83C's Shite-esque Fleet: Fleet Reduction Going Well.

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, cort1977 said:

Saw one fitted with a Harley engine which made me chuckle a bit.

Someone in the UK fitted a Yamaha bike engine to a Daihatsu, on the Hijet forum

[UltraWomble]

3 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Someone in the UK fitted a Yamaha bike engine to a Daihatsu, on the Hijet forum

That might be the ex husband of my dentist. 

Runs a bike breakers business in Shropshire somewhere. 

I'll have to see if I can find him and the photos on Facebook 

Edit - nah is a  ZZR1100  Rascal.

 

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, UltraWomble said:

That might be the ex husband of my dentist. 

Runs a bike breakers business in Shropshire somewhere. 

I'll have to see if I can find him and the photos on Facebook 

Edit - nah is a  ZZR1100  Rascal.

 

That not Matt's one, Derbyshire IIRC

[83C]

So, what have we got, and why?

It’s a 1993 Sambar KS4 - that means 4WD, 350kg load capacity and not much else. That said, the gearbox is a 5-sp plus EL (extra low), so six forward and one reverse gear, and the cab is surprisingly big for a Kei-class vehicle. I’m a fat 6 an’ arf footer and I can fit with ease. Right elbow room is better than a Defender. 

The interior is basic. And filthy:

Clearly a working vehicle then. However, it is fairly tidy so it must have been looked after somehow. The only major interior faults are this:

And this:

The seat I don’t recall being ripped when I saw the pics of the vehicle so that might have happened during loading/unloading. The headlining dropping is something I’ve seen on other vehicles that have been shipped long distance, hopefully a bit of double sided tape will sort that out. The driver’s seat base ideally needs a retrim but I doubt anywhere here would be able to match the fabric, so I’ll keep my eye out for a spare base. 

Next job is to remove all the shipping graffiti from the windscreen:

Now you might be asking ‘why?’ and believe me, I’d like to know the answer too, so here’s a stab at answering the question:

Some months ago, I wondered about the feasibility of importing a vehicle from somewhere. I posted here about my previously hidden desires, with ideas ranging from a European Opel Omega A through Japanese vehicles to something from Australia like a Falcon XR6 or a Commodore. This had its roots in an idea a year or so previously when one of the proposed methods of transport for my Australian trip was to go there and buy an old Aussie saloon like a BA Falcon or VE Commodore because it was cheaper than renting. That idea got put on the back burner when the plan changed to using a motorhome, but even so whilst I was there I did look at a nice VE Commodore SS and a couple of utes with an eye to bringing one home as the ultimate shiter’s souvenir. 

For practical reasons this didn’t happen, but the idea wouldn’t go away. Fast forward to April this year and I began toying with the idea again. Then I stumbled on carfromjapan.com, and with the aid of three pints of rum and coke to ease the fears, I sent an expression of interest in a Subaru Sambar - the very one pictured above. Being the first time I’d done anything like this, I decided to go low risk - Kei trucks are relatively cheap to import (the shipping is by far the biggest cost) and if buying the correct one the import taxes are minimal. I looked at several different machines including Honda Actys, Daihatsu HiJets and others, but the Subaru was supposed to have the biggest cab so that swung it for me. There are loads to choose from, and this particular example was chosen because it looked ok and more importantly was cheap - £750 or thereabouts. So at the end of May I sent £2,600 to carfromjapan, including going through the usual bank account fraud checks where they said about the money being gone with no chance of recovery if I got it wrong, and then I got confirmation that I had indeed bought a small Subaru. carfromjapan were upfront about the long lead time for shipping, reckoning on at least 13-16 weeks to find space on a ship and then go from Nagoya to Bristol. In the event it was 22 weeks between paying and collecting the vehicle from Portbury.

As it sits on the driveway, it owes me £2926. That is the purchase price, shipping, insurance, 5% VAT (chargeable on the total of the first three expenses), then port fees (documentation and vehicle handling) for Portbury and shipping agent fees this end for handling paying the VAT and making a NOVA declaration on my behalf. To get it on the road will be £15 for a rear fog light, £50 for an MoT, £55 to register the vehicle with DVLA and probably £20-30 for a set of JDM-size numberplates, so if all goes well it’ll be on the road for just under £3100. These little pickups are fairly rare here and seem to go for £3500 upwards as there is a growing scene for them (and they’re already very popular in the US) so it’s then the choice of whether I do a few things to tidy it (retrim the seats, better stereo, have the load bar behind the cab powdercoated etc) and ask for more money, or whether I just go for £3500 and hope to make my money back and a few quid for a drink and the time I’ve put in. If anyone is interested, PM me. I’m hoping to get an MoT on it later next week while I have access to the trailer but I’m more than happy to listen to offers from others who want to do the paperwork themselves and be the first owner on the logbook. I would like a drive of it on U.K. roads but it’s all been a bit of a journey of exploration for buying something a bit more ‘me’, which I’d like to do maybe next year. 

I’d definitely do all of this again, and it’s not as scary as it first seems - JDM import companies can do all the work for you from selecting a car through to delivering it MoT’d and registered but of course you pay for their time and effort in doing so. I don’t know exactly what a professional import company would have charged for the same vehicle delivered and on the road, but I’d be very surprised if I had much change out of £4,500 or even £5,000 judging by some of the ones I’ve seen advertised over the last 6 months. Of course I could have bought a really tidy newer one, but that not only means more outlay on the vehicle,  there would also be 10% import duty and 20% VAT to pay on arrival. If your vehicle+shipping+insurance is £6k that’s an extra £1800 to find which is a fair old chunk of money. The next few days (weather permitting) will be tidy and get the vehicle ready for test, apart from the fog light it’s a damn good clean and a check of all the basics away from being ready.

[83C]

Today I finally started to get into the work on the Sambar, beginning with a slightly more in depth look at the engine:

The first surprise was rather pleasant - the alternator looks almost new.

The next surprise was somewhat less pleasant:

Thats the air filter and it’s fucked. New one (and an oil filter) ordered. This one isn’t going back in, it can go for MoT without. 

Speaking of the MoT, it’s booked in for Thursday. This means I need to get a fog light on it, so to that end I ordered a universal fog light wiring kit (universally fits absolutely nothing) and an LED fog light. Laying out the wiring on the truck bed showed that nothing was quite in the right place but it wasn’t far off, so could probably be bodged in. First job was to find somewhere for the fog light switch, and a handy blanking panel on the right of the dash presented itself as an ideal candidate for a session with the step drill:

At this point, I fucked up. Removing the wires from the back of the plug (just simple spade connectors) I managed to pull the wires out of one, so it was off to Halfords for a spare because like a tool I forgot to replenish my stocks of various connectors and terminals when I used the last lot. 

While I was on my way there, I got to thinking about making a few small changes to make the wiring fit better.

Things quickly escalated:

New plan is to extend the loom where necessary, starting with adding an econoseal-type plug to the rear fog light. Next up was adding an extra 600mm to the spur for the switch, and adding the female side of the econoseal plug to the spools of wire ready for tomorrow. The rear fog light will be attached for now with some double-sided numberplate pads, as I’m not particularly happy with either the style of the lamp or where it’s going to be placed. It’ll do for getting an MoT though.

Tomorrow the leads that connect to the battery and extend back to the rear bumper will get extended and clipped into place, and barring putting the cab floor mats back in it should be ready for test.

[Asimo]

That air filter!     Glad I don’t live where it’s come from.

[83C]

I decided to work from the front of the Sambar to the back, altering the loom as required. 

First step, fit the new switch in place:

Then trail the wires down to a handy grommet:

And secure along the chassis until the battery was reached. The two terminals provided on the loom looked a bit iffy:

And they were also too big. They got chopped off and a more substantial but smaller diameter pair fitted. 

The rear section of the loom ran back along various securing points and around the inside of the engine hatch, but was around 500mm short, so the previously half-finished econoseal plug and wires were cut to length and spliced in:

Then it was just a matter of finding a mounting location for the lamp:

And for a special bonus point, it even worked:

The location is temporary as it just needed to get through its first MoT, so we’ll ignore the wire trailing up and over the rear engine hatch - this will be routed properly when the final location is decided.

Then it was refit carpets/mats:

And it’s now at the MoT garage. Should be done sometime tomorrow, and hopefully collected Friday.

[83C]

Working on something slightly bigger today:

This is the upper crankcase for a McLaren-Benz 60hp MDB4, with one cylinder head partly attached. The aim of the exercise today was to clean the mating surfaces where the cylinder liners sit and trial fit the assembly of liner (inc. copper sealing ring), lower rubber seal, lower liner clamp and the retaining assemblies. The order goes something like this: slide liner in towards an alignment tool that uses the same fixing points as the lower clamp, then fit a cylinder head and nip it up so that it pushes on the liner to sit properly in the block, then remove the alignment tool and attach the lower retaining fittings. 

A view from the bottom of the crankcase:

This is the sump/lower crankcase:

And it’s all going in this:

Kerr, Stuart 4415 is one of the oldest surviving diesel locos in the world, it was built in Stoke on Trent in 1928 as a 2’ gauge demonstrator. It went initially to the Welsh Highland Railway, did some time on the Festiniog Railway, then got regauged to 3’ for work in Ireland. Following this it came back to England, was regauged back to 2’ and exported to Mauritius in the mid 1930s. It was used there for nearly 40 years, then plinthed until it was rescued in the 1990s and brought back to North Wales. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is probably the most involved internal combustion loco restoration ever attempted, the engine in particular has been the source of many headaches. The MDB4 was an early production diesel power unit, and got fitted in a number of different things as well as being popular for repowering steam rollers. However, virtually all of them are gone. 4415’s own MDB4 got slung out in the 1940s for a similar 80hp MR4, but it was in very poor condition by the time the loco came back. A running McLaren M4 was acquired but required far too much surgery to make fit. Eventually a correct MDB4 was sourced but it was near scrap - crankcase cracked, crankshaft snapped, fuel pump and loads of other bits missing, but it was all that could be found. Still, nothing that an awful lot of time, effort and fundraising couldn’t sort. 

It’s taken several years but things are beginning to come together. The fitting of the liner assembly today was a dry run for next time, where all 4 liners should be fitted properly. The new crank (all £10k’s worth of it) is ready to go in, the new camshaft in the refurbished cam carrier assembly is ready, as are plenty of other bits. The main item outstanding is the fuel pump - the main body has been cast and machined, and work is progressing on the design and manufacturing of the internals. Still, a few more years and hopefully 4415 will be a fully working machine once again, and I’m very happy to have a very small part in making it happen.

[High Jetter]

Just...wow

[IronStar]

On 02/11/2024 at 18:57, 83C said:

So, what have we got, and why?

It’s a 1993 Sambar KS4 - that means 4WD, 350kg load capacity and not much else. That said, the gearbox is a 5-sp plus EL (extra low), so six forward and one reverse gear, and the cab is surprisingly big for a Kei-class vehicle. I’m a fat 6 an’ arf footer and I can fit with ease. Right elbow room is better than a Defender. 

The interior is basic. And filthy:

Clearly a working vehicle then. However, it is fairly tidy so it must have been looked after somehow. The only major interior faults are this:

And this:

The seat I don’t recall being ripped when I saw the pics of the vehicle so that might have happened during loading/unloading. The headlining dropping is something I’ve seen on other vehicles that have been shipped long distance, hopefully a bit of double sided tape will sort that out. The driver’s seat base ideally needs a retrim but I doubt anywhere here would be able to match the fabric, so I’ll keep my eye out for a spare base. 

Next job is to remove all the shipping graffiti from the windscreen:

Now you might be asking ‘why?’ and believe me, I’d like to know the answer too, so here’s a stab at answering the question:

Some months ago, I wondered about the feasibility of importing a vehicle from somewhere. I posted here about my previously hidden desires, with ideas ranging from a European Opel Omega A through Japanese vehicles to something from Australia like a Falcon XR6 or a Commodore. This had its roots in an idea a year or so previously when one of the proposed methods of transport for my Australian trip was to go there and buy an old Aussie saloon like a BA Falcon or VE Commodore because it was cheaper than renting. That idea got put on the back burner when the plan changed to using a motorhome, but even so whilst I was there I did look at a nice VE Commodore SS and a couple of utes with an eye to bringing one home as the ultimate shiter’s souvenir. 

For practical reasons this didn’t happen, but the idea wouldn’t go away. Fast forward to April this year and I began toying with the idea again. Then I stumbled on carfromjapan.com, and with the aid of three pints of rum and coke to ease the fears, I sent an expression of interest in a Subaru Sambar - the very one pictured above. Being the first time I’d done anything like this, I decided to go low risk - Kei trucks are relatively cheap to import (the shipping is by far the biggest cost) and if buying the correct one the import taxes are minimal. I looked at several different machines including Honda Actys, Daihatsu HiJets and others, but the Subaru was supposed to have the biggest cab so that swung it for me. There are loads to choose from, and this particular example was chosen because it looked ok and more importantly was cheap - £750 or thereabouts. So at the end of May I sent £2,600 to carfromjapan, including going through the usual bank account fraud checks where they said about the money being gone with no chance of recovery if I got it wrong, and then I got confirmation that I had indeed bought a small Subaru. carfromjapan were upfront about the long lead time for shipping, reckoning on at least 13-16 weeks to find space on a ship and then go from Nagoya to Bristol. In the event it was 22 weeks between paying and collecting the vehicle from Portbury.

As it sits on the driveway, it owes me £2926. That is the purchase price, shipping, insurance, 5% VAT (chargeable on the total of the first three expenses), then port fees (documentation and vehicle handling) for Portbury and shipping agent fees this end for handling paying the VAT and making a NOVA declaration on my behalf. To get it on the road will be £15 for a rear fog light, £50 for an MoT, £55 to register the vehicle with DVLA and probably £20-30 for a set of JDM-size numberplates, so if all goes well it’ll be on the road for just under £3100. These little pickups are fairly rare here and seem to go for £3500 upwards as there is a growing scene for them (and they’re already very popular in the US) so it’s then the choice of whether I do a few things to tidy it (retrim the seats, better stereo, have the load bar behind the cab powdercoated etc) and ask for more money, or whether I just go for £3500 and hope to make my money back and a few quid for a drink and the time I’ve put in. If anyone is interested, PM me. I’m hoping to get an MoT on it later next week while I have access to the trailer but I’m more than happy to listen to offers from others who want to do the paperwork themselves and be the first owner on the logbook. I would like a drive of it on U.K. roads but it’s all been a bit of a journey of exploration for buying something a bit more ‘me’, which I’d like to do maybe next year. 

I’d definitely do all of this again, and it’s not as scary as it first seems - JDM import companies can do all the work for you from selecting a car through to delivering it MoT’d and registered but of course you pay for their time and effort in doing so. I don’t know exactly what a professional import company would have charged for the same vehicle delivered and on the road, but I’d be very surprised if I had much change out of £4,500 or even £5,000 judging by some of the ones I’ve seen advertised over the last 6 months. Of course I could have bought a really tidy newer one, but that not only means more outlay on the vehicle,  there would also be 10% import duty and 20% VAT to pay on arrival. If your vehicle+shipping+insurance is £6k that’s an extra £1800 to find which is a fair old chunk of money. The next few days (weather permitting) will be tidy and get the vehicle ready for test, apart from the fog light it’s a damn good clean and a check of all the basics away from being ready.

Great, now I’m looking at importing a Kei truck. 🤦‍♂️ 

Apparently, no RHD cars rule doesn’t apply to anything classes as historical vehicle, so 30+ cars are a fair game. Which means - I see a Daihatsu Hijet in my future. I can get one delivered to Italy for about 2k€, and get it shipped from there for another 3-500€. Plus import fees and plates, but if my calculation is right, it should be registered and insured for about 3k. Serbia needs a Kei truck! 😄

[High Jetter]

9 minutes ago, IronStar said:

I see a Daihatsu Hijet in my future. I can get one delivered to Italy

Wait - Piaggio built them under licence, there's loads of them there already!

[Stinkwheel]

Sorry for the thread hijack to ask a dumb question. Does anyone know if a similar site/service to 'carfromjapan.com' exists for motorcycles?

[Westbay]

19 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

Sorry for the thread hijack to ask a dumb question. Does anyone know if a similar site/service to 'carfromjapan.com' exists for motorcycles?

ttps://japanmotorcycleexport.com

https://www.ts-export.com/page.php?page=about_motorbikes

https://www.japanesecartrade.com/type/bikes-29.html

 

[83C]

The Sambar is back from MoT - it’s a clean pass which is nice. Now for the dreaded V55/5 form. I’m hoping that they recognise the Sambar as being sufficiently old that it doesn’t need a Certificate of Conformity (imports over 10 years old) but the guidance on the .gov website is a bit woolly on it. Still, we’ll see. Any hints/tips, @LightBulbFun?

The 106 has gone, meaning I’m down to just the 5 vehicles at the moment. I do have one inbound, but the Sambar will be the next to be sold. Getting the 106 from its storage space in the back garden required moving the Arnage and partially dismantling the car tent that it lives in, I was a bit worried that the fuel might have degraded (it’s been in the tent for over a year) but it started and ran fine. There isn’t much in there but it’ll get a couple of cans of Super in the next week or two to dilute whatever is in the tank, and then it’ll be left alone over winter with a plan to be back on the road at the end of March. All it should need is an MoT, it was working fine when it got put away. 

[LightBulbFun]

On 16/11/2024 at 09:21, 83C said:

The Sambar is back from MoT - it’s a clean pass which is nice. Now for the dreaded V55/5 form. I’m hoping that they recognise the Sambar as being sufficiently old that it doesn’t need a Certificate of Conformity (imports over 10 years old) but the guidance on the .gov website is a bit woolly on it. Still, we’ll see. Any hints/tips, @LightBulbFun?

 

nothing to worry about at all as long as its NOVA declared and all duties paid its fairly easy sailling  as you say its over 10 years so does not need a CoC, and just put that down as the reason why its exempt from type approval and a lot of the boxes in the V55/5 are only there if you have a CoC, 

you only really need to fill out Make, Model, VIN, Engine number, wheelplan, fuel type and simple stuff like that, basically just look at the V5 for any 1990's or older Vehicle etc and it will give you a good idea of whats actually required to be filled out on the V55/5

much of it you dont really need to worry about, its only relevent if your registering a vehicle via CoC, so for example you dont need to worry about knowing/trying to find out its "stationary sound level" etc  if you want when you have done it, feel free to PM me a scan/photo of it filled out and ill be happy to go over it as a 2nd pair of eyes  (ill tag in @Dave_Q also since I know he is also fairly experianced in matters like this, incase I have missed out any worthwhile details/points worth noting)

 

 

the only other thing I can think of is, due to how the DVLA computer system works, which you can read about in detail

https://autoshite.com/topic/58374-collection-mission-to-spain-completed-it-m8/page/36/#comment-3026915

if you put down "Subaru Samba" as the Make and Model, the V5 might just come back with just "Subaru" with no model information on it since the DVLA have no make code for "Samba" under Subaru"

I do note however there is fairly generic Subaru pick up" make model code with the DVLA

https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/browse/subaru

so if you think it counts as a pick-up, you could register it as that if you want it to be fully coded with the DVLA   

 

[83C]

I sold the Triumph Tiger because I wasn’t using it, I don’t think it really turned a wheel all summer. I thought I’d wait until spring, maybe save a few quid, you know, sensible stuff.

So this morning I took delivery of this:

[Dave_Q]

Nice, is it a CBR6 F4?

[83C]

2 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

Nice, is it a CBR6 F4?

Slightly* bigger - CBR1100XX Super Blackbird.

[83C]

Finally getting around to spending some money on the Range Rover. There’s always been a rip in the boot floor carpet but in the last few months Charlie the dog found it and made it bigger:

Finally got sufficiently irritated with it that I found a correct colour (blue) replacement boot floor:

Much better. Got a few more boxes of bits on their way too.