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 !