Now for something a little more serious

It's now time to get rid of some rust and the groovy paint job. The drivers side guard has a dent on the top edge that needs repairing and the passenger side needs some rust cut out where the electric aerial was fitted. This should keep me busy for a while. Will post pics as I go.

New drivers side glass!

When I got the car the drivers side window was missing. There was a replacement with the car. I went to put the glass in only to find that it wasn't the correct glass for the car. After some searching, I managed to find a new door glass. I was told that the glass is very rare in the VIP's as they didn't have 1/4 vent windows like the other models. Also, as it's an air conditioned car, the glass is tinted green, making it even more rarer.
I went to put the new glass in, this time to find out the reason why the original broke. The winder mechanism had cracked and opened up, allowing the winding cog to separate from the winding arm. As this is spring loaded to help with the winding, it probably flicked the glass and shattered it. The cog also had damaged teeth that wouldn't fit in the winder arm properly.
I found a winding mechanism for a back door, pulled out the winder and swapped it for the VIP one. I then manipulated the housing back into shape and welded the cracks to hold it in place. The threads on the face plate were also found to be stripped. I welded some nuts on the back of the plate to provide adequate fixing when put back in the car.
Now I have the correct glass in the door and it winds up and down straight without tipping forward. This needed a lot of adjustment to get it right.

A little bit of fun!

Valiant VIP

Valiant Pacer

A couple of things from Youtube to get me over my wiring woes!

Birds nest wiring

This is what I now have to sort out! I've got wires going everywhere, but not where they're supposed to be going. An indication of how bad it is: I found two wires connected to the coil that were coming from the ballast resistor. The (dodgey) wiring diagram shows there should be one wire going from the ballast resistor to the coil and the other going to the ignition. The back of the ignition has all wires accounted for so now I need to find out where the wires been cut, and rejoin it.
Another example: I tried starting the car the other day. It wouldn't start. I kept trying and then the starter motor stayed on! I turned the ignition off and pulled out the key. Still going! I had to run around to the battery and disconnect it.
Another example: Both fuses are blown in the fuse panel. I replaced the top one with a 15A fuse to see what would happen. The interior light came on. That's a start! I closed the door, it stayed on. I turned the light switch around to see if that would turn it off, it didn't light stayed on. I turned on the headlights and the interior light went dim. I turned the headlights off anf the interior light went off. I checked the fuse. . . . . . blown
Another example: If I turn on the headlights the headlights come on. . . . This is good. If I push the foot button to turn on the high beam lights, ALL the lights turn off. . . . . This is bad!

I bought a reproduction workshop manual so I had a good wiring diagram to work from. I opened it up to find that they publisher had reduced two A4 pages of the original onto one A4 page. Each page was now half it's original. To make it worse, they've photocopied that again! I scanned it into the computer at 1200dpi and ran the sharpen tool over it. This is an extract of it. Try and figure out what the wire colours are!

A/C grill

In order to get to the wiring behind the dash, I had to take out the A/C grill. While it was out I cleaned it up. A word of warning to anyone trying this at home: When you pull all the little louvres out to clean them. . . . . . . . they're little @*&$!'s to get back in again!!!!!!!!

Tail light repair continued

Two finished tail lights! In flat black with clean lenses and polished chrome. I think the flat black and chrome will work for the rest of the car.

Tail light repair continued

I sprayed the tail lights in GMH black. The finish off the gun was actually better than I thought it was going to be. It looked even better once the chrome bezel was fitted and the new cleaned lenses installed.

Tail light repair

I had an idea in my mind of how I wanted the car to look once it was finished. I didn't know how that was going to look in real life. I decided to fix up the tail light assemblies and paint them in the colour scheme I was thinking of: flat black.
I sand blasted the frames and did what I could with the chrome. I then etch primed them, repaired the small dents I'd found and put them in undercoat.

More vinyl

What's the seventies without heaps of vinyl?

Vinyl Roof

Here's a shot of the vinyl roof after a bit of a clean up. A little bit of armoural and the nearly 40 year old vinyl comes up like new! I also cleaned the glass and polished up all the door trims. Definitely has some potential now.

Restored instrument cluster

The instrument cluster as you can see from previous posts was in a pretty bad way. The following was done to bring back from the dead:
A replacement cover came with the car that was NOT painted silver. It did have however a couple of extra holes drilled in to it. The holes were filled and the area painted black. The hole cover was then cleaned down.
The oil and brake lights were so faded taht they appeared to be white. I got a can of red vinyl spray to tint them back to red. If you look carefully you can see them.
The indicator green lenses were so brittle they fell apart when I pulled them out. Not the sort of thing readily bought off the shelf. The solution? New fandangled green LED's. I then used some sanded clear plastic to form a clear frosted lens. When the light goes on it's VERY green.
Each gauge was removed and the panel cleaned.
All the globes were checked, contacts sanded and each circuit tested with the car battery. Everything works perfectly.
Now all I have to do is get everything to work when it's in the car.

The steering column and the steering wheel back in the car. I managed to find a new centre piece on E-bay in a lot better condition than the one on the car. Improves it 10 fold. The dash board however still needs a LOT of work.

Steering column

I don't know why the steering column was the first thing I started. The indicator stick was jut bugging me the way it turned the centre piece around from 12:00 to 6:00. If you look carefully at the loom, coming out of the column you'll see at least 3 different joins on each wire. Someone had a field day on this one!
I stripped it down, repaired the wiring loom, fixed the indicator problem, sand blasted the column and sprayed it black. The result gave me enough inspiration to keep going and get this thing running.

The next morning

Here we have a valiant in my driveway. It's amazing what you find the morning after.
As you can see the car is dirty. Don't think it's been cleaned or seen water in a couple of years. I started playing around with the car to try and get it started and see what worked and what didn't.
This was Black Saturday. It was ging to get to 48 deg that day and a lot of people were to lose there lives. I wasn't out there for long before it got too hot and uncomfortable to work. At about 11:00 I decided to pack it in and hibernate inside. It was at this point that the fire started in Kilmore. Frighteningly close to my house. If the wind was an easterly, I wouldn't be writing this blog!
The wind was so strong that day that about 15mins after this photo was taken, people had already lost there lives in Wandong.

The new home

The car arrived home on the night of Friday, 6th Feb 2009. As you can see in the photo the condition of the car was not too crash hot. A lot of the sharp edges of the sheet metal had worn away and rust had started. Someone along the way thought the car was capable of in excess of 300kp/h so it was fitted with bonnet catches. I think the holes were drilled out with a spoon! Have I mentioned idiots have played with this car?
I'm not sure if it can be seen in this photo but ALL four headlights are blown. Another example of some really great state of the art wiring!

History of the vehicle

I would like to say I have a full history of the vehicle. Where it's been, who owned it, some funny stories etc. Well not with this car. The best I can do is that it originally came down from Queensland when Steve bought it. Steve didn't own it for long as he wasn't given a very accurate description of the car and the state it was in. I bought the car off Steve and then fun is about to begin.

It must be pointed out to the readers that Steve is no way responsible for the state the car is in at the moment. Steve was overwhelmed by the work that was required to get the car on the road (and a baby on the way) and decided to pass the car on.



I also need to point out that this car was NOT bought to restore and put on show. It was bought to get back on the road again. Drive around to car shows and meet people. Learn some new tricks and make some mistakes. But the real reason for the purchase of this car was TO HAVE SOME FUN!!!!!

The motor

Seeing as though we're looking at the car from the start of this rebuild, I thought a shot of the motor should be posted. When I bought the car it was "kinda" running. All you needed was to get the key to on flick the switch under the dashboard to the centre position and push the button on the dash! Did I mention idiots and auto electrics!!!
Tip for the day: Just because you SAW someone do it doesn't mean that you can!!

The lid off a can of worms

Yes folks! This is what the lid off a can of worms looks like. The little treasures I've been finding from idiots that think they know something about auto electrics!!!! It's enough to drive a drink to someone! (OOPS, started already!)
Everything in the interior needs to be fixed from the A/C that's been ripped out, to the centre console to the instrument cluster.
It's a puzzle box on 4 wheels!

Buying a cool car

The back of the car looked pretty cool as well. . . . . . Alright the tow bars gotta go! The car looked like just the thing to put a little bit of work into and start cruising. The interior quickly quashed that theory! The interior was the lid on the can of worms the car was about to become!

New addition to the shed!

After a few months of torture with the hotrod, I've bitten the bullet and bought another car to work on. Crazy? Probably! I can't see the hotrod being finished for a while yet and the thought of having to drive to another car show with the Hilux is driving me nuts. No offense to the Hilux, it's what picks up the parts (and cars) !
The new car is a 1971 Valiant VIP in pretty poor condition. It looks OK from a distance but it's had a bad case of pubescent teenagers trying to "FIX' it! I found the car on E-bay and picked it up for a reasonable price. The car came home on the 6th of Feb, the night before Black Saturday.
I new had something a little special when I was cruising home down the Hume freeway because nearly everycar that went past slowed down to have a sticky beak!This is the photo that was posted on E-bay. As you can see, it's not too bad. A bit of a scrape on the left guard. A fancy paint job and a black vinyl roof. Definately a lot cooler than the Hilux.