FirstMate

Thread reboot - still have car, and now actively working on it so will catch thread up to current day then document progress.

Got car and hooned around in the summer and autumn of 2021/22. Was loud, hands on, yellow, and great fun for both cruising and weekend errand runs etc.

Then kicked off a gut and rebuild house renovation so on the last day of its wof dropped it off to a storage unit:

Ended up being here a bit over a year. Eventually made it back home:

Where due to painting and house stuff it has languished for the last 18 months. 

The photos so far are where things were left at Christmas, with the assumption that this would end up dismantled and forgotten in the shed. Was surprised to hear a month later it had been lined up as a downtime job at a local panelbeater and was dropped off shortly after. Got to see it a couple of weeks ago and there’s been decent progress:

Replacement doors sourced:

(For those following from the discussion thread -@Lord Gruntfuttock and @locost_bryan - think these  were out of an XC coupe, and he’s deciding whether to tweak for XA handles or just going with the XC ones).

Minor repairs to each door step:

A tidy up of the quarter panels etc:

In addition to the deck rust, disassembly showed rust in a front pillar, door steps, bottom of quarter panels, and a few minor issues in the floor (in addition to historical riveted repair patches). 

Previous pics show doors were pretty knackered, with both bent and rusty:

Came back a couple of days later for pickup. Thought mate was bringing his car trailer but he arrived with a recovery truck from work. Was handy - found brakes were seized on a rear wheel. Winch made short work of it, and was out in daylight after 15+ years.

Was a nice moment following it home too - one of the previous owners’ mates was waiting at an intersection as it went past. We saw him do a double take and point it out to his dog in the passengers seat….

Hi all,

This will be an intermittent/limited series as it’s not mine, but had a wee Christmas treat that was worth sharing. Travelled home for the break and the old man let slip he’d been offered a 1973 XA Falcon ute. A well-known daily driver in town with the previous owner, it’d been parked in a barn by his son in the mid 2000s, with the rego on hold. Old man has a matching set of an XR8 and XR6 ELs - he and current owner got talking and it was offered. A day or two after arriving in town we went for a look to plan pickup:

Hi all - is time to post re my recently-arrived AP5 before it's spotted in the wild:

Had quit and offloaded a 10-year-plus Mini rebuild project earlier in the year (there's an old build thread here somewhere, and seriously - cannot recommend enough the cathartic release of seeing a project you've grown to hate being loaded onto a trailer and taken away).  Had been looking for a road-legal mid-60's saloon that I could enjoy and tinker with like a Mark 2 Cortina or a Mark 3 Zephyr, and nearly snagging a decent Cortina in late March. Had a yarn with an uncle re what I was after at a family event at Easter, and a week later he rang to say he'd serendipitously come across a yellow AP5 for sale by a small-town mechanic owner while picking up an engine. After googling what an AP5 was (and having the old man's eyes light up at the mention of an AP5 Valiant), a week or two later it was mine. 

It needed a bit of work to get back on the road (last on road in 2019; the WOF-issuing mechanic seller said from the outset he'd fail it on rusty sills). I'll post a couple of threads on the work done between purchase and its arrival last week, but it's here (Wellington), and road-legal. It's pretty solid, including a recently-reconditioned motor - the plan is to enjoy it and gradually improve it over time while keeping ahead of WOF inspections (while not major or obvious there's a couple of bits of rust that need to be addressed).