Avenga

Thanks. Yup, I am over the moon with how it came out. It was an awesome feeling driving it for the first time after such a long wait.

I reached a huge milestone yesterday. I brought my Avenger home, first time in over a year. I got my WoF Rego and cert yesterday so it is all road legal and back driving. We reset the new odo so we are starting back at 0km, I have put about 50km on the clock so far. Other news, got the stereo etc running, we mounted it in the glovebox so it is hidden. I will upload some photos of that later. We had to lift the back a bit because it was rubbing but I will see if GT can take some more out of the guard then we will drop it back down. She drives really well with the new rubber and suspension mods. I have only done some road town driving but I plan to fang it over the weekend to sort out any bugs. With only just over a week to go before I go down to the South Island for MoPars in Gore. Still got a big list of things I want to do before I go. I have the tints going in on Tuesday, then I have just ordered a quick shift kit for the 5 speed sierra box so I have to install that before I go. here are some pictures, I gave her her first wash since being painted, so shiny and pretty. I love the way the wheels catch the light, I have some black wheel nuts for them which should look sweet. heaps of mods listed on the cert plate.

Yup. My Valiant Charger runs a BW35

I sold my spare BW45 to Ross. PM him on the Avenger forum and see if he is keen to sell it.

We are doing the Gore to Invercargil run on Saturday as part of the MoPars in Gore activities. I won't be leaving for the west coast till monday so I sort of need to return to Gore I did the same trip but in reverse in 2010 after the MoPars in Nelson show. We has like 11 of us doing the round trip and 7 of them were Valiant Chargers. On the 2010 trip we did the westport to grey road. Awesome bit of road. We also went out to Collingwood via the Takaka Hill, that was probably my favourite bit of the south island. back in 2010 we had a few more days to do it so we could take a lot more scenic routes. We came down the west coast and we went out via the scenic route through Te Anau, Manapouri and Riverton. This year I will probably add in the greymouth to westport road because I am only travelling up the coast with one other car and they live in West port. We will leave Gore on the Monday morning this stay at franz josef. then on tuesday I will follow the others to Westport before staying in Nelson for the night. Here is a shot of us at Bluff and Manapouri. Mine is the yellow Charger.

I am doing the same sort of road trip next month for MoPars in Gore. Here is my plans. 16th October Tuesday: Auckland to Hawkes Bay. 17th October Wednesday: Hawkes Bay to Blenheim 18th October Thursday: Blenheim to CHCH 19th October Friday: CHCH to Gore 20th October Saturday: Mopars in Gore day 1 21st October Sunday: Mopars in Gore day 2 22nd October Monday: Gore to franz josef 23rd October Tuesday: franz josef to Nelson 24th October Wednesday: Nelson to Picton 25th October Thursday: Picton to Taupo 26th October Friday: Taupo to Auckland

Another update. The race is on to get my Avenger ready for my big trip down to the South Island for MoPars in Gore. So much stuff still to do and only 3 weeks left before I leave. Finished off some of the last bits in the engine bay. Custom made strut brace, modified from a BMW 318i. A little bonnet support for when I have my fibreglass bonnet open. Windows are back in. Rear window with new parcel tray and C pillar cards.

haha. it is at atleast 10 degree negative, if not more at the moment, I am going to drop it down to just a few degrees, looks funny with that much camber. Will help fill out the front flares more. It is all adjustable so I can play with the ride height and camber until it looks and handles right.

Thanks. It is coming together well. The front wheels are one again, it has a stupid amount of negative camber because we put in some longer track control arms. Once we raise the front a little and push the tops out so it is a more useable camber it should look sweet. Strut brace still needs to go in.

Another quick update. Engine is pretty much all ready to go now. Also the rear parcel tray etc is finished and installed.

Hi guys, another update. New Dashboard and cluster is installed Still need to make up a center panel under the heater Custom catch cans are finished moved the vent on the rocker, I will probably be chrome plating the rocker cover. Hidden radiator fan controller

Sweet, Grant did a great job on my seats. He is pretty good at matching materials. He did one of my friends Avenger Alpine seats. It had this weird thatched vinyl pattern which I thought he would never be able to match, but it found something which was a perfect match and now they look just like they did when they left the factory. Here is a photo. Drivers seat was heavily damaged but repaired by Grant, and the passenger is stock.

+1, he does all the work on my Avenger. He repair my seats and recovered my dash for me. He is currently doing me a parcel tray and rear pillar cards. (see my build thread for photos of the stuff he has done on my Avenger)

I keep one in the tool kit in the back of my Charger which you can borrow.

I will be there. Hopefully this will be the last time in my Charger for a while.

Hi Guys. Another update. Went down to Bygone today to continue work on getting Avenger ready. Today I polished all the rubber hoses and got the front and rear windows cleaned up and ready to go back in, removed the old rubbers, removed the old purple tint and scrapped off all the old silicon etc. Other progress Bygone has made are the wiring is almost finished, they have also put in an oil return feed for the Alternator in the sump. They have also finished off the custom alternator bracket. They also welded up my broken seat. Engine bay is starting to come together nicely. Alternator bracket all finished. Oil return feed for the Alternator My seat repaired waiting to have the old skin put back on. It looks like someone modified my seats from a set of standard Avenger seats. You can see they just welded a hoop on the top of a standard Avenger seat. They looks factory with the skin on, so I wonder if they were done by the dealer.

Thanks. Maybe in a few years I might repower it. I am pretty happy with the power of the 1500 Avenger engine. haha. The Charger does look good towing the Avenger. The charger is a great tow car, been towing heaps of stuff lately so it has came in handy. My next project will be getting GT to repaint my charger. Thanks. There is tons of room up under the fenders so why not. We just drilled holes next to or under anything that needs wires running to it. The battery is in the boot so it should look pretty clean inside the engine bay when we are done.

Another quick update. Brand new Diesel Alternator and custom made bracket, this will provide vacuum for my brakes, I found since I switched to the side draft dellortos I had weak breaking because it only ran off one runner. This should give me better vacuum and augment my 4 pot volvo/BMW brake setup Brakes are all plumbed up now with new hoses Engine and gearbox are back in, still heaps more to do.

Yeah they shined up pretty good. I will do the same to the engine once that is all in.

Another update. Spent the day down at Bygone Autos polishing all the chrome. Pretty happy with the results. Tailpipe before After cleaning with wet aluminium foil After polishing with Autosol Back bumper before After Front quarter bumper Grille and badge (need to repaint it) Started to hide the loom under the fender.

I didn't see it, but they're doing pretty well to get 8/10. I bet Target said "Burgerfuel were the most expensive of our test, and they didn't steam clean their rubbish bin hourly or wear face shields to protect against frying injuries. But overall, a good effort." I should be able to make this meet. Pretty much spot on, they did say "Burgerfuel were the most expensive of our trial" and they slammed them for a low APC count in the toilets, recommending that they should clean the toilets better. But overall, a good effort. linky link to the video http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Target-Season ... fault.aspx

Did anyone see Burgerfuel ellerslie on Target last night?? It got 8/10.

Haha, everyone notices the wheels. I told Grant when I picked the Avenger today. At least he is getting better, in the early photos all 4 wheels are on the wrong way, then after he painted them then only the front wheels are on wrong. I need to take the wheels off anyway to finish the suspension and brakes so they will go on the right way then. It still doesn't have an engine in it so it isn't driving anywhere.

Sweet. Aero makes good racing wheels. They look like Aeros as they have a bigger, more oval D window and only 7 of them Mine were made the same way by Diamond Racing Wheels in the states. Because I was going for a black rim I liked the look of the smaller D windows, the Diamond ones have 10 windows vs 8 on a 15" Aero. Mine are 15x8 and 15x7 both 4" backspace.

Thanks. It is starting to come together nicely. It is great to see progress after so much work. Can wait till it is finished.