Project Phoenix - VR Grange tribute/replica

[someguy360]

That fusebox an ebay item or holdcom/bussman item?

Been looking at repro vl replacement fuserails & bussman style fuseboxes for vk bitsa.

It's the same style as the holdcom one, my recommendation is go on amazon they are exactly the same there for half the price. I suspect Holdcomm just bulk orders them and resells them.

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www.amazon.com.au

The wiring side is pretty much all done now, it's all mounted and tested, step one in this whole project was to get the wiring done for two reasons.

1. I hate wiring, I'm confident in it, but my ADHD makes me loose patience at just staring at wires endlessly for hours on end.

2. I wanted to test all the wiring before pulling the old engine so I was confident the new engine would start first time for break in, I didn't like the idea of attempting to start a new engine with a fresh flat tappet with untested wiring looms etc.


Finished the Exhaust, sounds meaty, can't wait to hear it with more compression and more duration/lsa cam. Pretty much the perfect volume at the moment has that tough muscle sound but it's not obnoxiously loud and the cabin noise is reasonably tame.

Manta/DiFillipo 4-1 Headers (1 3/4 primaries) > Twin 3" > Single 3" with a Flowmaster FX muffler and 6" round rear resonator (Flanged at the diff so I can swap over to a dump at the track).

Quick Clip (Listen to this with speakers/headphones for some reason with a phone you can only hear the IAC screaming as I had the air cleaner off and theres no bonnet on the car)

Hoping at this stage now everything is tested to have the engine/trans out next weekend, I'm going to chip away during the week at getting everything out and ready (cooling system, exhaust, tailshaft etc) As you can see by my last picture above, the undercarriage of the car is in desperate need of recoating, 30 years hasn't been kind to it.

The advantage to having a dual plane manifold is pulling the engine is easy, just remove the throttle body, chuck the lift plate on it and off you go. Last time after the fire I had the engine and trans out on my own in about 15 mins.

 

[VS 5.0]

Oooooh.....sounds nice.

 

[Deuce]

The advantage to having a dual plane manifold is pulling the engine is easy, just remove the throttle body, chuck the lift plate on it and off you go. Last time after the fire I had the engine and trans out on my own in about 15 mins.

15mins is pretty darn quick.
Anything to do with the wiring and cooling already detached by the fire. Lol.
Just kidding mate.

 

[someguy360]

15mins is pretty darn quick.
Anything to do with the wiring and cooling already detached by the fire. Lol.
Just kidding mate.

haha 15 mins from the time of hooking the crane up to it being out

Not including the prep work. The best part about the lift plate is you can get the driveline angle perfect on the first shot, so you don't need to stop and readjust your angles every 2 mins etc that you normally need to do when pulling the engine and trans together.

 

[someguy360]

Not specific to my car, took a weekend off mine to pick up some work again on a mates VQ Caprice (the one I built the engine for a few pages ago), it's been over a year now and with my crazy schedule the last few months and him being a fifo worker, it's been hard to sync up to get some major work done so we blocked out last weekend to get his brakes done so the car can go back on the ground.

Will post the last 6 or so months here for those interested:

Engine Build (Basic street cruiser - Approx 9:1 comp (40 thou off the heads and a 0.039" headgasket), Crane 276, Valve springs, Retainers, linished crank, hone, paint etc). He wanted a stockish characteristic engine keeping the stock low end torque and just giving it a bit more, so the 276 and some compression work was the ideal choice. I've used the 276 a few times, and for a stockish engine it's such a torquey little cam.


On a side note: This was also the first time I've installed a Crane cam since they changed over to using Comp branding during COVID. The build quality is shocking, light pitting on the lifter faces, cam itself just felt less solid and the grinding didn't look as clean.

I'm glad I've stopped using Crane in my own stuff since the buyout, COMP gets everything done in China now and it really shows. While Crow isn't much better in terms of their manufacturing at least the cams are still ground locally and their support team are local if theres any issues.

While I was lucky and this engine broke in successfully and is running sweet, the quality left a lot to be desired. And I can see why US based engine builders who pretty much exclusively use Comp gear are turning away Flat tappet builds all together now as they are getting 50/50 success rates on break ins apparently as the metal/castings the chinese are using is just too soft.

Another pro tip, don't buy Crane Energizer roller rockers anymore either. I've had 2x mates now who have both had post-covid sets of energizers collapse and spit bearings everywhere, one guy has had multiple now, and the ones that are still ok have been losing pre-load every now and then and requiring adjustment. TK also advised that these are now chinese build etc and I don't think he's using them anymore either.

Resprayed the engine bay, fixed some light rust issues and issues where brake fluid had eaten paint away over the decades.

Colour matched the rocker covers and engine covers in Anthracite and sprayed the inlet manifold fresh metallic silver like factory, very cool colour combo.

Painted the firewall body colour like I do in most engine bay resprays, I can't stand the black unpainted firewall, it just looks cheap in my opinion.

Castlemaine VN/VP to VT-VZ Brake conversion, really solid bit of kit, highly recommended.

While I was doing the paint and body work, also did a freshen up on his VN in the factory style Dulon Direct Gloss.

Restored a set of V5 Simmons (He liked mine so he found a set of his own).
Disassembled, blasted the centres back to bare metal, polished the dish, painted the centres and reassembled.

 

[Lex]

Not specific to my car, took a weekend off mine to pick up some work again on a mates VQ Caprice (the one I built the engine for a few pages ago), it's been over a year now and with my crazy schedule the last few months and him being a fifo worker, it's been hard to sync up to get some major work done so we blocked out last weekend to get his brakes done so the car can go back on the ground.

Will post the last 6 or so months here for those interested:

Engine Build (Basic street cruiser - Approx 9:1 comp (40 thou off the heads and a 0.039" headgasket), Crane 276, Valve springs, Retainers, linished crank, hone, paint etc). He wanted a stockish characteristic engine keeping the stock low end torque and just giving it a bit more, so the 276 and some compression work was the ideal choice. I've used the 276 a few times, and for a stockish engine it's such a torquey little cam.


On a side note: This was also the first time I've installed a Crane cam since they changed over to using Comp branding during COVID. The build quality is shocking, light pitting on the lifter faces, cam itself just felt less solid and the grinding didn't look as clean.

I'm glad I've stopped using Crane in my own stuff since the buyout, COMP gets everything done in China now and it really shows. While Crow isn't much better in terms of their manufacturing at least the cams are still ground locally and their support team are local if theres any issues.

While I was lucky and this engine broke in successfully and is running sweet, the quality left a lot to be desired. And I can see why US based engine builders who pretty much exclusively use Comp gear are turning away Flat tappet builds all together now as they are getting 50/50 success rates on break ins apparently as the metal/castings the chinese are using is just too soft.

Another pro tip, don't buy Crane Energizer roller rockers anymore either. I've had 2x mates now who have both had post-covid sets of energizers collapse and spit bearings everywhere, one guy has had multiple now, and the ones that are still ok have been losing pre-load every now and then and requiring adjustment. TK also advised that these are now chinese build etc and I don't think he's using them anymore either.

Resprayed the engine bay, fixed some light rust issues and issues where brake fluid had eaten paint away over the decades.

Colour matched the rocker covers and engine covers in Anthracite and sprayed the inlet manifold fresh metallic silver like factory, very cool colour combo.

Painted the firewall body colour like I do in most engine bay resprays, I can't stand the black unpainted firewall, it just looks cheap in my opinion.

Castlemaine VN/VP to VT-VZ Brake conversion, really solid bit of kit, highly recommended.

While I was doing the paint and body work, also did a freshen up on his VN in the factory style Dulon Direct Gloss.

Restored a set of V5 Simmons (He liked mine so he found a set of his own).
Disassembled, blasted the centres back to bare metal, polished the dish, painted the centres and reassembled.

Is this you're place or you're mates?
I think you're mates? I've been known to be wrong before, plenty of times!

 

[someguy360]

Is this you're place or you're mates?
I think you're mates? I've been known to be wrong before, plenty of times!

I wish it was mine.

The engine was built at my place as I've got an air conditioned and dust free work area, the rest was done at his.

 

[someguy360]

Engine, trans, kframe, suspension is all out.

I've started circling all the things I want to fix/redo (bumps, humps etc in the strut towers etc).

Now the engines out, I can whip the heads off during the week so they are ready to go to TK for machining when I pick the block up. They'll need to be decked to make sure they'll seal up with MLS gaskets, and I'm going to get the valve seats machined for viton seals so I can get rid of the factory o-ring and splash guard valve seal setup and then an acid bath to strip the poorly prepped red enamel off so I can paint them.

Front suspension will be getting rebuilt with new struts, strut tops, bearings etc as those pedders struts are over 20 years old. And the KFrame is going to get cleaned up with overspray from the last time I painted the bay, and the 30 years of grease and grime then repainted in 2k black.


Then during the week I'll move onto the rear end of the car, dropping the IRS cradle out for the same clean up treatment, new bushes/mounts etc and I'll make up a rear subframe dolly like I did with the front end so the whole body will be on castor wheels and I can roll it around while I'm working on other bits. The fuel tank will also be coming out to be resprayed in the typical long range tank metallic silver.

Then once everythings out from under the car I can start wire wheeling the floor and then re coating it all (not looking forward to that).

 

[someguy360]

Update:

Fuel tank, IRS cradle, diff and rear suspension is all out, the car is now a bare shell outside, nothing under the car at all. (Tip for anyone else with an IRS car. Drop the arms off either side of the cradle separately to the centre diff cradle section, the arms weigh a good 50kg each on their own let alone the weight off the diff :/

30 years of dust/dirt caught between the tank and the floorpan. Thankfully the tank looks to be in excellent shape with only some minor surface corrosion, so a couple of hours with some scotchbrite and some thinners and It should be clean enough to epoxy for paint as I don't want to take a wire wheel or the sander to it for fear of igniting fuel vapours.

Pretty much every breather hose and filler neck hose disintegrated the second I touched it so glad I'm doing this and can replace them at the same time.


I've started on metal work:
Focusing on the right hand wheel arch first, then I'll do the left side. The hump for the mount of the factory coolant overflow was too tight to be massaged down so I had to cut that out and weld a patch in. The other two humps I could heat with a blow torch to soften the metal, then use the hammer and dolly to flatten them down then use compressed air to cool the metal back down again, I'm not a master metal worker so it won't be perfect but I'll be using a skim of metal tech filler then dolphin glaze over them anyway.

I'd ideally like to get the bay epoxied and then high filled next weekend to allow the bay a few weeks for primer shrink back etc before hitting it with the top coat.

I did some spray outs of some of the colours I'm going to be using on parts:

V5 wheel centres (BMW Sepang Bronze) I wanted something different to compliment the white body work, but I wanted something subtle and not in your face. And the Intake Manifold will be going VE Alto Grey (same as my ute) similar to what the manifold currently is but in a 2k finish instead of engine enamel for more depth. Anyone that knows me knows I don't have any raw cast alloy parts on my car as I can't stand the look and I can't stand the fact that simply touching it stains it forever. The Alto Grey against a gloss black block and heads should really pop.

I've also got a really cool colour for the rocker covers but I'll leave that one until later on

 

[someguy360]

Not much to update at this stage.

Been chipping away at the body work all week, hoping to get the engine bay epoxied this weekend all going well, I've got a few more holes to weld up on the firewall and then it's just final sanding and some dolphin glaze to smooth everything out nicely, I'd ideally like to be able to epoxy the bay then lay my top coat directly over that rather than doing a high fill primer in between. High fills are extremely hard to sand in engine bays due to all the corners and sharp edges so if I can get my filler and bodywork smooth enough I can avoid having to take long service leave to sand the bay before top coat


Probably about 20 hours into it at this stage.

Battery tray is gone and the infill panel has been welded in, I'm just working on contouring the edges to make a smooth transition from the wheel arch to the panel.

A view from underneath to show the scale of the project, pretty much ot her than the handbrake cable and the shocks theres nothing left under the car at all.