Kiwibirdman

After a couple of months I finally spent some time on the car yesterday. It really needs to get to the panel shop before winter, the car was blasted in December 2013 and has been in epoxy primer since then. It is in a garage but the air gets really damp when it is cold. Before the body shop I want the mechanicals done to the point where everything is mounted so that all cuts are cut and shuts are shut before paint. The fun part is figuring out the order so that nothing needs to be redone. Something that I keep relearning is how small these cars really are. I stuffed around for a good hour or so figuring out where the steering column is going to fit. It is a juggle between having enough arm room, making sure the column shift wont hit anything and that everything at the bottom of the column misses. I thought I had it figured out until I decided to check that the pedals would fit. Of course not and the handbrake only make it worse. Back to the drawing board, the hard part is keeping the column break away intact in case of a big accident. On the plus side I have some budget again so time to start buying things again!! I will put up some photos soon.

Nice truck. My 2 cents worth is a 5.3 out of 2000 or later pickup. Go for ever, make reasonable horsepower, good on gas, especially in one of those trucks that don't weigh much.

If anyone out there has a go to guy in Auckland for sorting out the Holden Computer can you give me details. Also anyone who has done the wiring loom, I know there is a heap of stuff that can be removed, it would be easier to talk to some one who has done it. Thanks Mike

I'll jump now to where the car has got to. The body has been sand blasted. It would have been cool to have kept the original patina by it was rusting too much under the paint and the previous owner had got carried away with PA10 and a brush. The floor pans have been replaced, there is still some finishing to do, the trans tunnel might have to come out to get the 4L60E to fit. The Torana front is bolted in still with the Torana disks. The original 13 inch wheels are there to push it round on. It will get HQ disks and WB statesman callipers. The doors and guards have been panelled and primed. Next stop is the panel beaters, I have a new LHS sill to go on, the original is rotten and wavy. The new one was bent up by a crowd in Wellington and goes right through to the inner sill. I also have a new rear panel to go on. Like all EJ,EH Holden's the original was rotten, no paint from the factory. The factory cutout for the exhaust is gone to give me options for where the dual exhaust will exit. Here is the latest photo

Link to build thread

I bought this car as a rolling body the week my oldest son was born. The agreement with the wife was it could come home as soon as the bathroom was finished. Another son, house renovations and life got in the way and the car got ignored for about 6 years. I did occasionally think about the car and put a plan into place. I saw an article in Street Machine mag about a guy who put an LH Torana front end under an EK Holden. It didn't look too difficult and one turned up on trade me a couple of weeks later. That was the start of buying bits to fix the car and a good friend came over and we ripped into it. We found lots of good stuff, like the floor pans the were rotten and had sheets of steel pop riveted and braised in place. Thank you Holden for the built in rust traps of rubber flooring with sound deadening underneath to hold moisture and make rust. Amazingly the rest of the car and the usual rust spots are really good. The car has been off the road since 1989 and that is what saved it. Back to the plan. The LH Torana front is in the car, there is an injected 5Litre from a VT commodore sitting on my engine stand waiting for the HQ sump and pickup to be fitted. The engine has a 4 speed auto with it. I found a narrowed HZ ute diff that is under the car. The steering column is out of a LC Torana, its the column auto one. In my world the right place for the gear lever with a V8 and auto is the column, especially with a bench seat. Here is what I started with

I did the same conversion in an HQ a few years ago and never got round to fitting the kick down wiring. The trimatic did everything right for the year or so I drove it until the 253 was completely worn-out and got ditched for a 308 and TH350. My advice would be to drive it and see how it goes. You wont damage anything because the kick down is only activated on full throttle. Mike

Back in the day, a long time ago, I drove round for a couple of months in a HZ ute with one of those Trans Am fronts on it. The car was a plumbers ute with standard steel wheels, hub caps and LPG with 202 and auto. It need lowering, big wheels and a V8. The Trans Am front got taken off by the next owner and put back to HZ. The front on trade me is for HJ-HZ, it won't line up on an HQ, bonnet and guards are the wrong shape.