Motoroche

The monaro is under cover and waiting to be worked on next. To be honest I can't wait to get back into it. Sometimes its good to have a bit of a break from a big project to gather up some more funds and ideas on what to do to it.

The latest project is a MK11 BDA escort rally that is owned by a guy that hires it out to international drivers. I have been busy on this lately as it will be running at the silver fern classic rally this year and I'm one of the guys that helps look after it. Can't wait to get it going and take it to the track to run the new engine in.

Long time no post. I have been up to many different things over the past year but unfortunately working on the monaro was not one of them. One of my resent projects which I have now sold was an Opel manta that needed a bit of TLC.

Bit of a spend up at Rare Spares

The monaro is all painted now and looking great. Still have a lot of work ahead putting it back together. At this stage I seem to be pulling it apart more than putting it together. Overhauling the brakes at the mo. BNT are my friends their. New master cylinder and caliper rebuild kit on the way.

So I have now decided to leave the factory 186 motor in the old girl but would like to run some of these carbs. They are mikuni HRS series carb.

Well I have had a big think which was quite hard for me and have now have decided to paint the car close to original as I can plus also keep it powered by the factory capacity 186 holden engine though I am toying with the idea of fitting triple cabs to it.

A pic of all the bad bits that have been cut out.

Some more pics of the progress that Dan has made, He ended up replacing the rear beaver panel as the old rear end had a nasty previous repair plus the shape was all wrong.

A bit of a head start but I think I can get mine finished first. Well its taken him 12 years to get to this stage. A lot of history with this car. It's a factory 307 manual that was converted to a drag car in the 1980's. It use to have a tilt front with the engine recessed back into the cabin. It still has the rhs beams running thought the floor of the body to keep it from twisting. It sure is stiff as you can jack it from one corner and the opposite side will come up at he same height and the doors will shut fine.

The race is on to get the family monaros going for my sisters wedding (in March 2013), this is a pic of my fathers monaro. He has had it since late 2000. It was mine originally which I brought from invercargill in around 1999 but due to spending to much on a trip overseas (in France) I sold it to him so I could still could maintain my drinking habit that I had acquired while abroad. It will be powered by a nicely warmed over 350 chev and a manual saginaw gearbox This car has some sweet lines going on.

Left hand side is looking great and Dan has done a fantastic job with welding in some rare spares panels and manufacturing some of his own where he removed the rust from underneath the outer skin. Right hand side is being worked on now, found some more work that is needed to done. Never is just straight forward with these old cars, You can see the patch i put in in 1998. A pic of me in 1998 working on the monaro,

Here are some more pics of the progress on the monaro

Well I have to pick the colour out soon to paint the old girl. Most people I have talked to said that I should paint it the factory blue. What do you guys think?

First of the new panels to be wielded in has started. Dan found some rust underneath the outer skin in the sill and had to make up an internal repair patch. Looking good so far, more work to follow next week.

Dan Drummond the panel beater has already started on the monaro. We were both surprised at the condition of the left hand side after he removed about a bucket full of bog, (no rust). It uncovered some more badly repaired panels but I just cannot understand why they had put so much bog in it. Some previous owner must have had shares in a bog factory. Anyway the old car already looks better with more natural lines back in it with all that bog removed, plus it must be a bit lighter.

The panel beater has just been around and is keen to start on it asap, so that's good news. Just need to decide if I want him to do the hole lot or just the rear quarters. I'm thinking the hole lot done would be nice especially as he thinks he could have it all done and painted within 3 months. That straight cut cam gear set was in my 400 that I had in my HZ ute. You are right it was noisy as hell and I ended up removing it and the alloy heads when I sold it. It was interesting at wof time as the engine noise was over the decibel limit and the exhaust was not so it passed. The law only talked about exhaust noise apparently.

AFR heads and roller gear for 327

I don't work for Avon city ford. A hot 327 with my AFR heads and roller set up should do the trick. The car is a factory GTS 186s manual so it has the floor shift. I think most had the old opel manual box in them standard but mine has got a Aussie 4 speed fitted (m20) now. The thing with the HK is that they have a very shallow tunnel and you can't fit in a gearbox like a T5 or T56 unless you cut the tunnel. A common mod is to weld in a HQ tunnel. I'm not to keen to chop this one up so I think I will use a supper T10, (Richmond, Jerico) type gearbox. Only problem then is no overdrive which equals hight cruise rev's with a low ratio diff.