New Aussie Cappo owner
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:31
Hi
Greg here from Sydney, Australia.
I'd been looking for a Cappo since seeing one in a small country town (Blaney, NSW) about 300k's (200 miles?) west of Sydney, OZ about 12 months ago. A bit of research peaked my curiosity so I trolled the Japanese import car sales places until I found my new love 3 weeks ago.
"Java" (My Cappuccino) originally was imported into New Zealand in January 93 as a new car. The owner then moved to Queensland Australia in 98 and registered it there as a 'Limited Build Import". He drove it on weekends until late 2016 when he passed away, and his daughter inherited it. She drove it, but was not used to a manual trans, and burned the clutch. She advertised it for sale, and a Japanese Car specialist in Sydney bought it and shipped it to Sydney.
I saw it advertised, and went to look at it.
It had spent almost all of it's life in a hot, dry Queensland climate and was fairly original except for a replacement (Mitsubishi Evo) intercooler, and some random futzing with vacuum/boost hoses.
I looked at it, crawled under it looking for rust but found none (yes, NONE..... this is Australia, we don't do rust) and all the usual Cappo issues (none found, including smoooooth 1st to 2nd cold shift).
After spending a couple of hours looking at it, I took it for a test drive, to discover that the clutch was slipping. The dealer offered to fix it (yeah!! right!!), but I asked them for a price if I was willing to fix it myself. We settled on a discount of $1700 OZ, which is probably about 1200 pounds sterling off the asking price.
My local trusted mechanic quoted that he can replace the clutch (pressure plate, clutch plate, throwout bearing, thrust bearing, skim flywheel etc, and labour) for about a quarter of the dealer discount, so I took the deal and bought my new toy.
36,900k's as certified by dealer. Drives like a near new car except for the very light clutch slipping. When I got it, I adjusted the clutch cable and pedal travel and found that the clutch was badly adjusted and moderately worn, but might be survivable, but decided to replace it anyway.
The harsh Queensland sun turned the original white paint into powder, so the owner had resprayed it yellow with a metallic black roof about 10 years ago. The paint was fairly faded when I got it, but some polish and love has brought it back to looking pretty good....
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM ... Zodk80WFpB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRBABny ... e=youtu.be
Greg here from Sydney, Australia.
I'd been looking for a Cappo since seeing one in a small country town (Blaney, NSW) about 300k's (200 miles?) west of Sydney, OZ about 12 months ago. A bit of research peaked my curiosity so I trolled the Japanese import car sales places until I found my new love 3 weeks ago.
"Java" (My Cappuccino) originally was imported into New Zealand in January 93 as a new car. The owner then moved to Queensland Australia in 98 and registered it there as a 'Limited Build Import". He drove it on weekends until late 2016 when he passed away, and his daughter inherited it. She drove it, but was not used to a manual trans, and burned the clutch. She advertised it for sale, and a Japanese Car specialist in Sydney bought it and shipped it to Sydney.
I saw it advertised, and went to look at it.
It had spent almost all of it's life in a hot, dry Queensland climate and was fairly original except for a replacement (Mitsubishi Evo) intercooler, and some random futzing with vacuum/boost hoses.
I looked at it, crawled under it looking for rust but found none (yes, NONE..... this is Australia, we don't do rust) and all the usual Cappo issues (none found, including smoooooth 1st to 2nd cold shift).
After spending a couple of hours looking at it, I took it for a test drive, to discover that the clutch was slipping. The dealer offered to fix it (yeah!! right!!), but I asked them for a price if I was willing to fix it myself. We settled on a discount of $1700 OZ, which is probably about 1200 pounds sterling off the asking price.
My local trusted mechanic quoted that he can replace the clutch (pressure plate, clutch plate, throwout bearing, thrust bearing, skim flywheel etc, and labour) for about a quarter of the dealer discount, so I took the deal and bought my new toy.
36,900k's as certified by dealer. Drives like a near new car except for the very light clutch slipping. When I got it, I adjusted the clutch cable and pedal travel and found that the clutch was badly adjusted and moderately worn, but might be survivable, but decided to replace it anyway.
The harsh Queensland sun turned the original white paint into powder, so the owner had resprayed it yellow with a metallic black roof about 10 years ago. The paint was fairly faded when I got it, but some polish and love has brought it back to looking pretty good....
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM ... Zodk80WFpB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRBABny ... e=youtu.be