Aye all, chucked this on Facebook group but this is better place to keep things in order, so apologies for being old news for those who are on both. Will also add I’m on holidays in KL ATM and spent the last couple of hours bar hopping in Bukit Bintang, so let’s see how we go with grammar and staying on topic. Putting a lot of faith in my phone’s autocorrect right now.
So I’ve got your boggo standard 2 door l700, picked it up for a song at an auction, had big plans, life got into he way of them and it’s been sitting waiting developments since.
Along comes friends wedding in KL, read about the parts supply over there via Facebook and the forums, and decide to try my luck. Not my first rodeo, but admittedly the biggest parts I’ve shifted to date are a quad tip TRD muffler for an 86. Still pretty bulky and had to carry that a lot further, across Japan via three Shinkansens and couple of peak hour Tokyo subways, hydrofoil to Korea, Korean trains from Busan to Seoul, planes to Singapore, taxis in Singapore and then more planes to Perth. A long ass way to travel with a muffler on your shoulder and luggage in the other hand but hey, it worked and I saved couple of hundred in shipping 
(gonna try a picture via mobile phone here, wish me luck, this should be a shot of me setting out from the car parts shop in odaiba with the muffler)
So I google up some options. There’s a few, but MTB garage stands out. Good website with lotta pictures and written in English. Fly to KL, spend a couple of days in the various malls keeping missus happy (btw lemme know if your gonna give it a go and are looking for some restaurant/bar recommendations because holy crap have I eaten and drunk well these past few days, the burger I ate tonight has to be top three of all time, and my fat ass has eaten a lot of burgers… I’ve been drinking gin out of teapots, beer out of vases… There’s a lotta great ways to pass the time over here 
). So then after a fair wack of holidaying I get my chance. Hire a Grab car to the wreckers, costs about $16 aud, with no firm plans in mind.
Rock up, and its immediate these guys know dais. Pictures speak louder than words, but the place is a candy shop. You want a Gino or TRxx, they’ve got your parts. I meet Ann, the owner, and we get to part hunting. My car is white, so trying to find parts in that colour to save having to respray. Have a look at the bonnets, oh they have them with the scoops? Well who can say no to a scoop, gimme a scoop!
Then around the corner and there’s the grill with the fog lights and I mean c’mon… What kind of monster would say no to that? Add em in.
This one is just random bumpers, so sue me my photography skills are a bit shit. 
Unfortunately they didn’t have the fenders in the right colour, and a few of the parts where a lil rough around the edges, so Ann offered to order them in for me. I’ve got to head out to Penang for a wedding as well as a few other stops before returning to KL so that works great.
Pic with Ann, the owner. His grandad started the business, and Ann has the kind of knowledge about the cars and how to source the parts that is invaluable in an expedition like this.
Know a lotta people will wanna know prices, but I’m just gonna say it wasn’t a bargain and that’s ok. You might be able to get them cheaper but I didn’t wanna go down that path. Ann put out a price that’d still be a good deal back in Oz, but a bit higher than what my research was telling me is the market rate in Malaysia. (Mudah.my is a great source if ypure trying to background on parts availability and prices btw. ) But given the extra hassle that’d be involved for him in dealing with me I figured that’s fair, so I accepted it, no haggling. See I need to get the parts packaged up suitable for transit and delivered to the hotel, which they’re gonna sort for me. This is a big deal when it comes to keeping the missus happy and stops me from derailing a holiday trying to organise couriers and packaging etc, plus I’m trusting Ann to source parts of a decent quality for me, so nickle and diming over the price and derailing the whole thing to save a few pennies isn’t my game plan. Fair price for all will hopefully be our secret to success.
So what next? Well I’m travelling and holidaying for a bit. Ann also has his wedding coming up which I’m sure all of the Dai brotherhood wishes him all the best for. I’ve paid a deposit so the parts are being ordered in, will then be packaged up and then brought to my hotel in Bukit Bintang on the 2nd Dec and we’ll sort out the balance. From there I need to convince a van driver to take me and the parts to the airport, and then the check-in counter to put them on the plane.
Know a lot of folks will be thinking that last step is going to be a doozy… Well there’s a bit of a trick. Ya see air Asia has these sales. And when you catch them at the right time, you get lay flat business class beds for the price of economy seats on a full feature airlines. Now Ive only flown AirAsia economy once in my life, and never again. I literally don’t fit in the seats, and had to spend five hours straight unable to put my feet on the floor because my knees were touching my chin. Not cool. But business class is a different kettle of fish, plus you get a few bonuses, food is included, there’s a special toilet on the plane that only the people up front get to use, you arrive at the destination relaxed like you’ve been lying around on your couch instead of partly crippled like you’ve been tied to a torture device all morning and most importantly, 40kg of luggage per person. Not a bad deal for around $650 aud return. And when you take a budget airfare, add in enough luggage to survive, food, taxes etc, which are all included in that lay flat price, all the sudden that price looks pretty damn tempting.
And yeah I’ve weighed the parts for a Gino conversion, they’re about 18kg. Will be lugging back a heap of knockoff Lego and other goodies from the shopping malls too😁
So I have an argument coming up at the airport about what “sporting equipment” truly means. And I promise I’ll be honest, if I get slugged with extra fees I’ll cop to that so others know what they’re getting in for, but honestly some crazy shit gets transported in luggage holds. Wish me luck and we’ll see how far being polite and patient can get us.
For anyone who got this far, seriously well done, I’ve been typing this on and off in three different bars and now my hotel room, shit has gotten way too long but I’m tired and can’t be arsed trying to go back and cull it down. So have a couple of random holiday pics for your trouble.
First a pretty suss looking koala that tempted me into buying a choci choci chococashew bar… Although the name definately helped too.
And then found this drink (I’m one of those dickheads who drinks then wakes up next morning with an assortment of random shit that was hilarious the night before all over his hotel room). Planning on offering it to a few special people at work with the instructions “saw this and thought of you, it’s a drink you just need to add tea to it.”
