Q's 1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw project

[GRPAVL]

battery is all mounted and secured in a box in the boot.

dash and instrument cluster is refittted. there is a couple of broken plastic clips im going to have to boodgie up to get it to sit but other than that its in.

unfortunatly the thermostat housing is a different story. took it off and put the housing on the workbench on a sheet of alloy with some wet and dry. talk about high and low spots. some ruffer paper soon had it pretty much level so i shot off and got a new gastket from repco. tightened it all up when i got home and started the timing. was about 8-10 degrees when suddenly there was a crack and water was freaking gushing everywhere from teh thermo housing. turned the car off and the housing has cracked around the front nut location. god damn it. its 1pm on a saturday afternoon. where the hell and I going to get another housing from now, everything apart from pick a part / zebra parts is closed ..... grrr

 

[Tasmaniak]

Take a wonder through the carpark looking for 304s?

 

[corhijasna]

have to leave till Monday,don't they open on weekends over there,most things are open 7 days here??

 

[GRPAVL]

Pics of the battery relocation.

one of it on the trailer before going to the exhaust shop


video currently uploading to youtube for post return from the shop, and after replacing the thermo housing and timing it.

Q

 

[GRPAVL]

video link

VL Commodore - 304 V8 - YouTube

enjoy

 

[corhijasna]

good to see your still smitten with her-lol

looking and sounding good mate,good job

 

[GRPAVL]

Well i passed the brake test. even with the 15/16ths master the mazda rx7 4 pot brakes stick the thing on its nose. The cert man actually commented on the braking quality.

Unfortunatly i failed on a few other things.
1) the brake line over diff housing all scaly/rusty. he wants me to replace it (luck i still have a spare diff) so no biggie

2) wheel alignment / tracking is all over the show (understandable as i changed a kframe and steering rack). off for an alignment tomorrow.

3) guard rubbage on the left rear wheel. For some reason the right rear sits about 7mm lower than the left but its the left that rubs the inner arch. guess my panhard needs adjusting. this will show up on the alignment tomorrow anyways but my metal ruller (tyre to guard) has teh diff about 3-4mm to the passengers side.

so all in all no biggie.

The only other things noted was that my connector where the old bypass valve was is leaking so i ordered a new connector from holden (just on my way to pick up now) and that the temp gauge was off the clock while driving. my guess is the vl dash gauge doesnt like the vn temp sender too much so I have just ordered a new vl sender to insert and that should sort that out.

Q

 

[corhijasna]

considering what you have had to do those few things are relatively small,job well done mate-congrats

 

[GRPAVL]

Thanks Corhijasna but why is nothing easy. im going back to toyotas (jokes) ....

Have spent the moring runnign around to try and find a water temp sender that will work the vl dash ...

Firstly the vl sender is a m12 1.25 thread and the vn v8 sender is a 1/8 27npt thread so its not just as simple as changing the sender unit. Because 12mm is bigger than 1/8 i could remove the manifold and retap the hole but there is no guarentees of it not leaking afterwards (because of the old thread channels).

So I went to repco and went through the tridon book to find out all the 1/8 27npt thread temp senders they have. There are about 16 in total depending on the connector style (which i dont mind changing).

The book however doesnt tell you what the resistance range is so for 1) i dont know what the gauge is expecting (from the old vl sender) so I 2) cant look at the 16 senders I found to find a compatible swap.

So i called the NZ supplier and they told me they dont get that information, they only get told this sender this car and it gets added to the list. they advised me to go back to holden and ask what the ranges were and I know they wont have that info so now im back to square one.

I have called robertson instruments who adapted the rev counter from 6cyl to 8cyl to see what they can do and I may need to take in both the vl dash im running and the vn v8 temp gauge i have and they can adjust the vl dash to be expecting what the factory v8 sender unit is sending .... watch this space.

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on the up side the brake line is removed from the spare diff and awaiting install tomorrow after the alignment (as i need to drive it there) and the water pipe connector has been installed and should stop the leak next start ....

Q

 

[corhijasna]

sounds like a headf..k but I am sure you will work it all out-lol

its the little things that test us-lol