1963 AP5

The car is back from the painter and it feels like I am on the home stretch now. 

New weather belts and door seals have arrived from Australia.

There was a little light surface rusting in the area where the weather belts fit into the tops of the doors so I carefully cleaned it up  and gave it a couple of coats of paint for protection.

Before

After

I also started fiddling around with the exterior door trims. 

I will install the trims with a combination of original and new trim clips as appropriate for each piece of trim.

Getting all the clips installed in the correct position is actually kind of tricky so some patience will be required.

42 minutes ago, cletus said:

I hope someone got that bit of trim off the front of the guard

Quite hard to get an unbent one

Wasn't much left on it at the end of the day. My favourite part of the day was carefully towing  it from where it sat in the mud to some firm ground so we could jack the front up. I opened the drives door to steer the car and the door fell off. She sure was rusty!  

Been thinking about a Valiant convoy to nationals. Pretty sure an AP5 Safari would be the ideal flagship for such an adventure. 

I came across this 1975 issue of Modern Motor Magazine featuring the all new Holden Gemini.

If there is a Gemini owner out there who would like to give the mag a good home please let me know and I would be happy to send it your way.

Hope you can make it  @MatteybeanI will bring the wagon so you can check out the Weber conversion I was telling you about last month. Reckon something like that would work well on your 3.3. 

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

Spent some time today helping out salvaging parts off this pile of rust in the shape of an old VF Valiant hardtop

Thanks heaps will give you a yell if I win the auction 

I would like to make a Trade Me purchase however the item is pick up only in Porirua. Can anybody help collect it and help me organise a courier up to Auckland. Item is a tyre so hopefully shouldn't be too much hassle. 

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. 

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.........

45 minutes ago, Llama said:

NEW LOCATION OMG. I might even be there. Will people kill me if I show up in a Tesla?

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.

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. 

Thanks heaps to everyone that has taken the time to make a comment here.

Here's a few things I have learned from the OS community and this thread:

• I am old, thanks heaps @sidewaysickness for pointing this out.

On 7/23/2017 at 22:09, sidewaysickness said:

With the electronic discussion some of you older folk ...............

At first I was a little upset by this suggestion but then I looked in the mirror and had to admit that it was actually fairly accurate.

This post and a few similar ones have made me realize that the electronic control systems on these cars may not be a significant problem. Many new-school classic car enthusiasts seem to be far more comfortable messing with EFI than carbs. 

• There already appears to be a reasonable fan base for these cars among the classic car community. 

As many members have pointed out the value of certain models is already on the rise as collectors and enthusiasts become more interested in the next generation of classics. 

• Gasoline bogans are the next steam Barry's

With EV's on the rise and governments making new laws to push in this direction I guess this will be true.

Probably no bid deal for older folk like me, just like you @RUNAMUCK I will also be pushing up daisies by then.

• 3D printing is going to be a big deal

Yep no worries reproducing all those silly little plastic clips and pieces of trim that are already broken by now.

Finally I will probably go out of my way to check out a tidy Skyline, Sylvia, early WRX or EVO, Supra, maybe even a Mits GTO in a supermarket parking lot (or wherever it may be). I have been finding these cars more interesting lately and while I am unlikely to ever buy one myself I am sure you young bucks will be right into them.

Not all old cars are easy to work on.

I remember changing a leaky water hose on an old BMC car (might have been a Mini) and it was an absolute nightmare to get to it, nearly would have been easier to take the engine out of the car.

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!

Thanks heaps for all your comments so far, I was interested in the views of the OS community and you are certainly providing. 

It's interesting how we tend to highlight the prices that certain cars are selling for. No doubt it is a very good indicator of how desirable a car is becoming but are there any cheap & interesting cars out of this era or just the hero cars at this point in time? 

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. 

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. 

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