Art's FC Sedan Build 2.0

[Longman]

For those who didn't see the pics on Facebook. I had a big weekend. The car is off the rotisserie after 3 years. All hanging panels were attached to start gapping and filling. The last rust repairs were made to the passenger guard. Rare Spares aren't kidding when they say the patch panel is a restoration aid, a lot of work was required to get the headlight peak patch to come even close. The chassis kit was painted and installed. All new high tensile bolts were used and 16mm x 1.2mm round tubing was used as crush tubes for all bolts. The diff was installed on ute leaf springs. I plan to have them reset lower once panels are done. The front end was bolted in, hopefully for the last time, though the springs may need to be replaced if it doesn't settle, it's way too high, even with the motor in it.  The motor was also installed. Next up will be the gearbox to allow the column shifter cable to be sorted out, and hopefully get it running. I'm very happy with the fit of all panels, there has been no warping or twisting of the shell despite most of it being replaced. Exciting times ahead.

[Errol62]

Looking good Art. You have come a long way.

With the rear springs mate, I reset my own using a cheap 12 tonne press I bought myself for Christmas. Bit of trial and error but turned out perfect. Have a look on YouTube if you're keen.

The press has turned out to be indispensable by the way.

Cheers
Clay

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

[Longman]

and so the fun begins! I had forgotten that I helped NES, years ago, pull this loom out of a VT wagon and we labelled just about everything. I was happy to find that all the labels were intact and still readable.  Now to stuff it all in there.

[JB]

Don’t be scared to cut, shorten or lengthen them… one at a time. Lol
I joined 2 together on the Ute.

[Longman]

Don’t be scared to cut, shorten or lengthen them… one at a time. Lol
I joined 2 together on the Ute.

Yeah mate, I have a second loom handy jus in case.

[Longman]

It's been a while since I updated, but I have been chipping away. Since my last post, I have completed the following:

Brake calipers have been stripped, sandblasted, painted and reassembled with new kits through them.





The VS commodore fuel tank has been cleaned out, stripped and painted. The inside was mint and did not need to be recoated, but I did install a new fuel pump.  The tank has been installed in the car so that I can run fuel lines and install vapour purge stuff, then I'll sort out the filler neck position.

[Longman]

The B pillar door separator channel was all sorts of bent, so rather than spend heaps of time trying to get it straight and get two good gaps, it was decided to remove it and extend the front doors. The result is a perfect 4mm gap and a cleaner look. The bottoms of both doors were squared off and surprisingly, no modification was needed to the pillar bottom to accommodate the extra metal on the rear door bottom.

[Longman]

I got given a nice set of Narva H4 headlights and a set of EH buckets. I sandblasted the buckets and reflectors and painted them.  I smashed up an old set of VT headlights and grabbed the looms out of them, then cut the EH buckets and fitted the looms.  Since I'm using a full VT loom, they will plug straight in.  I spent 5 mins with some 0000 steel wool to bring the retaining rings up like new.

New Narva lights:


Crusty EH bucket setup:


Painted and loom plug cutouts done:


Reflectors painted in chrome paint:


5 mins with steel wool shows the difference:


Finished buckets showing wiring looms/plugs:


done. Ready to bolt into the car: