1982 Lada Niva

I've taken the little niva on a big trip, thinking the engine will die in the first 50 km and i'll be forced to do the engine swap. And with 0 bar oil pressure driving it hard it survived the entire 1100 km trip, i come close to tipping it over on a cliff side. And form the 4 nivas it was only one with no real breakdowns. The slow differentials made a very big difference, my engine had much less power then others but i was climbing the hills and rocks with out having to use the clutch. And no overheating issues, one niva blow it's clutch, other broke couple of U joints, couple of split and blown tires. Only photo that survived was this when we stopped by a church on top of a mount.
IMG_20200815_120214.jpg
 
Last edited:
Well after the big trip the little niva started to leak oil, besides burning it. You can see the trail where i've driven down and backed it in. Its time, i parked it in the big garage, unfortunately my brother's ford again needed some help.
IMG_20200819_135837_1.jpgIMG_20200821_192034.jpg
 
Well, my wheel saga continues, months ago now i bought some stock Niva rims so i can install the new tires that i bought, the rims were misrepresented. So thinking now i have 8 rims, surly i can fine 4 that are good, i got them dismounted from the tires. They stayed for more then a month in my machine shop and finally i found some time to do something about them, i wanted to check them and clean the inside. So i had an adapter that i weld a beed of weld on and chucked it up in my lathe and cut it to the 98 mm hub diameter and cut it straight, then i marked the bolt holes and drill and tap them. 3 of the 8 rims are date codes for my niva 03 of 1982 but everyone has a bend in it, 2 of them are so bent they look like a drunk walking down the street. I used my angle grinder, flap disk, wire brush and clean as much of the rust i could. Then i took them to a friend of mine who used a very big hammer on them the straighten them as much as he could. Got them in the big garage and spray them down with anti rust acid, to remove the rest of the rust on them, and when i was at my friends tire shop he told me don't use Lada rims on those off road tires, the tire is stronger than the rim also those rims are made for tube tires, only one of the rims is for tubeless tire, so the saga continues i'm back on the classifieds looking for rims with 5x140mm bolt pattern and 4 " centre bore. You can see 16" is the max in diameter than my lathe can handle outside the cut out.
IMG_20200819_145150.jpgIMG_20200821_125915.jpgIMG_20200819_150127.jpgIMG_20200821_125927.jpgIMG_20200822_095621_1.jpg
 
I continued with refurbishing the rims for the little niva, one by one i clean them and spray them with good quality primer with high zinc content, that dries in less than 5 minutes, then i put one of the new tires and old rms to see how they will look. I've found couple of sets of rims in germany that will fit my little niva in steel and aluminium but because of the covid 19, traveling is very difficult, i'll keep searching.
IMG_20200823_135059.jpgIMG_20200823_135044.jpgIMG_20200823_135051.jpgIMG_20200822_104909.jpgIMG_20200822_105008.jpg
 
Remember few months back when i was looking at rims for the 607 and was ready to go to germany to buy some. Then i found the same set much cheaper less than 2 KM from my house. Well my luck stroke again, i'm refreshing the page on my PC and a new advert on the classifieds come up in my city and guess what exactly what i'm looking for. 4 rims from a kia with 5x139,7 bolt pattern, few mm smaller central bored, but i have a lathe that will fix that. I call the guy and guess he is less than 1Km from me, went looked at them they have some corrosion around the centre bore but they are straight and very thick, bought them got them home and clean them. What are your thoughts on the look?
IMG_20200822_105051.jpgIMG_20200822_105102.jpgIMG_20200823_191108.jpgIMG_20200823_191117.jpg
 
You will need new center caps for your wheels, since Kia isn't right. I think it is a good look!
 
Thanks guys, i've already ordered black and chrome Lada centre caps. I need to store the factory tires and rims so i figured it better to put them together, so i loaded them in the trailer, i also loaded some more tires to get them dismounted and discard them.
IMG_20200823_142926.jpg
 
Well it was late yesterday the tire shop was closed so today after work i took the little niva to get the tires dismounted and mounted, i got 6 tires mounted and 6 tires dismounted and discarded, all that work for only 4$. I asked to get the OEM wheels balanced they said there no sense, the tires are not steel belted, it will take a ton of lead and it doesn't go fast enough to make a difference. On the way back one of the laches failed, i almost lost the tires. Next on the list is to machined the new rims and get the new tires mounted on them. Machining yeah.
IMG_20200824_094344.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top