nzvohc

Nice work, and good to see a 2 dr HC getting some love. Liking the choices you are making with grill etc and putting the car back to something near original. They're thin on the ground these days, look forward to seeing where this goes.

9 hours ago, CUL8R said:

Coming along really nicely indeed!

There's a guy down here, Tubby that works at Supercheap Auto that has a 2.3 Twin Cam Chevette Speedway car, I think one motor was setup for methanol, the other for Av Gas - pretty much retired the car from use but he still has it.

Cheers...it's actually a bigger job than I imagined it would be, but glad I didn't think too much about it before starting, otherwise I may have never taken it on.

Amazing to hear off what other people have done around the country. The Chevette would be interesting to see. Do you know if they were Lotus or Vauxhall engines?

I think secretly you just love cutting out rot...you could have been a dentist...the principle is the same...take some "before" photos, scratch your head, dig, grind, fill, make small talk, grind some more, collect loads of money, repeat...

Just a thought. Nice progress btw.

11 hours ago, yoeddynz said:

Yay for updates!!!!

 

Boo for Photobucket destroying yet a nother really good photo packed thread!

 

Yay for latest Lotus Twink. Please do tell all about the history of this engine- its a good one

Looking good Andre. I bet you breathed a small sigh of relief when you found it only to be surface rust under that battery tray.

 

So many ways to rhyme naughty words with Photobucket to describe them it hardly seems fair...

Definitely good to get that battery tray off with minimal damage. I have seen other cars have far worse to deal with stemming from this area. I ended up taking the window washer bottle bracket off too and will remount that down lower where a bit less visible.

Thanks for tips @Truenotch I figured I might be up for doing that job sometime.

I don't blame you for forgetting it existed either, I've kind of done the same occasionally over the years!

Found pic of the original TC engine this car once had.

Ok, next was to get the engine home and start the transplant. It's going to be tight in there!

As you can probably see in the background, I had pulled the engine and subframe out of the Firenza by this stage to clean it up and paint it.

This is the engine bay as it was before starting. Got to get rid of that green!

And the old donk out.

The process involved using a engine crane to lift the car up away from the subframe with engine in place, then place jackstands to keep the car in the air so that the crane can be wheeled out of the way, then roll the subframe forward and out from under the car. I could then use the crane to lift the engine of the subframe . It's a process that's for sure, but has worked well and it's great to have the subframe out of the car for pre-fitting the new engine.

The next step I took was to prep the engine bay for painting. Before that though I installed a new clutch master cylinder and converted the clutch pedal from a pull-cable to push-rod. I don't have pics of the pedal mods at the moment, but here is the cylinder in place, tucked nicely in alongside the brake booster.

Yep, it's snug!

Then everything stripped out.

.

I could see problems lurking under the battery tray and knew that it would have to be removed to investigate.

Sure enough, nasty stuff but thankfully only surface rust. Will relocate the battery to the boot and remove the tray permanently for a less cluttered look.

After that was taken care of, the fun begins with prep work. Got to love all those fiddly shapes and edges in an engine bay!

I decided on painting the engine bay black, as that was how the "Droopsnoots" were factory done back in the day. Borrowed a compressor and gun from work and squirted it.

I'm not entirely happy with the finish up close so it may get another shot later, but for now it is much improved.

About this time I also acquired a personalised plate for the car. This plate had been on the car many years ago when it originally had a very rare & genuine Vauxhall TC engine. The engine and plate were removed by a previous owner and used in a Chevette HSR replica rally car. A shame not to have that engine now, but this new one will pay homage to it nicely I think.I have a pic somewhere of the old TC engine which I will find and post. He still had the plate and I was able to convince him to part with that.

Next up is numerous trial fittings of the engine and subframe to get the engine/gearbox in the right place. More tomorrow.

Pause to fix pics.

I've reactivated my photobucket account tonight, so hopefully all the previous pics will be visible soon.

If you've read through this thread you'll see that I purchased a Lotus 907 TC engine some time back for transplanting into the car. Either that or taking the head off it and adapting it to the Vauxhall block, which is possible due to the engines being so similar. It's a nice option because you get a TC head and 2300 block that doesn't require modifying anything from the head down, as opposed to a full engine transplant and all that goes with it.

Here's a pic of that conversion somebody else has done.

And here is a pic of the Lotus 907, in case the ones above never show up again

It's a nice little unit, but a little low on ponies at about 140hp, and I would like a little more, as you can get 180hp out of the Vauxhall unit with fairly basic mods.

So this sat for a while as I contemplated the best direction, and even started getting some of my Vauxhall bits together on an engine stand to build a good all Vauxhall engine as a simpler solution. I will likely still build that engine in the future, but it will be for my GT Viva.

In January last year my TM feed came up with another engine which really got my attention. In the many years I've been scrolling through classifieds I have never seen one of these come up before and it was at a price I could justify. So after a discussion with the seller to work out exactly what the engine was and it's general condition I knew I had to move on it.

This is another Lotus unit, but a later version of the of the 907. It's a 912HC (High Compression) 2.2L unit from a 1986 Lotus Excel, rated at 184HP and factory mated to a Toyota W58 box and hydraulic clutch. All very modern!

This is how I received it, in all it's glory. (There is also an interesting story behind the car this came from, which I will post later.)

These engines went through a series of HP upgrades over the years, from the 907, to the 910, then the 912 like this one, and then on further to be turbo charged in the Lotus Esprit, rated at 215HP.  More mods were seeing figures closer to 300HP made by those brave enough to try.

The 912 also has an updated head/cam design which I am lead to believe successfully eliminated oil leaks from the cam covers.

The car this came from had both power steer and AC, so the engine had the associated pumps, which were the first thing I took to removing before giving it a serious degrease, (although it was a visually very dry engine, more just years of grime) which saw it going from looking like this...

...to this. Much nicer! Can actually see the engine now!

Then a compression and oil pressure test were done, and both came up to factory spec. Much relief!

We plan to get to the  boat show, always worth the drive and a look around. What day is everyone thinking? It's on Sat & Sun.

Blenheim Hospice Classic Car Show is the following Sunday 12th too Went last year for the first time and was impressed with the turn out, plan to go again this year with the Firenza. Anybody else making the trip?

Congrats on getting legal beagle, it's a great feeling after a long haul!

Pics look great. I think you should try and pick up an old surfboard to mount on the roof, would really suit.

See you at the meet.

Hey maybe Hannah can set to cleaning the moss off the windows for you, I think that would be really nice of her...cos you know the rest of the car is going to have to follow the example of the engine bay right?

If you are wanting an old radio to complete the look inside I have a few spare, I'll bring them next time we come over.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to see it on the road soon.

So to carry on where I left off..got the console to this stage.

Next I formed the top panel, again from MDF. For the gearstick boot I sacrificed an old console I had and blended it in to utilise the molded edges for a more original look and also make attaching the boot a breeze.

For the handbrake boot, I got real lucky in being able to use another left over part, this time from my wife's Opel she had once that I had replaced the auto gear shifter on, the spare boot from that was the perfect size!

Once they were both pre-fit it was just a case of wrapping it in vinyl and fitting the boots.

Yes, the two boots are offset to the centreline, just a Vauxhall quirk. The concave portion of the gearstick surround was a bit tricky to form the vinyl to, but a good quality industrial spray adhesive worked brilliantly.

And finally installed into the car.

Having a high quality sound to uphold from the expensive stereo I opted for a pair of 3-way box speakers (100 watters I think) to transmit the sound. I had planned to hide these somewhere under the console, but it turns out there is just not much room under there, so I went the easy (fast) route and mounted them to the side of the console.

The office. Great to finally have some sounds in this car and we've had fun searching out old cassette tapes on TM and at local flea markets. Oh, and no external aerial added, went for one of the hidden internal type, which only just does the job.

So next on the list to get done was adding a rear spoiler to the car, again a job I had started long ago that got put on hold. Mainly due to me being undecided about how to attach it to the bootlid. I was more than a little hesitant about drilling holes to bolt it on.

I don't have many progress pics of this job, but in short I got the spoiler out of the UK, originally of a Vauxhall HC Sportshatch, and had it lengthened to extend past the bootlid edges to be the full width off the car. It sat at that stage for a couple of years while I procrastinated on how to attach it, until about a month ago with the motivation of the national Vauxhall meet coming up I decided to dust it off, final-fit it to shape of the bootlid and then gave it to my painter.

With only a couple of days left after getting it back from paint and before leaving for the meeting in Oamaru I decided I would urethane the spoiler on and spare the bolt holes.

Here it is at that stage. Fingers crossed it would hold!

And success! Came out solid as and I'm stoked with the final result.

More pics to come, having trouble adding more to this post...

Yes. Yes. Yes.

We are heading to Picton today and staying the night there, so we will hopefully hook up with you all on Sunday and join the cruise to Omaka. Looking forward to it, did the car museum a couple of years ago, keen to see the aircraft section this time.

See you all there.

We plan on making it there, looking like a nice day for it.

If anyone wants to take a car Sunday and have free entry you are welcome to take my BMW E28. You would need to collect from my place in Stoke. Holla if keen.

I will have the GT there on Sunday. Might park up in a different spot to last year though just for a change.

Why the lack of interest this year? Anybody else showing?

Hi chaps, I definitely need to clear some space so bringing a trailer of bits and some junk in the trunk, see you there 7-ish.

A

Looking great already. There's something cool about seeing old rusty steel being replaced properly.

I have a few old screen rubbers I have kept that would be better than the one in your car if you want to replace it temporarily. Next time you are over we can have a look if you like and pick out the best one.

Yay for porsches! Yeah hopefully Sam will be along again plus Andre in his not so fast but very tidy E28 bimmer. Might also be a chevette too- so there is the European element sorted...

Don't you know that I have added big shiney wheels and a tail to the whale shark? So it must go lots faster now...

We'll be there in the new family sedan, the Silver Shark, aka Grey Whale.