Jon's VB Commodore wagon

[Jon]

A little bit of a back story first: I moved to NZ with my wife in late 2010 from the UK and one of the things I was most excited about were all the great old cars available, many of them not seen in the UK. In the preceding months to moving, Trademe was at least daily viewing to see what was around. I hadn't owned a wagon up to that point so thought one might be quite cool and also pretty useful for setting up in another country. Then for some reason I started lusting over early Commodores and luckily, I found one cheap on Trademe and what's more, it was for sale in New Plymouth and was only 10 minutes from my cousin, who was happy to go see it and collect it, if it was any good. The delay in time zones, him going to visit, upload some photos and e-mail me them to me was pretty nerve wracking, as I thought it was a pretty good price and that Holden foamers would be all over it. Fortunately, either Holden fans in Taranaki are broke, or New Plymouth's just too far away from anywhere else for people to be bothered, as I got it, meaning we had wheels from day one, which is handy when you move to a small town with no public transport other than the odd coach.

 

So here's what we got:

 

 

A 1979 VB wagon, which had undergone panel and paint work some time in the 90's. At about the same time, it also had the 202 and 4 speed manual thrown out and an LD28 and 5 speed box installed, hence the cheapness I guess. 

 

 

 

It was also adorned with such lavish accessories as a car phone, a fan in the boot to keep the dogs cool and (optimistically) a radar detector, all of which were stuffed and badly wired up, so were taken out soon after. The stereo's stayed but the sound is terrible, so I never use it and it'd have to be pretty loud to drown out the motor anyway.

 

This was our only car for the first 6 months here and it got used a fair bit and used to do a 420km round trip to Auckland quite often with work. I was never that happy with the LD28 though, even if it was cheap to run. The long term plan was to reinstate a 202 after hearing a very healthy sounding One Tonner in Taupo, which was registered JL3155 and most probably shared forecourt space with my wagon, which was sold new in Taupo.

 

Just don't underestimate my complacency though, as it took until just before Christmas four years later and a gear box which started knocking loudly in fifth to get my arse into gear and sort shit out.

Discussion Thread

[Jon]

Back in January, I was in Auckland at the time of an OS monthly meet, so went down to pay a visit and met Neal (threeonthetree) and Ben (zebra dude), who were both enthusiastic about my plans and were up for helping out if they could - which of course they could, as I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to spannering and my knowledge of Holden stuff is absolutely nothing compared to either of them, especially Neal. Only thing was, conversation moved away from a 202 six and steered towards a V8, which I admit did look mighty fine in Neal's HQ. My other cars are French GTi's, so I wasn't looking for big horsepower from the Holden but effortless cruising instead, especially on hills. Since I'm European, I also wanted a manual, which pointed towards a Celica 5 speed. Within an hour, the 202 idea was gone and a 253 was what I wanted/needed.

 

I kept in touch with Neal, who it turns out is happy to help spend other people's money and also trawl Trademe relentlessly on others' behalves to sniff out bargains. First up was perhaps the most difficult bit - a worthy Toyota 5 speed. I bagged a W57 Supra box which had been assessed by the fellas at By'Gone Autos, fitted with new bearings and generally tidied up. A few weeks later and another message from Neal, who's seen a 308 motor poorly advertised on the Tard going cheap; lucky that the 'box came with a 308 bell housing, I guess....

 

Being the utterly GC that he is, he went out west and took a look at it for me, bagged a deal with the fella for a few other parts thrown in to the deal and then went and collected it all again a few days later, then almost told me off for my generosity when I bunged him an extra $50 for his troubles! 10/10 WOULD TRADE AGAIN +++++++

[Jon]

OK, I think it's against the rules or something to post up walls of text and no pictures, so I'll try and sort this shit out. I was back in Auckland with work this week, doing a couple of night shifts conveniently close to Neal and Ben's storage facility of dreams, so a plan was hatched to collect my parts and ship them back home. The trailer was loaded up on Tuesday and collected after work on Thursday. 

 

 

Here's my incredibly shonky $150 trailer hitched up to the Bluebird I've just bought as a runabout for my folks when they come to visit. I might as well put the miles on it to test it out and it's bloody useful having a tow bar, especially when the Commodore's out of service!

 

 

 

One 308 motor out of a 1984 VK Calais, a VN diff with disc brakes to hopefully transfer over to the wagon, and Trimatic and torque converter, which will probably be up for sale soon as I have no use for it.

 

 

 

Here's the 5 speed, distributor and a shifter, which will probably also be up for grabs, despite looking quite funky. Not shown are the starter motor and Quadrajet carb, which is resting in the onion bag as I inexplicably had one sitting spare in the boot. There's also one of those daft stack things that go on top of the carb but I'm not about to cut a hole in the bonnet, so may well try and make a lamp out of it one day or something.

 

 

 

After trying to work out where I could store all this stuff safely, I decided to trundle the lot down to a local mechanic to let him take a look, as he's got a Torana and prefers V8s to all the French toss I usually put his way. Thing was, he'd forgotten about my plans since I'd last spoken to him, so when I called to tell him I'd picked up the 308, he was trying to work out what shape of Peugeot I'd bought! Anyway, he seemed happy enough to look at the lot and confirm that I had indeed bought an engine and some other bits but there was no way I was going to leave any of it with him, as he was having a tidy out. I'll take the motor back in a few weeks to get the rings and bearings sorted, along with the timing chain and probably also a cam for starters, along with any other bits that may crop up. I'd love to say that I'd do all this stuff myself but I'd have no idea what would be worn or not or what would be in tolerance etc. and getting outside help is just way more practical right now. 

 

So where do you put a motor and sundries when garage space is full of crap and you don't have an engine crane? In the boot of course, if you've got a wagon. I reversed the trailer up to the Commodore, took off the tow bar and jacked the trailer up level with the boot floor and propped it on stands so it wouldn't move as the weight shifted. Then the missus came home from work and I put a plastic tray underneath it to help slide it across the trailer bed. This sort of worked but I didn't want to do my back in.

 

 

 

 

Then she came up with the idea of folding our old shower curtain underneath it and using that to pull it across, which made the job a whole lot easier. So now everything's put away in the boot, except for the diff. Naturally, that was a little too much for the rear suspension to cope with, especially with air shocks which aren't connected to the air line so are probably on their softest settings. So I propped it up on stands at the tow bar mount for now.

 

 

 

So what next? And what are my plans? For now, there probably won't be many updates for a while, as I'd like some work to get started on the motor whilst it's sitting outside the car. My Dad's coming to visit in a couple of weeks and he's always up for a bit of unpaid labour, so I may look to get the LD28 and box out during his stay; if anyone's interested in it and would like to see it running and take a quick test drive, send me a message. Overall, I'm happy to roll standard height, 8 ply tyres and generally keep it looking just as it is now, then load up the back with camping gear and just enjoy driving it. Pretty boring, eh?

[Jon]

On 14/03/2015 at 02:17, Jon said:

My Dad's coming to visit in a couple of weeks and he's always up for a bit of unpaid labour, so I may look to get the LD28 and box out during his stay

With my lightning quick reactions, I pressed this plan into action a mere 21 months later than expected:

Note the kayak on the roof for extra internet cool points and also the headlights, grille and bonnet removed, to make the job look more involved.

That's not me on the ground doing stuff by the way; that's my cousin, who did a vast majority of the work, whilst I pondered over various bits and did a small fraction of removing stuff, plus took some terrible photos on an outdated camera phone, for the benefit of a few people who like to read about old cars on the internet.

 

Here's a very similar photo, just prior to the one above (where 'we' were removing the Nissan gearbox) which shows the LD28 freshly removed and testing the load bearing capabilities of some old seatbelts, whilst I pause to take another photo.

There's a bit more to say about the 308 motor but that'll have to wait for another time, as I've had a few drinks tonight to celebrate/commiserate the LD28's passing. 

 

[Jon]

Link to discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/47476-jons-vb-station-wagon-ld28-out-308-in/