NEW PROJECT FC UTE

[Stewy]

SPECTACULAR Mal,
The period look with the mod cons is fantastic.
Keep up the great work. Hope to see it on the road some day soon.

Cheers Stewy   

[Mal W]

Time for an update
Inside the tray is all repaired
RH rear quarter & sill is repaired




















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[Mal W]

Finally have the engine rebuild started also.
So far I’ve de-burred the engine block and heads.
Also done the heads, ported & polished.
Intake manifold ports matched to heads, intake and timing case cover smoothed ready for ceramic
coating.














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[blacky]

 Looks  a treat Mal, did you do the porting and polishing yourself ? Be careful when you put the lifters in mate   

[Mal W]

Yeh i did it myself
Got to watch those lifters, a trap for young players 

[blacky]

 G'day Mal, guessing you are retired now , this thing has probably got plates on it the way you work - how about an update mate ??

[Mal W]

Wow I have been dragging the chain on the updates.
Well Iam now retired and looking forward to getting back into the ute.
Not a lot has happened really.

Motor is finished, and I didn't put it together, the machine shop did.

Will get some progress pictures sorted out over the weekend and get everyone up to date.

Mal

[Mal W]

Well it’s to hot today to go out to the shed so time to try and update my build.

I did the tube for the wiring into the doors for central locking, windows ect.

First I got some large stainless bolts and turned down the heads and drilled the centres.



I also machined down the nuts so they weren’t so bulky.





And the tubing is from Bunnings, good old shower tubing.

Next was fitting them into the doors and pillar.
As when the door and pillar is so close I made up recessed sections and welded them in.



















It all works a treat.


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[Mal W]

I ended up doing a fair bit of messing around gaping the doors to get a nice consistent gap.











Still a bit of fine tuning to do.


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[Mal W]

Rust and dint repairs on the doors.

The left door is done and wasn’t to bad as far as rust and dints go, the bottom inner fold had to be replaced as it was to far gone.

The door still needed a light skim to get it right.








The drivers door was a different story.
The original door had to be replaced and the only one I could find was a sedan door. It was rusty but straight.

The top of the door was cut off and replaced with the Ute top. The front lower corner was rusty, the outer lower section had to be replaced and the inner rear also had to be replaced.






New lower outer section made and ready to fit












Now for the inner section.
I had another old door that had a really good inner section so I’m fitting that whole section.









Basically this is where this door is at now,  with everything cleaned up and ready to fit.


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[Mal W]

While I’ve been working on the doors I’ve been fitted other necessities as well like the power windows, central locking and for something completely different, power quarter windows as well.





Power windows and the door lock actuators were pretty straight forward, the power quarter window took a bit of messing around.

I got a new pair of power seat motors from a Holden Vectra to use for the windows.




I had an old door that I cut the inside out of so I could see how I had to make the bracket and how it was all going to work.



When I made one bracket, I also made a mirrored image of it for the other side door.



Motors mounted to the brackets.



On the bottom of the original window frame I built up with weld and ground down so it would fit into the drive section of the motors.
Also reinforced with weld the shaft where it joins the frame.









All fitted together and now just had to make small brackets to secure the shaft to the outer frame.



To operate the windows I bought crank style switches so I could use the original window winder handles.
I used these switches for the windows as well as the quarter windows.



For the handles I used original ones for the main windows and the shorter version of the originals for the quarter windows.




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[Gman]

Fantastic work there, I love seeing the engineering that goes into peoples projects, it's the stuff you can't appreciate at a car show!!!

[Jolls]

Some great engineering there to get those quarter windows operating electrically. I expect your quality work is underpinned by plenty of patience.

[Errol62]

Some builders get clever and replace the front quarters with one piece fast glass, but you do this! Outstanding work as always Malcolm. Also, I thought I had seen the door tubes available as a kit, but you go and make your own. I wish I had half your skill.


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[Mal W]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the comments.

Exactly Gman, I think that's the most interesting part of building a car. Once you cover all the work up with shiny paint people just look at the big picture and hardly notice all the detail work that goes into building something a bit different.

Joll, doing stuff like this, patience is the name of the game. Even better now I'm retired.

Errol62, I originally looked into the one piece windows but it was going to be a LOT of modifying as the top door hinge was in the road.
When you got a lathe and a fair assortment of tools, making the small things puts that personal touch on it I think. (And I enjoy doing it of course).

[blacky]

 Thanks for the update Mal , always enjoy your posts and marvelling at your craftsmanship.

 I have a set of manual quarter window cranks for the 2 door EK I have been building since forever but making your own powered units from scratch is next level and then some 

[Mal W]

Nothing like a bit of a challenge Blacky.
I put electric quarter windows in my 57 chev as well, but they were a lot easier as they originally have the crank style quarter windows. With that one I got a pair of motors out of an old cadillac and they were so close they just about bolted straight on.

[my8thholden]

Mal ..You are a master craftsman , no doubt ..like Errol said , I also wish I had that skill for body work , ...Vern ...

[blacky]

 Any updates Mal ??

[Mal W]

Ok will try for a bit of a catch up
After getting all the power windows working I found that the quarter windows were opening to fast, so with a bit of research I found adjustable voltage regulators from Jaycar. Fitter those and I dropped the voltage down from 12 to 3 volts, works perfectly now.







And just to finish the insides of I made some stainless door lock knobs and surrounds.








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