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Geek2.0's VP Berlina

Geek2.0

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VP Berlina 3.8L
G'day! I thought it was finally time i made a build thread.


Model: 1992 VP Berlina

Colour: Sapphire Blue

Engine Type: stock 3.8 V6 (reconditioned VR motor)

Exhaust: Pacemaker extractors with stock cat back

Gearbox: T5 (conversion)

Diff: Borg Warner LSD

Brakes: Stock rear, front are VR calipers (rebuilt by me) with DBA T2 slotted rotors 289mm

Suspension: Almost all the bushes are new, KYB shocks and low (FE2 height) king springs all round

Wheels/Tyres: Stock 15" wheels with the Berlina hubcaps

Other mods: Mace engineering memcal (payed for itself in fuel)

Future mods: Eventually (years) some form of worked 5L



Things I've done:

Fixed a bunch of interior (Epoxy kneed it is brilliant, i might do a how to on this later)
inhibitor switch spring
Recovered headliner
Fixed odometer
Fuel lines December/2012
Fuel gauge
Front wheel bearings january/2013
Drivers side lower control arm feb/2013
Outer tie rod ends feb/2013
Front sway bar D chassis busshes 26mm feb/2013
Rear sway bar D chassis busshes 19mm feb/2013
Rear sway bar link assembly feb/2013
LSD installed and new wheel bearings 170000k may/2013
MACE Memcal june 2013
Replace main charge/ground wires june 2013
Bosch coil packs July 2013
CCV hose (source of vaccum leak) august 2013
King springs/KYB shocks august 2013
Radius rod to K frame bush (whiteline) august 2013
Manual conversion 01/14 178,000
Pacemakers 01/14
Rear upper trailing arms. 01/14
Welded up centre muffler 01/14
New brake lines, calipers (australian brake resleaving), discs and pads 03/2014
New clutch fork fitted 03/2014


Things that still need to happen:

Respray
Tint
Rear lower trailing arm bushes
Dash board
Repair seats (wobbly)
Engine mounts
Fix central locking bugs


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She's nothing special to most, but to me it is quite sentimental, my grandfather bought it new and i was bought up in it, i love driving it and for now just plan on fixing everything and making it a very tidy, comfortable car to drive everyday.

With that in mind, the respray begins.


Cheers for reading!
 

Geek2.0

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I should start off by saying that I have never painted anything before (bar a door i practiced on a week ago) and everything that im doing has been self taught, most of it from this forum, in particular from threads by hy_ryder, Dakster and 383 hatch.

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I started off by washing the car to get rid of all the grime, and then took some before photos, hopefully in a few weeks i can take the afters.

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I had this dent in the sill professionally pulled as i didn't have a stud welder (can highly recommend David Hand Smash repairs in fyshwick Canberra)

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As you can see the clear on all the top surfaces is pretty bad.

Next i went around the car and while it was still a bit shinny i used a marker to circle all the dents, i figure they would be easier to see before i started sanding.

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Since then I've been pulling everything off the car, lights, bumpers, door handles and the front and rear glass. Pulling the rear screen out i was greeted with a nasty surprise:

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and this is what it looked like after hitting it with a grinder/die grinder:

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I'll hopefully be cutting this section out and welding in some fresh steel early next week.

Found some rust under front screen too under where the Body ID plate sits:

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Not sure how well this will clean up, if its still nasty ill weld in a fresh piece.

Today i scraped off the cracked sealant from the roof channels, still need to finish cleaning it up and decide if i will add more sealant or just paint it. Thoughts?
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Pulled off the LH front fender so i could take off the aerial thingo, I'll probably replace the mast while its out as it doesn't always go down.

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And then i tried my hand at panel beating:

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And discovered i still have a lot to learn :p Still, not bad for a first attempt if i do say so myself!

That's all for tonight!
 

somefool

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sweet, a lot of work ahead of a with the respray but thats the fun of it! my seats are wobbly too, whats the go with that
 

Geek2.0

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Sure is! And this dumb cold Canberra weather doesn't help!

I can't remember who posted it but if the backrests are the wobbly bit its often a bushing inside the back rest winder. I've already tried replacing that with part of a hacked up sway bar link pin bush but was unsuccessful. In my case i think that it is lower down in the rails. I plan on pulling apart some spare VR seats from the shed and seeing if i can make at least one good one.
 

Geek2.0

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Today was one of those days where you spend all day working and don't seem to have much to show for it.

First off i snapped one of the C pillar covers, trying to track down a replacement now. For anyone trying to remove these i found the trick was a sharp chisel and a mallet, starting from the front to the back you drive the chisel through the sealant, although that snaps the clips, but saves the whole piece.

5_1.jpg

Then i spent the afternoon continuing to grind off as much rust and garbage as possible from the screen surrounds (front and rear), now I'm ready for mate (with much more welding experience than myself) to give me a hand to weld in fresh steel.

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Geek2.0

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Decided to take advantage of the car being off the road and fix my clutch pedal, ever since i did the conversion it has been really jerky and hard to release smoothly. After some investigation i found that it was probably the clutch pedal bushes, naturally NLA from holden and no one could tell me the sizes, pulled the pedal out and measured it myself and order some online.

45845d1206138006-clutch-pedal-spring-clutch-spring.jpg


I also found that the bolt through the pivot bolt through the spacer seemed to have too short a non-threaded section so i grabbed a better one (new bolt on left, will need to trim it).

2014-07-15 19.07.03.jpg

Once i get the bushes and if it works I might write a quick how to.


The other day i also bought a new electric antenna mast, its been playing up for a while and with the guard off was too good an opportunity. Ended up taking the mast back and swapping it for a VY one, turns out some idiot installed a new antenna at some point. It was from the wrong model, it was improperly grounded and the water seal hadn't been installed properly. On the plus side, i found my water leak.

Now back to the respray, I've got the roof 50% down to primer, will finish it off tomorrow and hopefully weld in those patches, once the patches are in everything should start progressing alot faster!

2014-07-15 19.05.35.jpg
 

Geek2.0

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Today was a productive day! Got most of the roof down to primer. I've found the quickest way to strip the paint is to carefully knock the clear off with a poly disc on a grinder, then use either a block or an RO to get it flat. I plan on going slow and using the old paint as a bit of a guide coat as i go.

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Then my mate charlie came round to help with the welding, took us a while to get all the settings correct as he is used to much more expensive welding gear haha. But once we got it right it filled some of the thin spots where i had grinded out rust.

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Then i started making up patches for the other two areas, we should hopefully weld these in tomorrow.

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Geek2.0

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Got the clutch pedal back in, proved to be way easier than i thought! The hardest bit is reconnecting the clutch cable, I'm sure anyone with big hands will understand my trouble. For future reference the clutch pedal bush dimensions are:

clutch pedal.png
This is a VR pedal box in a VP i assume the clutch pedal bushes are the same VN-VR maybe VS aswell.
I also put a new pivot bolt in as the old one's non threaded section seemed to short and was wearing grooves in the spacer.

2014-07-15 19.07.03.jpg

pedal feels heaps better now, i look forward to taking it for a drive! I got the clutch pedal bushes here: http://www.kingswoodcountry.com.au/buy/holden-ford-brake-clutch-pedal-bushes-bush-shim/70240

Now onto business, my mate came over and welded in those patches for me, and what a great job! a picture says 1000 words.

we started with the patch at the rear:
5_17.jpg
It was a bit of a pain but looked good at the end.

Then did the front which worked heaps better!

5_3.jpg5_5.jpg5_8.jpg5_10.jpg5_26.jpg


And did some sanding for good measure.
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Pretty happy with how its going, hoping to get a few extra sets of hands over the next few days and power through the sanding!
 

WazzaVN

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Awesome man. Love seeing people give it a go. Going to put some nice 2 pack on there?

You can watch as many videos and read as many guides as you want but you will learn the most when you start pulling the trigger. Just try not to stress too much either it's not the end of the world if you don't like the result and have to knock it down and recoat it while it's all still apart and masked.

Hope it goes smoothly for you man best of luck and can't wait to see the pics!
 

Geek2.0

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Cheers Wazza! sadly no 2k, i would have liked to considering all the positives but at the end of the day i am spraying it in my garage and don't have a proper ventilator, apparently my mask's filters are rated for isocyanates but i decided not to take the risk.

I'm sure learning alot! I did a practice door a few weeks back and it turned out quite well!


I've now got the roof and both rear quarters down to bare metal, and used some "Exit rust" on the windscreen channels to get rid of anything i missed, big mistake. I'm sure its a great product on very rusted metal, but the process of cleaning it off is to scrub it with water, putting surface rust everywhere. So went out today and got some de.ox.it which seems like exactly what i need, ill hit it with that tomorrow and hopefully get some etch primer on!
 

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