Yellow Lx SLR 5000 replica build

Hi Guys,

Im new to this whole forum thing, I've never done it before so I apologise in advance if i upset anyone 

Anyway my dad and i have a 1977 lx sl torana in our shed that we are currently working on and i though i may as well document the build for our own record more than anything but im sure some of you guys may be interested in having a read as well.

So here we go! we bought the torana a few months back as a father son project, the plan is to restore it to mostly an SLR 5000 replica but with our own touches. The current thinking is yellow paint job with black bonnet and the big SLR 5000 decals on each side and on the back of the spoiler. Also thinking of a custom leather interior and dash, no idea on the colours yet but the old interior is shot so something must be done   If not a leather interior it will most likely be the standard black slr interior. It currently has a pretty good 173 in it with a trimatic behind it, in the hopefully not to distant future a 308 will be going in with maybe a manual box of some sort. How ever we will be keeping the 173 for now, we're aiming to work on getting a nice car to drive around first, then we can focus on the go fast bits  .

Progress has been slow but steady, so far all the interior except the dash has been pulled out and most of the exterior has been stipped of bits, working on stirping the engine bay at the moment but the main thing thats holding us back is the fact that the motor, gearbox and k-frame is still stuck in it! How ever as soon as we can get our hands on a tractor from work that will all be coming out and the progress can really pick up some pace 

I haven't really got any decent pics at the moment but i've got a couple i've taken of little bits we've done so far so i'll upload those in a minute, hopefully i might have a couple of better pictures to show the progress some time soon. 

Cheers,

Dylan

This is the beast, we picked it up from brisbane in about august i think? a bit of rust and a few dings but other than that it was in pretty good nick

Edited by DJH308, 02 November 2013 - 11:20 PM.

found this is both of the front guards, had a good laugh hahah (its a beer can for those who can't see, VB i think)

pile of bits painted ready to put back on when we get the motor out and cleaned up, this was a few weeks ago more to add to that now.

decided we may as well recondition the head while we had it off, so we reseated the valves and put in new valve stem seals. its a good thing we did cause the seats were a bit pitted.

bit of over spray on the bottom..

now i know the rockers don't look real clean but they have been soaked in petrol, degreaser, even oven cleaner, and scrubbed and scratched at. so trust me, that stuff aint coming off. its like dry weetbix stuck to your breakfast bowl, indestructible! 

Edited by DJH308, 02 November 2013 - 11:44 PM.

Hi Guys

Sounds like good fun but what do you need a tractor for

Hi sloffador

we don't an engine crane or anything, but we do have access to a large tractor with folks on the front so we're gonna use that to lift up the front of the car to get the engine and k-frame out, its the safest and easiest way for us 

Edited by DJH308, 03 November 2013 - 10:02 AM.

Yeh ok

I just used a chain hoist and did it from my shed truss but I did brace the shed truss first even though torana's are light

yeah we though about doing that sloffador but as you can see in some of these pictures, our shed is stuffed full so tractor is easiest for us 

Took a couple more pictures today, nothing too interesting but i shows the condition of the car and a little bit of progress.

front bumper has actually been bent straight haha must have had a fair bump

Edited by DJH308, 03 November 2013 - 02:15 PM.

No problems with bumper they can be fixed if you need to know im getting mine re-chromed and they straighten them out real good

before they chrome them

do you mind if i ask where your getting it done and how much it cost?

The place is Albury electroplaters [that's NSW]

I know its a long way from where you are but they do a great job

Depends on how far you want to take the re-build

Do you want a show car or a every day driver because bumper bars come up all the time on Ebay

The cost is $450 to strip repair and re-chrome 1 bar

ok yeah thanks for that, a bit far to drive for us but at least that gives us an idea on price 

we're after a close to show car finnish so we might be better off buying new bumpers, i've seen them come up for about $500 each

What shade of yellow is it

at the moment its Contessa Gold, but we're gonna paint it Absinth Yellow (i think)

Wise choice I have a lh slr absinth yellow that I am restoring at the moment

and a lx same colour

sounds good mate   you sound like you know what your talking about so it will be great to see the final product!

It takes a lot of research at a lot of asking questions

I started on this forum and have had a lot of ideas from members

So just keep asking

yeah thanks for your input mate, i agree its better to ask questions and do it right the first time

well we finally got our hands on the tractor, so the engine, gearbox and k-frame came out yesterday. Tractor was very handy, getting it all out was a breeze, however we did end up picking up the whole car with the tractor to move it across the yard.

GIves you an idea of the size of the tractor...