Kiwibirdman

A month since the last update, where the hell did that go???? Front brakes are almost done, HZ Calipers fit over the machined down HQ discs. I had to play musical brake parts, HZ calipers stolen off the Firebird. I had some HQ calipers that I had rebuilt a while ago. A small amount of grinding was required and some new bolts and the Firebird has new calipers. I did a list yesterday of the jobs that need to be done. There are a lot of things that will take 10 minutes to finish off, mainly welding jobs. I will take some photos and get them up.

Ive seen plenty of Holden Rockers go like that. They really are rubbish. New motors that have sat for any length of time before being started are a problem. Good Luck with getting it sorted!!

As long as the cam lobe is OK you should be alright chucking a new lifter in there. The Holden rocker arms are pretty crap really. Did you keep the rockers with the original pedestals when you rebuilt the engine? Good luck with fixing it, WB Statesman is the ultimate version of the HQ Belmont.

Bring the EH, I need some EJ/EH inspiration.

My 2 cents worth would be to take the springs to a spring maker and get them de-arched. The trick is to measure the current amount of arch with the car sitting on the ground and then tell the spring maker how much you want it to come down. I would leave the extra leaf in place, most 60's cars were a bit soft from the factory which is why the extra leaf trick was so common.

The orange stripes down the sides were totally period correct. The one across the windscreen not so much and really did look crap.

Apparently there is a Tesla being dropped round to our office tuesday for a couple of hours. We are getting to take it for a strop round Clevedon. I will be able to Barry on with some knowledge.

It is. Will look even better when they go off and get HPC coated. I will get it running before coating just in case there are any places that hit the chassis and need some cut and shut.

I did have some very good advise from the panelbeater. Get all the bolt on panels, doors, guards, tailgate etc fixed first as they come off the car. Number of reasons, first is if you run out of motivation there are some good parts to sell, second progress can be seen along the way, lastly when you get to the stage I'm at the final assembly goes fast and is motivation to get done. I think I may have given up if I still had all the bolt on panels to do. The mechanical stuff, even as slow as this car has been due to making so many bits, is fun, Fixing rusty doors and guards not so much. Lots of cars get the engine and running gear sorted, body stripped and then never put back together because it all becomes too hard. Now when the car goes for paint it will come back ready for putting every thing together.

Blind Stupidity is the answer. And if I knew how much there was to change, not to mention rust to fix I probably wouldn't have bought it. I have built a few cars over the years. V8 conversions into HQ Holdens is a piece of cake, stand back and throw it in the hole and away you go. My Firebird was a big mechano set when I bought it, but most parts can be bought off the shelf. This is the hardest project by far because everything has to be changed to fit. My bloody mindedness also made things harder, I will have a column shift, the headers will go down beside the engine not through the inner guards.............. I have got a bit discouraged a couple of times, when I bought the car 13 years ago I could have got a really good HZ wagon for $3k and had it finished years ago. Then I think no one else will have a car like this and really there hasn't been that much money go into it. I'm so close that not finishing now is not an option.

Cheers. Slowly getting there. My mate came and repoed his MIG to fixed the floor in his wife's 1970 VW. Plenty of other stuff to do to keep me out of trouble.

I think the tunners got the LSD as standard, they had bigger yoke/universals on the diff.

Headers are done. Drive shaft built, I had the original commodore one, and a second one that came with the diff. All that was saved was the original commodore yoke, everything else is new. The shaft is 3 inch so good for 6800 rpm or about 300mph in top gear (6800 rpm for the shaft). Should be good. New U bolts also turned up today from rare spares. I stuffed my back lifting 25kg bags of concrete in a big hurry in the rain today so I'm not climbing under the car tonight. A few photos of the drivers side. I am aware that the primary Y connections are wrong. There is not a lot of space!!!!!! The small drop in HP wont be noticed, power to weight should be similar to a current 325 kW HSV Commodore.

Had a box turn up today These should be good. I had priced belts up locally, same chrome buckles but only available in black. Local price for 2 detractor 3 point and 4 lap only belts was $800. These came from Wesco Performance, meet USA standards and were $485 sitting on the bench at home. The box arrived 2 weeks after order, it took a week for them to be dispatched. Very happy will trade again. Took all my driveshaft parts to ADL today to get one made up. Because of the cost of cutting the ends off the old drive shafts almost everything will be new. Probably not a bad idea. No so happy about the bloody cold, car is getting ignored because the garage is bloody cold and too damn big to heat. Buying stuff is progress.

The lip where the 2 halves of the chassis rail are spot welded together no longer exists. Plenty of space for the pump and filter.

Headers are almost finished. I have to take the last 44mm U bend back to swap for a 2 inch. I'm glad that I did this myself with help because they would have cost a fortune to get someone else to build.The passengers side goes in OK, drivers side needs to have the engine lifted to get in and out. Once the drivers side is out I'll post a photo or 2.

A quick up date before the monthly meeting tonight Big progress on the headers. I am glad I'm not paying for the time that has gone into building them. So far parts alone is $600 and still not finished. Here is the passenger side. It is only tacked together. Everything fits.........just. I am aware that the tube lengths are no where near optimal but I don't think dropping a few HP is going to be noticed. And the drivers side half done And a photo taken just as the welder lit up

I am using standard Holden rubber mounts. There is more clearance than the photo shows, there is about 10mm to the lip where the 2 halves of the subframe are joined together. I will be cutting that back when the engine comes out. Fingers crossed that the motor doesn't move that much.

These are the headers that go out through the inner guard. Being the difficult contrary bugger that I am I want my exhaust to go down the side of the engine. If there is a hard way of doing something, that will be the way I want it.

Here is something from Monday night last week. Being the proper engineers we are after modifying the fuel tank we pressure tested it for leaks on the weld. My compressor is over the other side of Auckland so had to go round the corner to my mates place who is doing the welding to use his compressor. Here is the tank all sealed up. Pressurized it to 8psi and found 1 hole in the weld on the new filler neck and 2 in the cap for the original filler neck. Had to take it back to my house, fix the welds, then back to the compressor to check again. Tank is now in the car!!!

I went shopping at Autobend last week and came home with this lot. I still need to go back and get some more, they were almost out of the 41mm 2 into 1 cones, I got 2 and need 4, Some more U bends will be needed as well once I hve used up this lot and figure out what I need to finish off. Here is the start of the drivers side First 2 pipes are tacked into place. There is no way to get proper firing order tri-y design Passengers side Not much space down there, nothing hits!! Had to stop last night at 10:15 because the cut off wheel made too much noise and the kids wouldn't go to sleep. Here is a mock up of the intake I'm going to cut down the bend so it sits in the middle of the inner guard and will have a cone filter on the end. I wanted to make a cold air induction but no space.

Checked the firing order and the separation is correct. Started building the passengers side and it should all fit OK. Going to be really tight on the drivers side. I don't think that Im going to be able to get the correct cylinders connected, no space to cross the number 3 and number 5 pipes over. I wonder how much of an issue it is?

I have done a fair bit of looking and head scratching about the headers, passengers side is front 2 cylinders and rear 2 connected, drivers side are first and third, second and fourth. I am not getting worried about primary pipe length, what ever fits is how it will be, the secondaries will be a long as possible. I get the feeling this will be another session of cut, fit, tack, cut apart, retack...........repeat endlessly until they have been built about 3 times before I am happy.

Some more photos Todays effort was to make a new mount for the park brake cable under the car. Another build the first version then have to make the same again. The one on the right was the first version which was OK until I cross threaded the bolt and stuffed the thread. Here it is the mounting bracket attached. Here are the header plates that came from Autobend. I have the passengers side one in place. It looks like I might have to open a couple of the bolt holes to line things up. I have been thinking about the headers a lot. The plan is to try and build a set of Tri-y's, the pipe lengths will be all over the place because of the lack of space. Off to Autobend on Wednesday to buy a bunch of U-bends and reducers. Any thoughts or ideas welcome on the discussion thread.

A long overdue update and photos Here is the brake booster, the lean to the motor is to create clearance between the plastic reservoir and the bonnet spring I went to fit the park brake and found that the brake pedal was in the way. Nothing that 2 hours of stuffing around couldn't fix. Once it was sorted and everything connected the position felt pretty good. Here is the modified fuel tank. An the hole in the floor for the filler pipe to come in. The steel box section beside the hole is for the tank mounts and the floor has been welded to it. Much stronger than before. I had been thinking about the seat belt mounts. There are doubler plates available from the likes of Fraser cars at $15 each and they still need to be drilled for the rivets or bolts that hold them together. I need 12 sets because the car came mounts for the driver and front passenger only, nothing for the centre of the front seat or the back seat. The original mounts on the floor disappeared when the floor pans got replaced. I had some 3mm plate and decided on Saturday to make my own plates. 2 hours later I had 20 50mm x 80mm plates with rounded corners and beveled edges as per the certification code. The still have to be drilled for the bolts and then painted. And for a laugh here is my DIY linisher