thanks for the opinions. I'll go with the rares ones their easy enough to get in Adelaide.

Hi All. I am doing full outer sill panel replacements on my FC sedan and looking to buy the best reproduced sills available or possibly NOS if available. In your opinions who is making the best sills at the moment?

I slighty dinted the rear quarter strips on my grey one when I fitted them years ago. I reckon they are the hardest ones to fit on a '58 special if original clips are used.

I bought this one recently. Its a 215 and the stainless strips are all just siliconed on.

Hi MC59 beautifull car you have.

How did you fit the special stainless strips to the doors and guards? Did you make holes for the clips in the panels? I have new old stock doors I'd like to fit to my special but I really don't want to make the slotted holed in them.

Here you go Ken.

The rusty green one.



And the two tone blue one. Was originally a light blue 215. Someone has dressed it up as a special. this is not its original plate.



I'll see if I can find some chassis no's when I get home.

Not much happened yet as far as vehicle work goes. I did find and recover this poor thing. Its got the last few parts I need. The rest of it can be yard art.

http://imgur.com/y1u7Zpm

http://imgur.com/P1vAOJz

Thanks RET.  I had a chat with Craig on the phone. Said he's getting all hip and trendy with a tablet. Let me know what he says when you show him. Last time he was in that car was about 1983

I have a very much loved FC sedan owned by me for 37 years. I did a thread on it a while back in Members called "mine since 79"





Now that I'm starting to get some spare time, I'm having a play with it to just freshen it up a bit and complete the little things that didn't get done when i was young, Mainly fitting a EK auto floor pan I have and a M21 transmision.





That brings me to my problem. After several abortive attempts, I have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way I will ever be able to attack the floor of that vehicle with any type of metal cutting equipment. It is just too pristine and the sentimental value too great. Who could do such a thing?

There really is only one way to resolve this delema. I have purchased another FC.



 It's an old restoration in need of another restoration. I can now remove all the non-original parts from the grey one and use the stock parts from the blue one to put the grey one back to stock original condition keeping my concious clear. I will then use all the later model Holden parts to modify the blue one. I can fit the EK floor in the blue one guilt free it has repair section floor pans in it anyway.

as soon as I get moved into the new shed, its on.

Greetings fellow FC FE lovers. I have just purchased another FC to restore and have 4 doors with very solid frames with rust along the bottom of the outer skin. I have an opportunity to buy another set of 4 that are heavily corroded around the window frames however the skins themselves are rust free and very straight. I intend to sacrifice the frames on these and unpick and bend back the lip around the edge of the skin and fit them to the doors with good frames. I would appreciate advice from anyone who has attemped this procedure. I realize it may be a tedious way to end up with rust free doors, we're doing it for fun right? I'll be starting a thread in project cars as soon as I remember how to post pictures.

Chemsearch make an arosol product called "Yeild" it sprays on like CRC and has a passive dissolving effect on the expanded rust. I hesitate to use the word oxidising. Keep spraying it on there over a few days and it eventually penetrates and the bolt magically loosens. I was sceptical then a sales rep gave me a free sample and it actually worked. Was very expesive though.

Haha, it's not beyond the relm of possibility there may be a leak, it hasn't been wet in over 30 years. Besides, why hide a pristine floor without a tiny bit of oxidisation. Seriously, the reason there's no covering is because I always intended to fit a EK auto floor.

Thanks FCRB26 I think I got it........Yay.

G'day everyone.
I have at last removed the covers and given the old girl a clean and service and taken it for a bit of a drive. I took some photo's that I uploaded to photobucket unfortunately not having much luck getting them posted on the site. Any hints?

No apologies necessary at all thanks RET, Bruce and Jan. Its all good discussion. Its Hobbo's. thread anyhow.

Thanks for the info stinky. I'll be de-mothballing my car soon so my interest will escalate then. let us know how we can lend support.

You are correct Stinky, The club acknowledges they had non-compliant vehicles probably to boost membership which was highly successful. The change of rules I referred to is the requirement of the stat dec.They use a different inspection regime now, My brother is on the committee as he has Rods as well as an EH with XU1 spec.

I believe the problem is that Transport SA still has many 30+ year old vehicles on full rego and do not wish to lose the revenue if they were to go to historic, Plus the more cars on historic the more difficult it becomes to manage with log books etc. They don't realise that very few of these cars are used as daily drives, and to be frank why would they care.

One particular club official took issue with the level of modification to my car when I registered it historic, and when I looked under the bonnet of his so called "original" Drophead Jag coupe it had a BXUV-2 carb on it instead of the original SU. I called him out as a hypocrite, pointing out that at least my car had the correct carburettor, just more of them.

The point I'm making is that if its got to be original its got to be bolt perfect, and very few are. The modifications we do make them a much safer vehicle. There's quite a few blokes over Port Lincoln way who would be pro-active in Lobbying for change, very difficult to band everyone together as you pointed out.

Edit. Quite a few PEOPLE over Port Lincoln way. Forgot the wife's got her VB Commodore on historic rego. Its compliant. my FC's not.

In the next couple of weeks I'll be moving the FC into the new shed and I'll take some pics to post up as well as a few I'll scan from years ago. Been promising that for a fair while now. Might even get cheeky and post up one with the French girl sitting on the bonnet.

I bought My FC in 1979 when 19yo. It was owned from new by the head teacher of motor trades at Sydney Tech and sold to a female school teacher who I bought it from. I was patient and waited until I found a straight, rust free low mileage car before I coughed up my $650. A fortune in those days.

It was a marvellous time to restore a Holden. Dealers had masses of new old stock and every third back yard had an old Holden laying in it. I got my hands on as much new stuff as I could then one day Rare Spares came along and cleaned out the dealers so that was the end of that.

I fully restored the car to original condition with all the rubber and plastic stuff brand new. I didn't take long to realise that it was quite simply no fun to drive so I took out all the running gear and fitted HR front HP red motor trick suspension good wheels and tires and all that stuff. It transformed it into a delight to drive. Still is.

Not long after it was finished I went to sea and it sat in my parents shed. I moved to SA where it still languishes in the shed. I promised myself one day when I have less distractions I will dismantle it and freshen it up and get it exactly how I wanted it all those years ago. That day will be very soon as I have just finished a no expenses spared workshop that will be fully equipped just for this car. I intent to make this a very enjoyable restoration.

As far as sentimental value goes this car has a lot of memories. Its been used as a wedding car a few times and I had my first serious encounter, For want of a better word in this car. A French girl I remember, But I digress. 

I had My FC on historic rego through a recognised car club in SA until this year. The rules have just changed. Before it was up to the club inspector to decide the vehicles eligibility for historic rego and my car is like yours with HR front red motor etc. When it first got inspected about 10 years ago it was pointed out it was supposed to be stock. I argued that every supposedly stock vehicle in the club had at least one small modification and my car was all genuine Holden parts over 30 years old. That was excepted and club rego granted which was a bit of a waste of money as I only drove it 4 or 5 times during that period. End of last year I got a letter from the club saying that now the owner had to do a statutory declaration that the vehicle is stock and a penalty applies if it found not to be. In other words the onus is now on the owner and not the club. Its a pain in the arse at any rate and your better off putting it on seasonal rego every now and then in 3 month periods.

What annoys me is the hot rod guys can build a car out of brand new components with not one single stock part and get historic rego. Like I said even so called stock standard cars will have at least a bolt not original so where do you draw the line. Whether the puritans like it or not the "hot Holden" from the 50's to the 80's is a big part of Australian motoring history.   

My FC has NOS sub-frames so has no body number.

It is registered in SA on the historic system. It shows the engine no and the chasis no as N/A