Banpei's two door panda Trueno from Japan

[banpei]

(03-24-2026 09:16 AM)The Doctor Wrote:  The guy with the gt86 is a nice guy. He spent a lot of money to buy the base spec gt86 steelies in Japan.

Yes, he's a really nice guy.
I didn't know he got the steelies all the way from Japan.

[banpei]

Some good news and some bad news. Let's start with the good news:

On Tuesday, my birthday present arrived two days early. It's a "cheap" Chinese copy of the autocover foglights that were a factory option on the 1980s Toyotas and Nissans.

This is what it looks like when it's in open position:


Naturally, I've already started modding them by painting the covers silver:

The plan is to use the vinyl plotter to cut out "Toyota" and "halogen" to mimic the kouki optional foglights from the accessories brochure:

The shape obviously isn't the same, but my plan is to recreate the original cover shape and print it. I've also started drawing the correct shape of the Toyota covers in Freecad.

The other good news is that, as it's my birthday today, I decided to use the AE86 to drive to an off-site meeting for my work today:

But as you can see, I wasn't that happy.

This morning, I found this on the bonnet:

It's a stone chip that wasn't there before. I think it must have happened late last year, and moisture has made it rusty throughout the winter. If I had noticed, I would have treated the spot to prevent this from happening.
Not sure yet how to proceed from here, as it definitely requires attention. It means a bonnet respray is inevitable, but perhaps I can stabilise it with some oil to prevent further rust until I can do the respray.

Then the car nearly refused to start as the battery is getting weaker and weaker. It was fully charged after winter, and I drove the car two weeks ago. Since then, the battery terminals have been disconnected, but it was nearly out of juice this morning. Driving to the off-site was fine, I disconnected the battery out of precaution, and when I left, the car started without hesitation. I'll have to get a new battery and perform the conversion to EU-spec battery.

On my way back, I noticed some squealing during breaking. When I parked the car in the garage, I noticed the right rear wheel was quite warm, and I felt the brake disk radiating heat. The left side was fine. This means it's probably due for a calliper rebuild as well.

[ondafly]

happy belated birthday !

I'd get some rust killer on that at the weekend and some touch up paint, and see can you live with it

What is the EU battery conversion you mention ? My 86's battery was pretty much dead when it arrived here, so I used a spare one I had for my Evo 5. It is phyiscally larger than the battery tray, however it fits. I bought it here in Ireland and it had the smaller style battery posts.

Its a Yuasa HSB053 and considering it sat idle for 2 years until I brought it back into use; its been flawless for me and the car starts on the key.

https://www.halfords.ie/motoring/batteri...48588.html

[banpei]

(04-17-2026 10:11 AM)ondafly Wrote:  happy belated birthday !

I'd get some rust killer on that at the weekend and some touch up paint, and see can you live with it

What is the EU battery conversion you mention ? My 86's battery was pretty much dead when it arrived here, so I used a spare one I had for my Evo 5. It is phyiscally larger than the battery tray, however it fits. I bought it here in Ireland and it had the smaller style battery posts.

Its a Yuasa HSB053 and considering it sat idle for 2 years until I brought it back into use; its been flawless for me and the car starts on the key.

https://www.halfords.ie/motoring/batteri...48588.html

Thanks!

Here in the Netherlands, those batteries are much more difficult to get by and they have to be ordered. I think that's due to the fact that we have way fewer car imports from Japan. Someone said I should look for a motorcycle battery, but those generally have different terminals and ratings. The conversion itself isn't hard: just change the terminal connectors (have those) to EU ones. But I do need to fabricate a different battery hold-down clamp as the EU battery is taller and wider.

And what sucks is that I currently have no spare time to fix all these small things. I don't have power where my car is stored, so I need to use cordless tools and bring them back and forth whenever I want to fix something on the car. It would be much simpler if my car were on my drive (which I don't have) and I could work on it whenever I'd like to. That's why I keep spending time on things that don't matter that much like the fog lights.

[ondafly]

ah you learn something new every day. I guess you could go down the path of a lipo lightweight battery but they seem to be more trouble then they are worth !

I hear you on the time side also !

[banpei]

Modding the covers turned out to be fruitless:

I sanded them lightly, degreased them, used plastic primer, and had the paint dry for three days. But even using post-its as masking pulled off the paint. It's like they used some sort of weird plastic that simply rejects acrylic paint.
My current plan is to 3D print my own and paint those instead.

I also dropped by the garage today to do some small stuff. I purchased a new battery earlier this week. It barely fits and, as I suspected earlier, I need to create a new battery-hold-down clamp. I forgot to bring along the new battery terminals, but I'll bring those along when I have created a temporary hold-down clamp from an aluminium strip. If that fits properly, I'll create a proper one using steel.

I also checked the rear brake calliper. It wasn't stuck anymore, so it looks like a heat expansion issue. I tried to undo the calliper, but I couldn't get the handbrake cable undone. Therefore, I wasn't able to completely remove the calliper and check the workings of the piston. Next time, I'll try to make a short drive and verify if everything works as it should.

[Power_uP]

The foglights will really make the car look even better. Period-correct accessories always seem to finish a car off nicely, makes it look like the owner has either gone the extra mile when building the car or has owned the car from new.

[banpei]

Thanks! Unfortunately, they are just knock-off copies but I'll do my best to make them look as OEM as possible.

The 3D printer was busy today with printing my first prototype:


It looks half-decent:


But when I flipped it open, it immediately showed some issues:

- I made the walls too sturdy (3mm), and the next design is slimmer (2mm)
- The overhang at the top was too narrow, so I made it wider, and now it lines up properly to the top of the foglight
- The pivot points aren't 100% aligned on the housing (you can notice the cover is tilted), so I had to adjust these points a few millimetres
- One pivot point is driven by the motor and uses a 3D printed (I kid you not) shaft to secure the motor to the cover. The shaft is then secured to the cover by 4 tiny screws. I have now incorporated this shaft into the printed cover.

I already printed the new version, but I switched the two pivots the wrong way around. Number three is currently being printed.

I also fabricated a hold-down clamp for the battery using my carbox-design method and some aluminium:

I hope to find some time tomorrow to go to the garage and test-fit it. If it fits, I'll fabricate a steel one as the aluminium is still a bit too flimsy for my taste. It will do the job for now, but I expect it to bend a bit when driven hard.

[banpei]

Evolution:

The original covers are top left and the last and final iteration of the covers is bottom right. I skipped two designs as the changes wouldn't be visible, as those were on the inside of the cover.

The fitment at the front is now spot on:


And also at the top, it's spot on:

My 3D printer is now printing the second cover of the final design. Once it's done, I'll have to sand them down, paint them in panda-silver and apply the stickers. I also need to create some brackets to fit them to the car.

I dropped by the garage today to fit the new battery and see if the bracket works. It does fit nicely around the battery and the holes line up perfectly:

However, you can see an issue here...

The rod to tie down the bracket isn't threaded all the way down:

The Japanese battery is much taller, so naturally, there is no need for the thread to go beyond the physical limits of the battery.

Luckily, I was able to devise a quick fix:

For now, it will hold. I'll make a new rod using a threaded rod from the local hardware store.

And finally, a comparison between the two batteries.
JDM:

EUDM:

And in the last photo, you can also see that the European clamp on the positive lead doesn't fit when it's from the top-side (in the photo) of the battery. From the side, it fits, but now the lead is wedged between the aircon lines and the battery. I'd rather fix this properly and have the lead where it's supposed to be.
On the negative lead, the clamp fits from the top of the photo. However, the extra ground wires need some rerouting as they can only fit if the lead is coming from the side.

It feels like one step forward, and two steps back. But at least the engine now starts immediately.

[Ivan141]

If at all possible, try to cover the middle of that strap in something non conductive, to avoid unintentional welding should you ever drop a spanner there by accident.