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Hello AI! I'm pretty new to cars, having only gotten my provisional license about 4 months ago and then two weeks after that got my first car. Long before that I had always had an interest in older cars, maybe it was movies that got me into them but the style of newer cars never did it for me. It was a dream of mine to own something with that 70s muscle car look, I always thought it would be far too expensive to buy one. I'll skip to the end of this story because I'm sure it isn't that interesting, I decided to re-watch Mad Max, I hadn't noticed how awesome the cars in it looked. I had to know what they were. To my surprise they were Australian Fords. From then on I wanted a Ford Falcon XB. I ended up caving in two weeks after getting my Ps and buying a '95 Toyota Camry for pretty cheap. Fast forward 3 months, after putting up several wanted ads everywhere and getting some help from someone who knew the market better than me I finally found one. It wasn't the XB that I wanted but I couldn't be picky so I went at looked at the XC. As soon as I saw it at the seller's place I knew I was going to buy it that night. I did, went and signed all the papers the next day and had it towed to my house. Here are the pictures I got the night I got it home (taken with a horrible phone camera), I posted these in another thread but I might as well post again.     That's where I left it for a few days until Friday night when the guy who had been helping me look for a car came around to give it a quick inspection for me. After taking a good look over everything I got some good news, I had actually bought a pretty solid car! The guy has his own project going on with a slightly older Fairlane which is a full restoration project but he's going to be giving me a hand with sorting out the rust issues in a few of the panels because I don't have an experience with welding. Anyway, I'll go into the details about the car and what I need to do so far. The car is a '78 Ford Fairmont XC, it was built in December and was sold to the previous owner new in June '79. It has been registered under his name up until I bought it from one of his grandsons who he had given it to 8 months beforehand but they weren't too interested in owning it. It's got a High Compression crossflow 4.1 litre in-line six with 3 speed column auto. Front power disc brakes, rear drums. No power steering, which hurts my arms at parking speeds. Manual choke, I only worked out how to use it correctly today. It's all pretty basic, very few options from the factory that I can see. Paint is in really bad condition, it had a respray at some point in it's original colour. Most of it didn't stick too well and is all cracked, there was some rust-proofing done and it looks like it saved a few parts of the car! Interior is great apart from a few small tears in the driver's seat. There's a little bit of rust but no where near as bad as 90% of these cars usually are. The main spots are two holes on the front of the bonnet and one hole through the boot lid. The front passenger's side door has no exterior handle and the driver's side rear door doesn't open at all, I've ordered a new handle but the rear door might prove to be trouble to fix if I can't open it. Short term plan is to get a roadworthy so I can use it as my daily and get rid of the Camry, once that's done I'll be able to think about prettying it up a little bit. A respray is on the list now that I know how bad the paint is. I guess that's all I can really say at the moment so I'll give you some pictures that I took today during my clean up attempts.               If anyone else has any old Australian cars I'd definitely like to see them, it would definitely give me some more motivation to progress faster with this.
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Jul 29, 2012 10:02
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Do yourself a favour and watch "Love the Beast", that'll give you all the motivation you need. I would find a power steering unit, manual tiller on those things are truly loving bad to live with, unless you got arms like Chris Hemsworth. Also if you are in Sydney, there's a few of us AI goons around the place, we'll be happy to come on over and help or have a chat. Used to have a VC Commodore with a worked 308 myself - family had the odd Torana as well. Right now got a Statesman - it's not THAT old but it's still close to 20 years -  Got any plans beyond fixing?
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Jul 29, 2012 10:54
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That interior is in drat good shape. Kind of surprised to see a 6 digit odometer on something of that vintage, we didn't start seeing those in the states until the mid-80s - though we use miles instead of kilometers here, and a lot of cars weren't really expected to last 100k miles back then. Going by the odometer, it's seen less of the road than my 1999 Nissan, I'm sitting close to 260k km, at less than half the age.  So it was built in Dec 1978, and sold as a 1978 model? Cars here built after mid-year usually get sold as the next model year - i.e. my 1999 has a build date of December 1998, but it's titled and sold as a 1999. The switchover varies depending on maker, but for most it seems to be anything built after about August-September seems to be sold as the following model year. Definitely looking forward to seeing what happens with this. Also, trust me when I say there's more rust lurking.
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Jul 29, 2012 10:57
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Cat Terrist posted:Do yourself a favour and watch "Love the Beast", that'll give you all the motivation you need. I actually watched Love the Beast pretty recently, I was at the point in my search where I was getting really desperate, it didn't help with that one bit. I hope to avoid crashing mine into a tree though. I decided today that power steering is on the list of things to get done, I took my friend for a quick drive around the complex that I live in (secretly I just wanted another excuse to drive it, if only for a minute) and my arms were killing me after that. A lot of problems I have with this car seem to revolve around the steering wheel, it's annoying to get in because I've got about 10cm of space between the seat and the wheel, once I'm in though, it's fine. Maybe I'm just too much of a goon. I'm up in Brisbane which is a shame because more opinions on what I should do with it would have been good. I will admit I'm a little bit out of my depth here but I plan to try and learn. As far as I know my family has primarily had Fords, my dad had an XC in the late 80s and there have been a few newer ones that have been and gone but unlike some I can also appreciate a Holden as well, I definitely like the VC body type more than the XD-XF body. As for plans, as I said for the moment it's getting the RWC, then I'll be trying to get some GS/GXL parts together, the bonnet (which I'm trying to get for the RWC so I don't have to weld up the current one) and the dash being the most important. Power steering is high on the list, I'll try and put an under dash AC unit in. One thing I really want to get rid of is the manual choke, I had a bit of an issue with a fair bit of smoke yesterday when turning the engine off because I wasn't using it correctly, I'm far too used to newer cars (by that I mean 20 year old cars). some texas redneck posted:That interior is in drat good shape. Kind of surprised to see a 6 digit odometer on something of that vintage, we didn't start seeing those in the states until the mid-80s - though we use miles instead of kilometers here, and a lot of cars weren't really expected to last 100k miles back then. It has less kilometres than my Camry, it's at 283k at the moment. I'm sure I'll fix that little problem though, I plan to drive the poo poo out of it once it's on the road. I'm also not really sure, all I have to go off is the VIN plate which has Dec '78 build and the information the dealer wrote in the manual when it was bought in '79. This would have been right before they were brining in XDs so I assume they would be doing anything to get rid of the old stock. I know I'll be finding more rust, that's half the fun when opening up these old cars!
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Jul 29, 2012 12:00
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Can't wait to see it in person. I'm surprised how good it looks overall, all things considered... have you had it up on jacks yet? Probably going to be more rust hiding underneath, where it gets less attention.
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Jul 29, 2012 12:22
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Awesome to see an aussie car project on here. I don't think there's been one since parabellum's XE. I've driven a 302 XA fairmont; and a 351 XB panelvan, but never managed to get behind the wheel of a XC. I've always been a sucker for the rectangle light treatment they gave the XC fairmonts. I wouldn't let the manual choke scare you off, it takes a while to get the swing of starting and warming the engine; but you'll be doing it without thinking in no time. And it's a heap easier to deal with a problem in a manual choke. My stable is shrinking for the moment: I recently sold my 84 Caprice as it just wasn't getting used  I'm looking to sell my EJ as I've just moved into a house with a driveway so steep that I can't get it up without scraping.  And my old Torana is now in my brother's hands 
sadnessboner fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 06:54
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OP I'm eagerly going to read the updates as I love things we don't get here but holy poo poo I had to say thats an impressive title you have.
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Jul 30, 2012 06:56
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Good to see you posted a project thread, seems like you've got your work cut out for you, but it looks awesome. Grandpa gave me a 79 Valiant he bought new and had sitting in the shed for the last 12 years, have been doing a rolling restoration on it since. When I got it:  Taken the last time it was moving under its own power (currently under the house awaiting a new radiator/waterpump/etc)  Ansith posted:I'm up in Brisbane which is a shame because more opinions on what I should do with it would have been good. I will admit I'm a little bit out of my depth here but I plan to try and learn.  I'm also in Brisbane, and whilst I'm still figuring stuff out, I'm more than willing to lend a hand where I can.
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Jul 30, 2012 07:45
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Totally jealous OP. I would love to own an XA/B/C some day, and prefer the sedans over the coupés. Any ideas on a colour for the respray, I love the Ford orange of the era. Where are you located? There seems to be quite a few Western Sydney Ford goons, me being one: 67 Galaxie. Bit rough but we're getting there.
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Jul 30, 2012 07:51
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sadnessboner posted:
The Statesman is drat good but the EJ.... holy gently caress dude that's just superb! Show more!
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Jul 30, 2012 10:34
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rossmum posted:Can't wait to see it in person. I'm surprised how good it looks overall, all things considered... have you had it up on jacks yet? Probably going to be more rust hiding underneath, where it gets less attention. Not yet, I had a quick look at the underside and so did the guy that's helping me, nothing obvious. We did find a rear sway bar though, one less thing I have to add. sadnessboner posted:
I liked the XB front end a lot more when I was looking but now that I've got the XC the front end and especially the squad headlights. I was considering changing to the GS twin headlight set up but I'm really happy with how the squad lights look. I think you're right about the manual choke, something I'll have to get used to. Very nice cars! Were they restoration projects or just well looked after since they were bought? Dr 14 INCH DICK Md posted:OP I'm eagerly going to read the updates as I love things we don't get here but holy poo poo I had to say thats an impressive title you have. I can thank rossmum for that one, he made me the gif and then offered to pay for the avatar and title. It was a little more than I was expecting. Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:Good to see you posted a project thread, seems like you've got your work cut out for you, but it looks awesome. Grandpa gave me a 79 Valiant he bought new and had sitting in the shed for the last 12 years, have been doing a rolling restoration on it since. Please teach me the ways of turning a pile of dust into a great looking car! That Valiant is awesome, I used to pass one on the way to work when I used the bus (earlier model I think), I had no idea what it was for some reason, now I know! Are you Northside? go_banana posted:Totally jealous OP. I would love to own an XA/B/C some day, and prefer the sedans over the coups002e Any ideas on a colour for the respray, I love the Ford orange of the era. Where are you located? There seems to be quite a few Western Sydney Ford goons, me being one: The good thing about the sedans is they're still in the realm of possibility to buy for a good price. There was a big interest in GTs a few years back which meant everything went up but that died down quickly, some people are still living in their own world where they think they're going to get 5,000 for a rusted out 6cyl auto though. As for the respray, I'm not really sure. I don't mind the original colour - Frosted Pine - but I'm open to going with something else. I'd probably go with a Ford colour that would have been seen on an XC if I did decide to change. As I said earlier, I'm North Brisbane. I've never actually seen a Galaxie, the front end is a lot like some of the Aus Fairlanes (I assume the Galaxie is where they took the front end from). Great looking car!
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Jul 30, 2012 12:54
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Ansith posted:Please teach me the ways of turning a pile of dust into a great looking car! That Valiant is awesome, I used to pass one on the way to work when I used the bus (earlier model I think), I had no idea what it was for some reason, now I know! Yeah, they really only changed the front end around on the Valiant after the early 70's redesign, the CL-CM series are nearly identical bar small details. I'm located in the inner east of Brisbane, but for work I go all over the north, are you close to the city?
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Jul 30, 2012 13:11
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Did someone say old Fords? Thats what mine looks like a few years ago when I bought it and said "ill just give it a bit of a freshen up"  This was taken a few weeks ago. Stripping back the engine bay to bare metal to smooth it out a bit/fix rust and await the transplant of a World-block, alloy headed 363 Windsor(550-600ish hp). And because im dumb I bought another stroker as a daily  XCs are the best. Because everyone wants an XA or XB they are still pretty cheap and are just as good. And no matter how much the old 4.1 will leak oil and blow smoke those fuckers just will not die. Your one looks like a pretty good base to start with and it even has the awesome grandpa spec venetians on the back window.
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Jul 30, 2012 13:20
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Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:Yeah, they really only changed the front end around on the Valiant after the early 70's redesign, the CL-CM series are nearly identical bar small details. I'm near Aspley but work just outside of the city. I'm actually pretty surprised, whenever I talk to someone else from Brisbane it's always south side. Edit: How sneaky, posting while I was writing. ChunksNensja posted:Did someone say old Fords? Here I was feeling very outnumbered in my Ford, good to know someone else owns one! A lot of 'quick' projects turn into what you're doing. I'm going to have to hold myself back from doing that for now. You're definitely right about everyone wanting XAs and XBs. It might have something to do with a lot of the basic models becoming donor cars for GTs. Another good thing about the 4.1s is that they're in the the later models as well and there's plenty of XDs+ to go around (though, they are getting a little rarer nowadays). Ansith fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 13:22
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This thread is like stepping into some kind of alternate universe. I don't recognize anything but I desperately want to know more. You're keeping the louvers, right? sadnessboner: That "EJ" is totally gorgeous. Please, more!
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Jul 30, 2012 15:36
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Did the auto industry go to poo poo in the 70's in Australia like it did in the US, or do these late 70's Aussie "domestics" actually make more than 120hp? I have a feeling that was just the EPA crushing the US automakers, but I actually never thought about what happened to the huge V8 powered cars overseas.
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Jul 30, 2012 20:27
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To contribute to an Australian car thread, although its somewhat a different era... My first car was a 1987 VK Calais.  It was a 3.3L i6 with a 3 speed automatic (worst gearbox ever). It was one of the earlier electronic fuel injected engines in the Holden range, so it was a bit of a pain in the rear end to maintain. On the flip side it had plenty of power for a new driver and being rear-wheel drive meant that when it rained any corner was a lot fun even whilst on my best behaviour. Will try and find some photos of my own, but it was a great Aussie car! Unlike the photo above, mine was a sweet turquoise green with a plush turquoise interior. It was a *luxury* car, so it had poo poo like electric windows, power steering and other things which were pretty futuristic at the time, along with ridiculous interior furnishing which I loved. BoostCreep posted:Did the auto industry go to poo poo in the 70's in Australia like it did in the US, or do these late 70's Aussie "domestics" actually make more than 120hp? I have a feeling that was just the EPA crushing the US automakers, but I actually never thought about what happened to the huge V8 powered cars overseas. I'm not sure how it affected the industry as a whole, but I know there was a VC Commodore (the range before the one pictured above) which was released with a 1.9L 4 cylinder engine. They were ridiculously underpowered and completely opposite to conventional wisdom at the time which was to throw more cylinders at it until it works. It did have some benefits though, in that the range after the VK (the VL) featured a RB30DET engine. They were hugely popular when I was in school, especially as they were starting to put limitations in place on what you could drive on your provisional license by engine capacity (as opposed to horsepower). Any car show was packed to the brim with VL commodores / calais fitted with some crazy turbos. The VL also produced my favourite car growing up, and while it didnt have the RB30DET in it, the v8 under the bonnet is one of the best sounding V8's I have heard. (Sorry to hijack your thread, but I figured it belongs in with the rest of Australian car chat)  To sum up Australian car culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI14YZvqLCQ sc0tty fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 20:56
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quote:I'm near Aspley but work just outside of the city. BoostCreep posted:Did the auto industry go to poo poo in the 70's in Australia like it did in the US, or do these late 70's Aussie "domestics" actually make more than 120hp? I have a feeling that was just the EPA crushing the US automakers, but I actually never thought about what happened to the huge V8 powered cars overseas. Well we had leaded fuel around here for quite a while longer, so the performance drop didn't really hit until the mid 80's. V8s were popular in performance based cars, but the big 3 of classic aussie cars were driven by an I6 up front most of the time. Chrysler replaced the slant 6 in the Aussie Valiants with an I6 that was designed alongside with Detroit for use in both the Aussie cars and some of Chrysler light trucks stateside (the 265 Hemi), but for whatever reason, the Chrysler US pulled out and the engine was only used over here. My late 70's Chrysler powered by the 265 made around 200hp new, and returned about 23mpg in mixed driving.
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Jul 30, 2012 23:37
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Some old Aussie metal that I owned/currently own: - 67 VE Valiant (long gone) - 65 XP Falcon ute - 77 Ford LTD Good to see some of the old 70s Australian cars getting some love.
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Jul 30, 2012 23:57
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Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:My late 70's Chrysler powered by the 265 made around 200hp new, and returned about 23mpg in mixed driving. Had it been a US-spec engine, that would have been closer to 100 hp and 10-15 mpg.  The 351 in my 1980 Ford pickup made 130-140 hp (depending who you ask) and got single-digit mileage on city streets, the best I ever saw was 12 mpg on a road trip. It was sad not being able to pass a Geo Metro (Suzuki Swift over there I think)..
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Jul 31, 2012 00:12
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sadnessboner posted:I recently sold my 84 Caprice as it just wasn't getting used Weird, the Aussie '80s Caprice bears an uncanny resemblance to the '80s Maserati Quattroporte. 
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Jul 31, 2012 02:13
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some texas redneck posted:Had it been a US-spec engine, that would have been closer to 100 hp and 10-15 mpg. Ouch, that's got to suck. The gas crunch becomes really evident in the early 80's Australian market, with Holden responding by rapidly downsizing their cars from the late 70's and moving to the much smaller Opel derived Commordore. Though they still kept the fullsizes around for LWB/speical applications, such Caprises and one tonners, resulting in them being made well into the 80's. Ford responding with newer small cars like the Cortina and Escort, and Chrysler reacted the typical way it reacts when markets change stateside: with going out of business. Chrysler was bought out by Mitsubishi in the early eighties and produced the Chrysler/Mitsubishi Sigma and eventually the Magna/380 up until the mid 2000's when they also went out of business.
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Jul 31, 2012 11:33
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Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:Ouch, that's got to suck. The gas crunch becomes really evident in the early 80's Australian market, with Holden responding by rapidly downsizing their cars from the late 70's and moving to the much smaller Opel derived Commordore. Though they still kept the fullsizes around for LWB/speical applications, such Caprises and one tonners, resulting in them being made well into the 80's. Australia's pollution controls in the 70s weren't as restrictive as the US, so we got away with motors that did drop a little bit of power when the Australian Design Rule 27A was introduced in 1975, but not as much as it did in the US. Plus Australia used Super Leaded fuel in all new cars till 1986, unlike the weak piss unleaded that most US cars had to run on.
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Aug 1, 2012 02:13
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Posted this in the Share your own car thread but since we're sharing Aussie cars here it is again: 1970 HT GTS Monaro, sold it to my Dad late last year, currently under going a revamp so we can race it. Oh and I, too live in northside Brisbane, Kallangur to be precise and willing to lend a hand as well. Note, "lending a hand" for me pretty much means, chatting, undoing bolts, shareing a carton.
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Aug 1, 2012 03:27
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I find it really funny that the Aussie and the US Fairmonts don't share a single part, but they used the same exact logo on them.
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Aug 1, 2012 03:43
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You Am I posted:Australia's pollution controls in the 70s weren't as restrictive as the US, so we got away with motors that did drop a little bit of power when the Australian Design Rule 27A was introduced in 1975, but not as much as it did in the US. Plus Australia used Super Leaded fuel in all new cars till 1986, unlike the weak piss unleaded that most US cars had to run on. Ford designed the XC engines around 27A but still increased performance of both the 6s and the 8s. A lot of people thought otherwise because they changed the way of measuring the output of the engine and obviously lower number means less powerful. I'm not sure about other manufacturers but 27A while a little restricting with some things didn't actually hurt performance at all. And to Bobby_Wokkerfella and Splachnic Ganglion, for sure, I'll let you both know when the car is actually on the road. I'll probably need some input as to where to take it from there and you both sound a bit more familiar with the classics than me. It'll be good to have a few more people to talk to that give a poo poo, none of my friends understand why I bought the thing. As for project news, I don't get much daylight to do any word on it during the week sadly. I took the black window shade or whatever you call that thing off the back window and cleaned it up. I really didn't think it was that bad but it ended up being half green. Luckily it all cleaned up really well but it did turn out that the shade had a few cracks in it so I'm leaving that off until I can get a new one. I did find a bonus, an old RACQ sticker down on the bottom corner, I'll be keeping that on there. I really wanted to turn it on yesterday and take it for a quick drive around the complex, I was lazy and it got too late but I got to do it after I got home tonight. I've never really had a chance to drive anything this old before so I don't have much to compare it to, it seems to be running well from what I can tell. I checked the lights, all working apart from one brake light. My temperature gauge looks to be broken, and I stupidly forgot to check if the speedo moves at all. Other than that small poo poo, I've found someone selling two vented bonnets. One is for an XC and the other is an XB GT one. I'll be making an offer and hopefully picking it up soon. He's over on the south side which makes things pretty easy. Once I have it, I'm getting the car towed up to a friend's place, he's helping me with the rust repairs as I may have mentioned before. Hopefully once that's done and I get a new windshield I'll be going in for a RWC.
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Aug 1, 2012 09:52
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As I mentioned before the passenger's side front door didn't have an exterior handle. I ordered a repro early this week and it was finally delivered on Friday night. One of the delivery guys likes to put my deliveries in the garden and I had completely forgot to check there, so I ended up finding it at 10 at night. I intended on getting up early and starting work but of course I decided while I was half asleep to turn my alarm off and sleep in until 1pm. Once I finally got up, I went for a drive to pick up a few things, a new reverse light bulb, some valve saver, and some new windscreen wipers. Got all of those working. Now the only light that doesn't work in the car is the main interior light. Then I got started on the big job of the day. Not really a big job to some but this is officially my first real thing I've done to the car since getting it. One step closer to getting it on the road! Here's what I started with:  and my nice new exterior handle:  After pulling everything off I was left with a nice clean space to work with:  Getting to that point was the problem, I had some real trouble with getting a small plastic part out from the old handle. It was the part joining the handle with the rod that actually opens the door. I tried everything to get it out but because it had been in there for 35 years, it did not want to come out. I knew I couldn't break it otherwise I'd be on the hunt for more parts, my solution? Cut the old handle.  I thought I was on the home stretch after that, nope. I got the plastic part back into the new handle just fine but it didn't want to open the door now. Shortly after messing around with it I figured out why it wasn't working, there was a height difference between the handles and the plastic part needed to be lower on the rod. Easy enough, and I actually managed to figure it out myself. After all that I ended up with some good results!   My only problem now is that I can tell the difference between the repro part and the real ones. I'll just have to ignore it and hope no one else notices.
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Aug 4, 2012 09:14
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some texas redneck posted:Had it been a US-spec engine, that would have been closer to 100 hp and 10-15 mpg. I'mm bet that 23MPG is measured in imperial gallons though which are somewhat bigger than US gallons By the way Holden sold the Swift with Barina badging in Australia
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Aug 4, 2012 10:19
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Ansith posted:My only problem now is that I can tell the difference between the repro part and the real ones. I'll just have to ignore it and hope no one else notices. This is the real killer with project cars, it starts out just fixing what's broken, and then when you see your new shiny parts sitting amongst the original stuff the OCD sets in, before you know it you'll replace all the door handles (just in case) so they match. (or is this just me) dissss posted:I'mm bet that 23MPG is measured in imperial gallons though which are somewhat bigger than US gallons Nah, that was me working back from DDing my 79 Valiant with the 265 ELB for a year or so, always got a steady 10-11L/100kms round town which is around 23 US MPG, unless you put the foot down (ELB equipped Valiants had a little fuel pacer light that lit up an indicator on the hood when you were driving uneconomically)
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Aug 4, 2012 13:54
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Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:This is the real killer with project cars, it starts out just fixing what's broken, and then when you see your new shiny parts sitting amongst the original stuff the OCD sets in, before you know it you'll replace all the door handles (just in case) so they match. (or is this just me) That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I looked at the side of the car after finishing. I might end up changing to the black GXL handles somewhere down the line so it would just be a waste of money to change them all, or at least that's what I'll be telling myself so I don't have to change them. I'll probably be ending up with a GS bonnet resprayed in the car's colour soon which will mean I'll have to get the whole thing resprayed so it looks right. Can't have mismatched paint. It's starting, I didn't want to think like this but I am. Shoot me now. Please.
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Aug 4, 2012 14:24
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Splachnic Ganglion posted:Posted this in the Share your own car thread but since we're sharing Aussie cars here it is again: I'd do some dirty things for this car. Any shots from other angles?
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Aug 4, 2012 23:52
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Ansith posted:That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I looked at the side of the car after finishing. I might end up changing to the black GXL handles somewhere down the line so it would just be a waste of money to change them all, or at least that's what I'll be telling myself so I don't have to change them. Haha, Me neither, I removed the radiator from the Valiant as it's buggered, but now it's off I want to replace the fan, water pump, alternator, fuel pump and a few other things "while i'm down there". It's also got no carpet in the front because before I do the carpet I want to redo the car audio, but can't do that right now because we live in a one bedroom apartment and I'm using the boot as a big lockable storage container. Also, any people in Brisbane today should head on down to Greazefest, being held at the Rocklea showgrounds, tickets are like 25 at the door and it's a massive classic/kustom car show with kickass food, bands and stalls. I'll post some pictures up later if there are any sweet Aussie cars there.
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Aug 5, 2012 00:20
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Ansith posted:
..... And in five years time after 50 grand and a god awful amount of work you end up with a 351 monster in the front and a full ground up rebuild. You are hosed. Welcome to the club
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Aug 5, 2012 01:15
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Ansith posted:That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I looked at the side of the car after finishing. I might end up changing to the black GXL handles somewhere down the line so it would just be a waste of money to change them all, or at least that's what I'll be telling myself so I don't have to change them. Chuck an alloy head six in it  I ad to change the handles on my LTD. The XD-F series had crap handles as well
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Aug 5, 2012 01:48
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Bobby_Wokkerfella posted:Nah, that was me working back from DDing my 79 Valiant with the 265 ELB for a year or so, always got a steady 10-11L/100kms round town which is around 23 US MPG, unless you put the foot down (ELB equipped Valiants had a little fuel pacer light that lit up an indicator on the hood when you were driving uneconomically) Its just the in general people talk about imperial gallons here, nostalgically remembering 30MPG as good economy from a small car. 23 per US gallon is pretty drat impressive for a car like that though 
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Aug 5, 2012 01:54
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Mr-Spain posted:I'd do some dirty things for this car. Any shots from other angles? Not entirely sure if this is cool as this isn't my thread, if it's poor form I'll remove this. What it looked like soon after I got it, this is around 05/06:   After the 07/08 rebuild: One thing to note is the body line had to be reshaped from stracth, whoever sprayed it before I got it sanded it completely off.   Getting door lined up was a collossal pain.   Engine bay:  That's all I got on me at the moment. Some advice for the OP: When looking for parts don't overlook the wreckers, they can be a life line if you don't want to pay the fairly hefty price from Rare Spares or whoever. Sure the part won't be brand new but if money is tight I highly recommened a trip to the wreckers. Just got to deal with having to remove parts yourself and smelly rusted out cars which may or may not be infested with bees/wasps/flys/possums etc. I scrounged up: Wiper motor Throttle cable Throttle pedal Quarter window Windscreen washer jet lovely thing is you have to spend a fair bit of time going over cars and even then might not get what you want, as these cars get older and rarer so do the parts and they can be snatched up real quick leaving Rare Spares as the only option. Drint Blasters fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Aug 6, 2012 |
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Aug 6, 2012 06:03
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Splachnic Ganglion posted:Not entirely sure if this is cool as this isn't my thread, if it's poor form I'll remove this. As I said before, I'm perfectly fine with people posting pictures of their own cars. I'm glad to know someone else has been/is going through what I'm about to do. I was actually considering checking out a wreckers near my place, they have a Kingswood wagon shell sitting out the front so I think they might have some old falcons sitting back there too. I'm not entirely sure what I need yet but I guess extra parts are always good. In project news, the car is taking a trip to get the rust cut out and welded up. I had a look at a few GS bonnets but I've been advised that it'll be better off fixing up my standard bonnet for now and finding a GS one in better condition later on. Hopefully all goes well and I might be able to set up the inspection for a RWC shortly after the weekend. I'm actually a little bit worried about the car right now though, I started it up today to move it out into the sun to get a look at a few things. I got a bit of white smoke out of the exhaust, I've had this once before. I got out with the car running and checked the back, no smoke while it was idling but the exhaust had been leaking some fluid (I assume while it was smoking). I backed it out of the garage and gave it a few revs, smoke again whenever I rev it. Apart from that everything seems fine, I have a feeling this problem is going to cause me a lot of trouble though.
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Aug 6, 2012 07:27
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Today was the big day, I got up at 7am and had the car towed to Chris' place (He's the guy that's helping me out) to start on the repairs. At the start of the day I had no idea how to weld but after a good seven hours I actually have some idea what I'm doing. We pulled the bonnet off and started on it as that's where it was the most serious, cut out the main parts easily enough and then started welding up new metal to the second layer. At that point I decided I would never become a panel beater. I ended up doing an okay job for my first time (or so I'm told), I only burnt through the metal 3 times during the whole day! I only got one picture because I was being lazy, Chris got a couple of me when I was doing work so I'll probably grab them a little bit later. This was when we were 90% of the way through patching up this section, we had to cut a hole in it afterwards because I made it a little too thin when grinding it down.  After finishing that one off we were only able to finish the second layer of the other cut section, we'll be doing the top layer tomorrow and then start on the boot lid.
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Aug 11, 2012 08:26
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Bonnet is finished, all that's left to do is paint it. Had some troubles with the boot lid, it had some repairs done previously where all the rust was and of course, a centimetre of body filler was waiting for us. Chris got a couple of pictures while I was working so I may as well post them along with pictures of the welds after we'd finished. Oh yes, we had to weld some more metal onto the original weld in that second pictures because I hosed it up and went a little bit wild with the grinder. Good job me!    I seem to have lost the usb cable for my phone, once I find that I'll have the ones I took which were after we'd finished with the body filler. The bonnet is looking much better now that it's complete, even without the paint. E: One more pictures because I didn't notice it, we had a bird come in and fly around the garage. It started following us around while we were doing things. Here it is on the bonnet while I was putting in the body filler: 
Ansith fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Aug 13, 2012 |
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Aug 13, 2012 13:54
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Bonnet and boot lid are primed, they came out average. There's a few spots over the body filler where it didn't turn out too well so we're going over it with some primer filler. Tomorrow, after that I'll be going over it with the paint. From what I can tell from the paint in it's can it should match up reasonably well. Started on the mechanical side of things today as well. Parts of the fuel line are about at the end of their life, distributor cap and rotor button both need replacing, radiator hoses had both had it, brake fluid had some gunk in it from sitting too long and the brake pads need replacing. To get to the brakes we had to remove the locking nuts that we didn't actually have the part to unlock them with, a few tools later they were off. Managed to get all the parts for fixing up all of that apart from the distributor cap and the upper radiator hose, both stores I went two didn't have them. One had the upper hose for a car with air conditioning but not for mine. Went over the engine bay with degreaser and a pressure washer, cleaned up nicely. While we were checking for spots I'd missed I noticed coolant was leaking pretty badly. Turns out I'd unblocked a hole in the inlet manifold, Chris cleaned it up and found that it was a pretty large hole. I'm glad we found it honestly, wouldn't have wanted that thing to unclog itself while I was driving. Now to go down to a ford wrecker and find a new one!
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Aug 19, 2012 07:38
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