Micks LH build to this date
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_mick74lh_
, Jul 17 2010 10:34 PM
52 replies to this topic
#26
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Posted 18 July 2010 - 05:38 PM
Great to see some more pics of the build Mikey ! Looks great as I have said before, a credit to you mate.
#27
_mick74lh_
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Posted 18 July 2010 - 10:50 PM
[/quote]
ah well ruts im down one hatch so ive got a little bit more room.if you hear your dogs barking one night its not me.when you finish it youll have to change your name to rutss.
mick looks like you have some mates with good cars as well. the ss holden awesome. make sure you stick some more pics next time you are all out for cruize.
[/quote]
Ha your shit stirring is amusing. Good stuff.
The HQ SS is my mate Tyson's dad's. Tyse actually owns an LX torana himself that hes had since he was 17 but it has been sitting at his house waiting for a rebuild since it was stolen/damaged and recovered a few years ago. I'll get some more photos of those cars up eventually. Hes been overseas the past six months but when he comes back I'll try to convince him to get on the forum. And get his finger out and start rebuilding the car.
ah well ruts im down one hatch so ive got a little bit more room.if you hear your dogs barking one night its not me.when you finish it youll have to change your name to rutss.
mick looks like you have some mates with good cars as well. the ss holden awesome. make sure you stick some more pics next time you are all out for cruize.
[/quote]
Ha your shit stirring is amusing. Good stuff.
The HQ SS is my mate Tyson's dad's. Tyse actually owns an LX torana himself that hes had since he was 17 but it has been sitting at his house waiting for a rebuild since it was stolen/damaged and recovered a few years ago. I'll get some more photos of those cars up eventually. Hes been overseas the past six months but when he comes back I'll try to convince him to get on the forum. And get his finger out and start rebuilding the car.
#28
micklx
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Posted 19 July 2010 - 09:18 PM
When I was checking your car out on Saturday I had no idea you had done so much of it yourself. It's a real credit to you.
That Mt Hotham run would have been fun in the Torry, I do it every year with a bunch of mates on bikes and its great fun. The section from Harrietville up to Hotham is awesome on a bike.
That Mt Hotham run would have been fun in the Torry, I do it every year with a bunch of mates on bikes and its great fun. The section from Harrietville up to Hotham is awesome on a bike.
#29
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Posted 19 July 2010 - 11:02 PM
When I was checking your car out on Saturday I had no idea you had done so much of it yourself. It's a real credit to you.
That Mt Hotham run would have been fun in the Torry, I do it every year with a bunch of mates on bikes and its great fun. The section from Harrietville up to Hotham is awesome on a bike.
Yeah mate we did it in October when there was still snow up on Hotham but i want to do it in summer when the roads less slippery and theres a clearer view over the alps. Those twists and turns between Harrietville and Hotham are awesome, and they seem to go on for ages.
#30
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Posted 20 July 2010 - 10:12 PM
Love the build, looked like a excellent platform to start from too it seemed very clean and rust free. Reminds me a bit of my build all done in the backyard garage but for mine it went to a panel shop after the body was prepped and primed otherwise i doubt the olds would have been to happy 
Perfect example of what a awesome looking car can be built at home, well done
Perfect example of what a awesome looking car can be built at home, well done
#31
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Posted 23 July 2010 - 08:56 PM
Gday, thought i'd post up a couple of things I've done to the torana lately. I had a few weeks off uni and wanted to add some stuff and fix those things that had been pissing me off for a while.
There was a bad vibration through the car whenever taking off under a bit of load. It would come and go. I was worried that some part of the clutch/flywheel assembly was coming loose but checked all that and it was fine. The engine mounts and rear transmission mount were fine. Heath and his mates suggested I check the tailshaft unis so I did that and found the rear one was buggered. Two of the bearing cups were broken and all the needle roller bearings had fallen out. So that was an easy fix and now the feeling/sound that I thought was lash in the diff has gone away.
The new uni installed:
The radiator was full of bugs and crap so i cleaned that out and gave it a nicer lick of jam. I'm gonna hide a panel of mesh behind the grille now to protect it like I should have done in the first place.
While I had the radiator out I mocked up and modified a V8 Commodore fan shroud to fit the Kingswood/torana radiator. The Commodore one is narrower so I 'plastiwelded' - ha ha- with a soldering iron, some sections of a VN Commodore fuse panel cover onto both sides to extend it to the edges of the radiator. They taper inward so it will still allow air flow across the entire core.
This is to replace the crappy guard I had with the cracks in it.
Here it is mocked up:
After a bit of bog and sanding and some primer its nice and smooth:
Freshly painted with plenty of orange peel:
And then rubbed back and installed:
I replaced the crappy looking loom tubing with some more attractive stuff and tidied up a couple of things in the engine bay. I know the wirings not hidden or anything but it looks alright for the street now.
The engine bay just needs a polish now. Actually I think the whole car needs a polish if I get time. Hopefully it should be right now for the next few months.
There was a bad vibration through the car whenever taking off under a bit of load. It would come and go. I was worried that some part of the clutch/flywheel assembly was coming loose but checked all that and it was fine. The engine mounts and rear transmission mount were fine. Heath and his mates suggested I check the tailshaft unis so I did that and found the rear one was buggered. Two of the bearing cups were broken and all the needle roller bearings had fallen out. So that was an easy fix and now the feeling/sound that I thought was lash in the diff has gone away.
The new uni installed:
The radiator was full of bugs and crap so i cleaned that out and gave it a nicer lick of jam. I'm gonna hide a panel of mesh behind the grille now to protect it like I should have done in the first place.
While I had the radiator out I mocked up and modified a V8 Commodore fan shroud to fit the Kingswood/torana radiator. The Commodore one is narrower so I 'plastiwelded' - ha ha- with a soldering iron, some sections of a VN Commodore fuse panel cover onto both sides to extend it to the edges of the radiator. They taper inward so it will still allow air flow across the entire core.
This is to replace the crappy guard I had with the cracks in it.
Here it is mocked up:
After a bit of bog and sanding and some primer its nice and smooth:
Freshly painted with plenty of orange peel:
And then rubbed back and installed:
I replaced the crappy looking loom tubing with some more attractive stuff and tidied up a couple of things in the engine bay. I know the wirings not hidden or anything but it looks alright for the street now.
The engine bay just needs a polish now. Actually I think the whole car needs a polish if I get time. Hopefully it should be right now for the next few months.
#32
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Posted 23 July 2010 - 09:18 PM
Shroud looks excellent Mick. I really like your car, you've done an awesome job.
#33
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 11:24 AM
That shroud is fantastic Mick, so much better than what it replaced. Nice one!
#34
_mick74lh_
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 01:16 PM
thanks mate. Yeah that old one I had looked shithouse.
#35
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 06:49 PM
look good its worth all the workpublic/style_emoticons/default/buttrock.gif
#36
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 09:00 PM
My jaw has dropped looking at your build, just seeing what you have achieved so far makes me get off my ass and do something to my torrie. Considering I'm only a young bloke myself it gives me a bit more confidence to tackle things on my rebuild. Need more pics!!!!
#37
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 11:21 PM
WOW, nice build thread. This is a great read. Reminds me of my build a lot too - bought the car when I was 16... had a good crack, learnt lots along the way, would do things a lot different next time around etc etc... I can totally relate mate!
Great work with the car. I've seen this around before, but like the others have said, I never realised how much work had been put into it.
Love the custom fan shroud, that is full of awesomeness, what a fantastic finished product!
Just a quick question - how long did the actual main rebuild take from start to finish?
Keep up the good work,
Cheers.
Great work with the car. I've seen this around before, but like the others have said, I never realised how much work had been put into it.
Love the custom fan shroud, that is full of awesomeness, what a fantastic finished product!
Just a quick question - how long did the actual main rebuild take from start to finish?
Keep up the good work,
Cheers.
#38
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Posted 24 July 2010 - 11:42 PM
Gday Brett the main rebuild took about four years. I say now that if I knew what I was doing then I could have done a nicer job in about half the time but the first build on this car was about experimentation and was bound to contain some stuffups. I've seen a thread a while ago on your car from when it was orange and had the dark coloured flares to now. Thats an awesome machine. I felt I could relate to alot of the stuff you've done on that actually.
Hey Chris I'm sure i could put some more in progress photos up. I'll aim to get some more panel work stuff up in the next week or so. Theres alot of good info on this forum where you can compare different peoples methods and establish whats going to work for you. Do you have a thread on your Torry?
Hey Chris I'm sure i could put some more in progress photos up. I'll aim to get some more panel work stuff up in the next week or so. Theres alot of good info on this forum where you can compare different peoples methods and establish whats going to work for you. Do you have a thread on your Torry?
#39
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Posted 26 July 2010 - 04:22 PM
Neat job on the shroud Mike, to quote you; "it looks tits mate!" 
#40
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Posted 27 November 2011 - 10:14 PM
Havent updated this thread for a while because not much had been done on the Torana due to my final year of uni. But now I've finally finished and started to do some stuff that I was hanging out for.
After a few k's on the road all of the stuff that I didn't fix properly in the initial rebuild was starting to shit me up the wall. The clutch was really heavy and wouldn't disengage properly. The steering column shaft had a shitload of play and I wanted to lower the back of the car to get it sitting more evenly.
I pulled the gearbox and swapped in an early Commodore full cable type bellhousing, running a V8 VN cable with a spacer at the firewall. And modified the pedal to mimic a UC pedal. I didn't take any photos of this because I'm a bit embarrassed about the dodginess of my work and I was so pumped I just wanted to work flat out and get it done. So here's the spacer at the firewall:
Anyway the clutch is really light now and seems to work well. I think it needs just a bit more adjustment but will get to that soon.
And I painted the exhaust manifolds flat black while they were out and fixed the leaky passeneger side rocker cover.
I trimmed back the lower end of the steering column and replaced the flogged out bushing with a proper bearing. The upper bearing was okay but had just come loose within the coffee pot from me roughly pulling apart stuff in the past, so I glued the thing in. The steering column now has no play and runs nice and smoothly.
I wanted some wheels that were reasonably lightweight, cheap and would fit under my guards at the back so I bought some wheels partially off Heath and the rear rims from Torana spares guy in Bayswater. The fronts are 6inch with a 205 eager and the rears are a 7inch band with a 225 eagers. I love the Dragways that I had on it and plan to keep them, but they were bloody heavy and the 245s on the rear ones wouldnt clear the guards. So with these on the car I was able to lower the rear on King lows and I painted the swaybars yellow to give the car extra horsepower!
So basically I'm pretty happy with the stance now. The front could come down a fraction lower but I can't really be bothered doing that right at the moment. It feels pretty good on the road.
There is still a bit more frigging around to do on this machine but its getting pretty good now. The rear wheels keep locking still so I will start by checking out the rear wheel cylinders. I've got a feeling that I may have fitted ones with a too large bore size, so may need to play around with that. Hopefully there will be lots of cruising in this machine this summer.
After a few k's on the road all of the stuff that I didn't fix properly in the initial rebuild was starting to shit me up the wall. The clutch was really heavy and wouldn't disengage properly. The steering column shaft had a shitload of play and I wanted to lower the back of the car to get it sitting more evenly.
I pulled the gearbox and swapped in an early Commodore full cable type bellhousing, running a V8 VN cable with a spacer at the firewall. And modified the pedal to mimic a UC pedal. I didn't take any photos of this because I'm a bit embarrassed about the dodginess of my work and I was so pumped I just wanted to work flat out and get it done. So here's the spacer at the firewall:
Anyway the clutch is really light now and seems to work well. I think it needs just a bit more adjustment but will get to that soon.
And I painted the exhaust manifolds flat black while they were out and fixed the leaky passeneger side rocker cover.
I trimmed back the lower end of the steering column and replaced the flogged out bushing with a proper bearing. The upper bearing was okay but had just come loose within the coffee pot from me roughly pulling apart stuff in the past, so I glued the thing in. The steering column now has no play and runs nice and smoothly.
I wanted some wheels that were reasonably lightweight, cheap and would fit under my guards at the back so I bought some wheels partially off Heath and the rear rims from Torana spares guy in Bayswater. The fronts are 6inch with a 205 eager and the rears are a 7inch band with a 225 eagers. I love the Dragways that I had on it and plan to keep them, but they were bloody heavy and the 245s on the rear ones wouldnt clear the guards. So with these on the car I was able to lower the rear on King lows and I painted the swaybars yellow to give the car extra horsepower!
So basically I'm pretty happy with the stance now. The front could come down a fraction lower but I can't really be bothered doing that right at the moment. It feels pretty good on the road.
There is still a bit more frigging around to do on this machine but its getting pretty good now. The rear wheels keep locking still so I will start by checking out the rear wheel cylinders. I've got a feeling that I may have fitted ones with a too large bore size, so may need to play around with that. Hopefully there will be lots of cruising in this machine this summer.
#41
mr5000
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 06:38 AM
good to see your clutch is working well i wonder where you got that idea from haha
#42
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 07:04 AM
NICE...
Wish my Son was as enthusiastic as you !
Wish my Son was as enthusiastic as you !
#43
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 07:50 AM
Looks good mate! What clutch system did it have before?
#44
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 11:36 AM
Excellent!!! Can't wait to see you out cruising again soon!
#45
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 12:33 PM
Looks bloody unreal gray!!
Bit it would pull a little harder now
Cruise time is a must now i think
Bit it would pull a little harder now
Cruise time is a must now i think
#46
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 09:48 PM
Haha yeah Ryan I pretty much copied you with the clutch actuation. Except didn't use my spark plug socket as a spacer because I still want to change spark plugs with it.
Rodomo the clutch setup I had before was I think what you call 'cable over rat-trap', where a cable from the pedal top acted on a reverse lever and rod, which would then push on the end of the clutch fork rather than pull it. I probably could have got it to work better just with modification to the pedal top but I'm a bit of a copy-cat and thought I'd set it up similar to Ryan's and Brad's Toranas.
I checked out the rear wheel cylinders and found that they were of 7/8 inch bore size. According to the Hoppers stoppers website LH-UC Toranas ran 3/4 inch bore rear wheel cylinders from the factory, so I swapped in a pair of them. It doesn't lock the rear brakes as easily now but if you jab the pedal hard enough it will still lock the driver's side rear wheel. I played around with the adjustment of the shoes on this wheel several times, retesting it each time, still achieving the same result.
Because it tends to only lock that one wheel now, could the cause possibly be that the inside of the drum is slightly oval? I think that machining them wouldn't hurt unless anyone has any other suggestions.
After machining brake drums round again, is it necessary or recommended practice to replace the shoes? They appear to still have a bit of meat on them so I would rather not replace them unless totally necessary.
Rodomo the clutch setup I had before was I think what you call 'cable over rat-trap', where a cable from the pedal top acted on a reverse lever and rod, which would then push on the end of the clutch fork rather than pull it. I probably could have got it to work better just with modification to the pedal top but I'm a bit of a copy-cat and thought I'd set it up similar to Ryan's and Brad's Toranas.
I checked out the rear wheel cylinders and found that they were of 7/8 inch bore size. According to the Hoppers stoppers website LH-UC Toranas ran 3/4 inch bore rear wheel cylinders from the factory, so I swapped in a pair of them. It doesn't lock the rear brakes as easily now but if you jab the pedal hard enough it will still lock the driver's side rear wheel. I played around with the adjustment of the shoes on this wheel several times, retesting it each time, still achieving the same result.
Because it tends to only lock that one wheel now, could the cause possibly be that the inside of the drum is slightly oval? I think that machining them wouldn't hurt unless anyone has any other suggestions.
After machining brake drums round again, is it necessary or recommended practice to replace the shoes? They appear to still have a bit of meat on them so I would rather not replace them unless totally necessary.
#47
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 10:32 PM
Rat trap = Rat Sh!t
Sounds like an oval drum to me but you should be able to pick that up while adjusting? Free-tight-free-tight as you rotate.
You used to be able to get the shoes radius ground to suit the drum o/size, I'm not sure these days but?.....................bed in quicker......................but it would depend on the o/size of the drums.
Sounds like an oval drum to me but you should be able to pick that up while adjusting? Free-tight-free-tight as you rotate.
You used to be able to get the shoes radius ground to suit the drum o/size, I'm not sure these days but?.....................bed in quicker......................but it would depend on the o/size of the drums.
#48
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Posted 28 November 2011 - 11:08 PM
What is your rim and tyre size front to back Mick?
#49
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Posted 29 November 2011 - 07:01 AM
hha i didnt use the good socket mick i went and bought a 3 bucker from supercheap
#50
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Posted 30 November 2011 - 08:00 PM
Haha cheers Rob. Yeah the rotation of the drum did feel 'free-tight-free-tight'. I will pay more attention when I work on it next just to make sure. Actually regarding radius-grinding of shoes to suit drum oversize I recall a bloke telling me that they don't often do that any more and just fit the shoes straight out of the packet. Might see what Heath did with his drums and shoes on his Torry because I think he did do something to the leading and trailing edges of each shoe before he fitted them. And apparently they worked perfectly.
Brad, the front wheel/tyres are 13x6 with a 205/60 tyre and the rears are 13x7 with a 225/60 tyre. The rear wheels are zero offset and the fronts are positively offset, though I'm not sure how much. Guessing maybe 1 inch? I think the white lettering on the tyres helps the wheels to not look too small on the car.
Brad, the front wheel/tyres are 13x6 with a 205/60 tyre and the rears are 13x7 with a 225/60 tyre. The rear wheels are zero offset and the fronts are positively offset, though I'm not sure how much. Guessing maybe 1 inch? I think the white lettering on the tyres helps the wheels to not look too small on the car.
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