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SquishyShoes' vc commy project.

SquishyShoes

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Hey all, figured I'd put up a thread about my girl.

OWNER: Squish
MODEL: 1980 VC L
COLOUR: Red
ENGINE: 202 Blue with matching 4 speed manual box

Everything's stock as a rock at the moment, but hopefully that'll change in the near future.

Future plans are to keep looking all original as she is now, dress her up like a bit of a granny car maybe?.
Project's not a project unless you do something though. Current plans are to put in an ecotec engine and t5 out of a series 1 vs (when I get my hands on one:p) in her.
Currently just doing little things to make her look a little tidier while I work on getting some cash together for the build.

[URL="https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/squishyshoes-vc-commy-project.243277/page-3#post-2954659"]Current Pics[/URL]
 
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SquishyShoes

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Alright, now for the first lot of pics/progress.
Here she is as she sat when I first picked her up.

The dash had been completely taken apart

But, I spent a few hours figuring out how it all went back together and playing a game of what plastics hasn't been broken. The heater control rods have clipped with pliers or something to get them out lol and the radio is stuffed so I took it out.

The boot had been twisted open when someone tried to get into it, so now it's got a bunch of surface rust (which I'm lazily working on removing) in the boot.

The car had original Aunger headlight protectors on it, but when I started giving things a wash all the paint came off of them. I really liked them though, so I spent a bit of time and effort making them look pretty and giving the grille and font commodore badge a lick of paint. I can't paint straight so I had to tape them up to do them by hand lol

And a comparison of the new paint and how they looked after I had tried to wash them.

The difference between the tired old paint on the commodore badge and the new black.


A comparison between when she first got home,

and after I washed her and gave a few bits of paint here and there.

And what's a car without some stickers? (my favourite part)


I resized the photos so they were a bit smaller, should I continue to do that with further updates or make them a little bigger?

Cheers, Squish
 

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Cool to see another VC on here, looks like a great start for a project. Was the radio and original one? I'm chasing a non working once if it is.
 

SquishyShoes

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Not sure if it's the original one for the car, but it's definitely of the era. Half considering keeping it at this point, but it's broken physically with a missing button or two if you were thinking of making yours look all original.

Come to think of it, it has a cassette player and this is an L, so it's probably an aftermarket player form the 80s.
 

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Hmmm. Show us a photo anyway if you can. Just chasing the front really to mount in front of a new unit.
 

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Hey all, been a while. Two jobs will do that to you I guess :p. I had another look at that radio Sandman, it's really not that great. It's missing the tuner face (the bit with the frequency numbers), all but one of the buttons have fallen out or snapped off and fallen out. The cassette in panel is warped and it's dirty as. I might just hold onto it for now anyway.

In my limited spare time I haven't done much to the car, but I have managed to give it a little bit of a wash and I started to give it a cut. She started off looking like this (and it looks better in photos than it did in person):

I slapped a bit of tape on before starting so that I could see what the difference would be.

Unfortunately though, she's 35 years old and still wearing the original paint. So after spending the last few years sitting in a paddock (with her boot open to freely catch rain :/) then parked under a tree (boot shut :D) there are a few imperfections in the paint (and especially noticeable on the bonnet's passenger side when you get close)

Doesn't look too bad when you get a few metres away or catch it on the right angle though (at least in my opinion)

She stopped running and wouldn't start for about four days (and she wouldn't roll back into the shed, shed height was too different to the ground for me to just push her in) due to running out of the last wisp of gas in the tank and then accidentally flooding her trying to start it again :embarrass (plus work :p) so she's only half done.

Gave one of my jobs the flick the other day/week so I'll have to give her another wash this weekend when I have the time and finish the job. As for now, I'm extremely happy with how she's coming up. Just gonna keep on puttering and sporadically updating this thread I guess. Been thinkin about trying to get her onto club rego while I bum about thinking about this conversion and trying to gather parts.

Tune in next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.
 

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Progress is progress man, polish did well, what did you use?
 

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Progress is progress man, polish did well, what did you use?

I used Meguiar's Ultimate Compound (so a bit of harsh cutting compound rather than a gentle polish), a hand applicator pad, and a microfibre towel to wipe off the excess. Those hand applicators fill up with old paint fast. Half the job was just washing it out (ended up filling a bucket with water and keeping it in the shed, so I didn't have to run out to the front lawn and garden hose :rofl: ). Didn't work half bad on the dirty old chrome pieces either, but I think I'll pick up some metal polish at some stage and do them properly.

Hasn't really been waxed or polished since then, and it's been outside of the shed for.. a little while. So, I'll have to clean off a bit of dust and some muddy cat paw prints :/ before I keep going. Not the worst thing ever mind you, little hard work won't kill me.
 
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SquishyShoes

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So here's a little bit of what I've done today. Bonnet stand has been failing for a little while:

And I've been planning on putting in bonnet struts for a while now. Unfortunately I noticed this last night from the last time it fell. Which is really annoying since it hit the good headlight cover.

So, I ran around today, picked up the vs guard mounts (I'd ordered the struts earlier in the week) from a local wreckers and went form this:

to this


Also, bought a head unit the other week and got some 6 1/2 in speakers for the rear parcel shelf. Here's a pic of the old headunit for you Sandman, it actually looks better in this pic than it actually is haha

The rear speakers fit under the original covers as well, so bonus points. Will probably make up a new parcel shelf out of some mdf before I fit them in properly.


Cheers, Squish
 
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Sandman

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Struts look good man. What model are they off?
Headunit looks pretty era correct but not stock. I think I'm going to make up a fake original looking face to go over the pioneer unit I have in there currently.
 
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