Hey all, recently I’ve been working on my Daihatsu for the past few months to finally get it up and running and ready for the road! So I thought now would be a good time to start documenting some of my journey so far
I first saw my car in November 2025, where it had been sitting in a shed for the past 5+ years. I don’t know too much about the car but from my understanding it was originally from Wollongong, and sometime around 2020 it was involved in a crash around the front passenger side of the car. The car was then auctioned through NRMA, where the previous owner (the person who sold it to me) had plans to fix it up, however life got in the way and time passed.
22/11/25
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funny enough, I was able to give the battery a bit of charge and the car started right up. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the car but it still amazes me that after sitting for all these years
once the car was on the trailer, I gave myself an hour to rinse off some of the excess dirt and dust to see what the car actually looked like
She came up pretty good!
22/11/25
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Nice mate, looking forward to seeing how this goes.
Dai engines can be pretty damn good after sitting for a while. The 2cyl handivan was a bit harder to start due to the carby but still got it to fire and sounded quite healthy.
A quick side note: Could you make an intro post in the All New People section please. Its a security thing for the forum and it also opens up more of the forum to you also.
Haha Cheers bro and sorry about not making the intro post first, I’m still getting the hang of this forum!
Now that I had the car in the workshop, it was ready to finally get stuck into it. I started off with charging the spark plugs and the battery. It honestly will always amaze me how small everything is in these cars, including the battery.
Out with the old, and in with the new.
I also bought an ignition coil for the car as I thought it was missing a little, however once I changed the plugs and let the dai run, it sounded super healthy!
25/11/25
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Next up on the list of things to fix was the front passenger side fender. When the car was bought in 2020 there was an attempt to fix the car, however the last step was welding the car together, which had yet to be done. I wasn’t able to get the best picture of the finished product however before welding I made sure that there were no odd panel gaps and everything looked right. The weld is definitely not the prettiest however it got the job done. To this day (23/3/26) I still haven’t gotten to paint matching the fix however I will be doing so sooner than later
30/12/25
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I had some free time on the weekend so I decided to give the car a little bit of a clean inside.
It’s definitely not perfect, but it’s a lot better now
11/1/26
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The very next day was time to get a brand new fuel pump. I hadn’t put any petrol in the car since I got it in November. Because of that, overtime it ran out of fuel due to me letting the car run every now and again. I suspect because the car ran out of fuel, the fuel pump decide it had enough and died on me. I suppose I might’ve needed a fuel pump in the future anyways, so I wasn’t too upset when I needed to put the brand new one in
12/1/26
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The Final Stretch.
I regret not taking photos and documenting more of the little things that were done to fix the car up, so instead I’ll list everything else that was done that I can remember. When I originally picked the car up, the mount for the exhaust was broken, so the whole end of the exhaust was flopping back and forth. It would’ve been around the same time the front of the car was welded, when the mount for the exhaust was welded and fixed. I managed to do a bit of a clean of the engine bay, just to get most of the wasp nests that had been built amongst it. Ideally once I get the car looking pretty good ill take it in for a full inside and out detail. There were still a few things I needed to pass the blue slip, one of those things being tyres. One thing I love about this car is how cheap everything has been. I got quoted $90 per tyre which I thought was a pretty good price, however I had another plan in mind… Laying around at work were some gold BBS wheels that were originally for a Subaru Sherpa. The tyres definitely stuck out from the fenders a little, but I knew that wouldn’t be too much of a problem when it came to getting the car blue slipped ;). Now all I had to do was connect the lights and horn, as well as install the windscreen washer reservoir. After everything, the Daihatsu was finally ready for the blue slip.
And of course, the little Dai passed the blueslip!
and the very next day, the car was rego’d and ready for the road.
6/3/26 blueslip
7/3/26 rego
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Wow the clean up you did awesome. That came up really well.
You have done really well in bringing this back and now Bluey and rego ! 
Well Done!
