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84 Opel Monza GSE - Restoration

warpman65

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Southampton, UK
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1984 Opel Monza GSE 3.0i
Hi all, I thought it was about time that I posted up some pictures of my 1984 Opel Monza GSE project.
It may be best to think of the Opel Monza/Senator and the Holden VB-VL Commodores as evolutions of the original Opel V cars.

Anyway, here it is:

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Just love those tri-spokes and the brown interior .... not! How 1980s? They will have to go!!

I had always admired the look of the Monza as I had seen them in Europe when I was on holidays with the folks in 1979. And when Mr Brock announced his HDT Monza it just had me lusting even more. Fast forward to 2011 and I found myself working in the UK with a desire to tinker. I had considered a classic British sports car such as a Triumph Spitfire, MGs etc but as I like to venture over the channel to the continent and blast down the autobahn/autoroute/autostrada no pommy sports car like those mentioned above could maintain hours of 80+ MPH cruising without parts falling off, drivetrains vibrating to death or engines overheating! The car came with a wagon load of spares new and used, a full set of Opel/Vauxhall workshop manuals and all for the sum of £2400 (about AUD$4000 late 2011) a bargain ... I thought. I had arranged an appointment for an MOT(annual roadworthy test) with a mechanic mate for the day of pickup (I had no other way of getting the car home other than driving it! After loading up the Monza and my wife's car with all the spares and arranging insurance for the Monza, I headed directly to a petrol station to fill the tank of the Monza that had been (up until a few hours previously) in storage in a garage for the last 6 years. I then drove the 100 odd miles from Romford, Essex down to Portsmouth for the roadworthy, the engine pinged a bit and the tyres began to lose the flatspots once they got some heat into them. I left the car with the mechanic for him to do what was required for the roadworthy (which I needed before I could pay the road Tax - Rego).

While the monza was being sorted for the roadworthy/MOT, I took the opportunity to inspect the old girl from underneath. I was a bit shocked to see that the drivers side inner guard, the left rear quarter panel and the rear panel were not in great shape. I could see the tell-tale sign of filler and rust behind the polycarbonate bumpers. The good news was that the sills were ok as these are usually rusted out due to the design of the sunroof drainage pipes, running all the way down the A and C pillars and emptying out into the sill cavity - a really stupid idea! The floorpan appeared to be OK,but the suspension components, IRS lower arms, spring seats were nearly cactus(rust) and would require complete restoration in due course but passed the MOT test .. this time! I have never seen rust like this on anything back in Australia! Phil then performed a full service, changing all fluids and filters. He then dusted off the old Sun diagnostic machine, plugged the EGA pipe up the exhaust and checked the 3.0 litre's state of tune, he only had to adjust the idle mixture on the airflow meter (LE-Jetronic, all analogue with no Lambda) and it passed the roadworthy with only a few advisories ...result!

I spent the next couple of week ends cleaning the car, for it is only by doing this that you really pickup on all the imperfections etc. Not to my surprise there were heaps of issues. I discovered that the headlining was not original and that the interior was made up from at least 3 different cars and missing bits and pieces everywhere. I also noticed that the passenger front guard had been braised to the knuckle at the bottom of the windscreen pillar ...joy! All I can say is that the Monza cruises well at around 90 MPH ....;-)

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As these cars are getting old, parts supplies are dwindling and coupled with the fact that I am so over silver cars, I decided to strip the Monza and send it off to the body shop to replace the rusty panels and repair anything else then re-paint in anthracite. The stripdown took a while as I was only able to work on the Monza at night, weather permitting. I also spent quite a while improving my German and Dutch on ebay.de! I managed to source a new rear quarter panel, new rear panel and a new lower front panel all original GM Opel! I know the purists say it is a sacriledge to change the factory colour of a car (a bit like renaming a ship) but after going through the rego history and discovering that A393 had had 14 previous owners, was once an automatic now a manual etc I thought a change of colour would not be that big a deal as by now A393's provenance had been totally trashed anyway!

I think anthracite really suits it:

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The interior of A393 was quite tatty as it was made up of bits from other cars and had the awful looking brown dash, I was wondering how I would address this situation. Enter the donor Monza, B124 WNM. I 'won' this one on eBay for £600. The body was well past it due to extensive rust but the interior and external trim were in near mint condition - just what I needed! I wondered what the neighbours would say as B124 was the second silver Monza in my drive in 3 months! While the rolling shell was being repaired and painted, I began to get a few things media blasted, powder coated and replated. Things like fuel tank straps, bumper irons, some suspension components and fuel pump/filter/regulator mount etc.

I began with this:

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And after a bit of work:


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As my garage at home is just about big enough to store an original mini and not much else, I had entertained the idea of renting a small factory whereby I could put A393 up on stands and perform the remedial work as described above. After considering the costs, I decided to send A393 down to Derek Thomson of GM6 Spares in Penzance, deepest, darkest Cornwall. Uncle Derek, as he is affectionatley known, is the pre-eminent Opel/Vauxhall six cylinder specialist in the UK. Derek has many best of show and show winning restorations under his belt. In addition, I planned to retrofit original Opel options such as Air Condtioning, cruise control and ABS so what better place than GM 6 Spares to acheive this.
In addition to offering a full restoration service, Derek also runs an eBay based mail order business and hopefully would be able to supply any missing bits as required from his extensive stock.

The next step in the restoration would be the removal of all suspension components, sand blast, repair and paint in what they call here in the UK an "epoxy mastic". The components are first sand blasted, then etch primed before receiving 2 coats of the 2 pack paint - "epoxy mastic":
 

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