FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

As there isn't much happening at the moment i thought some you might be interested in how we modified our early holdens(FC station wagon for me) in the mid 70's. On the gold coast at that time custom parts were almost none existant and good tools were only owned by tradesmen, you couldn't just whip down to your local speed shop for a set of lowered springs. So the first thing would be to get the car on level ground crawl under the front and apply heat to one of the coils of a spring until it sagged onto the next coil, then repeat on other side, instantly lowered a couple of inches. The look back then was low in front jacked up in the rear, which was also necessary to stop big rear wheels from scraping. So the next step was to jack the car up by the body, insert a long wheelbrace into the shackle and flip it over so it hung down, repeat on other side and your car was now at what felt like a 45 degree angle(good until you go round a corner too fast or hit a pothole and then you had to repeat the process on the side of the road)Step 3 was to go to the dump (The dump had a row of  cars that you could take parts off for free) cut some exhaust pipe off something with a bigger diameter then take it home and cut and weld into something resembling a sports system usually with just a little hot dog on the end. Add a floor shift some tiger skin seat covers,curtains and a sticker that said "Virgins wanted apply within" and we thought we had the hottist thing on four wheels, then it was off to surfers for the sat. night cruise the block and drags,sometimes we would even make it home without blowing a motor or something coming loose. ALL THE MODIFICATIONS i have described here are highly illegal and i am not recomending anyone do them.

hehehehe,

I clearly remember dad sticking a bottle jack between the rear wheel arch and the body of our FB and jacking the wheel arches out a couple of inches so he could fit some wide chromies in. 

How did we all not die?

Nige

ha ha ha thats brings back memories  :D
i applied the said lowering / jacking treatment to my old HR sedan in the eraly eighties. pretty close to zero travel in the front springs, but i used a hacksaw as i didnt have access to a hot axe :P
and having the bum in the air was always fun until that unexpected bump in the road  :o mind you it allowed you to really swing the arse end around when you put the boot into it. ;D

Pedro - I think the tiger skin seat covers will still pass todays rule - lol

But yes, I had one of those FC's as well.
Mine was 2 tone green and we made longer shackle arms from a bit of steel we had lying around so that it was even higher at the rear. (I think our car had sagged springs as we were still getting tyre scrape)

Ken

my first custom interior consisted of dark blue crushed velvet dor trims with diamond studded pattern.
very plush and very very classy ;D

Yeah the angle of the car realy affected the steering geometry and it made the car handle like a pig but to us it was cooool 8). I like to think i have out grown the seat covers and my wife won't let me put that sticker on but luckily i never out grew love for FC holdens, I've just learnt to treat them better. I still drive a wagon exactly the same colours as my first car, burgundy and white.Standard exept for wide 14 inch rims,extractors and 2 inch system and i still feel like it's the best thing on the road(even without the seat covers) ;D

i broke a spring in the bush and had to fit EH ute springs from the bush to get home, the back sat high and made the 185 tyres look like cheesecutters,  i drove it like that for a week, steering was hell and scared shit out of me and nothing normally scares me.

Just out of curiosity why does my bit where it says report to moderator have a number and everyone elses says logged is there something i'm supposed to be doing

nah, nothing to worry about that is normal.
cant give the teshnikal explanation though. one of them moderators could when they finished enjoying themselves ;)

Lucky bastards over there in south oz,still no pics yet eh Smithy?
                                 Cheers Rusty

nah, the buggers are holding out on us :(

No worries, thanks, those pics must be coming any time now.

I modified my FE in the early 60s
Cut the front springs so short had to shorten the bump stop rubbers
Fitted lowering blocks to the rear springs
The shock absorbers were rebuilt to stiffen them
Had a thicker front anti sway made up
I made tramp rods from an FX taxi rail
Fitted add on whitewalls to tyres
Fitted rear mudguard spats (which were later stolen)
Painted the rear lower body, quarters and spats the same as the roof colour
Fitted FC fins
Also fitted an FJ motor that I reconditioned and modified

The car looks much the same now but with standard suspension
I still have the motor in my shed but it needs reconditioning

Cheers
Mal

That's your IP address, so if you are naughty we can "hunt you down like a dog"  ;D
Most people can only see their own, privacy I guess, but the Mods and Admins see everything  ;)

I'd better be a good boy then and not say anything derogatory about fe's :D

Pedro You mean the other type of Holden [fe] we can't all get it right and drive FC's ......FC427........

As homer would say " mmmmmmmmmmm chrome. ;)

I can vividly remember heading for the wall of pentridge prison on the street that linked bell street with sydney road when the good ol floor shift broke off just as i was changing up to second,just got a bit distracted mounted the gutter and stopped about 10 feet off the wall,the guard in the tower looked under impressed >:(,the girl friend(now wife)started mumbling something about old cars and stuffing around with them.
Gee she's harsh my fc was only 18 at the time. :D
Cheers
Deano

I had a FC wagon that had a Speco triple carb manifold, 40/80 cam, much modified cylinder head, decked block, bored to 3.250", 149 Hi Top Weslite pistons, 5 speed 240Z 'Box, 3.36 LSD rear end and HR disc brake front end. I used to meet up with a few mates, leave Canberra of a Friday afternoon after work and tear down to Batemans Bay. (Canb to Batemans Bay 150km) I used to have to fill up at Braidwood to make it.

The way I drove back then........... I certainly didn't do anything back then to help solve the shortage of oil and petroleum products ::)

Sounds like you could pass everything but servos ;D, but seriously not in our wildest fantasy could we have imagined you could do all those modifications to an early holden at that point in time in qld. even now living in hervey bay i still feel like i'm a million miles from all the action,it's great to have this website so i can keep in touch. 8)

Yes, about the only thing that it couldn't pass was the service station.

I regards to parts and machining being available, I was fortunate with my FC, when it became known amongst the other mechanics that I worked with that I was doing an FC up with a Grey Motor, a few of the mechanics that I worked with basically said "I used to race a car or boat with an old Grey Motor, I still have some parts, do want them?" As a result I ended up with a lot of old Grey Motor speed equipment. As I was also still an apprentice and went to TAFE I had access to an engine dyno, deals were done with apprentice fitters and turners, and as a result I was able to get nearly all of my machining that I required done for next to nix. i was encouraged by my teachers, who both raced cars with Holden Greys.

I learnt a lot as engines broke on the dyno in the chase for horsepower, and I later began racing an FC sedan and later an EJ. The engine in the FC was at one stage in my race car, and was taken out of my race car when I built a better one for my race car.

If only I still had all that old Grey Motor speed equipment that I once had.........

What a great time and place to be doing an apprenteship, having your workmates and your teachers into grey motors would have been a big bonus, if we knew back then what we know now, we would have kept a lot more than we did, i can remember a time when if we blew a motor we would buy another car, take out the motor and tow the it to the dump,take the wheels off and leave the rest.

There were plenty of cars with blown motors about. I remember one year I had a bad season with my EJ, went through 11 bodies in the race season, found them all by driving around Canberra and seeing them sitting on the nature strip with half flat tyres, never paid anymore than $20.00 for one. I would gut them, cut the roof off, fit the roll cage and weld the roof back on. We also used to get parts for cars at the Queanbeyan tip as well. There was never any shortage of bits and pieces.

Yeah grey motors are good and reliable when they are in good nick, but when they get a bit tired they can go quickly, if you push them too hard even quicker, i think some of the newer enthusiasts would be shocked at how cheap they were, and how many good straight rust free cars were trashed just because no one wanted them,my first car was eighty dollars on the rd. registered in very good condition with nasco radio,parcel rack, taxi bar, tow bar and heater.

Mine was purchased in the public bar of The Newport Arms Hotel, Sydney for $60 with rego, chromies and a spare car for parts.........and we needed them ;D