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Quadzilla

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Posts posted by Quadzilla

  1. wondering if there is an HQ owners club in NZ or similar?

    anyone know?

    nothing on google or FB turns up on my search. closest thing ive seen is old holden club, but prefer HQ, or H series

    i thought there would be one, as there seems to be enough HQs still floating around to have one.

    im keen for hoons, i mean cruise out in the countryside in a leisurely manner with a bunch of HQs

    thanks.

  2. On 7/21/2017 at 10:59, mjrstar said:

    @yoeddynznice, did you just have to pay the $300 difference when you returned your empty D bottle to upgrade to F or is that . Now that I have an 8M torch and earth leads i could probably get away with a bigger bottle.

     

    @SOHC Supergas in Hamilton have become VERY difficult to deal with (since a change of ownership i believe)with up to 3 weeks wait on a refill, hopefully they remain more helpful at your local.  Supergas will not be getting any more of my money.there is a place called gaspro which is easy to deal with and quick (same or next day refills).

    ill vouch for Gaspro in hamilton. great service. had oxy, acetylene and argoshield fills from them. they sorted out some crap with Supagas i had to deal with too..supagas wouldnt touch my argo bottle, saying it was stolen and belonged to airliquide. i wouldnt hesitate to travel from Auck to them if i need to again.
    currently have my oxy bottle at coregas in manukau for a test and refill. 3-4weeks wait they said. 5 weeks and counting so far....

  3. got a cheap autoguage tacho, that i want to wire in into 308 HEI

     

    couple of questions.

    * what type of wire? currently i have a roll of 10amp & heaps of speaker wire laying about. will either do or some other AMP wire i need?

    * What AMP rating fuse for the IGN wire to tacho?

     

    cheers

  4. Finally, its ready for pickup Friday. needs few minor rechecks like things re-tightened.
    dud new oil pump or gasket, leaks a lil oil.. so replacement tomorrow and it is cruising time.. touch wood.

    Starts easy as. Runs like a well oiled sewing machine with a very subtle but noticeable lumpy idle at the rear.. woop

     

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    re sanded/ polished & finally painted the tridents. wasnt happy with the subtle scratch marks left from the first time round, so used about 10 different grades of wet n dry.. never again by hand! much happier, but doesnt hide the subtle casting flaws :(

    close enough to near mirror finish. looks good from about 20cms away.

    im told the 352s produce some good smoke, 8mm tread currently :)

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    just need to replace the front A arm and sway bar bushes, lowered springs. might get the paint professional touched up and cut/polished, undecided on window tint and im done!...

    • Like 3
  5. First start up this arvo!

    after tweaking the timing twice, 3rd go.. boooom into life.

    sounds sweet from the rear, and best of all no black oil marks and smells clean.

    Basically new or completely recondition everything.

     

    Bought a decal kit. if anyone knows where the "RE", "RF" and "QP" decals should be located in the engine bay, id like to know.

    im sure 1 or 2 go on the front of the rocker cover, however mine had "CX" before i stripped them.

    post-9353-0-51775200-1478235406_thumb.jpg

     

    painting of stuff

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    Have a vid of first start up. a little noisey. im told the trans dust cover is rubbing against the flex plate

    • Like 4
  6. What are the specs of the cam you are using? I built a 308 last century that had a 210@050 cam that was really good in a street motor. The ute it was in ran mid 14's down the quarter and would happily pull a 21 foot power boat up the ram at 1600 revs. For your Statesman something similar would be ideal, the original cams were really mild, especially when they got worn out.

    seems ive got a comp cam 260H, 212 @050

    towing, hauling, lots of useable torque so the catalogue says...

     

    sounds interesting

  7. no idea. left it to the engine builder.
    if the orig cam was toast, i asked for a high torque/economy cam. hopefully the technology and experience increase over 40 yrs makes a huge difference.
    i know very little about cams....bigger HP is not always better :study: . maybe ive made the leap to older and wiser?
     
    something off the shelf he said. has a regular cam place he uses. higher lift with standard idle, not lumpy.

     

    i was thinking custom spec to the car, give all the vehicle specs to the cam maker.

    either way, i have to trust in their years of experience.

    i know my head re-conditioner dude is a good man, who recommended them to me. my local garage for everyday repairs uses the head re-conditioner. so hopefully ive got a good network of experienced old schoolers

     

    Anyway, ill see the re-conditioner this week and make sure we are both on the right track, mention your numbers.

     

    cos i aint doing it again.
     

  8. Torana must be in Octobers NZV8.. bugger.

     

    Anyways, the old boat has gone for heart checkup this week.

    usual issues apparently. cam & lifters are toast as were the valve guide seals, everything else is sweet im told.

    so a block clean, hone, new rings, bearings, crank polish, high torque cam, lifters, oil pump, carb rekit, head plane, valve reseating and commodore HEI with ford rotor to suit the original smaller points cap.

     

    cant wait to get the thing back for summer cruising!

     

    no pics yet, so enjoy a photo shopped window tint test :)

     

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    • Like 2
  9. allowing budget of 5k. depends on how much the engine refresh is going to cost first.

    hopefully hone, rings, bearings, frost plugs, valve grind, head skim, gaskets/seals, carb kit etc

     

    I would expect the dizzy should be ok considering its ticked over 65k, will have it checked during refresh.

    • Like 1
  10. ahh, just looking to upgrade from points to electronic HEI for red 308.

     

    was looking at that cheap M&H stuff on tardme but hmmmm.. don't want to fork out heaps, but want something decent for standard street use

     

    not too sure which to do, the MSD ignition box or Pertronix

     

    from my understanding:

    -MSD will wire in and give HEI, retaining the original points dizzy and coil. still have points to maintain? what is the benefits of adding the blaster 2 coil?

    -Pertronix will install into dizzy, replacing points but still give standard spark and retain coil. no points to maintain. if I add an high energy coil, will I get HEI & need a relay to bypass the resistor wire?

     

    hopefully that makes sense

  11. ill get it repaired after new years. just a prick of a job to remove and install it for me.. ohwell

    its only super minor, should do 1000kms and boot of water bottles to refill if need be and can use the barsleaks if desperate.

    otherwise ill have an interesting roadtrip

    at least it seems an easy fix. I thought id have to get a new radiator

    cheers

  12. hmm, I was going to run some BarsLeaks through it. but after reading some of the comments. any leak stuff is a no no.

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    the leak is so minor. when its cold, no leak. once the thermostat opens, it dribbles for awhile. then it seems to stop. ..maybe once the radiator heats up, the hole seals?

    ive had it idling for 20mins, and I cant see any leakage!

    but it is there.

    I stopped the engine and the fins are all dry, no sign of any leak.

    maybe ill sprinkle some pepper in it, and drive the car. I did read via google searches that a table spoon of pepper does the trick. hopefully black pepper works

    will take the stopleak stuff incase worse case scenario.

    I don't know when it happended. if I dinged when tightening the PS belt. that means it was there when I drove Auck-Napier. didn't lose much water and those Napier/Taupo hills gave the cooling system a work out

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  13. was changing my oil last night for a trip away over xmas and noticed a dribble of water seeping out of the radiator in HQ 308. the vertical pipe connected by the fine fin thingys.

    looks like it was damaged by a tool as it is on the inside of engine bay.

    Any suggestions on what to use to clog it up. that will last a 1000km trip

    how would it be repaired by a radiator repairer?

    the damn thing looks to have been reco'd so is in good to mint condition, except for the leak now. recored?

    local mechanic worked on it last week, so im wondering if they did it by using a lever or something to jiggle the engine when installing new engine mount to engine block bolts. or if I did it a few months ago when I replaced the waterpump and belts. im sure I didn't do it. if I did, surely the thing would've shown up by cooking it self on a trip Auck- Napier return? or steam pissing out of it?

    thanks

  14. Doing little bits and pieces on the car the last few months.

    Did a compression test, 150psi on drivers side and 160psi on passengers side. Need to do it again though; as I removed all the spark plugs then did the test. Seems the correct way is to remove the plug from each cylinder to test and replace. Ohwell, learn something new.

    So I was told the passenger side is higher because I did that side last which meant the lifters sat to long... Still pretty happy with an engine that seems untouched since 1973

    Changed the oil. Was thin as water and black. Replaced the oil filter and filled with cheap oil. Will change it again soon. Hopefully itll clean out some crap. Its already black after 700kms. Replaced the dizzy cap, rotor, all new leads, plugs and air filter. Seems to have made a difference in fuel economy.

    Polished up wheel trim and hubcaps. Looks near new, bar some of the surface rust and a few dents on the trim. Have left them off as don’t want to lose them. It doesn’t look too bad without them.

    before clean

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    after clean

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    Scored a set of second hand 7 and 8 inch tridents. In the middle of restoring them. Wet sanding, polish and repaint. 2 more to sand and polish, then repaint black I’m not looking forward to doing the last two, time consuming and hard on the fingers trying to remove as much scratches and dents as I can. But should be worth it with new centre caps and shiny new nuts

    7s

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    8s

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    Did my first long cruise to Tauranga and back cruising on 100km and some city driving, returned 12.3l / 100kms. Pretty happy with that. Car handled surprising well for a big thing. Cruised nicely at 100 up the Kaimais. Driving home through the gorge outside Waihi, it ate the corners like it was on rails for a 1.5 tonne tank. The two huge sway bars and what looks like reasonably new shocks probably helped.

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    Removed the water pump to replace it, slight wear marks into the timing chain cover. It’ll live. So replaced the pump and decided to run the hose through the block, heater and radiator. Lots of rusty crap came out everywhere. Discovered there wasn’t a thermostat, so replaced it with the stock item from the book. Replaced all the belts along with top and bottom radiator hose. Cap looked like it needed replacing while at.

    Cranked it up.. And oh my, one of the belts squealed. Spent some time playing undo/redo the same bolts and belts over n over for a few hours. Damn Alt belt. Did it up as tight as I thought it should be so it doesn’t have a lot of tension on the bearings. At the end of the day I was ready to throw the tools at it as I couldn’t resolve it. Spoke to local mechanic, said I had to tighten the life out of it. And so I did. Seemed wrong to me, but did the trick. Took it for a test drive, sweet. Pulled into local mechanic who had a look, said it was ok, could be a little tighter! Anyways, thankfully the squeal was sorted!

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    Labour weekend, decided to take it for a drive to Napier. Diff seemed to be leaking oil drips on the garage floor. Thought I best replace the gasket before I go. Climbed underneath and seems it was coming from the plug. So topped it up and tightened the plug. Hopefully that should do it. Atleast it saved me doing the gasket! Loaded the boot with a box full of tools, bottles of water, 20l container of gas, old hoses, ATF fluid. Better safe than sorry for a long trip on my own.

    plenty of room in that boot.

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    Took the gas, as I wanted to see if it would make it to Napier from Auckland on 1 tank of gas. Either I was going to make it or run it dry. Don’t trust those fiddly gauges. Somewhere just before Taupo noticed the temp gauge creep up through the hills. Shouldn’t be doing that I thought, wondered what it would do through the Taupo/Napier hills. Plenty of water, she’ll be right.

    Hit the hills, and slowly the temp crept up to the red marks. Whacked the fan for the heater on and hoped to make all the hills. At least the temp dropped like a stone on the down hills.

    About 50km out from Napier, gauge was down to just over E for enough. Kept waiting for it to splutter. But seemed to keep going, so did a quick drive through marine parade etc before my destination.

    Preparing to leave for home, checked oil, used ½ litre. Pretty sure most of it is from a slight intake manifold leak. Doesn’t smoke at any time. No major leaks on the ground at any time from crank seals etc. Radiator took3 litres water. Took about 53l of gas to fill up, worked out at about 12.5l/100kms. So that should get me home.

    Hit the Napier/Taupo hills again. Fark, where’s all my gas going . I think I lost some out the rear going up the hills. Note to self “don’t fill to top if doing hills early” temp gauge shot up again to right on the red marks. Didn’t move further so wasn’t to bothered. The down hills and on to the Taupo flats, the temp gauge sat on the red. It only dropped a few times when slowing to pass through urban towns. Otherwise it stayed in the red all the way to Hamilton to where I stopped to catch up with people( I guess it was at peak operating temp) Filled the radiator with water, and tipped in the 20l of spare gas. Gas gauge was reading under a ¼, so I guess I must’ve lost some through the hills.. onward to Auckland at 9pm, good time to miss most of the labour day traffic. Temp gauge sat on ½ rest of the way home. An uneventful trip and drives awesome for a lounge suite on wheels.

    Gonna try a lower degree thermostat, go from 88C to 77C and see if that affects the temp. When it had no thermostat, it sat on ¼ and never moved past it up the Kaimais etc. The 88C was fine around town, idling etc. When it came to hills.. I got the angry red. Shouldn’t be the radiator, it looks to have been recored.

    That is about it for now, other things to do it and finish up the mags etc

    • Like 6
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