt to the Chevy bell housing, only problem with this is the transmission need to come forward about 3.5”, that would take both drive shafts for rework, I did my research and found a Ranger overdrive that solved the problem it was placed between the bellhousing and the gearbox, mainly used on early Chevy trucks. The OD was 4” long. I now had 6 forward and 2 reverse gears. The history behind the Tojo 3.9L 6 and transmission is that just before ww2 the Japanese nationalised the foreign owned auto industry, Chevrolet went to Toyota, that 6 was the early Chevy truck engine, I even had a Chevy distributor as the OEM one clapped out on me. Over time I scrounged up enough parts to make a new hard top as driving a rag top LC in snow just was not comfortable.
6, 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ55 (Iron Pig), I traded the FJ40 for this one at the 4x4 shop, as he offered the 55 to me with a good deal. This 55 had a Buick 400cui v8 and transmission mated to the tojo transfer case. Made for a great off road rig. Until it was totalled, I was overtaking another car when I got alongside it the driver started to overtake the car in front and slimed into me pushing me off the road her word against mine and my friend who was diving behind me.
7, 1974 Dodge Ramcharger, 440 cui v8 auto. Sat on the dealers lot for 6 months, plain jane, rubber floor mats and no flashy extras, I was able to make a good deal on this one. Great truck added an auxiliary fuel tank could go about 400 miles on a fill-up.
8, 1974 Mazda Rotary Pickup 4 speed, yes that right for 2 years 1973 & 74 Mazda North America sold the Rotary Pickup with the 1200cc RX4 engine, another great pickup but poorly understood by the masses. Drove that one from Vancouver BC to Thunder Bay Ontario for a job that lasted 9 months. Got a workshop manual (Genuine Mazda) read it backwards and was able to pull all the smog stuff off the engine, now it could breathe! Ran great, until the return to Vancouver when the engine blew, found out the oil lines to the carb had come off and the end seals failed, should have seen that one coming, but did not check them for the long trip back. Got a greyhound bus 20 miles back to Swift Current, Saskatchewan went to the local Uhaul dealer as I had a Uhaul trailer in tow they towed the truck & trailer back and I rented a Ferd F100, 3 on the tree to tow my beloved Mazda back to civilization Got stuck on the trans-Canada near the Alberta, Saskatchewan border due to back ice along with about 100 others. When back in Vancouver I took it to a Mazda dealer and they said that the engine was still under warranty so got a complete short block for the price of the labour and sundries. Went a lot of places with this one even off road, I would go the friends in Vernon BC about 4 hours from Vancouver on a Friday night, towed a snowmobile in a trailer at one stage the odometer was showing 110MPH between Kamloops & Vernon late in the night.
9, 1960ish Buick LeSabre v8 (Beater) this was a cheap runner that was intended as interim transportation, which it was until I took it out of town where both the engine and transmission Died! I pulled the NEW battery (worth more than the car) and left it buy the side of the road.
10, 1960’s Ford Cortina GT MK II great little run-around car very reliable but not good for the bush kept this until I got the Mazda RX3
11, 1976 Dodge Ramcharger 360 cui V8 auto. This one and most of the options already from the factory, Only BAD thing out of the shop was the inability to accelerate in any way. I had it back to the dealer about 3 times, they said as per factory spec’s. a friend said go to this dealer in another suburb and told them the story, ah was the reply, leave it with us we know the problem, picked it up later that day what a difference, I asked what they did? He said don’t tell anyone but we just drilled out the main jets in the carb. This was at the time when corporate fuel economy figures were imposed on the auto industry in North America.
12, 1973 Mazda RX3 Station Wagon, I bought this for the wife but I ended up modifying and using it myself. I could not leave this one stock so got an RX4 motor from a wrecker and exchanged the short block with a dealer for a new one, the only difference in size it the RX 4 is 10mm longer than the RX 3 so I just slotted the motor and trans mounts to suit. It made a difference but the 3 speed auto was it weak point.
1985
Due to lack of work on the Wet coast we decided to move to Montreal (ex wife’s home town) to find work, took both the Mazda and Ramcharger with us. I was able to find a Mazda Cosmo 5 speed trans to swap into the RX3, now this showed the full potential of the RX4 motor in a little Mazda station wagon (Sleeper mode), many a sports car was taken at the lights. But the Montreal winters were not kind to it. Sold the wagon to a young kid. I took it around the block and scared the pants off him, but he still bought it any way.
13, 1974 ¾ ton Dodge extended cab 4x4 360cui v8 (The Beater), bought this to haul a Uhaul trailer from YVR to YUL. The Ramcharger towed the RX3, I disconnected the driveshaft from the differential and held it in palace with band strapping to the underbody the little Mazda was filled to the top both front and rear the ex at the time sewed up front cover that went over the windshield to protect the car from stone chips. The old pickup was great for driving in amongst all the fancy cars in Montreal, no problem changing lanes etc.
14, 1977 Chevy 10 Passenger Van, traded the Ramcharger for the Van as the wife’s parents found it hard getting to the back seat of this fine vehicle. Worst choice I ever made, not the best in the snow at all.
15, 1979 Dodge Caravan, second worst vehicle I bought, slightly better in the snow due to front wheel drive, it had the Mitsubishi 4 banger in it, when we moved to Morin-Heights 1 hr north from where we lived in Montreal it was useless in the snow, had to back out of the long driveway to get to town
16, 1994 Subaru Legacy Sedan, I did not want the Station wagon as this was my commuter to Montreal each day & I knew the ex would be filling it with dog hair and cats if she had a chance quite a good car expect for one fatal flaw, head gasket around #4 cylinder, it let go on a nice cold day in late January temp was minus 25 and I have to wait 45 minutes on the side of the freeway for the tow truck to arrive, and NO HEAT! LOL. Went to the stealer that I purchased the car from and the replaced the engine with a used one that had hydraulic lifters, (the original had solid lifters) but they would not replace the lifters, otherwise not a bad car for the use.
17, 1997 Dodge Ram 2500 Club Cab Laramie 4x4, (The Beast), one of the best trucks I have owned, yes it was my daily driver to Montreal and back but on the highway I got 19 MPG out of that 5.9L Cummins 12 valve engine, I did lots of mods to this beast, 60 Gallon fuel tank in the back of the bed I could drive to work and back for a month then skip over to Ontario to get cheap diesel once a month, full sound deadening in the cab (removed the entire interior to do this) to many other mods to mention
Retired and moved back home to New Zealand yr 2009.
18, 1999 Mitsubishi Challenger 2.8L Diesel 4x4, a 10 year old but in fairly good condition did spend some on maintenance but still in good nick compared to vehicles in the Canadian salt belt. Put the truck air horns that I had on the Ram. Yes there are stupid and stupid driving all over the world, not just here.
19, 2011 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, purchased this new in October 2011, nothing much for this one but it ticked all the boxes for what I wanted, like the super select 4x4 transfer case, good fuel economy for this class of vehicle. Kept her until the beginning of October when we went to Canada to stay for the next 3 years.
In Canada 2015
20, 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee 3L turbo Diesel, I searched all over Ontario Canada for this Jeep while I was still in Thailand, this one was fully loaded from the factory but something was telling me something is wrong with this transaction but I ignored this and suffered after all, in short it was a LEMON! Too many trials and tribulations to go through here, except to say I was lucky enough to find an ex Chrysler mechanic working out of his garage out in the country that helped me out tremendously, In short, todays vehicles have too many electronic components that double and triple the causes and faults that they are supposed to help, Case in point on the car is the N23 recall,
The problem from Chrysler
The Final Drive Controller Module (FDCM) software on your vehicle (VIN: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) may unintentionally cause the transfer case to shift into the neutral position without input from the driver. This condition could allow the vehicle to roll away inadvertently while the vehicle is parked and cause a crash without warning. This problem had already killed a driver as he had gone to get his Jeep but needed to open the gate and the Jeep transfercase went into neutral and rolled down the incline and the driver was found pinned to the gate he was trying to open. One must note here that in North America generally no one applies the hand brake on a vehicle that is equipped with an automatic transmission.
It ended up that software was only part of the problem my problem was the transfercase selector motor was not lubricated from new and cased excessive drag on the computer could not supply the power to overcome this fault, All my mechanic did was lube the slip rings and gears and it worked file, no need to reflash the FDCM.
Too many other faults that were not given sufficient engineering through put before going into production on the vehicle, this was my first and last JEEP, like ford it’s a 4 letter word for me!
Back to Thailand 2018
21, 2013 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, Arrived back in Thailand November 2018. We searched around for at least a month looking for another Pajero Sport. We got lucky and found one in a dealership just opposite the mall, it was their used car lot and we told them what we were looking for as the 2 Pajero Sport’s they had did not meet with what we were looking for when the manager checked with his counterpart in the main dealership where they had just received a trade in on a new Pajero Sport.
I asked if we could see the car and have it put up on the lift to inspect underneath, they were supposed that I wanted to see underneath the Pajero but when I told them what a 4x4 could be used and abused by, one look underneath will tell a lot. This one was clean almost like it was a month off the showroom floor.
Only 3 mods on this one so far, 1 oil breather catch can, don’t need engine running on its own lube oil. 2 EGR delete, worst thing that can be put on a diesel, but by the wonders of their own computers this is an easy one to fix. 3 Throttle pedal control module, a plug and play unit that changes the throttle position with many options.
This car is a keeper as she might be the last one I will ever own so got to keep her in good nick,
KC