FirstMate's 1964 AP5 Valiant

[FirstMate]

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). 

 

[FirstMate]

Discussion thread:

 

[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. 

[FirstMate]

Crickey, last posted in November, when I aimed to get it up to date - time for another crack.

Got car, hooned around but found it had damp front carpets after rain. Turned out it had typical plenum rust, and wanted to tackle this before I got it back on road. After  being a large garage decoration for a couple of years began to eat the elephant.

First was finding it:


Then the strip down - bonnet ended up in the hallway and the front seats in a spare room (lucky to have a tolerant spouse…):

Then carefully unstitched the upper plenum panel:

Took dash out too for good measure…

 

[FirstMate]

Had to start somewhere so tackled driver’s side as was least bad. First tackled around the vent:

 

Then the bottom of the pillar:

 

Fair amount of faff fettling various patches - was remarkable how a couple of hours couple slip by gently tapping something to the right shape, probably the closest I’ve been to being in a flow state.

Anyway, pretty happy with the end result, not a final photo but the bulk repair is done on this side:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FirstMate]

Still trucking on with repairs despite the lack of updates. Had left passengers corner to do second as it was worse than the driver’s side

Rather than patching in place just cut it out and repaired on bench before fitting back in

And all back in with a cleaned up air vent ring