EYY's 95 VS Statesman

[EYY]

Thanks guys!

I ended up polishing the front end too, and tried to polish the roof in some spots looks a bit cloudy (tried to polish it out, but it seems to be underneath the clear.

And onto the power steering rack. The one on the right is the old one, and the one on the left is the good second hand one from the wreckers. Just cleaned it up with a wire brush and some degreaser and replaced one boot.

It might be a bit hard to see, but it looks like the plunger/valve for the variable steering is stuck in the old one and has something wedged in it.
Old:

'new':

Cleaned the engine bay - I didn't put the HSV badge on the CAI by the way
The alternator had been out in the weather for about 12 months with the old engine, so looks a bit rough. I'll pull it apart and rebuild/paint it one day.

aaaaaaand I bought another stato off a mate a couple of months ago...

It's a VR V6. Ended up fixing it up and selling it since I can only drive one at a time

 

[C B]

Looks good mate, turned out great.

Thought about polishing the plenum?

 

[sleepa]

Wow. Nice work on the paint job! Can't even tell its been resprayed.

 

[WazzaVN]

Keep up the good paintwork man. Looking nice and shinay!

Hope you have better luck with your power steering than I have. I gave up on the variable and have normal steering in my VP lol. I will probably have a go at rebuilding some of the racks in the graveyard though, one day.

 

[EYY]

Looks good mate, turned out great.

Thought about polishing the plenum?

I've though about it, but since i try and keep the bonnet closed it's not really an eyesore

I've got an l67 here for it which may be going in within the next 6 months or so. There's been a bit of a setback with that now too though, was putting it back together yesterday and cleaned the heads only to find that both heads have cracks between the valves of one chamber. I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow to get prices on having the injector holes drilled in a set of ecotec heads (heads are the same apart from the injector location). If it ends up costing too much, I'll probably either put a 5L in this one, or get the blue stato registered and drive that instead.

Keep up the good paintwork man. Looking nice and shinay!

Hope you have better luck with your power steering than I have. I gave up on the variable and have normal steering in my VP lol. I will probably have a go at rebuilding some of the racks in the graveyard though, one day.

Yeah the power steering on these things doesn't seem to be the most durable/leak resistant haha. Found a crashed stato at the wreckers with this rack, I've been looking every time I go there for the past few years, but every stato/calais rack has either been taken or is covered in sludge. I only had to disconnect the lines, someone else had done all the hard work for me! Some poor bastard was probably coming back to grab it later lol

Still need to replace the bushes in the front end and get a wheel alignment (hence the stockies - I don't want to destroy new tyres)

 

[EYY]

Been slowly changing and fixing things over the past week or so. Bought a full leather caprice interior (series 2 with the cloth inserts), which I've been keeping an eye out for a long time to find something half decent. Fitted the seats, door trims and S2/S3 console insert over the past few days. It now has electric seats which I've wired up exactly the same as they were from the factory. I removed all of the wiring from the car that was being wrecked, and even though it's all taped into the main loom, it's relatively easy to separate the seat loom. The hardest part was getting the wiring for the memory module though the rubber boot between the body and the door

Excuse the dodgy sunroof wiring with the scotch locks.. Can't believe it's still working fine after 21 years lol

Had to remove the brackets for the rear headrests and fit them to my car as only the caprices and senators had the adjustable rear head rests (afaik).

Still need to clean and apply leather conditioner to the rear seats - I've already done the fronts. The seats are much firmer and definitely give a little more support. Only downside is that they're ridiculously heavy (I'd say that they'd be close to twice the weight of the originals).

Also picked up some s2 caprice rims with almost new tyres from the same guy.

Put the senators back on and washed it:

Rear 1/4

I'd been having some fuel economy issues with her too. It kept getting worse and worse over a long period of time. Last week I only managed to get 380km from 60L of gas, which is worse than the 308 in my HJ... Even after tuning the gas system, replacing the air filter, O2 sensors and servicing it. I ended up changing the thermostat and coolant temp sensor and it drives much more nicely. So far I've done 330km, and the gauge still says that it's half full which is nice for a change.

 

[EYY]

Sold the caprice rims a couple of weeks ago, and ended up buying another set in worse condition with the plan to polish them. They had a fair bit of peeling clearcoat and were a bit rough overall.

Before polishing

Sanded with 120 (pretty sure, sanding disc didnt have any writing on it lol)

Sanded up to 320 on the da sander since those were the finest discs I had, then sanded by hand up to 1500 then used purple metal polish.

Took about 2 hours to get it to that stage. Just ordered some more sanding discs which should make it a bit easier. Started on the second wheel this morning too

 

[VS 5.0]

..... and were a bit rough overall.

Understatement of the day !

 

[MIK85]

Looks good mate, great job on the paintwork, and the rim polishing!

Question for ya, what size tyres do you have on the senator rims?? Cause they were VS Senator rims, which were also on the VS Grange. I'm looking at buying a set with no tyres, but can't decide what size to put on. The Senator came with 235/45s, but the Grange had 225/55's. So the same rim, but different size tyres.

 

[EYY]

Understatement of the day !

Yeah, i get the feeling that they were on a burnout car judging by the shredded tyres (I've already put a new tyre on the polished rim) but they were really cheap so that's not really a problem lol

Looks good mate, great job on the paintwork, and the rim polishing!

Question for ya, what size tyres do you have on the senator rims?? Cause they were VS Senator rims, which were also on the VS Grange. I'm looking at buying a set with no tyres, but can't decide what size to put on. The Senator came with 235/45s, but the Grange had 225/55's. So the same rim, but different size tyres.

Cheers mate! They're 235 45's. Speedo reads ~4% higher than actual roadspeed. (96 on the gps and 100 on the speedo). On the old caprice wheels with 215 60 16's it was 100% accurate.