KPies 1974 Holden Belmont HQ

[azzurro]

With a known good fuel tank in place time to sort the other end out.

Previously we were running the engine off a boat tank in the passenger seat and a clicketyclack electric pump.

Dirty ol 173

New valve cover and lifter cover gaskets

Water pump replaced with a unused one that came with a $50 FBMP pile of bits (also came with a thermotstat housing that was much better, a fan extension thing that we needed, a valve cover (later model so didnt use), rocker covers and a fan that i painted,, and a sump we will probably use eventually too, so pretty stocked with that score!

Cooling system got a wash out too and a new thermostat from my stash (same size as Fiat )

Fuel pump gasket set from Butler Auto Mart, 

and freshly cleaned Fan pulley, fan extension, fan, and lifter covers

And finally new radiator hoses and clamps

Unfortunately i had to take the rad out again to solder up a big crack under the top hose but alls well now 

[azzurro]

Made a gear stick extension.

The Torana box makes it a bit of a reach from the HQ driving position. Shifters are available from Aussie, but for over $1000 bux ill give this a go first.

Used a broken chromed tire iron i had been saving for just such an occasion, plus a 1/2"x20 UNF bolt, and 3 matching nuts.

Welded the bolt on one end to give the threads for the knob

And 2 nuts on the other other end to attach the extension on to the original shifters threads + the last nut threaded onto the shifter as a lock nut to hold it in position.

The gear stick falls to hand much nicer now its about 4 inches back and about the same higher.

Torana centre console plus the gear stick gaiter from the Croma Turbo i wrecked (still have the engine in the stash for one day)

Then moved all the cars.

2300 wagon looked like a barn find

Even pushed the Dio ZX out into the light for a hose down! (oil tank had leaked down and hydro locked the cylinder! It was pretty smokey once it fired up!)

Then Kisrty fired the old dog up and rolled it into the sun for a wash

*Somehow* it got turned around and it now faces the other way.

Can confirm the brakes, clutch and gearbox works fine, exhaust is not too loud while driving and she rolls along pretty happily. 

Back end with the new exhaust and tank looks great!

Drivers side, ehhh, not so much, but pretty much the same as the other side, rust in the plenum corners, whole sill front to rear, corners of the doors and rear arches.

Took the opportunity to sweep and wash out the garage, lots of rust, mud and old greasy smeg

Then poked it back in, this time with the drivers side facing the workbench/welder. 

 

[azzurro]

Making a start on the Drivers side rust

Starting with the Drivers door.

I was thinking it was the best of the 4 doors based on the limited amount of rust that popped though on the outside and all it needed was a couple patches in the outer skin, but jokes on me it turned into a bit of a mission.

Took this one off to fix (instead of leaving it on the car) because the hinges are worn out too.

Starting with the rear corner.

Chop Chop back to good metal

bish bash bosh - the annoying hole in my firewood chopping block came in pretty handy for forming this piece, and it turned out pretty good

zip zap it in

Front side

Edges dressed over and tidied up

Then the front Corner

Crunchy!

Left a bit of the outer edge to avoid messing up the door gaps etc. Lots of spitting welds from the rust despite my best efforts to dig it out.

Ill be filling the doors with wax etc eventually, it wont last forever but hopefully wont need to dig in again in my lifetime.

Next step: The inner leading edge that holds the door rubbers.

Its pretty bad and theres a suspicious looking repair at the base of the window.

This old primer and bog is hiding something...

YUM! An old patch tacked over rust.

Ended up chopping a fair bit out, not just the rust but to gain access to the inner skin, as that needed repair too.

Patch job was done - while it cant be seen it still needed to be flush for plug welding the outer over it, and strong as its a pretty structural part of the door.

At this point I didn't even try to form the edge and bought an 'front door inner repair section' which turned up in two days (its pretty much cheating!)

Chopped most of it off except the bits i needed

Filled in the missing bits the panel didn't cover and smoothed it out

Then chucked some primer over it to show up all the imperfections again!

Then flipped it over to address the cracking paint shituation around the door handle.

Obviously something is going on under the paint so its all got to come off

Little bit of heat to soften up the bog and it just slides off revealing the horrors beneath

Did what i could to remove the surface rust and straighten it out, but there is no real access to get a dolly or a hammer in there to dress the metal so it is what it is.

You can see the door below the body crease has a generous layer of icing too that im just going to ignore as its not cracking or whatever and has been fine for 30 years

So that's all the rust on this door, just need to put a pile of wob back in to build the area i removed it back up to match the rest of the door

 

[azzurro]

no update for a while but have been scratching away at this

in november i finished off the drivers door

primed

jambs etc coloured

back on to sort out the gaps but after new pins and bushes, which made a huge difference, top pin had worn though the bush and was making a good start on ovalling out the hole

 

gaps!

Then prime 

paint

clear and also blacked the top half

New windlace and seals, and rivnuts for the mirror (instead of self tappers)

fixed the window runner mechanism (missing rollers) and then the interior back on for the first time in a long time

Door handle, lock and mirror back on, closes beautifully and lines up nice!

 

 

 

 

Then my reliable* daily needed work.

Oil leaks (from valve cover and turbo oil return) right onto the exhaust made it smoky, a new turbo (broken shaft, common due to oil starvation from often overlooked and hard to access mesh filter in oil feed banjo bolts), a new clutch (messed up from the oil leaks and generally worn out), and new cv joint boots (adding grease to the oil fires), but the bellhousing was well stuck to the motor (there is no spot to put anything between them to lever it off) so that had to come out with the engine.

What a debacle. Those of you who Subaru know removing the engine isnt usually too bad, and is often easier than working on it in the vehicle, but removing it with the box attached, man, what a bastard.

You can see where the valve cover has been leaking right onto the exhaust.

 

Anyway, so that took all my car time/money/motivation for a good while leading up to xmas (GHFWII now!)

[azzurro]

 

 

In the new year holidays a did a bit more as the weather was unseasonably cold and wet, and the surf was crap.

Rear of the wheel arch on both sides needed some fettling

 

Passenger side inner:

This is a complex area where a lot of panels join and overlap.

The lower quarter panel/boot well already has an old repair on this side (flashback!) that is still sound and has since been reburied, but the inside has continued to deteriorate

Anyway, chop chop back to sound metal

A very fiddly spot to get my fat head + ppe and all that into, but pretty pleased with how it turned out

There was more work after this to clean out a bit more of the thinner metal rust aft of the patch on the seam, but that is done

Drivers Side:

Pretty similar story to the passenger side on the inside, (no progress pics only 'done')

but also needed the outer doing too, including redoing a previous patch that was very nicely welded right over the old rust which was not removed and made worse

Inner wheel arch and inner boot well needed patching too.

(i ended up putting another patch in above this one after chasing those holes you can see for way too long, no photos because of the red mist)

Getting the outer patch to fit up nice, pretty pleased with that

And halfway though welding - no finished pics for some reason

And a couple little patches right at the rear of the well same on both sides, where the quarter, valance and well panels all meet and are double skinned,

Bam! and the rust is gone (but still got another another round of pin holes to fill nd grind)

I also welded up the old aerial hole in the top of the rear boot panel that had been bogged over previously

So that meant the front clip and boot are rust free, just all the bits in between now!

 

As i was finishing up the work in the boot (seam sealer etc), we had also been fiddling in the interior and must have knocked it out of gear/handbrake off and the car rolled off the blocks of wood it was sitting on straight into the basement wall and bent the nose codne and bumper, so thats good, great, grand, wonderful.

 

No one was hurt, only my feefees, but a good reminder to take care working under cars!

[azzurro]

An the reason we were inside fussing with the gearstick and handbrake?

Found a cheap* HQ bench seat (ex Ute) to replace the current Torana buckets that dont bolt up 

It was pretty cheap for what these seem to go for but was still way to much for what they are. Rat chewed and sun damaged, but complete and colour is in the 'brownish' range

Upper vinyl on the drivers side is pretty crunchy too but the passenger side where ill be sitting is ok  

Ive ordered some self adhesive vinyl off Aliex and ill get some Ados as well and see how that goes

Guy had some sill panels too, so those were negotiated in as part of the deal and I dont feel so bad about how much we paid for this junk

And interior is all back together, its a nice spot for making brum brum noises now that the seats dont wobble

[azzurro]

Ehh. Its better than it was.

If that doesn't peel off immediately well get some of that dye spray paint and do the whole seat darker to match the door cards and rear seat

 

[azzurro]

In this exciting update, more rust!

This time its the rear sail panel on the drivers side. The passenger side has the same rust spot (to do) so i assume its a "they all do that sir" type scenario, and im guessing its water and muck flicked up by the rear wheel, finds its way up there and doesn't come out. For this to happen the rear wheel arches need to have holes too, and well... (spoiler alert for the next exiting update).

This is mostly hidden by the trim that is an extension of the drip rails.

Just trying to figure out where and how to cut it for good access, while also retaining enough datums to be able to put it back on. 

Cause I needed to chop out the middle layer too (there is another layer that the headliner sticks to on the inside as well, thats fine

Chopped out and cleaned up

Inner mostly done.

Mocking up the outer layer, which was pretty tricky as each 'face' has a compound curve but also gets wider as it goes, so well beyond my ability to make as one bit

 

Can see it coming together here, managed to reuse the little cutout for the rear face of the door detail

Weldyweldy

Grindy grindy

Pretty much ready for paint minus some pinholes (several more steps of weldy and grindy)

Blasted some primer, have a hole to fix where the grinder caught the edge a few times, but im out of welding gas

Then a few rounds of filler and then some metallic red (colour match for my Forester) just to finish it off (for now).

Of course it reacted with the cheap spray can primer i used!

While i had the filler out i also fixed up the nose cone and bumper.

Progress is slow but its progress

 

 

[azzurro]

Next bit, the wheel arch/quarter panel

This is a super common area for these to rot

as evidenced by the low cost and wide availability of repair panels for this very spot

 

But why do they rust there?

Well...let me count the ways...

Bit more cleaning and careful chopping trying to figure out how best to deal with this efficiently. 

Like the previous sail panel, which this is just the lower section of, this area is also triple skinned: 1 the inner arch, 2 the sail panel and outer wheel arch and then 3 outer quarter panel over that, all loosely spot welded together and then lovingly coated with lashings of lead to cover it all up at the factory. 

Chopping done now to start adding nu metal 

Patched the inner arch, then remade the lower rearward bit of the sail panel

the front part had to wait as there was more of the inner arch to patch first - i tend to work on this for an hour or so every few days so i sometimes throw paint and seam sealer on as i go

And done, from what i could gather from what was left, the factory part was only floating behind the covering panels, i closed it up to the inner arch to make it a wee bit stronger and also reduce the chance for dirt to get up there again, but its still open (towards the front) to drain any condensation or whatever that does come down from further up in the car (inner roof etc).

Now there is something for the quarter panel to stick to

The rarespares panels are a big help but still need to copy and make a lot of the smaller details.

Remaking the factory seam was not necessary given its leaded and invisible from factory but it will make it a bit easier when its time to redo the front dog leg, and does finish of the tricky bit under the corner of the door

Overall pretty happy with how this turned out.

Door gaps and body lines all came out minty

And only a skim of filler to hide the weld and blend it in to the rest of the car, which as you can see wasn't perfect before (i didn't cut out all of the big crease)