Greetings from the Fraser factory, fresh out of the Manfeild track day, we all had a blast and it was great to see a good Fraser Car Club turnout.
The Fraser Team made a stop on our way down to Horopito Motors to fossick through the piles and piles of god knows what! We then drove up the mountain road to Turoa before heading down to Fielding on Friday night. Ida had booked a surprise, hiring “Fielding House” as our accommodation. It is a 5000sq/ft 100 year old bespoke Manor which was like stepping back in time and a pretty novel place to stay provided you don’t believe in ghosts!
Saturday at the track saw us put the white car through her paces again, running every session of the day bar two after our fan belt shredded and the water pump stopped pumping! A quick trip to Repco sorted that out and she was back out on the track quicker than you can say Luke stuck it in the tyres! Scott and Ida’s son Sol had his first track experience… and many off track experiences! And bar a bit of nose cone damage she drove all the way back to Auckland on Sunday.
While our Fraser drove straight home, the rest of us decided to take a detour to the geographical centre of the North Island. While a reasonably long gravel bash in and no real view when you get there, it is deep in the Pureora Forest and a pretty cool place to say that you have been.
Back to work on Monday and the Factory is full to the brim currently. Geoff’s restomod BMW 2002 has had the front half of the exhaust tacked up and a bunch of little fiddly jobs around the intercooler/radiator finished up. We then set out to redesign the rear of the car. As we don’t plan on running a rear bumper, we decided to remove bumper recess in the body to smooth the body lines in the rear. We also created pockets in the body work to allow for a rear diffuser and a central panel which will have the twin exhaust tips coming through. Bruce has done a great job and we think it looks fantastic.
Huge progress has happened on Martin’s 1989 Ford F150 truck. The new 409cc small block has arrived and been installed, the Holley high rise EFI intake is on and headers have been fitted up. Wiring has begun and the AC system is currently a work in progress. Compared to most of the cars we work on, this has been pretty straightforward as you can buy almost anything you want for it rather than having to design and build things to make it work. Things are moving fast on this project so we should see some good progress over the next few months,
Didier has had his Fraser in the shop for a bit of a birthday. Along with a service and a good look over, we have fitted some new daytime running lights, replaced the exhaust collector and had the whole exhaust system re-coated so it looks brand new again. He’s now good to go again for the next little while!
Work has restarted after a short hiatus on Callum’s rotary powered E30 BMW. We did not build this car but have been employed to assemble it and sort out everything from here to it being road legal. Luke has been busy designing, making up and installing the fuel system and the pedal box.
Ben has been hard at work installing new seats and belts into a beautiful 1955 100/4. We will then be running the car through certification and compliance to get it on the road for the customer. He has also just started work on a 1990’s Land Rover Discovery which was built in the UK and imported recently to find out that the seats and belts do not comply. We have come up with a solution and are now starting the fabrication phase to sort this out.
Richard has had his 1980 Chrysler Avenger V8 in our shop again, this time we have made up new front struts, adjustable lower suspension arms, a big brake package and a Tilton pedal box. Richard uses this car constantly and is at pretty much every car show there is so the pressure is on to get it back together for the new planned outing and we have lots to do between now and then!
Finally Stephen has just dropped his mental Fraser off for a few tweaks before it goes off for tuning and then back to us for trimming, finishing off and getting it road legal. This car was originally owned by Gary Frost who boldly decided to build a 500hp turbocharged Toyota 3SGTE for his Fraser. Gary never finished it and Stephen has taken over the reins of this beast. While it probably won’t make 500hp, it is still going to be a sight to behold and will be one hell of a handful!
