Kiwibirdman

Today I played Hookey from work and got the car over to the panel shop. Managed to dodge the rain showers and only get a little bit of rain on it. My wife came and helped with the pushing around and winding the winch on the trailer. With the stress of the weather I forgot to take any photos. I will go down to the panel shop tomorrow if I get a chance and take a couple. Heres a couple of photos from the other day when I go the doors on and the threaded rod in to hold the front suspension up. It's got the 70's nose down thing going on big time.

Finally got my act together and worked on the car today. My brother in law gave me a hand and we go the doors bolted on ready for it to go to the panel shop this week. Amazing what some doors do to the look of the car. I also played around with the front brakes. I was given a pair of callipers that apparently came off WB holden. They are PBR and all cast iron. They also don't fit on and LH Torana front end. The Aluminium body callipers that the HZ's got are the same as a UC Torana with a bigger spacer in the middle. I have a set on the front of the Firebird that may have to be given a new home. I have been looking for an excuse to buy the reproduction GM 4 wheel disc conversion for the Firebird and this might be it. I keep forgetting how small this thing is and how light the doors and guards are. Not having side intrusion bars, sound deadening and all the other modern crap like air-conditioning and electric windows makes a huge difference. Off to the panel shop on Thursday as long as the weather gods play nicely. Its been out of the rain for 20 years and I want to keep it that way, at least until it gets real paint and windows

I bought one of those Summit kits years ago for a 350 chev. No problems at all. The quality of their own brand stuff is pretty good. If you are going to turn the 350 in a good street motor, upto 400 horse and 6000 rpm rev limit it will be all good. If you want to go hard then the wallet will need to be opened a bit more. A genuine 350 horse 350 in a full size Holden would be a lot of fun without costing a fortune and not being a nightmare to drive to work. Nothing better than a well thought out budget engine blowing a big dollar, big name parts, no idea engine into the weeds Mike

Something else to check is the timing marks on the front pulley and timing tab. If something is not right you will be chasing. timing mark not in the right place on the pulley or the tab on the block is bent. Having the timing well retarded will give the problems you have. (I'm not that familiar with 4 banger Datsun motors and their timing marks, I did have this problem with a V8 Holden and it took a while to figure out)

As I understand it for the 4l60E (VP auto box) the computer need to know that the car is doing more that 72 Kmh to lock up the trans. I know on my chevy truck the lock up works at about that speed.

This is a hurdle I have to get over with my VT V8 into early Holden project. I think that the computer needs to have the speed sensor in place to change gear at the right time. The options I have come up with so far are converter box, probably the easiest answer, last time I looked about US$300 aftermarket electronic speedo, US$140 get a VT cluster and hide the speedo guts behind the original speedo I'm going to give option 3 a crack if I can get a cluster for not too much money. Keen to find out how you get on.

The HQ and onwards Holdens have what the marketing department called flow through Ventilation. The idea being that the air would come in through the vents in the front, especially the 6 inch drain pipes above your feet, through the car and out through the vents in the back door opening. All well and good and works when the windows are shut. Like a couple of people have said having the windows down stuffs up the internal pressure, as you have found. What this means is that air is being sucked in from the boot to the front of the car. This is happening all the time, you notice it on deceleration because of the massive engine vacuum is causing any oil to get past the rings and valve guides which you can smell worse than the nice exhaust on normal running. The exhaust is being sucked into the low pressure zone at the back of the car, which is the back bumper/bottom of boot lid area. So after the theory stuff, the big question is how to fix the bloody car. I had the same problem with a HX station wagon that the back window wouldn't go all the way up. The fix was easy, bend the tail pipe so the end pointed out the side into the airflow that didn't get sucked into the car. The pipe came out the side at about a 30 degree angle and didn't look too stupid. Shifting the tail pipe as close to the corner of the car will help. The closer to the centre of the car and the higher the pipe the worse the problem. I hope this helps.

The rubber engine mounts are the same, the adapter that bolts to the block is different from the HQ-WB and the Commodores. The Commodore cross member is a lot further back in relation to the engine.

I've got a V8 Holden aftermarket electronic ignition set up that I would be happy to donate to the cause. I kept it out of the 308 ute that I had last century and it worked really well. The centre button was missing out of the dizzy cap and it still ran perfectly. Give me a PM if you want it. Mike

Thought you might like that one. Did a bit of research, Early style box behind LS motor is a piece of cake, same bolt pattern for the bell housing, fly wheel is available from Summit Racing for about $US300, clutch is stock Chevy, This could be cheaper than an injected 308 with a Holden 3 speed. Hardest part is finding a reasonable HQ ute to stick it all into, After getting it past the financial controller.

Threeonthetrees idea has real merit. A truck motor, 5.3 or 6.0 with auto box is cheap from a wrecking yard. The 5.3's are worth nothing, not because there is anything wrong with them, its because they are too good and they don't wear out. Typically 300k miles is the normal life. All the bits to throw into an earlier pickup are available off the shelf, mounts, headers, wiring loom etc. Got me thinking now, early 90's short wheel base pickup, single cab, corvette motor, 6 speed manual........ Nah....... HQ ute, corvette motor, 6 speed manual........or 5.3 truck motor and 3 on the tree....dam too many ideas. Must be able to put a chev 3 speed behind an LS motor, a couple of Bowden cables to the shift linkage on the other side of the box.....

My understanding was that is was impossible to register a LHD truck under 20 years old because they didn't meet the criteria for a SIV. There are a few very late model Silverados, RAMs and F150s around LHD with plates. Maybe you have to know someone.

Chevy pickups hold their price well, for ones less than 20 years old, it's the cost of the RHD conversion that kills you. I did see a current shape one the other day on the motorway LHD and registered. Love to know how that happened. Anyway that is a different conversation. I paid $48k for my truck nearly 9 years ago, there is a guy who is hounding me to sell it to him and will pay $32k. I nearly bought an SS crewman for the same money, what would that have been worth now $12-$15?? It's not the cost of petrol that kills you, its maintenance and depreciation, ask anyone who bought a new luxury barge like a top of the line Audi, Beemer, Merc.............. They guy who came round in the weekend to buy the canopy off my truck had a 2004 extended cab with the 4.8 motor. He paid $30k and reconned he go a steal at that price. If you can spend the extra and get the later model one, they are way better.

A bunch of things here If the manifold is not sealing properly you could have water getting in. Have you retorqued the bolts? Also did you use the gaskets under the ends of the manifold or bead of silicon? Normally I chuck the cork end gaskets because they will hold the manifold up and stop it from sealing properly. The performer cards are great, make sure that your fuel pressure is right, I had a stock chevy pump that put out nearly 7 psi and that caused all sorts of grief. Good luck.

I would do a compression test and a leak down test. This should expose if there is anything major wrong. Normally if it is valve guides the smoke is black, my firebird does this when it has be parked for a while. Are you using more oil or water?

Hi Threeonthetree I'm partial to the odd Holden myself, I can definitely see an HQ or 2 in my future, however nothing matches an extra cab Silverado when you have more than three people and a pile of stuff to cart around. I bought my truck here, off a dealer in Newmarket who traded it on a Kia Sorento. That was nearly 9 years ago and it had been in the country about a year at that point. The RHD conversion was done by a crowd down in Welly.

Still like to see you get 6 fat bastards into a crewman and a few 8x4 sheets of ply in the tray.

Love to see you fit the six fat bastards that my extended cab Silverado will hold into your manual commodore ute.

Hi Pusherman My truck gets about 14l/100ks driving everywhere. The only mod to the motor is a full twin exhaust from the standard exhaust manifolds. Towing my 17 ft caravan it gets about 20l/100, I don't slow down for hills we sit on the limit the whole way. Towing the caravan with my wifes Grand Vitara , 2.4 manual, got the same economy and a lot less speed up the big hills. If you are thinking about buying one, do it. It is the best vehicle that I have ever owned. It goes well, handles nicely, pedders shocks, 20 inch wheels and a 4/2 lowering kit help. The only issue is I have had is 2 fuel pumps died. Bunce's have them for $800 plus GST. Buying one from Summit racing should be landed for $400. Apart from the pump it is a cheap vehicle to own, all it really needs is maintenance items, brake pads every 50k miles, my first set of tyres lasted about the same. The battery just got replaced, first one after 8 years (marine batteries are the answer).

The size should be stamped on the frost plugs, can be hard to read if they are rusty. Frost plugs come in all sorts of odd ball sizes, the ones in mu firebird were some thing like 1 61/64 inch. The expression on the young guys face at Repco when I asked that size was priceless. In comparison the girl at Partmaster didn't flinch when I asked the same question, and only took a couple of minutes to say they weren't in stock in the store but they would have some in 2 days.

I have a Howe Racing Hydraulic release bearing in front of the T5 in my 1968 Firebird. I have blown the O rings out of the bearing once and the replacement ones weep a bit of fluid. In my mind the use of O rings is bit cheap and nasty because they can't take the pressure like a proper lip seal. The big question is there an OEM release bearing that fits a T5, World Class V8 box that anyone knows of? Mike

I have a 2000 Silverado, it has the 5.3 LS motor. These first appeared with the change in body style in 1999. The earlier trucks had the throttle body injection on the traditional small block 305's and 350's and the Big Block 454's. The TPI injection only appeared on passenger cars, Corvettes, IROC Camaros, Trans AMs and Buick Roadmasters etc. It was a shame the TPI motors never got put in the trucks because they have a torque curve like a 400 Pontiac, all there by 2500 revs and all done by 5000. There was a quote by some racer who said the TPI was the best truck motor Chevrolet never put in a truck.

When I converted my Firebird to Manual I used a Howe racing Hydraulic release bearing (not recommended, I've blown the O rings out of it once already) and used flexible braided lines. These were routed out through the hole for the clutch fork, The bleed nipple is outside the bell housing and makes it easy to bleed up. The down side to the hydraulic bearing is if it fails the gearbox has to come out. if you are unlucky the clutch gets covered in oil. The upside is they are perfect if you dont have space or like me don't like the cross bars and linkages on LHD cars.

That is seriously cool. I like very much!!

Nice wagon, I am jealous.