Banpei's new TA60 family cruiser

[banpei]

Today the weather finally allowed me to do a bit of work on the Carina. So I fitted a fuel pressure regulator to allow the excess fuel to flow back via the original return line instead of overflowing the carb. Luckily there were some OEM bolt holes that I could reuse for this purpose:

From what I could see, this is usually where components of the power steering and aircon are supposed to sit on the JDM Carina.

Most time was spent on unblocking the return line. The people who rebuilt the engine plugged it to prevent fuel fumes from entering the engine bay. However, they did this with some sealant. I tried pulling it out, but that didn't work. Then I tried a tiny screw and use that to help to unplug it. Then it hit me that I could use the vacuum pump on my brake bleeding kit to suck it out. This actually worked quite well.

The engine now runs a lot smoother and starts immediately even when the engine is hot. Previously, a hot engine meant the carb sometimes got flooded with petrol and then I would have issues starting it again. If you're interested, you can read more about it here. So that seems to be another job I can cross from the list.

Another thing I did today was trial fit this Italvolanti Admiral wooden steering wheel:

I picked it up for a very cheap price and was thinking about two options: 1) fit it in the Carina or 2) find another cheap Italvolanti steering wheel (not the Formel) and mount it on top of it and make it a cheap imitation of the Initial D version of the Admiral.
It looks nice with the brown/tan interior of the Carina, but I removed it again and will go for option 2.

Next up is replacing the brake pads with the OEM ones I was gifted recently. I never really liked these aftermarket ones. So hopefully that will improve things as well.