Kiwibirdman

Cool looking truck. Welcome to the Silverado owners club.

Guilty as charged. Work got in the way. Feeble excuse I know, but when you own a chunk of the business it's hard to walk away.

Yeah, I can probably do it.

Despite being side tracked with work family life in general there has been some good progress. All the side window are in. I had a problem with the left rear door, the channel that the rubber goes in was missing. This was a door I bought to replace the original. I bent up a channel and pop riveted it in. From the factory this was spot welded but since I have nice new paint the welder was staying far away. The next job was the rubbers and channel then drop the window in the hole. the whole process felt harder than the other side I did a while ago. When I went to put the quarter window and channel in I found the gap was 5mm too small. Managed to carefully spread the door using a couple of small pry bars. Managed to scratch the paint on the inside of the door on the first go, second go worked like a charm. Spent hours making up hard fuel lines. The rubber bits joining the hard lines have been done.

I'll be in. Be good to catch up, have a burger and come up with excuses why the car isnot finished.

This is the cold airbox I built. It has a pipe that comes from beside the radiator which feeds the box. It isn't totally air tight but I'm working on the principle that air pressure while driving will make positive pressure so the engine will get cold air.

I put the hoodlining in myself. It looks better in real life but with 20/20 hindsight I should have put it on a trailer and taken to the professional. hopefully overtime it will tighten up a bit.

Here are some photos The bumpers look pretty good, the front and end of the rear are new reproduction ones, the front overriders and centre of the back were re-chromed. Bought this flaring tool the other day for the fuel lines, works really well, $55 off trademe.

The story of the gutter trim. The gutter trim on a EJ wagon is about 2.5 metres long and nice ans flexible. I had spent about 2 or 3 hours cleaning it up. knocking the dents out and polishing. It was getting late and I was hell bent on getting it done and on the car. I had had a couple of warnings that the trim was getting flicked off the wheel, trying to get to the edge on the bend at the front is a bit of an art. Should have stopped but ........... I was lucky, one bruise on my are and only the trim turned into spaghetti. I still haven't worked up the nerve to do the new one.

A relay or 2 are probably going to be needed. Hoping some smart bugger already had the answer.

I have bought a VN commodore wiper motor to put in the EJ. I also have an EH 2 speed wiper switch, so far so good. Where I need help is sorting out the wiring. Green = high speed Red = low speed Black = earth Brown = Ignition Yellow = Park I understand to make the motor work on low speed it need power to red and earth to black. High speed = Green and black, easy enough. To get the park to work it needs power to Brown (which can be live anytime the ignition is on) and yellow and red looped together. The circuit between red and yellow is broken when the motor is in operation. Is this correct and does anyone have a simple wiring solution to make this work with a simple 2 pole switch.

Being a bit useless at keeping updates on track I realised that it's nearly 6 months since the last update. In short, the roof lining is in, looks 7 out of 10 and I should have got it done by someone who knows what they are doing. New reproduction bumpers bought and fitted (over-riders in the front and centre section of the rear are the originals re-chromed). Cold air box built and installed. Steering installed, rack fitted with new boots, cleaned and painted,with the original bus sized steering wheel I don't think the steering will be too heavy. I am having a couple of days away at Ohakune with the family and took a trip up to Horopito and got a replacement gutter trim to replace the one I destroyed with the polisher (that will get its own post), knobs for the heater and vents for the demister. Time now to start knocking off the half finished jobs, run some fuel lines and sort out the wiring. Make noise!!!!! Photos to come.

If you have gone to the trouble and expense of getting a 9 inch with all the good gear, don't stuff round with trying to use a secondhand drive shaft. I had the one on my Holden built with new everything except the yoke into the trans, 3 inch shaft rated to more horse power and revs than the 5 litre Holden will ever get near for $750 including tax. One busted drive shaft will do more than $750 worth of damage.

Good to see that you are back on this.

What is the general condition of the engine, I would do a compression test on all cylinders. Less compression will make the fuel air mix harder to fire.

Its an injected 5 litre out of a VT commodore. Should start easily.......in theory. At least it doesn't have the fuel evaporation issues that my Firebird has when left to sit for a while.

I was thinking about this, the commodore the motor came out of had everything that opens and shuts, my car has the bare minimum. The big worry for me is having enough grunt to turn it over. Mounting in the boot is an issue being a station wagon, the spare wheel well has gone for the fuel tank.

I am looking for a small sized but reasonable CCA (500) battery to put into my EJ Holden. The commodore the engine cam out of has a 550 CCA battery so I want to keep close to that but I don't have a lot of space in the engine bay. What have other people used where they are squeezed for space?

More slow progress. Got all the side trim on the car. Between panel beating the trim (looks good from 10 feet away), polishing, making new clips and then fitting there is about 16 hours invested. Side trim, picking the best set Polishing machine. A strangely satisfying way of killing a lot of time. I had the bonnet spear and the bezel for the lock rechromed by the bumper repair people in Onehunga. Both came up like new. Bloody expensive pass time getting chrome done, especially when the old stuff is badly pitted. The door windows are in on the drivers side, again took bloody hours. There is an order that the windows go in and its different front to back. The other side hasn't been done yet, the channel that should be welded to the inside of the rear door frame is missing. This is a door that I bought repaired and the channel must have been taken out to fix some rust and never got put back in. I have a new one folded up and am hoping that epoxy glue will be enough to hold it it. Since the car is painted I don't want to be welding the door frame. I am also looking for a good front Quarter light window for the passengers door, the frame on mine is falling apart with rust. If any one knows of one please send the details my way.

For your tether point, the section of the floor between the back of the seat and the lift out to get to the spare wheel, has a frame under it. Here is a photo of my EJ through the side window. It is good and solid, made up of 2 pieces so drilling and adding a crush tube and it will be fine. This is probably stronger than the parcel shelf in most sedans.

From your first post I think you have a dud sender. No unheard of to get a dud out of the box.

Have been plugging away at the car. Latest job is spraying fish oil into all the seams and cavities. I am not popular with the rest of the family, the smell has wafted through the whole house. 2 coats done, one more tomorrow.

Nice work. If you are going to put legs on it I would do it before the floor goes in. Makes it easy to weld.

Problem with running down the inside of the draw bar is it's another hole to let in water. Not an issue if the trailer is hot dip galvanized.

Thanks Mate. It is a great leap forward. I'm pretty slack about updating the build thread. Lots of half finished bits that only need a small push to get finished. I promise to do some more regular updates, it is pretty close. Put it together, get @cletus to certify and get it registered. Easy, should be done in no time!