The Rebuild of my Vauxhall almost there :)

[barnsey]

Hi guys, I was just going to put up a couple of pics to show you what i have done to my vauxhall over the past twelve months, but decided to copy some of my posts from another forum to give you a better idea of what i have done, the following posts should fill you in on whats been done up till xmas.
cheers barnsey

I thought i would fill you in a little about my red vauxhall and what is happening with it at present and n the past.

The Red Vauxhall is a 1948 velox, It was first built as a hotrod in the late 70's in sydney by a guy called Tony Smith, the car had a HR disc Front end, banjo diff, and was running a warm 186s and 4 speed box, it was painted mercedes metalic blue, Tony had neals wheels in sydney make him a set of wheels for it, they were 15x10's for the rear and 14x7's for the front,Tony later moved to the central coast and later sold the car to another guy Robert Brougth in the early 90's



Robert drove it for few years before pulling it off the road to give it a freshen up, it was fitted with a 202 and a 5 speed box, it was then painted in Firethorn red, an early brock commodore color.


Then The car was sold to me in 2004, after i was getting frustrated that my purple car was taking me so long to finish and i wanted to get something to attend the rod runs and summernats in it would also let me work on the purple car without the need to rush anything, in hindsight I should have sold the red car and kept the purple car, seeing as the purple car owed me 4 times what i had paid for the red car, but * happens and now i need to make the best of what i have. I drove the wheels off the red one for the first 12 months going to as many runs i could get to,



A year later i decided to remove the bumper bars and set up the suspension, lowering the front by 5'' and the rear a further 4'' I retrimed all the door trims and kick boards from choc brown to red vynal and removed the Volvo bucket seats replacing them with a pair of tarago buckets, they were a lot narower and a lot more comfortable on long runs, I moved out here to Wellington just over two years ago and used the vauxhall for work, removing the back seat and filling it up with my floorsanding equipment, also towed a trailer behind it with the rest of my tools, that might not sound too bad, but if you could see some of the jobs that i have done out here, you would be shocked to see just how hard this old girl has been treated, getting to some jobs means driving for 80 to 100;s on dirt and rutted roads, a lot of jobs are out on properties and all roads in are dirt or gravel, most properties have at least 10 cattle crates wich are most always eroded around the sides. but no one will ever see this car on a trailer, its definetley a daily driver lol.
found out the hard way that you need bear claw latches in sueiside doors, the front drivers door came open at about 90k's and slamed into my back gaurd.
The decision to put a supercharger on it was made about 18 months ago, I was at CRAKK (canberra rod and kustom kruze) I was talking to Steve (buickroadster) and he was telling me that he was putting a bigger supercharger on his Hemi, I asked what he was doing with the old one, he said he was going to sell it. I asked how much and a deal was stuck.
Little did i think that this would lead to a complete rebuild of my chassis and suspension. not to mention the buying of a new motor , new head and gearbox.


video of first start up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPUxCcqDg0


The body was removed and the chassis was boxed, this time i never went overboard smoothing it all up like the last one, as this was going to be a full time driver, everything under the car was painted in KBS Rust seal. I bought a volvo and removed the rear end complete with upper and lower controle arms, was going to put coilovers under the rear but decided on using the whole volvo setup including the coil spring, it doesn't look too bad and the volvo is disc brake rear. I bought the whole volvo for less than the cost of a set of coilovers. I will be keeping the front discs off the volvo and fitting the to it later as they have a twin pot caliper set up. the new engine has been mounted 4'' further back towards the firewall, this should get a bit of weight off the front wheels and make it handle a little better, although it wasn't too bad at handling before. have decided to stay with the HK steering box as it was less modifications i would have to do. the chassis has been frenched or chaneled into the front crossmember getting the car lower to the ground.
wll add some more pics later.
cheers barnsey

[barnsey]

couple more pics.
here is my chassis after boxing and modifiying the K member, has been flap disced and awaiting paint.


fitting the volvo rear end.


gas tank fitted nice where the old fuel tank was.

more pics later.
cheers barnsey

[barnsey]

A couple of months before I pulled the car apart, I decided to have a go at changing the look of my car from behind, now i am no customiser or panal beater for that mater but  also knew that i never had the money to pay someone to do what i wanted. I had a mig welder in my shed and thought i would give it a go myself  
This is what the back looked like before i started.


It was a bit scary making the first cut, but hey you have to start somewhere.

I started by cuting three holes, then cut slots working away from the centre, then I cut some exhaust pipe and inserted them into the holes.

[barnsey]

Then ground everything up using a flap disc ready for some filler.

I have used trailer lights but will replace them with caddy bullits when funds permit.

I also removed the seam under the roll pan.



I hope this was of interest to someone, I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and think that it shouldn't come up too bad once it is all painted.
sometimes its worth having a go at things that you never imagined you could do, not sure how much money i saved doing it myself, but i had fun doing it and thats all that counts.
cheers barnsey.

[barnsey]

Finally, I have a few days off work and will get some time to work on my car again, After fitting the volvo rear end and now having disc brakes all round  I needed to upgrade my brake pedal setup,as the old system was VH44 Remote type, I also didn't have enougth room to mount a booster and master cyl on the firewall, So I bought one of these pedal box setups off ebay, also bought a new 7" duel booster from get boosted and a nice master cyl again from ebay.


Its an under dash setup which is designed to just have the master cyl mounted to the firewall, but my firewall slopes back and wasn't flat, I also found that it would fit under my dash ok but as there isn't much room under there it would have left me no room to fit the steering collum, I played around with a few ideas today to try and solve this problem, what i ended up doing was getting the 9" out and removing a section of my firewall, I also cut n shut the old battery box as my battery will now reside in the boot, I will now mount the msd ignition in the old battery box space and fit a flat panel over the front to tidy it all back up a bit. Well now i have this large hole in my fire wall I can get in easy and mig up the brackets for the pedal box and fit the brackets for the steering collum, I folded up a bit of 16 gauge metal to cover the front of the pedal box and to mount the master cyl, now all i have to do is fabricate the brackets for the steering collum and weld them on then i can weld this new panel in place. with a bit of luck the brake side of things will be all finished tomorrow, next job will be making a new trans tunnel.
here are a couple of pics from todays effort, will add some more of under the dash tomorrow when i get the steering collum mounted.
cheers barnsey.

[barnsey]

Hey guys, been busy out in the shed the past week.
I have now fitted the new tunnel, it came out of the volvo that the rear end came out of, I overlapped it about an inch and welded it from inside the car, then turned the body on its side and welded it again from the underside.
cheers barnsey

[barnsey]

Next up, I needed to build a new floor in the boot, or trunk area as i needed to cut the floor out to make room for the gas tank. I got some 16 gauge steel sheet and weled a couple of bits n peices to it to form a box, then welded it in place where the hole in the boot area was.

I then turned the body back onto its side and welded it from the underside as well.

I needed to cut an access door at the rear, so as to get to the gas tank valve and also make it easy for inspecting the tank fittings and reading the compliance plate on the tank. I cut down both sides and accross the bottom, then welded steel hinges on the inside before cuttingaccross the top side. this kept everything in place and it lines up perfect.

[barnsey]

I finished off all the welding this morning and gave the underside a coat of underbody deadner, as i am looking at putting plenty of ks on the old girl i didn't want anything too pretty underneith  
Next up i will smooth up the fire wall and paint it in body color (still undecided on color at present) then i can start putting the car back togeather and start prepping for paint.
cheers barnsey.

[barnsey]

Got a chance to do some more work on my car today,smoothed up the firewall and gave it a couple of coats of primer filler, if i  get home early enougth tomorrow i will block it back and add some color  

the old battery box on the firewall will house my ignition,with a removable panel



I also sent my tailshaft off to be modified to suite trimatic and volvo, my gearbox is in getting built, I will be using a commodore trimatic with the full bellhousing, its getting beefed up and shift kitted, it will run a 2500 stall, Just need to weld the handbrake leaver mount and brackets to the top of the tunnel and paint the firewall and i can put the body back on and start thinking about what to do next lol. I will probabley start prepping the body for paint and get the rest of the dreiveline sorted before having a go at rewireing the car.
Its starting to come back togeather a little quicker now, I feel like the worst part of the rebuild is over, but there is still lots to do if i want to be out cruising this summer,  
cheers barnsey

[barnsey]

I just put the first coat on the firewall, have to wait until i can get into dubbo and buy some more paint before i can rub it back and do another coat and clear it. I only had enougth paint to give it one coat and would likk to at least give it two
I didn't come up to bad off the gun but would like to put another coat on just the same, you won't see much of it when the bonnet is back on and the body is back on the chassis, looks like i am sticking with the firethorn red and maybe a set of flames done in red flake to be a lil different.
cheers barnsey.

[barnsey]

I went around to see a mate of mine,Chris yesterday to have a look at the jag he had on top of the hill. I chisseled out one of the fuel filler caps on it and took it home to see if i could make it fit to my Vauxhall.
I had a go at fitting it this afternoon, this is how it has turned out so far, hopfully i will get a chance tomorrow after work to smooth it up and undercoat it.
cheers barnsey

[barnsey]

ok the caps finished, just need to clean off the exess bog laying at the bottom of the receced housing, block it back with some 800 grit and its done, it was easier to do than i thought, it feels good when you have a go at something yourself and it turns out how you wanted it too.
now what ? lol
am hoping mr buickroadster tunes in to tell me how to modify the filler tube of the fuel cap to mount the gas fitting too.  

[barnsey]

Ok I drilled around the alloy fuel filler tube and removed it, then i ground and cut the plastic gas pipe housing to fit in the hole, It fits great, just need to sikaflex the spring on the inside of the cap and that parts done.
I also need to cut the hole in the boot floor a bit larger to accept the through body fitting for the condoluded hose to go over the top of the gas filler hose, so any leaks will exit under the car, will try and get that done tomorrow.
I was told that if the battery is in the boot it will need to be in a plastic box, so i made up a frame out of angle and welded it to the boot floor, the cloth strap and plastic fitting that came with the box to secure the lid and hold it in place seemed to be pretty flimsey, so i welded a nut either side of the box, then i made a metal strap to go over the top and added a couple of long bolts to tighten it all down, now its not going to move anywhere    I hope that this is the type of box everyone was talking about. I will also fit a power cut out switch so the power can be disconected quickley if need be.
cheers barnsey.
here is the cap from the inside, its been cleaned up and painted since taking this pic.


and here is a pic of the gas fitting under the cap, it works a treat, just need to add the spring to the underside of the cap and its done.



and here are a couple of the new battery position.

[barnsey]

 The body is back on and bolted down, the hand brake is hooked up and working, the gas converter is bolted back to the firewall, the pedal box is bolted back up, along with the booster and master cyl, the steering collum is bolted back in, just trial fitting some of the panels to make sure everything still fits, ordered my back shocks yesterday, and will be ordering the new frontend rebuild kit tomorrow, my mate spot should be picking up my tailshaft before he comes back up this week.
I am just going to bolt all the body panels up and get everything lined up before i go any further.
Q, When is a good time to start on the install of the new wireing harness ?
anyway here are a couple of pics i took when i rolled it out of the shed to hose the dust off it.   :
cheers barnsey.

[barnsey]

been in the shed today here are a few updates.  
ok, here are a couple of shots of what i have done in between watching the bike races this morning,
first up i cut a bit of a hole


then i cut a bit of tin to fit back in the hole.

then i welded it in and ground it all back.

just need to fill the two old clove compartments and and i will have a good clean starting point to install my new gauges when they arrive,
cheers barnsey
thanks Andrew, for getting my gauges.