I'll do small jobs for people, engine conversions, LSD installs, fitting arches, seat mods, strut strengthening and the occasional floorpan or front panel but am time poor to do a full resto for someone. I also do the odd fibreglass part when required !

I've not given up, just been busy with a few other things and avoiding the humidity last week where it reached about 70% and 35deg , it was so thick you could almost taste it... Ok Mr QLDers out there with their 98% humid all day , we down here are whimps !! After the build up of fat clouds last Wednesday, the heavens opened with fury, those in Vic prolly cought it too. We was on bucket patrol in the house where the water busted thru the roof at 2am till the storm passed . Here's some pics of the weather out my back yard that afternoon..

This was just the start of it..


The crooked plate at the top of the door way is an old parcel shelf mold to try and steer the water away from coming in.. the next day I assessed how far the water got into the shed and there was 'tide lines' where the river followed back into the shed and down towards the house. Also the tide line from the road came a couple metres past the letterbox, almost near where the misso parks her car at.. the drains didn't cope at all, shed gutters filled with mud doesn't help either... Quite a crazy week lol.

Once I get some proper progress on the car again I'll resume as normal

I've been wondering how you guys over there have been fairing. Not much better in the West, fires and constant 40 degree days, I haven't been in the garage for weeks.
 
Fire, floods and plagues, maybe someones trying to tell us something

That weather was pretty wild hey marty! I was the same, just waiting for something to break and for the waters to flood something in the house garage etc, fortunately we were ok!

Hey drewdog, my fat thumb accidentally did a 👎 and I can't reverse it, sorry there😞.
Been off this post 2 weeks doing an impossible task of trying to make the Veloster back seats fit and work in an Escort , and the answer is no but they can almost..

The first job is measure the width of a stocker seat and see what is the best approach to tackling it without making yourself cry and throw a tanty . The base seat is similar straight forward, just peel back the cover and trim 40mm from each side and refit the cover taking up slack, no brainer there... But there's the mounting which I'll get to in another post as I've only used straps to locate it's approxed position for now.

As you see the backrest is ginormous in there as it sits resting there. So I pulled the backrests apart to work out a plan of attack and to keep the pattern flowing to match . The seat is made of 1in round tube.
I'm lucky they didn't need any width removed, only height and a slight mod to go around the arch. I removed about 80mm from the height and welded it back together keeping it all straight. Next I fitted the foam and trimmed that to about where I guess it needs to be, of it's wrong I can glue some back on . This is a trial fit with cover which now needs cutting and stitching. The back board will also require cutting to match


Today I had modified the other piece to match and made a crude centre hinge just for testing. Later I welded both sides together as it's easier to work with one than muck about one side at a time. I re fitted the foam with zip ties as temporary to see how it all goes in..



Once happy with the placement I'll weld strikers and locaters as in the donor car. I'm thinking I'll notch the diff tunnel so the seat base will sit lower this allowing the backs to also go lower as an not quite happy where they hang right now and they do have headrests so I don't want the back view being compromised..

Small Ford Sunday 27fth at Birdwood hoping to get there to look around and chat to people

I agree with the no headrest approach, think that will keep it clean.

Im heading up to the small ford show also!
 

very clever Marty. 
As usual you make it look and sound simple.

All good Marty hadn't noticed until you mentioned it.
Wow on the rear seats, I'd leave the headrests out, they always tend to clash on the front seats when you fold them down in smaller cars.

Welcome back me !!
I decided to purchase a 6sp box on the cheap from a Toyota 86/ Subaru BRZ, not sure why but I came to a strange coincidence.
The first one is a old Toyota Celica yoke fits perfectly which is handy to know, and plenty other Toyota makes.
The second one is the gear cluster casings are virtually identical to a RX-8 one ( both made in the Aisin plant) , as I had the both parked together, drain plug and stuff, some bits are different but wouldn't affect anything.
The third one is the belhousing bolt pattern is the same meaning that an RX-8 bell can bolt up if needed making the adapter plate to zetec or duratec more easy.
The ratios in the 86 box are better than RX-8 and can take more abuse, up to around 350bhp , I'm yet to know if this is correct or not..
Only drawback with the 86 box is the extension shifter arrangement where some engineering will need to be done to bring it forward to be inline with the other shifters positions..
Clutch spline is Subaru obviously..
Here's some pics, shiny box is gt86 , dusty one is RX-8..

BRZ/ 86 box
Rx8 box

Both

Yes welcome back that man there. CF forum lives.
 
Interesting about the boxes, I suppose they didnt expect the Subie to rev out the 11,000 rpm like the rotary did? Not that mine ever did either..
 
so does that mean you are going down the duratec or XR5 route?
 
I saw a youtube guy make up an adapter plate for an electric motor to 4 speed conversion just using an aluminimum plate about 1" and a jigsaw to cut it out. You would have seen the UK guys who have started selling RX8 to Duratec adapters a few years ago, I'm sure you will make one Marty. Do you know if there is any particular ally spec that it needs to be made from?