Vk304

Throughout the time ive had this car painted ive always stored it inside, the last year ive put it outside a few times, and instantly the wing started to bubble, turns out the sun and rain with bad paint prep on fibreglass took a toll on it, but no other parts of the car, it still looked good, but had some scratches and the bubbles got bigger and bigger.

So i decided to paint it and another part which ill detail later, together

Window wouldnt wind up all the way, so i pulled mechanism out of the door and welded the teeth up, re-created a bunch of them and sanded, it works now, for how long i dont know, i guess we will see. 

Well, 2nd sons arrived now, waiting on some funds to come through to buy argon for my tig, hopefully soon, in the mean time here's a picture of a gas cap with Jdm stickers on the old van lol

I had a set of brakes from the vs ute, slotted drilled rotors and master cylinder etc, had to buy hub adapters to make it work as well as a spacer for the booster, and now works great, the rotors are a bit bigger, calipers finned, rotor no longer house wheel bearings, mate at work skimmed the front rotors to make for a nice brake setup, that can still have small wheels go over I believe.

And got certified, first time around was a fail on speedometer out and a fuel line fastener in one spot, not bad! Fixed those things and all done !

Paint problems, and havent cleaned the engine bay in a while lol

During this I'd gotten a fenix radiator, which was a bit too tall and the hose inlet was in the wrong place so I modified the way it was mounted, just barely fits, and fan shroud.

I made it so the whole unit comes out now (fan, radiator, adjustable fan controller) by just removing the 2 wires, 3 hoses and lifting it out of the custom rubber mounts, no bolts at all, has saved a lot of time...

Also made a cold air box with pod filter inside that's sealed from the engine bay, and a pan, or folded alli plate that seals the front area so air can only go through the radiator 

Some of the stages the engine bay went through black- too dark, white gets dirty , my white paint had a reaction or something and though it looks nice on pictures, it cracked horribly all over, so this is now on the to-do list, took me a while to get the proper 5litre vt front cover

Weld it up and sand it back, it's not too hard 

Got some more fittings machined up, next will be welding them on various parts, not much else as lifes happening, here's a pic of another resident of the van

Started getting cert ready too, installed both driveshaft loops ... next time I'm using a lift.. 

At this stage the gearbox was all done, I'd put clutch resiviour in, bleed and put new oil in the box, all the interior was taken out and cleaned, carpet washed with soap and a water blaster (bit oil stained)

And installed the battery in boot properly with all-thread welded to the boot floor, with a steel hold down clamp , with isolator in passenger footwell which can shut all power down to the car, after all the wiring has been moved so much I thought it a good idea. The inside was now much cleaner and tidier.

Now?

New page.

Also found this in one of my seat backing, maybe they mixed matched some parts here, at the factory or someone swapped the seats 

I had bolted the flywheel, clutch, everything up to the motor, but before I could put the driveshaft in I had to press the abs style speedometer wheel onto the yoke, then see how to attach the speedometer.

I decided I'd use a gauge cluster out of a vt v8 manual, rare to find but I did and I got to wiring it up ... some functions just wouldn't work as the bcm or body control module wouldn't be wired up with it.

But I was curious to see if the cluster would work for just the speedometer if anything else, after setting up a test rig and spinning it up I was surprised to see it work! 

This was after I found out the signal goes through the ecu and gets converted to read on the guage... and then I went and tried to hook up other functions, got tach, fuel, indicators, backlighting, kms etc and then I shorted it out and completely fried it...  

Then brought another cluster, this time a v6 one as couldn't find v8 vt one, to my surprise it all still worked, so I moulded it into my vk dash and it still works to this day, exept for the fuel level, dont know why yet..

The powerglide by this time was proving pretty good, drove around the block 30 times, couple single peels, so i tried selling it for what i put into it,, took way to long and ended selling for a small loss but it sold to a better place, and then i had money to buy a manual box, and i found the right one a few weeks or months later from a guy who imports them, not some dodgy box that had no history, at 2k i wanted the right deal ya know.. 

What i ended up with was a vt series one v8 getrag 290 gearbox with 150xxx km, and associated parts needed to install..

brought a new hd clutch and throwout bearing, fluid etc, and got to installing

The diff I had put in "vl v8" turned out to be a vs one or something so it was too wide and rubbed a lot on the guards, I got a vk borgwarner one with some vn 28 spline axles with a trim and some dodgyness, well not that dodgy, I trust it,  it's now strong and still awaiting the lsd that came out of the ute 3:70... I run it with a 3:08 currently...I think? 

Some brass frost plugs as it sprung a leak, new plugs, ecu pic showing the vats delete and 'stage 2 tune' I had done same time as wiring wiring.

Adjustable rear suspension bar to center the diff

Annnd then I had a bit of a break, had other projects and money to save for a gearbox.. 

So I made some fittings at work with limited lathe skills, but I think this heater one came out good, its modified so the heater line isn't shooting straight back under the plenum and doing a big loop to connect back under the front of the van...

So now it goes through the gap you see and then straight to the front, I have to make some more fittings for other parts, will do next weekend , also got some ebay special stainless hose clamps for $30 or something for the set, instead of $8.20 for 2 at supercheapp, what a rip off!! 

I decided not to go for power or show, neither really achievable any more, so the car became a daily driving v8 reliable runner...

so first thing would be to get it running and driving as is, then work on getting a manual gearbox..

After a lot of mucking around learning tuff, I found the engine would not make oil pressure, start engine, 5 seconds in still nothing, repeat x9, I did this a few times untill the lifters were chattering like crazy, pulled the plugs, fuses, wind it over etc., so after much research...

Found the 'high volume' oil pump that came with the engine had a broken input shaft, as in, it was turning the shaft but not the oil pump gear but still felt solid and tight untill i twisted it properly .... ...... really??? So I brought a new pump and that fixed my last issue..

The damn F#$*ing shaft had spun in the pressed fit of the pump gear so was spinning on the spot.. took quite a few methods, days if not weeks and vaseline to figure this out, as the Holden v8 pumps are known to have priming issues, which was my initial thinking, i must have had that pump in and out 20 times, sorry no pics, was just relieved when the gauge moved !

Then things started to look up   ...

https://youtu.be/0Q8boxr26YU

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ep8BNbHLJiU

https://youtube.com/shorts/IICLjXuLgi4

1 st start and drive

No exhaust.

more pictures new exhaust, gillies, there's probably a lot of things left out, but it was a lot of work for sure ..

Then after failing to buy carburetor set up, I went for injection, brought a 'vl' v8 or 28 spline diff, and went on trademe and brought a vs v8 s-pac ute, v8, de-registered and crash damaged, but running, all it needed was a battery... $1500 , well I wasn't interested in the motor (which had worn bottom end as I found out later ), just the wiring ecu and all the rest, as well as a limited slip 3:7 diff(a suprise bonus!) , parted the ute out and dumped the shell..

Then a mate, had a power glide for sale, which at the time sounded great, being able to hold upto 800 hp with the right mods and bolt onto my 304 (I diddnt know the limitations of a 304 , or what was involved in making a 500hp 304 holden)

So I went on jegs website, brought things like input shaft, clutches and steels, manual valve body,summit 3.5k stall,, basically making a drag gearbox, with the purpose of it being a drag-able vk... got it running, did the wiring and ecu chip, aaand...

Then I got married, and brought a house, overseas oe, and yea funds dried up real quick, had to change plans..