By far this has to be one of the best come back tours of all time, Dans car has been off the road for quite sometime now, but once its all done it’ll be all worth it, the goal is winton matsuri so its full steam ahead atm !

We decided a night of just tinkering on the car was needed, so we got together wednesday night and made a fair bit of progress in a short amount of time, just getting together and working on a car made so many laughs and smiles, it reminded me of the old days but as Ben once told me, “we’re living in the good old days”

Been a while between drinks, to be honest I lost a lot of motivation and love for it. I found myself parking it at my mums place and taking her car when she didnt need it. After a turn of events I found myself more motivated than ever, so I finally picked myself up and got the Boyds I bought almost 7 months ago to a local wheel shop to get them redrilled from 127 to 114.3. In my eyes, minitrucks and Boyds go hand in hand, so after getting the wheels back, testing fitting them I ordered tyres got them fitted the following day, with that came this huge excitement for the truck again after seeing it with the wheels on it.

The wheels completely changed the look of the car, and my thoughts on it. With this excitement I gave it a wash and found some wheel cleaner in the garage, glad I had some as it gave the wheels a whole new life! theyre still not the best but way better in comparison to before. It came with a tonneau cover, that i hated but I never got rid of the buttons that hold it down, finally did that and that really changed the look of it up again. Also updated the interior with my mizuno works shifter and some checkered floor mats.

Ive really fallen in love with it again, and it just feels good to modify something. Next up is filling up the holes where the tonneau buttons went, rear bumper and maybe some simple painted on graphics down the side. I also managed to pick up another two of them, one for a spare and one to replace one that has a few buckles !

Wednesday night here, decided to take a break from drawing up designs for some signs I have in the works to give an update on whats been going on! Car decided to break down on me, first at hangs then going to hangs a week later. checked everything and found the culprit was the wiring for the fuel pump regulator was disconnected! Simple fix as it was a plug in type of terminal, but i decided to get rid of all that and fix it properly.

Im no auto electrician, I am terrified of wiring, but the only way ill get over that is by doing it ! I Went out and got everything I needed and will need in the future. Also replaced a terminal on the fuel pump which wasnt doing any favours.

finally got one of these, why I didnt get one earlier is beyond me. Got it all done and the car is working perfectly !

From all that rain from the halfway weekend, i found my cylinder 4 plug was starting to corrode. As I run the twin oil cap cam covers to be able to have two breathers, im unable to run a valley cover as they only have the threads on the one side. Instead of buying another pair of covers to only need one, i decided to just get a spare non cap cover and get my man Benny to weld on a breather !

Amazing work as always from Benny. Ill be sanding down the letters, painting the covers to the standard 4age colours and then hand painting the lettering.

Ever since selling my feroce, its always been a thought in the back of my mind to get some wider wheels again. I love the streets and I wont be selling them, but wide 13s on corollas looks amazing, im happy to say the least, the only thing that can top this is if we get some dry weather and we can all go drifting !

-A

I like to think that what brings us all together is cars, they are definitely the seed, and from that seed blossoms friendships that last forever. Over the years of coming up to halfway hangs, this being number 9 now, the amount of friends I have made is insane and that’s probably the most rewarding feeling you can experience, seeing the happiness in peoples faces, feeling the smile coming from yourself as you see your friends who you haven’t seen in a year, right in front of you, its pure.

Over the last couple of years the event has been dealt the card of rain, but even with that the event never stops, and in saying that this year was the biggest the event has been, so much so the parking at Raleigh was starting to creep out past the entry gates, given how the world has been in the last 24 months, it was pretty cool to see!

Next year is 10 years of halfway hangs, Im hoping a lot of the older fellas come out of the wood work and get the band back together for a 1 off tour, I think that would be so awesome to see! to finish, each year it gets shown to us why this is the most looked forward to event, so big thanks to street karnage for all they do in organising this each and every year, and everything they do for the drifting community !

I’ll start off with some black and white photos, they seemed to have been really popular last year ! Enjoy !

-A

Tay’s S15 looking primo!

The last two years I’ve been spending on upgrading a lot of different parts on the corolla, basically gave it a long over dje birthday, I rebuilt the engine, replaced the drum brakes, all new front brakes and bearings, but the one thing I was really excited for was some fab work.

I’ve been spending most weekends since the start of the year prepping the car for the get down. Being the first event of the year and for the car since it’s been working properly, I’ve been eager to get everything sorted before hand instead of leaving it to the last minute.

One of the last things was fab work and a service, so I spoke to Benny and decided on a date.

I’ve also been attending to any items on the car that needed attention that would draw attention from cops, that being my oil catch can that was a old Sapporo beer can, my intake pipe that look rough as hell, and the throttle bracket which was terrible haha.

Arrived safety, was cool to park up next to dans car, it’s been a good 5 years once they were last together. Keen to see that car get done one day!

Some of the artwork I’ve done/given to Ben, hung up in his shop!

The end result, new intake pipe, throttle cable bracket, oil catch can and exhaust tip! So happy to be able to have some of Bens work on my car, nothing better than supporting your friends with what they do!

-A

Its almost coming up to that time of the year, about 34 days to be exact, until we make the pilgrimage to halfway hangs. Its always an exciting time but can also be stressful. As always, the get down will be happening on the Sunday. Most years I’ve always left any work I need to do on the car till the last minute, I’ve some how done a complete 180 this year, and should be done with everything I need to do and have plenty of time left to spare.

Im not usually a guy to set goals for the new year, for the most part I just go with the flow and keep living life. But this year I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and do things I would usually get pretty anxious about, one of those things is wiring. A couple of months back I bought a new omori tacho gauge as mine stopped working, I never looked into why it stopped working, being a drift car you don’t really look at the revs much so I just left it.

Set out on the weekend and got some tools and a basic wiring kit using a Christmas gift card.

Don’t have a photo of it all complete, I just ordered some carpet to change from the current black carpet I have. Once that’s in, and I give the interior a complete clean ill throw some photos up. Big ups to my boys Kev and Jake for helping me by answering my constant dumb questions.

With keeping the theme of 2022, by doing things that would usually make me anxious. I headed out with the fellas Kellyville t-way meet again on Friday night. Great way to finish the week, these events always have a nice chill vibe, bar a couple occasions with just p platers being idiots, hwy patrol even rock up to have a look and say hello which is a welcome change. I didn’t take too many photos as I was too busy chatting to people. Im glad these meets are still going, they always remind me of old jdmst eomm. The scene has defiantly changed since then, for good but also bad.

With Halfway hangs/the get down soon approaching, something like 48 days, the anxiety is real. But even though a deadline is dooming, this car will be finished, Kevs been spending hours after work, on the weekends and its great to see. In terms of what’s left, today was a big tick off the list, being a j160 it needs a custom mount as there isn’t anything off the shelf. With that being done, it leaves the car needing wiring, mount and wire a fuel pump, centre bearing, fluids and I’m sure some other small things, it should be done

First off we rolled out of Dans joint to pick up some new tyres for Kevs cruiser