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1963 AP5

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  1. Cool stuff happened this week A local stainless steel fabricator has been busy restoring the exterior door trims for me, I got them back today and he has done a great job. As I mentioned in an earlier post the trims were full of holes where the trim had been pop riveted to the doors, all the holes have been repaired and they look great. Here is a comparison picture. I have also finished repairing the rear door cards. Very happy with how they turned out
  2. Yea I am aware that the front hanger can be changed to lower the ride height. I like the idea of having the springs reset for a more acceptable ride height because I know that Valiants can be very soft in the rear without the extra leaf. Not really after the slammed look, just want a nice subtle drop.
  3. More fiddly stuff while the car is away, I made up a batch of my re-manufactured / homegrown trim clips for the exterior door trims. Cut out a bunch of small pieces from thin stainless plate Drilled holes for the fasteners Shaped them all up Tapped a thread and installed the fastners 12 should be enough to replace the missing clips assuming I don't break any more re-installing the trims on the car.
  4. I'd say if you have a real desire to do the V6 thing just go ahead an do it straight away. If you get it on the road with a different engine there is a risk that the V6 will sit in the corner unloved and you will decide that you are perfectly satisfied with the 4cyl (that is what I would probably do anyway). It will probably be easier to do the conversion while the car is in pieces as well rather than trying to nip and tuck a finished car to make things fit. I believe those V6 engines go very well in small cars like the Escort so should be sweet! You have probably seen this already.........
  5. While the car is away having the panel work sorted out I decided to get started fixing up the interior door panels. I started with the left rear, this one actually as a corner broken off completely along with a couple of trim clip locations that can no longer retain the trim clips. I have built a few small boats in the past (you can see them in the background of a few pictures in this thread) and have plenty of fiberglass off cuts in a box in the shed. I decided this would be the perfect material for fixing the door cards so began by cleaning up the areas to be repaired with a sanding disc. Then I cut out a whole lot of little patches from fiberglass cloth so I can build up the damaged areas. Next I set about rebuilding the damaged areas with fiberglass cloth and resin. Finally I put two layers of glass cloth right along the bottom but by this stage my gloves were well coated in resin and I didn't dare try to pick up my phone to take a photo. You can see the strips of glass cloth that I used in the photo above (top left of the pic). I then sandwiched the whole lot together and allowed it all to cure overnight. And the next day it is all cured. Only 3 more to do.
  6. If you do a big smokey burnout in it I will buy you a burger myself, will throw in fries if there is enough room in the car park for donuts.
  7. Murphy says that the day you want to drive your car to the panel and paint shop with no side window glass installed it will rain. Or it could just be because it is winter in Auckland. Anyway, rain it did so today I had to install some genuine South Auckland windows for the short trip down to Takanini. On the way down I was stopped at a set of traffic lights and a Police car pulled up in the lane next to me. I thought to myself oh dear, no windows, no exterior door handles, only one tail light installed, dodgy tires on the back, I'm screwed! The officer looked out her window at me then simply smiled, waved and let me be on my way. Freakin awesome!
  8. Radiator is all fitted up to our VK now. I think it was worth getting the OE style copper item in the end simply for ease of installation. It's a 2 core item and the quality seems to be very good, cost no more than an alloy one in the end but needed to phone around a few places to find somebody who was prepared to do a good price.
  9. After a couple of solid evenings work stuff is starting to look more serious. All the trim is off the sides of the car, door handles are removed and it's nearly ready to head off to the panel and paint shop to have the rust in the rear guard fixed and a whole lot of little stuff tidied up here and there. The car looks quite different with the 1/4 glass removed. There are quite a few trim clips that are either missing or not suitable for re-use. You can't buy these so I set about making my own replacements. The factory clip is on the right and my effort on the left. And installed in one of the door trims. These will work nicely but I need to make about 15 of them so will be moving to mass production this weekend.
  10. More progress from the weekends efforts. I had a buddy round on Sat helping out so we actually got a whole lot done. We removed all the side window glass from the car and removed the old worn out weather strips. Crusty old glass out I removed the window regulators for checking and I am very happy that they are in awesome condition. They will benefit from a clean and a bit of lubrication but other than that they are good enough to put straight back in with the new windows. 1/4 windows removed Turns out there is a bit of a trick to getting the weather strips out without destroying them and I didn't really figure it out properly until the last door. The weather strips that I removed first are at the top of this picture and the ones that came out last are at the bottom. The window rubbers from the 1/4 windows are in pretty good condition so I will be re-using them. I will need to clean them up a bit as they are quite dirty and have some paint on them from one of the re-sprays that the car has had over the years. Should be able to remove the paint with care. Got to have the car ready for the panel and paint shop next week so still plenty to do, it will be a busy week!
  11. Definitely check out your earth's, funny things can happen when the solenoid is on the body of the car. I assume that the negative battery lead is connected to the engine block. You may need a grunty earth strap between the engine and body. The one on my car is fairly heavy for this exact reason.
  12. Not sure about that particular roof rack, looks mighty tall. On your starter issues, have you tried giving it a good clout when it refuses to turn over? Sometimes the brushes can stick in the holders. A bash can make them spring into place again. You probably tried this already but I thought it would be worth mentioning.
  13. Had a good evening with the car at the OS July monthly but it was straight back into the shed this weekend to crack on with the project. Started to work on the doors and interior tidy up. I removed the sheep skins as they really need a clean. I haven't seen the stock interior for a while now and man it's a whole lot of green!! Off with the door cards The door cards are actually in better condition than I expected, the damaged areas are small and shouldn't be too hard to repair. Next job is to remove all the stainless trim from the doors
  14. That Prince stole the show for me as well! Enjoyed the venue and would be happy to meet again there.
  15. It's an Auckland meet in July and it's not raining! That's like some kind of miracle. Hope we have a good turn out at the new venue. The AP5 is all set so I will be there.
  16. Wheel alignment was sorted today all ready for Auckland monthly met tomorrow. I also got my battery isolation switch installed. Pretty stoked with this, no more disconnecting and reconnecting the battery terminals. With the battery tray and battery installed the switch is nicely hidden away from view.
  17. Sounds like it's going to be a bit of a lucky dip when it comes to the alloy radiators, as I kind of expected opinions are mixed. After a lot of phoning round today I have found a radiator specialist that is prepared to give me a sharp price on a new copper / brass item. Seems like a good deal although it's probably still made in China.
  18. Thanks @kiwi808at the moment I just need a radiator that doesn't leak at a reasonable price. It would be nice to have a flash expensive one but all the money is being spent on the other car right now. I will probably be doing something with the engine in the car in the future & will look at a good radiator at that point in time. For now if these things work ok it will be a good cheap short term solution. Car is limited to grass skids right now due to absence of horsepower but do one all the same.
  19. Yep understand your point but the motor that is currently in the our Holden Vacationer is probably worth less than even the cheapest Chinese Radiator. Maybe I should build a decent engine so I can justify a decent radiator.
  20. Yes I think it would be worth a look, the Redline ones are a fraction of the cost of a new copper radiator and it would have to be better than the 30 year old radiator that is in the car now. Anything that actually holds water would be better right now to be honest. Enough people have posted positive feedback here to suggest the aftermarket aluminium option is certainly worth considering.
  21. Thanks @k-trips these are my concerns exactly, cheers for taking the time to share your thoughts. Thanks as well to everyone else who has shared their experience with these products. Seems people have used them and they have been OK which is encouraging however if word through the grapevine is correct the products that they are bringing in now may not be up to the same standard. Would be keen to see one before I make a decision so I can get some idea of the quality. I don't feel happy buying one online with nothing but a drawing on their website to indicate what I might get. I wonder if they have a store or something so I can check one out.
  22. I had my Valiant radiator recored as the tanks were OK but core was leaking. Unfortunately the tanks on the Commodore radiator are pretty sad, they tend to crack and leak around the mounts when they are old. Radiator shop didn't recommend re-coring this one.
  23. Fenix say its a direct replacement so should fit right in. A more authentic replacement radiator is a lot more expensive at around $600 +GST.
  24. Thanks for the feedback The Redline ones are a bit cheaper at $250 V's the Fenix radiator at $400 but both are fairly inexpensive in the big scheme of things. I kind of wondered if there was realistically that much difference between them. There might not be any point paying the extra for the Fenix radiator if they are both similar Chinese items. Fenix radiator does come with cap, coolant and free shipping so I guess there is about $100 price difference between them when you take that into account.
  25. I really need to replace the Radiator in or VK Commodore. I see Fenix Radiators do an alloy radiator that should be a bolt in replacement but I am unsure about using alloy radiators in old cars. I know that alloy as a material shouldn't be a big problem as there are plenty of other alloy components in the cooling system but I would be keen to know if anybody has used any of the Fenix products? Would be great to have some feedback on the quality of the radiators. I see there are also Redline products on Trade Me but they seem way too cheap, can they possibly be any good? Thanks in advance for your thoughts
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