Hi good people, thought I should introduce myself, my girls and our car.

A fair few of you have already answered many of my questions and aided in making our 1200 ute become a more enjoyable car. Its not a project car (trying to stay away from big builds after the R32 rb30/26det power monster got finished, never used and then sold) but I do have trouble sitting still after the kids go to bed without thinking about what I can modify or make for oot. So this thread is more of a what I slapped together last night update thread... I'm probably going to forget about it and never update but I'll try.

Oot got its name from the day I picked it up a few months ago. My oldest, Ava (now 2.5 year old)was sitting in the back on the potty when she tried to say "nice ute" but came out with "nice oot" instead. Now Jaylah (now 16 month old)and Ava talk a lot about oot and absolutely love working on it.




First thing that bugged me was the toyota steering wheel that was way too close. I had kept the nardi wheel from my drift car so started looking for a boss kit. After the first two ebay kits were too big I decided to cut up the toyota wheel and make my own offset boss kit. I had to bend the indicator lever back but the wheel sits at a perfect arms reach now and far enough off the dash not to be a concern.

We have removed the brown floor coverings (I don't like brown) with the intent to continue until its black trim/dash and white where body is visable. We also fitted a set of gauges but one was faulty and other was for a high pressure fuel system so now we just have oil pressure, warning light and two spare holes for when I come across a tacho and good water temp that's cheap.

Every car I've used for motor sport has had a hydro handbrake and even though oot is a work/fun car i thought it was best to make one for it. Trouble is utes don't have much room so the design is as compact as I could think of and make from scrap metal around the shed.




A couple of times now oot has carried heavy loads or trailers and the drum brakes are useless not to mention the overly soft and worn out suspension. In the last week oot has been given stanza struts shortened with R31 inserts and all the stock stanza bits. Very happy with it apart from having +0.5 camber one side, -0.3 on the other and about 29mm per side wider track than the rear. I have access to adjustable lower arms and might get tops to try and fix this without getting any more track.




The rear has been lowered with 2 inch blocks, HYB shocks and a full 20 liter bottle to counter the sag in the right leaf. I'll also be selling my 5 stud spacers so I can get 4 stud spacers for the rear.

While I was welding the struts I made a sheet metal duck bill spoiler but chopped the ends wrong, still looks ok but could be better.







Little things have been fixed like door locks, interior light, tail lights, front grill, trailer plug, horn, AM radio wiring (was hanging out under dash) and good lockable tool box installed.

It would be nice to spend a little money on it and get some good old JDM wheels, flare the guards or attach my bolt on zg's and plumb up my old oil cooler right in front of the bumper but for now I'm happy not to be frowned at by the enforcers of SA traffic laws.



So next question... should I repaint the duckbill white?

For the camber problem:

Loosen the 4 bolts that hold the crossmember to the chassis rails. Leave nuts on the end of the bolts.
Give the car a big push on the side with positive camber.
See if the crossmember moved a couple of millimeters.
Retighten bolts and re measure camber.

It's possible you have something bent. You should look closely at that too.
Cheers.

Thanks, good idea. I used a hammer near the diff U bolts to fix it's toe, didn't think about doing the same with the front.

Nice write up. Hope the kids don't work out the oot tray can be used for ooting

I'll have to make sure its full race or not road worthy before they get near that age. haha

Happy as, my wife got me an ebay special cheap'o head unit to replace the AM radio... Hmmm not sure if I want to cut the mint dash tho...




Also think its not low enough but already getting scrub on bumpy corners

I love where this project is going!!!!! Your diy attitude is the key to success
Keep up the good work ...

where'd you get the master cylinder for the hydro handbrake? will have to make a hydro handbrake for the wagon once its all rego'd and engineered

Good idea Jay, lets get rid of those fugly flaps



Stereo's in with some cheap Jaycar speakers.... Always thought Jaycar speakers were good but these are absolute crap. Thinking about making a fiberglass sealed enclosure for an 8inch or 10inch sub to fit under the passenger seat. Only problem with it (apart from the cost of making a fiberglass box) is that my amp (1200wrms @ 1ohm, hehe) wont fit under the drivers seat so it would have to go behind the passenger seat with the seat slid forward two inches. I haven't had many passengers but most struggle to fit in with the seat all the way back so its not practical at all. But the bass would be insane in that little cabin.

I also got sick of the chain noise on the body so wrapped with a plastic flex tube.



Anybody know how much resin I would need to make a small fiberglass sub box that's molded to the floor and around the seat mounts so its as bigger volume as possible?

When you say that you used all the stanza components, did you use the ball joints also? The Stanza ball joint is 10mm wider than the 1200 one, has 10mm holes instead of 8mm. If you want you can use the late 120Y ball joints as they are the right length. But unfortunately you will have positive camber. Bus as you know that can be taken out through the strut tops.

P.S. I like your Oot.