My 12th Car - VL Formula

[Mad-Biker]

Heh, since its not my first, car, its actually number 12,

Today i went out and brought a 8/1986 Holden VL commodore Formula Pack.

its got 330,000km on it, brought it off the 2nd owner who’s had it for 10 years, he’s had it serviced by his neighbor a Holden mechanic, who did log book servicing on it. the previous owner, lived in the same 1 horse town as him, and died with it. brought in a deceased estate, they knew each other.

its got a replacement engine and transmission and fitted with LPG by the previous owner.

the old owner used it as a run about car to the club and back, his kids are making him hand his license in. which is why he’s selling the car..

its got the genuine 14" pressed steel wheels, and 3 gmh genuine hub caps in the boot.

its got the Genuine AM FM Holden tape deck, the delux model with auto seek, all fancy digital.

this thing is as standard as you get, the interior is in good nick, the trims all in good nick, everything’s good except the paint.

drove it the hour home, all fine, didn’t use any fluids what so ever, radiator needs a good flush though, but temps fine, no air bubbles, no milky ness, so all good.

few electrical gremlins, the fuel gauge intermittently works, and the oil pressure fluxuats from medium(normal) to maxed out constantly, but it also has maxed out when the engines off just in ignition, so its a fault their)

as stock as you can get this thing. pretty good for 1000 bucks...


i got it home, drove nicely. thinking what am i going to do with this paint, then i rubbed my finger over the turret and a inch of dirt came off it, so i washed it and it came up a treat, paints still a bit faded, bit orange on top, but ill give it a rub back and polish 2morow. eventually im going to do a complete respray back to its beacon red
anybody know just what the formula pack came with?

The Good points
4 new retread tyres
Interior in good nick
LPG duel fuel
interior in good nick
Formula Pack
Berlina Model
3l Nissan Motor
Genuine stock as a rock formula pack
Rubber boot hugging wing.

The bad
4 new Re treads
Faded Paint
330,000km on the odo
Clock Doesn’t work
Fuel Gauge has gremlins
Oil Pressure guage has gremlins
Oil weeping around rocker cover, doesn’t look fresh though.
No belt on air conditioning.
Pipes come loose from the vents.
rear demister doesn’t work.
clear coat pealing off on the bonnet and nose.

2morow ill replace all the fluids, flush the radiator, give the paint a good cut and polish see if i can get some shine out of it.


pics to come

[Mad-Biker]

23122009290.jpg picture by mad-biker - Photobucket



pics here

[VL_5SPEED]

This pics interesting. what is this switch for?

[Mad-Biker]

gas or petrol switch my friend. you can leave it in the middle for nothing, so it wont start too..

[Mad-Biker]

Today i set to work, on the faded, weathered, paint of my VL commodore, its maranelo red, their were stains on the roof, it was faded, paint oxidizations, all from spending it slife parked outside. the previous owner, washed it, and thats about it, got it professionally serviced, so no tlc. as he said, a car is to drive from a to b.

I started off buying a tin of Kitten Cutting compound, their are 3 levels they offer, this was the heaviest. i was advised to do it by hand, and not an orbital polisher, as it would be too abrasive.

rubbing it back it, the paint was coming off with the compound, and it was getting back to its paint colour, this is rubbing back a fine layer of paint, you cant really use this method on clear coat, luckily, the clear coat had pealed off this. but not entirely, still a few patches of clear coat on it.

I had to do the car half at a time, due to space in the garage, that and ive only got 1 usable arm. a lot of elbow grease hurts when ya cant change arms for a break.

i used the buffing pad that came with the 8 buck tin i got from super cheap, however destroyed it during most of this process.
eventually used a Maguire’s polish and buffing pad i had.

once this was done i cleaned it all up using a rag.

then i used an orbital buffing tool, with some turtle wax super hard shell i had on hand. once that was on, i used another applicator pad to put on the small bits all over the car.

then a buff off with the orbital polisher, and a clean up with another soft rag.

not the best pics, since it was raining at the time. im not totally happy with it, the paints still fairly poor, a few scratch marks, the rear wing is rubber and cant be buffed. ill eventually get a full 2 pack respray in the original colour.


i had everything on hand in the shed, except the cutting compound, which cost me 8 bucks, not back for a 1000 buck car.

i also found this big K&N pod filter in the shed i got 2nd hand for nix, so ill put that on too, since its reusable. make a box for it to fit into, to get cold air into it too.

Before










During































After not so good shots, in the dark, stormy rainy, conditions