I have had a little more time with the L200 to look over what I have as well as drive it some more. It's given me a chance to think about what my plans are for it. For a start the 3 speed Auto that the previous owner installed has to go as it's terrible. I think this was put in just to get the car functioning for sale after the v8 auto was removed. The kickdown cable is not installed due to the weber upgrade and given 3 gears to play with and a less than ideal gear ratio they have for the stock rear diff the RPM are obnoxiously high for how slow you are travelling. Power delivery is very soft and mushy. It feels like driving a manual with a very Slippy clutch and the hand brake on at the same time. Its robbing a lot of power and fun from the driving experience.
I don't want to get to invested in this 2lt Astron 4g52 motor that it's running in it now. As my long term plan is a complete engine swap to a more modern power plant. That said I do want to run this motor until I gather all the parts needed for the motor swap and that could take some time. So the short-term plan is to get a 5-speed manual back in and make the vehicle functional again.
I have collected a few parts to return it back to manual again.
In the photo I just needed a shifter assembly that was missing, and I picked one up Yesterday so that's all sorted. Clutch cable will be the last part I need. Given it's a sigma borgwarner 5 speed and sigma engine I am working with. I assume a sigma clutch cable would be best though the firewall end of the cable could be different on the l200 . So some more research on what cable is going to work best is in order before making that purchase.
There is a big list of other things that will need to be sorted in general on the vehicle. Some more important than others. The wheels that it has on it now are 16" and the tires are to large to fit properly up front. (I think the tires are just what he had laying around) from memory they are 215- 60 - 16" the width is within the slightly rolled and flared guards. Though the overall diameter is too big or a diameter and a little too wide to give adequate inner clearances under full suspension travel. I'm thinking perhaps 195 and a 50 or 55 profile could be a better fit. I wouldn't want to go much lower than that in profile though as the ride would get to rough.
As for the round headlights. I don't think my l200 had the swap done the proper way as the light fixtures and springs/screw adjustments that hold the lamps to the body should tie into the front grill support metal structure. My lights and springs are attached to the grill itself. The adjusting screws that aim the lamps are not functional as it sits. It was a bit disappointing to see this but I'm sure I can make them more functional by fabricating some tabs to weld behind the lamps that align with the adjusting screws and achieve correctly adjustable and aimed lamps. The front radiator support has been modified to make it removable with a few bolts you can remove this section. This was to aid with the installation of the previous large v8. So this will make removing the 4cyl a very easy job.
The hand break has to be sorted as it's not original and was just a odd mockup to pass track scrutineering requirements when it had the v8. Though new rear brake cylinders where just installed.
There is a lot smaller things to sort out. Most of it is to get the vehicle back to a functional ride for the streets and hopefully take a much more considered...polished and functional approached to the future mods and fabrication on the vehicle. As that aspect has been a bit neglected as it stands.
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