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Q's 1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw project

GRPAVL

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1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw
Just bought my 3rd Commodore a 1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw replica.

When I got it she already had a body kit on her and was painted in Xirilic candy apple red. While everything else was factory rb30 eng, box, suspension etc, it was sporting some ugly arse 17" rims.

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Seen none of you know me, this project will progress quickly as I always do, My last project (owned for 12 years) was a 1984 KP61 Toyota Starlet that got some 4age treatment before having a 2.0L 3sge beams engine from a 99 Altezza installed. I pretty much did all the wiring for the ecu's fuse systems and circuit breakers myself and even took care of most of the fabrication leavingthe welding to someone more qualified (so i dont mind getting my hands dirty.

More pics to come.
 

GRPAVL

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1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw
First thing I wanted to fix was a bubble in the paint betweenthe rear window and the boot. Once we got the boot off it was decided to remove the rear window to really get at it. Once we did that though we spotted the dredded rear window cancer issue (both sides)

Passenger rear
Walkinshaw_008.jpg


Driver rear
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A complete rear panel was sourced and fitted, primered back and painted.
Passenger rear
Walkinshaw_012.jpg


Driver rear
Walkinshaw_013.jpg
 

87RB30VL

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Nice work! I refuse to even touch my rear corners since I can see someone's already tried to fix it, so it's bound to be worse than just a bit of rust haha
 

GRPAVL

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1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw
Next on the cards was the rims. When I bought my Walkinshaw it was runnign on some pretty average (read ugly) 17s.

About 4 weeks after buying her I also bought a donor VL commodore for its 304 engine, box, subframe, wiring, headers, exhaust etc. It come with 18" Advanti Volts and was already on lowered Cobra springs.

Needless to say even though these werent perfect they were better than the 17s so on they went.

Walkinshaw_014.jpg


Walkinshaw_019.jpg
 

GRPAVL

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Troy - I dont linke doing things by halves if i dont have to ... Got the new rear panel for $250 so $600 to fit and paint = better than leaking in the rain :)

While I was working in the boot area I decided that the factory Calais rear garnish was to sad to repair. It just so happened that the VL donor had a near new one so I set to and swapped the badges over
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That lead to another issue. The Calais white striped tail lights jsut looked worng with a black garnish. So I went and found some 3mm pinstripe tape and masked every part of the light before giving it a dust with some primer and a spray with some Dulux gloss black. The end result was about 6hrs of my time but worth it

Walkinshaw_017.jpg


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mr calais 5.0

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Love the candy apple red paint and yes them 17's are butt ugly rims..
 

GRPAVL

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About 2 weeks after the 18" Advanti Volts were fitted I was talking to a mate who works at the local Mag N Turbo (he was selling some old 17" toyota rims for me). He showed me a new mag they had just got in. A 19" Advanti S920. I told him to get another 3 and a few days later they were on my pride and joy.

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While still on the factory springs with the old 18s in the boot and back seat it looked just the right height .... hmmm .... might be time for the donor vl to donate its springs.
 

GRPAVL

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1987 VL Calais Walkinshaw
With the 19" Advanti S920 Rims fitted I couldnt leave the Walkinshaw sitting to high for too long so I ripped into it and changed the suspension between the donor VL and the Walkinshaw. The donor VL already had Cobra CHRL-19 rear springs and Munroe GT Gas shocks in the rear so they were first to change over while adding an adjustable panhard rod. This alone dropped the rear of the Walkinshaw 40mm.

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Next was the fronts which I decided to just do a strut change on seen as I plan on upgrading the front brakes at a later stage. The donor VL already had Cobra CHFL-15L springs which when swaped into the front of the Walkinshaw dropped it about 35mm. Seen as this is a V8 spring I expect the front will drop about 8-10mm once I change the Holden 304 V8 engine in.

Walkinshaw_025.jpg


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With a guard-ground height of 630mm (front) and a 620 (rear) I am pretty happy at this stage

Walkinshaw_027.jpg


Walkinshaw_028.jpg
 

GRPAVL

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So yeah

Thats been my last 1-2 months of work as well as a few other small things but I am now finally ready to start on the 304 V8 Conversion in the following steps.
1) Remove the 6cyl from the Walkinshaw, complete with box and tailshaft etc.
2) Do the same thing to the 304, box, tailshaft etc from the donor VL.
3) Both engines will go up the side of the house leaving 2x Vls in the garage during which stage I will swap the subframes over.
4) Swap the looms around including ecu's etc.
5) Reinstall the Walkinshaws old RB30 engine into the vl donor and sell it off.
6) Do a quick strip down of the 304 before it goes in the hole. Basic things like frost/welsh plugs, spark plugs, leads, igniter/coil, front and rear crank seals, oil filter etc, and a quick gearbox service.
6a) I would like to do a Kelford 170c/CraneH278 cam as well as rollers, twin row timing, and one of the 70mm mace throttle bodies but funds may be getting tighter by that stage so it may have to wait a while before I do.
7) Reinstall the 304 v8 into the Walkinshaw and cruise.

Here is a pic of the my baby as at 01/07/2013
Walkinshaw_029.jpg
 
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