Shakotom's 1984 VK Commodore

[Shakotom]

I took this out for its first proper drive yesterday, Which turned out quite eventfull for the following reasons
1: didnt make it out of my street before the rear tyres started smoking from gurad rub due to the slightly wider diff.

2: after changing tyres and half way into my excursion, developed a real bad brake shudder from out of no where.

3: limped home only to do this going up my drive.

 

$

 

4: inspected brakes to find that the left rear axle seal had let go and poured diff oil all through my brakes contaminating everything.

5: mangaed to do this while kneeling down to pick up a tool that had rolled under the workbench

 

 

 

yes... that is one of those clips that is ment to hold the seat upholstery onto the seat frame embedded in my knee. Stupid thing curved on entry aswell.
that ll teach me for not keeping my work area clean .

 

YUCK.

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/

[Shakotom]

So as I said last update, The diff axle seals had let go and put diff oil all through my brakes. Im putting this down to me at the time just chucking my drum brake set up onto a disc brake rear end and the retaining plate deforming due to the drum brake backing plates being thinner than the discs. I didnt know it at the time, but supposedly disc/drum brake diffs have different axle seals for that reason.

As the shoes ect were dripping in oil and needing replacing, I used it as an excuse to get around to putting the disc brakes on as I shouldve originally.

New wheelbearing kit, brake pipes,calliper kit, brakehoses and pipes, brake pads and rotors

All new everything!

 

 

I cleaned up and rebuilt the brake callipers, which went from this

 

 

to this

 

 

And popped down to see Lee at Diffs R Us to get the the old (still new) wheel bearings and axle seals pressed off and my new ones fitted to the axles. This was done so much faster and easier than it wouldve been to try to do this at home. Go see Diffs R Us for all your differential needs. 
 

 

 

all ready to fit to the car. 

 

 

and put it all together to get this... mmmm disc brake LSD. 

 

 

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

 

Big thanks to Diffs R Us for their help.

[Shakotom]

BRAKE SHUDDER STILL PRESENT.

Have figured out that the face of the left axle is not true so the rotor therefore has excessive run out. I should've picked up on this before because of the rotational tsktsktsk noise that was there with out the brakes applied and then being worse on application. Unfortunately i put that down to the oil on the drum shoes but nope.

Now to find a pair of 28 spline axles. and then have to buy and replace the wheel bearings again. F*CK 

 

Also, after numerous trips to take measurements, and getting parts I have finally pieced together all the components needed for my adjustable suspension.
with being slightly annoyed about the axle/diff issue I thought Id trial fit one side tonight. 

 

This is the suspension as high as it will go... and theres still heaps of room to go lower with the suspension but not with the wheels like they are currently

 

 

(mad rake is because the rear is up on axle stands)

And camber/fitment photo because racecar?

 

 

Looks like im going to have to rethink my wheel/tyre combination... And 15s are now as small as I can go due to planned brake upgrade

More details next time

 

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

[Shakotom]

Adjustable suspension install:
 
For some odd reason I thought it would be easier to swap the front suspension out of the Vk for that of a slightly later model commodore. Why you may ask. I actually dont really know. For the headaches its given me so far Im sort of wishing I had just got some adjustable Konis made up be George Stocks.
they say you learn from your mistakes well heres to hoping that Ill learn something from this one.
 
As you may have seen a couple of posts back, I purchased a set of VR/VS style adjustables. I paid a good price for them and there pretty much new. After spending some time admiring their shininess I though that they may be better suited to actually being in a car rather than sitting in my bedroom.
I made a trip out to Drury Car parts and came home with VR lower control arms, steering knuckle/hub assembly and VT commodore front callipers.
excuse the filthy parts but everythings just being trial fitted at present.
 
VR and VK lower control arms
 

note how the VR lower control arms (bottom) are a little longer than that of the VK. The subframes in the early commodores are the same (apart from engine mounts ect) but the bodys after the VL are wider/ have wider tracks.  This means that the distances and angles between the inner and the radius rod bushes are the same, but the balljoint to radius rod bush is further out. This should allow the front track of my car to come out to match the wider track of the diff in the back.

 

VR knuckle/hub assembly

 

VT commodore front brakes

 

 

Factory the Vk commodore came out with 270mm diameter 22mm thick front rotors and a single pistion callipers, these however are 296mm diameter and 28mm thick rotors with two pistion callipers. and they just squeeze in behind a 15inch wheel! so hopefully this will improve the braking a little bit.

however I think im also going to have to look at upgrading to a 1 inch master cylinder and a larger booster in the future now. 

 

well thats the bottom sorted sort of, so onto the top.

 

Now Vks have a 14mm diameter shoulder at the top of the shock tube and my adjustables have a 15mm shoulder. So they wont work with the factory top hats. So messages were exchanged with Toyshop Engineering and I ended up with a pair of adjustable camber tops that have a larger insert in them to suit.
Im stoked on the service and on the quality of these top mounts

 

Also the upper spring seats that came with the adjustables werent compatible with this style of top mount so I had the Steel Surgeon make me some new upper spring seats (the red bits below the top mount) and assembled the adjustables ready to go in. 

 

 

 

resulting in this. (at coilovers on max high settings) as seen in previous post!

 

 

Sort of concerned at the moment due to not thinking about asking questions regarding certification of changing of front suspension assemblies before dropping cash moneys on this. Potentially could end up being problematic...

 

Oh also with widening the front track out the VL rack has ended up way to short so Ive got stupid amounts of toe out at present so am either going to need longer rack ends/tie rods or possibly a later model steering rack also.   time to do more research and measuring.
tbh i sort of assumed that the steering rack would be okay. 

Any ideas? 

 

Oh and the LSD diff I bought has turned out problematic also. Was told it was out of a VN. so went to zebra and pulled axles out of a VN to find my axles about 20mm shorter. so i pulled axles out of all the commodores there and they were all to long. But were 28 spline!

and the handbrake assembly on my diff is slightly different to the VNs also..... but looks the same as those in the VL workshop manuals.

So im thinking its actually something stupid like a VL V8 or a VL turbo diff as those were the only ones around that era with 28 spline axles. and finding those axles are going to be like finding Unicorn Poo. and probably just as expensive. 

 

laugh at my misfortunes here ----> //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

 

 

A big thanks so far to Drury car spares, Toyshop engineering, and the Steel Surgeon for their time.

[Shakotom]

So i got my axle straightened by Diffs R Us, chucked it back in and bolted everything up and drove it.... Shudder is gone! 

but am having issues with the handbrake at the moment, it doesnt want to grip on one side. I dont really like how the handbrake actuator is on the top of the backing plate so I may look into swapping it out for VN backing plates which the actuators on the bottom

 

Next thing was after pestering Cletus in his Technical cert thread I decided that maybe my front suspension idea needed rethinking and the gearbox I put in had stupidly noisy bearings so I was sort of looking for one so I put those adjusties up for sale on the tard and sold them and then spent the money from the coilovers on a gearbox.

Which I swapped into the car on a Saturday morning

 

 

SO MUCH QUIETER!

 

Also decided it was about time I tried to centralise the diff so I got an adjustable panhard rod and also put my adjustable strut tops in the front

 

 

may possibly have sold my 15x10s also. I decided they were too offsety so if that goes through Im going to get some 15x9s made for the rear

 

 

 

Also I picked up one of these digital temp controllers after browsing that 1UZ pajero thread

 

 

on the RB30, the top hose has the thermosat and the bottom goes into the motor. which would be the ideal location for the temp sensor?

and on the following wiring diagram, is there anywhere that I could put in a manual override switch?

 

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

[Shakotom]

What have I been up to lately,

a bit of maintainance. I changed the cambelt, tensioner and waterpump. flushed the cooling system and filled with coolant. replaced the leaking rocker cover gasket. Removed the exhaust manifold to replace some broken exhaust studs. 

 

 

Also cut up some of my parts car.

 

 

Cut most of the quarter panel and passengers floor off to take to panelbeaters as patch panels

 

Mid way through replacing rusty wheelarch, (thoughts of radiused guards and over fenders were brewing in my head)

 

 

and a photo of the replacement wheel arch tacked in place

 

 

and rust in the floor cut out

 

 

forgot to take a photo of it all patched up.... 

 

Went out for a sunday drive and had exhaust clamp come loose and exhaust drop and drag along the road. had to ghetto fix it to get it home

 

 

Also had the clutch master cylinder pushrod strip its thread and make clutch pedal not work. so had to replace Clutch master cylinder.

 

And managed to make it down to the NZHRA Club Champs at Meremere dragstrip!

Car didnt miss a beat.

Day consisted of:

PRACTICE:

beaten by 10 second supercharged torana

beaten by angry V8 HK 

beaten by a 302 ford Granada

DYO:

lost by .2 to a cobra 

GRUDGE:

beaten by an old ford coupe

Raced a bright orange cortina and got beaten twice by 0.2 (found out he was running an SR20 so I think he was cheating really) but was the most fun of the races all day. sort of evenly matched side by side down the strip

 

Really I had an awsome day. Ran a 17.01 @ 130Kmh which was 4 seconds faster than when it was powered by the mighty Starfire.

Did some skids. consistently ran between 17.01 and 17.08.

 

Need to get into the 16s now.....

 

[Shakotom]

Had an interesting evening tonight. Got paid so took Commodore to the gas station. On the way home, happened to go over a pedestrian crossing speed bump at the exact same time a police car coming to opposite way did, exhaust must've decided to rattle itself loose again and went SCRAAAAPPPEE resulting in police car doing a U-turn and pulling me over 200m from home. after the police officer had a nosy under my car and decided that my car wasnt even low, and it was just the droopy exhaust. I was told to get that fixed. He also mention that my tyres looked a little stretched but left it at that. He bid me a good evening and sent me on my way.

 

 

On point.... decided that 15x10s were too impractical so I sent two wheels the the steel surgeon and got them widened to a more sensible size. 

and gave them a quick rattlecan (extremely averagely must i say) and threw some old tyres off parts car onto them.

 

 

much more practical

 

 

See Im not even low.

[Shakotom]

Hello.

I haven't been up to much lately on this thing. just enjoying driving it really. but in other news I got rid of my two leftover parts cars.
As you know I had a VL wagon. I also purchased a bare VK sedan shell off tardme which i was going to use to replace some rusty parts in my VK. mainly passengers floor-pan and Left rear wheelarch.

Pretty much once i had the motor/box/front suspension out of the wagon and it being immobile in the back yard, (along with the VK shell) my mother put up with it for a few months but then wanted her lawn back. SoI ended up stripping the wagon shell and cutting the nose off it aswell as using the floor and both quarters for repairs on my car.

 

 

 

 

That shell ended up being taken to the scrapyard 

 

 

 

 

They pretty much grabbed it by the roof with there big claw crane and tossed it at the pile from a distance. It then proceeded to roll down to the bottom and land where it was in that photo.

That pretty much has made me anti scrapping cars   scrap yards have no respect for them in there final journeys.

With that I decided to try and on sell the VK sedan shell that mother wanted gone as it was in to gooder nick to be cut up so I thought id try give it one more chance.

 

 

 

Just as well I did, Sold it to a guy whose going to supposedly use it to reshell his VK race car that was involved in a big accident.

[Shakotom]

Did my first track day a couple of weekends back, it was a great day out. Car behaved perfectly but I did manage to cook the brakes on my last outing and pedal went to floor when parking up after the last session. Little bit scary thinking about it afterwards. Would not have like to have run out of brakes on the track. 
I had some good battles with my mate in his MX-5

 

Track day did point out a few things though, Factory seats have next to no lateral support, my suspension sucks and I need a rear sway bar. (Four cylinder commodore bodys dont have rear sway bar mounts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

[Shakotom]

Not much has happened lately. Lots of driving including some daily use during some of the crappiest weather we've had for a while.

I purchased a non broken wiper switch so I now have wipers! which has been real handy lately. just need to sort some where more permanent for the switch as well as get my blower fans working as fogged up windscreens suck.

had been running sweet until it decided to cut out in traffic in the rain on the way home from work and not restart (the one day I got to finish early) resulting being told to move by two stupid Auckland transport workers because I was stopped in a 'no stopping zone'. then having to explain that it had broken down and this was the safest spot I could coast into while waiting for my father to come to tow me home.

It ended up being the crank angle sensor and the coil which appear to have given out simultaneously.

They were replaced and (touchwood)  its been sweet since!

and spent some $$$

 

 

 

 

^There 15x7 et0 and Ive wrapped them in 195/55s (Massive thanks to KK for bringing them up from wellington for me!)

and if you look at the sill, you can see ive got side skirts now. Are VL calais factory skirts but Ive mounted them (incorrectly) as low as I can on the body. I think it flows well from the front lip.

 

 

aaaaaand came across these at a price that was too good to miss, Genuine BBS RS in 16x7et11 and 16x8et22.    

Im going to sell the tyres off them and get smaller ones as the 225s are to square on the rear and rub on my guards to much.

[Shakotom]

Now, this is a story all about how
My car got fixed-to get out of town

and I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I made it to palmy from all the way up here

 

 

 

Right, now my attempt at being the 'Fresh Prince' is over lets get onto it.

A week before Palmy Swapmeat, I decided that the Commodore was going to be my method of transport for the weekend. This story starts in saturday and goes like this.

I bought a new exhaust ages ago that consisted of extractors to a large pipe to two mufflers off a guy on Instagram of all places. The previous exhaust which was a cut up mix of VL log manifold and down pipe to VK center section to VL rear section, Developed a bad rattle between 2000-3500rpm and leaked heaps. the new exhaust was all one piece so I had to lower the subframe and drop one side off the diff out as I refused to cut it.

YAY EXTRACTORS! much power, many fast,very wow

 

 

 

The next part of preparation was to get the heater system/blower fan working. So on Sunday I pulled the dash out and plumbed up all the vacuum lines for the actuators and built one good switch out if three broken ones. So I had speed 3 and 4 on the fans and vents all working! I went out to lunch amongst this with Kateums and stumbled across a mispriced head-unit ($50 cheaper than the marked price YAY!) so was convinced to buy that (after owning the car for three years and wanting a stereo the whole time) and four speakers. Turns out Id have to wire that in from scratch, and cut holes in doors for speakers  and figure out how to mount the head-unit.

Extended wires to wiper switch and temporarily (read permanently) mounted that. Then sorted a little center storage compartment to finish below the dash for now.

you can see below: Wiper switch right hand air vent. Temp gauge in compartment under dash. All light up nice and bright so super easy to see at night too

 

 

Got car back together by Thursday morning, spent thursday getting gas, checking fluids,sorting tools,packing bag ect

and Friday morning met at the top of the Bombays with a bunch of members from Manukau Road & Custom to cruise down to Palmy. Was probably the best drive ive had in a while. Big convoy and a nice spirited back road drive down. Stopped in Waiouru for gas/food.

 

One of the cars in the convoy developed a slight miss just after waiouru (plug lead popped off) and another had a tire delaminate just before bulls. Spare didn't match due to other Pontiac they owned being american built not Canadian. run around to a local tyre shop at 4pm on Friday for tires to be swapped between rims. back on and through to Palmy.

Went to swapmeat, bought a few things. Went to Kruzin Kustoms for a look. Attended OldSchool Saturday night shenanigans. 

 

Crappy Iphone night photo with Ogres Coon 

 

 

 

Father made us leave at 9am on sunday to head home. Went home via the Desert road. went exploring on the Tuikino mountain road but had to turn around after crossing a few smaller puddles before coming to this creek that was too soft to drive through   and knocking my bumper off once

 

 

 

Got car home and tucked it up in the garage for a well deserved rest. 1300km over 3 days and she preformed flawlessy.

and Its absolutley filthy. Suppose ill give her a wash on the weekend

 

[Shakotom]

Well these wheels are meant for my Panel Van, but I just got tires mounted on them today and couldn't help but try them on this. 

 

HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!

HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!

HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!

HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!HUNDRED SPOKES!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It definitely looks way better on smaller tyres in my opinion.

 

but they are for the van....

 

 

 

hurl abuse at me here ---> //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/page-4

[Shakotom]

Now rocking BBS RS'

 

 

put some 195/50R16s on them.

 

Its weird driving this thing and not having guard rub

[Shakotom]

So I keep having issues with this building up corrosion on the inside of the distributor cap and rotor periodically which causes it to miss and run poorly, but once clean and it appears to be sweet for a while. considering they're just under a year old, and its not driven heaps its weird. New cap and rotor maybe?

Every time I park it somewhere and come back to it there's a puddle of coolant under it that comes out of the RH chassis rail but there's no signs of leaks from the cooling system, It holds pressure fine and is always full up to the top under the radiator cap, and reservoir level is okay so that's got me stumped also.

 

Also I've decided that that the front suspension is not going to beat me, and I gave up to easily before. So I had a chat with the guys at SAS and found some longer rack ends that should work, so I went to Zebra today and got a pair of standard front struts to use for fitting purposes and if all works then Ill drop cash money on adjusties.

 

 

Only thing is, the set of adjusties that I had for this before had a smaller shock tube diameter at the top (same as factory VK) compared to the late model standard shocks that Ive got now.

Technical stuff now:

Adjustable top mounts have a 18mm internal diameter

Vk shocks use a m14x? thread and are 14 mm down to shock tube. (sold adjusties used a m14x? thread also and then stepped up to either 15mm or 16mm where top mount sat. I cant remember with out finding the old spacer)

standard later model struts use a m16x? thread down to shock tube.

 

So I need a nut like this that uses the m16x? thread with a 18mm external diameter for now. Gonna flick a email off to toyshop engineering once I find the thread pitch and see if he can help out. If not maybe drilling out and retapping the nut might work.

 

 

If this all works, it should widen the front track by 20mm,mean I can use the VZ 2pot callipers and 296mmx28mm rotors off it and throw on a 1in master (they stop factory VZ SS commodores so should haul up a VK okay) allow me to run some silly negative camber if wanted. 

Also been eyeing up some adjustable radius rod arm because if doing all this may as well cert all the things, but so $$$.

 

First things first Thomas. Get the steering attached.

 

 

[Shakotom]

Bolted it all back in again.
Same problem as last time, Steering doesnt reach. its about 25mm off.

 

 

Put it on its wheels to get an idea again.

 

 

Iphone spec camber reading. (still more adjustment both ways)

 

 

Need to go talk to parts guys and check measurments for steering components tomorrow.

[Shakotom]

My project updates always seem to come up together....

Just quickly for now, Ive got it all assembled and taken it for a drive to the bottom of the road. (eyecrometered toe)

suspension swap has widened the front track by about 40mm.

Camber is set a bit extreme right now,(5*) but will sort that when wheel aligned this week.

 

 

 Looks good though

 

 

Next on list of purchases is bigger master cylinder -Currently 15/16.

 maybe booster too.

 

And brake hoses to connect big brakes to standard lines properly.

 

are braided lines worth it? or just drool factor for a street car?

 

 

Massive thanks goes out to Sheepers for machining out and retapping the top hat nuts/spacers for me! 

and Nvmyvl thanks for your offer of assistance aswell.

 

Will go into more detail about the swap soon.

 

Cheers Guys!

[Shakotom]

Long time no update.

 

Not alot has happened on the suspension front. Mucked about and ended up spending my suspension money on something else again. Really annoyed about that but ahwell it always happens.

 

What have I done recently?

 

Entered my first drift skidpan event and had masses of fun! Suspension in this is total junk and so is the handbrake, So much body roll and handbrake does nothing what so ever.

 

 

Man I sucked. But I still had heaps of fun. Definately keen to do this more.

The standard 30e seems to enjoy this

 

 

Car ran good. Got a little warm at some points. so need to upgrade cooling fans in future.

 

[Shakotom]

Then also went to Drag Nats

Ran a 16.0 and am stoked with that. Gained a second over last time I was down there and all id changed was the exhaust. ($100 set of extractors and a full larger pipe exhaust out to the back)

I think I could possibly crack into the 15s with better suspension and a harder launch

 

 

But I did some burnouts 

 

 

 

Raced that damn vega. And BET IT AS WELL!!!

 

 

And Neal, but lost when I stuffed up shifting to 3rd.  I bet him next time out though

 

 

And raced Ben. which was hilarious for me. speed matching him then waving and driving off into the sunset.

 

 

and I had borrowed my grandads trailer to store things in for the day.

I really want my own trailer now. so handy.

 

 

 

Was plagued by a misfire pretty much all day when the car got hot. would let it cool down and pour water over things and it would go away.

got real bad on the way home up the bombays. limped home and put it in the garage and have been neglecting it since unfortunately.

I havent even washed it 

 

 

Well Nats is coming up.

 

TO DO:

fix misfire

get new tyres

find out why the carpet gets wet when it rains

STOP NEGLECTING HER.

 

 

 

Photo credits to respective photograpers. Thanks heaps! because I was slack and forgot my camera 

 

 

 

IM SO GONNA GET THE SUSPENSION SORTED THIS YEAR!

(there its on the internet so im bound by that)

Tein or d2?

[Shakotom]

NATS PREP.

 

Car sat around after drag day because of misfire, Booked in for Nats and really wanna hoon this on the dirt track. 

after sitting for that long, the battery died so new one was purchased. and replaced plugs and coil to fix miss. 

 

 

Worked sweet for a day, but there must be more to the cause of the fault. 

Ordered a crank angle sensor and hopefully that shows up tomorrow to fit and fingers crossed that repairs the fault before I fly to Aussie on Thursday.

And if so then gotta go buy a pair of 195/55r16s and change brake fluid.

Also got some new front shocks which if I get time will go in before Nats,

 

Nothing like last minute prep...

[Shakotom]

Why does my Distributor cap keep doing this?

I just replaced it before drag day....

 

 

Thats like a white build up on the terminals.

 

hep here ----> //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36140-shakotoms-84-vk-mayte/