one day ima find out where you live and just sit in your shed for days at a time. waiting... so i cat watch you in the process help me kick a few bad habbits. looks awesome mate. also: black will look good, but if we are talking colour, the blue you have gone (maybe a touch deeper) looks really really nice. especially with the alloy bibs and bobs. black looks fat and tough, but also fairly ZZZZZZZ. just sayin'
LOL, you're welcome to come and watch anytime Ari... We'll see about the colour, however i thought your theory was a car should be painted the colour the ID tag says?
You make it look so easy... "So i cut the car in half today, it was all rusted so i cut that out, span it around, then welded it back together now and its all in 1 peiece, 100% alinged and looking better than it did from factory.. not a bad 20min job". Love the skills, inspiring to watch someone with an amazing trade skill like yours. aZk.
Far out!! There's been some progress in here of late... Where'd you find that Santa?? I'd sit on the ####ers lap if it meant getting some sweet as presents like those rims!! And huge props for those rust repairs, looks mint as, have you tackled that filler strip in the tubs yet? My opinion for colour would be the blue again, but that's only because the upkeep on black cars is almost ridiculous - swirl marks etc.. Either way it'll look horn!
It's not that easy, there is still a lot of time end effort going into this car, i'll give you the tip. Thanks for the comment though. That santa came back from the US in a shipping container. He certainly is a pretty cool santa. I havn't done the filler strip yet (i'm still yet to even touch the L/H tub actually) as i've been back on the rust repairs. I like to alternate a bit between jobs, it keeps me from getting bored. The filler strip is easy though, won't take long at all. Yeh, the rust repairs are going pretty good, light at the end of the tunnel now. To be quiet honest, i couldn't care less about the upkeep of black, this car gets looked after anyway so it really wouldn't be a big deal. I thought that one might get you lol.
Been a little while since an update, so here goes. Surprise, surprise i found some more rust. Thought i was just about done, but i managed to dig out some more lol. There was an old repair in the centre of the roof between the hatch hinges that i wasn't happy with, so i cut it out. Then when i cut that out, i found the inner panel was rusty (didn't get any pics of that), which involved drilling out the inner roof support to be able to cut out and and replace the panel that was rusty, then welding the support back in. It was a bit of a mission, but i know it's done properly now, that's for sure. Then i dug out a bit of rust in the inner sill panel (was under sound deadener matting), so i had to cut the front part of the outer sill panel out, then cut the inner out and rebuild it. I got it all cut out and got the inner all made and welded back in, i made a start on the outer which i will finish tomorrow. So, anyway, some more pics... The roof repaired Where i cut out the roof support and welded it all back in after i fixed the rust: Inner and outer sill cut out: Inner welded back in:
Hey mate, i just stumbled upon this thread and i have to say you should feel extremely accomplished with this project, the amount of time and effort shown here is amazing and well your skills are one of kind. Congrats and i look forward to the finished outcome. Matt.
Thanks mate, i really appreciate that. Now i'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel (still a massive amount of work to do though) it's actually quiet satisfying.
Nice work mate. I don't know how much of the rust you knew about, but it's amazing what paint can hide.
Thanks mate. I knew about all the rust around the tailgate shut, but not the inner panels. I only realised that was all rusted when i pulled the roof liner down and it was covered in rust scale. I knew the chassis rails were rusted behind the beaver and i knew the outer C pillars were gone, but the inners were a bit of a surprise. As for the Sill panel, i knew there was something dodgy there but again, i didn't know the inner was gone till i striped off the sound deadner matting. So yeh, i knew most of the rust was there. All gone now though
They're all the usual Torana/early Holden rust spots anyway, so it's half to be expected I guess. Once again though, good work, it's coming along really well :spot on:
Yeh, that's it. Everywhere it has/had rust, i'm sure nearly every Torana (especially a hatch) has it all in the same places. Anyway, here is what i got done for the rest of the day. I fixed the dodgy job that was done on the lip at the back of the front wheel arch. This is a common problem on Toranas when trying to fit big wheels on the front, and the person that had it before me decided it was a good idea to smash it over with a hammer. This always bugged me and it looked dodgy and rough so now was the time to fix it. Once it's been smashed over, it's pretty hard to do anything with it apart from cut the lip right off and seem weld the join, which is exactly what i did. To be quiet honest, with the size tyre i'm running on the front, there would normally be no need to touch the lip at all (big wheels have no place on the front IMO ), but the damage was already done. You can see how it was in the photos of fixing the sill. I will do the same on the R/H side aswell. Here it is now: I also got the rust repaired in the R/H A pillar: I just have to weld the rain gutter back on both A pillars now (i had to do the same on the other side).
I have to admit that I'm surprised a car built as late as 1978 had so many rust traps and so little rust proofing. I thought Holden were doing a better job of preventing rust by that stage, but obviously not.
Rust proofing? All the inners that i have seen on this car (well, ones that aren't rusted through) are bare steel. Hatchback Toranas are notorious for rust around the hatch area and the C pillars. If you saw how the C pillars are made, you would instantly see why they rust so heavily.
They seemed to get it better from the introduction of the Commies. It took some years for rust to start breaking out on the first VB's which were a similar vintage to the UC. I just gained the impression that Holden had started to take a bit more care with corrosion protection around that time. Wrong again.
Yeh, Commodores don't appear to have as many built in rust traps. Although the UC is a similar vintage to the VB Commodore, the UC is still basically the same as an LH apart from the front sheetmetal and tail lights, so all the LH-X Torana rust traps are still present on the UC.
Update time. First one for 2012. What better way to spend the 1st day of the new year than working on my car. So, that's what i did. Today i finished off both A pillars which involved welding the rain gutters back on and finishing off all the welds. With that done, i moved onto tidying up the lip at the back of the wheel arch on the drivers side (same as the left side, it was all smashed over for wheel clearance). I just cut the lip off and seam welded it like i did with the other side. Then i got onto one of the jobs i've been putting off because i knew it was going to be a bit tedious. There was the usual rust in the plenum chamber on the passanger side(this is right up under the dash). So i cut it all out and welded a new section in. This section usually has a big hole in it for an air vent, but considering my car will have an underdash heater this time, there was no need for it, so i just made it all flat. Pics time: L/H A pillar and rain gutter all done R/H side Lip on the front wheel arch \ Plenum chamber (excuse some of the welds, that's as good as you get welding on your back with sweat pouring off you) Just need to tidy up the welds and seal it all up. That's all for now.
