John's '89 240 Wagon "Warick"

@wzrdovryndr they are a direct bolt on but you will need to remove the 10mm brake rotor retaining bolts.

I am running 15x7 -0 from Dynamic Wheel Co in QLD. They only offer them in that size in black but pretty cheap at $90/rim, most tyre shops can order them in for you.

So the latest saga began when I got given one of these things:

On my way through Northbridge to pick up @JakobC's keys that he had lost at the club the night before, the cops felt like expressing their dislike for how low Warick was in the rear (tucking a fair bit), his LED indicators, or the overall volume in his vicinity hahaha (their description was "emissions")

So I changed the rear tyres and spare to match the front, some Hifly HF805s in 205/50R15 (vs. existing 215/65R15) and got an alignment while I was at it. I swapped the cut King SL rear springs for my old IPD ones. The combo made it look a lot more "respectable."

Initially I was running just the stock resonator and nothing else, so got that changed for a triple flow muffler which quietened it down a lot. Put some halogen indicators in too just in case.

Took it to get inspected at All Autos in Balcatta and they told me to:

Headlights, timing cover, pedal pads, mod permit were all easy and sorted same day. The bonnet took a night of tweaking and messing around with different combinations of washers but it's spot on now.

The stickers and brake lines were the main sticking points - before I left All Autos I spoke to the guy and he was completely adamant that all the stickers on the car needed to be removed, so I decided not to take it back there for the next inspection. I did a lot of research and couldn't really come to the conclusion that they were all 100% illegal. I decided as a result to remove/move the ones that were in my "line of sight" (front of the rear passenger windows, rear windscreen).

I called HEL in QLD and they managed to confirm for me that all their brake lines are ADR compliant but didn't really go into too much detail. A friend suggested maybe the concern was rub-through of the stainless braid so I cable tied some heater hose over the front lines prior to the next inspection.

On another friend's advice I tried taking it to Pebco instead, they were pretty happy with it but came up with a few things:

I was much happier about the sticker situation and sorted that overnight.

The guy said the lines did not mention that they were ADR compliant on them, but not to worry about covering them up with rubber. Apparently although it was close, the overall rolling diameter was too different for it to comply, which I checked afterwards and I don't believe to be true since the spec on the placard only says 185 R 14 and does not specify a profile.

So I did some research, it turns out that HEL lines are compliant to plenty of specs however the most applicable in terms of ADRs is FMVSS 106 (US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards), which in ADR 42/04 S.15 it states are of suitable standard for flexible brake hoses. I printed a copy of that and the test certificate from HEL's website to bring with me.

Brandon (@themrlopez) kindly lent me a set of stockies which had Warick looking like Mitch's (@mitchell.rock) car for a day ?

Since my first inspection the reverse switch in my M46 gave up, so I had to come up with an alternative otherwise I knew I wouldn't have been compliant for the LB1 form (reverse lights have to work by law). As a workaround I got a few different types of momentary switches from Jaycar, and ended up settling on a Himake SM1039 SPDT micro switch which I extended the arm of with a bit of coathanger wire and made a bracket to mount it to the rear reverse lockout bar bolt, and made up a short cable to go from the connector under the dash to the switch. It took a bit of bending and patience to adjust but it works really well.

So after all that I gave it another go and it passed! (thank fuck)

Big thanks for everyone's help and support, very important as there is a certain amount of impending doom that one feels on a daily basis knowing there's a yellow sticker on their windscreen.

Of course the requisite thing to do when you get a yellow off is to return everything to how it was, which is mostly what I did lol

On top of that I fitted the strut brace @polaris1955 sold me and since fully opaque stickers on windscreens are against the law I decided to put the banner I had on the side of the car instead.

That pretty much wraps it up though, next steps for Warick are to figure out a stiffer rear spring solution and to work on sanding/polishing my pair of Armorlites.

@ramrod Ah, I see that makes a lot of sense. The ones I borrowed were 195/75R14 ?

thanks @AshDVS very handy to know

definitely in need of some stiffer rear springs, it scrapes over everything haha

So not a huge amount has really happened with the wagon since I posted last, other than making a few tweaks to some things. Have taken it to a few events and i've been dailying it as usual and it's driving beautifully.

Shortly after my last post the centre uni joint in my driveshaft got overwhelmingly bad, to the point that half of one of the bearing caps was missing. The noise was unbearable (har har) so I managed to get a replacement from Lintrex via my mate Cyzzy (@monkabeanman). Fitting it was a bit of a task but not impossible, now I have some correctly sized pre-squished nasty quality sockets that will now only be designated for that job.

Got a whole lot of parts from IPD about a month ago which I have honestly been really lazy about installing but I have done the shifter boot which was annoying me most. Next on the list will be window scrapers and a front engine overhaul - plugs, leads, cap, rotor, new timing belt (current one has a nick on the top of it), cam and intermediate shaft seals, crank seal, new water pump.

Last winter the 1000w amp that Mitch (@mitchell.rock) gave me many moons ago got flooded when I drove through a puddle. I have it mounted inside the drivers' side buttcheek as it keeps the boot tidy, but the rubber seal on the drain hole was semi torn - enough to let water in but not back out again so it was like someone swinging a bucket around, water sloshing everywhere. I pulled the power cable on it as soon as I could but it fried the "rear" channel on it. I managed to solve the issue by sealing the hole with some stuff from Bunnings (brass 20mm hex plugs and back nuts, seals from a variety bag) and a few washers I ordered from eBay. The "front" channel has been working okay since, but of late it has been quite noisy when my stereo is set to a low volume, and sometimes in certain circumstances causes a bit of a weird feedback loop. Turns out although my roof lights were wired (in my opinion) really well, they were the culprit. I have some other plans for that regardless so I have just removed them completely for now.

The other addition - more stickers! The numbers are inspired by my late granddad Robert Annear who raced with it in the late 60s and 70s on a few different cars including his self-built blown Holden 202 powered tubeframe alloy special and highly modified Peugeot 203 and happen to be the same as my usual ice hockey jersey number so it's a logical choice really!

Some pics, big thanks to Stephen (@fat_hin_0421) for the first one and to Snail (@snail_official) for his lovely 964 and even lovelier smile ?

Time for another update, can't believe the last one was almost a year ago now ?

Hard to remember what's happened in that much time honestly but here goes...

The uni joint mischief continued - as always when you fix one thing you notice the next. First I changed front one, then the rear. A fair bit down the track I realised that I managed to make a disaster of installing the centre one that Cyzzy gave me - one needle bearing had somehow ended up inside the top of the cap, so I had to replace it a second time.

I did end up doing plugs, leads, cap and rotor, timing belt, seals and water pump, has been great since. The crank seal went in a bit sideways so I have gotten another and will redo it, is still sealing fine though. At the same time I will probably install the K cam I have sitting around, and have a go at reseating the water pump - it has a very slow leak I think from the top rubber seal which goes up against the head.

The butt cheeks have been nice and dry since I did the mod I mentioned in my last post which is great! ?

I got given another yellow sticker in Feb which was really as a result of my driving rather than the condition of my car, but as a result I ended up removing some of the stickers and have mucked around with a few other things to make it look a bit more "legal" at first glance.

The main thing on that was the spring and tyre combination, i've settled on the combination of the existing DVS Special springs with 1 1/2 coils cut out in the front and IPD lowering springs in the rear, with 205/55R15 Hifly HF805s - I think this is the right combination of "not too low" and "not too low profile" but still "doesn't look shit"

So part of making sure the cops leave me alone was to completely replace the taillights, the existing ones were starting to perish and crack, the bulb holders seemed to need adjusting every other week, basically they only worked part of the time. I didn't really feel like changing them for some mediocre quality replacement ones which would need replacing in a few years.

The best solution I could come up with was some Narva sealed LED units. To mount these I got some sheet steel which I cut and bent to fit the holes where the existing lights were. I mounted the fill-in panels using rivnuts, sprinkler risers as spacers and some M5 phillips head bolts through the existing holes. I used sikaflex to seal the edges and then spraypainted them to match the body - I was then able to mount the new taillights to the panels. I think the result is pretty good, most importantly they are super bright and work extremely reliably.

I also decided to change up the roof rack a bit, I sold the existing one and bought separately a 3/4 length flat rack and some side brackets from Kings, there was a bit of modification required but I really like how well the result looks and how well it fits the car.

I can't help thinking about how glad I am to have a daily driver that is fairly reliable and drives well.

Not far off the close of this era - I've had an '04 CR-V as a daily/weekend camper for 3 or 4 months now and the wagon has been filling in as my roommate's temporary daily because his E30 blew a head gasket, but have been putting feelers out and finally someone's coming to have a look this Saturday.

I ended up having to replace the rear trailing arm bushings and the pedalbox recently as both were a lot worse for wear, and have done a few things to tidy it up (including removing all the stickers )

The last 4 and a half years of ownership have been great, I'm very lucky to have had such a reliable and charming car.

I'll always be thankful to the previous owner Warick who did me a great deal knowing I had just crashed my 244 and seeing my passion for the car. I won't forget that kindness and make sure I pass what I can onto other irresponsible young petrolhead(s) someday