VG Ute - Project Random Ute Appears

[benzor]

Well due to the fact that everyone in my circle of friends has a knack of either blowing their cars up, needing to move large objects, or tow things.. Rob and I decided that some form of vehicle needed to be purchased (mainly because Rob just blew up his SR20DET )

Holden Commodore VN 1991, ute, white, aluminium racks, tonneau cover, 4 months rego, very good ute, hit gutter, needs 2 lower control arms, has complete spare cross member with car (all parts needed), needs a weekends work, owner to lazy, $1000 or nearest offer, ABE-34R RIVERSTONE

So we went to check it out.

It does need some TLC as the pics will show. but the Pro's far outweigh the cons. Given we're all fairly mechanically knowledgable people, it should be a fun project plus give Rob a daily until his TRX is back plus then we'll have a spare car. Plus, you always ALWAYS can make use of a ute.

The Good
206,200km Buick 3800
Column Shift Auto (Bench Seat)
All lights work
Vynil Floor (Big++ over carpet)
Working Aircon (Ice Cold!)
Working Cruise Control
Working Power Steering!
All electrics are working
$850 driveway price!
Rego until March!

The Bad
Random fault code being thrown intermittently
There's a giant f**koff hole in the windscreen
It needs a new passenger door handle
The transmission leaks slightly
Needs 1 or 2 new tyres

The Ugly
As you can see, it's not the worlds best ute cosmetically, however, we have a compressor, a spray gun, and a theory that it really, really can't get any worse.

Plan is to get it drive-able properly for now. It screeches/pulls with LCA's the way they are, but that should be sorted this weekend.

Running Costs Tally
Ute Purchase Price - $850
Battery - $100
Trans Fluid (5L) - $15
Brake Fluid (500ml) - $8
Funnel - $4
Petrol - $40
Total Cost: $1017

Immediate Plans
- New Windscreen
- Fit LCA's
- Flush and bleed brakes.. Replace pads if needbe
- Remove signwriting
- Good clean interior/exterior. Make it look a bit more presentable
- Full fluids flush
- New tyres/perhaps rims too pending cost
- Raid Pick n payless for bits

Side:


Front with hole:


A smaller steering wheel is required as I am not driivng a bus, and i like my knees to be able to move!


Side:


Interior:


Tray with complete spares!

 

[benzor]

Bit of progress today

$210 for a new windscreen, fitted onsite

Stickers are off, just getting rid of the residue now..

 

[benzor]

Turns out the lower control arms are fine, the sump however got bashed pretty badly, and the radius rod mounts on the crossmember are ****ed..
Its now 9pm and we;ve just stripped the old subfame down, eaten pizza, and are awaiting the guy who borrowed our jack to show up with it..

 

[Rake]

Ok, just a bit of an update.

Refit the struts / lower control arms / caster rods today. Bit hard when you're on your own with skinny arms like mine, but I got the bulk of the work done. Few pics over the past few days we've worked on it.



Trailer ramp for an engine support. If it can support the weight of an entire car, this should be overkill Worked quite well. A ratchet strap held up the steering rack, on the passenger side, the other side was held up since attached to the steering column. So for the entire job the rack stayed more or less in it's normal position. This way we didn't have to muck around with fluid lines and inaccessible bolts and the like.



New crossmember. I later hacked the old caster rod bushes out to reuse the nicer newer red ones, pedders ones or something. You can see where the engine mounts sit, which have studs that stick out on an angle, which made fitting it very hard. We had to loosen a mount off, put the crossmember on one side, then we used a ratchet strap on the other mount and the crossmember to pull everything into place so we could pop the other mount through. Took a lot of mucking around trying different things, as taking the mounts off the engine was not going to be easy.



Each side with the suspension out.



The sump. Bit of a dent, eh? The old crossmember is fitted in this pic, it's also damaged.



Crossmember off, pic of the mount. The jack on the sump was to help manuveur it to get the new one on. As above, prick of a job.



Suspension back in on both sides and this is how the car is at time of writing. Moving into the easy stuff now, brakes, link pins, st. rack / tie rod ends. Just gotta find a few nuts and bolts to do up the passenger side suspension, namely the caster rod nut, LCA nut, and ball joint nut. The driver side is all fixed.

It's a mix and match of parts. Some parts on there now are what came off in the first place, damaged bits have been swapped with parts from the spares. The driver side retains stock LCA bushes instead of the newer red pedders ones I think, because I forgot to change it and it probably would've been hard anyway. Elsewhere I've kept whatever the best parts I can in.

 

[tysons_2001]

Column Shift Auto (Bench Seat)

shouldnt this be in the bad list? :whistling

 

[Rake]

It's not a true bench seat, it's just 2 normal commodore seats with a small third one inbetween. It's quite small, not really useful for an adult. The back folds down to make a comfy armrest. You could easily just take it out and throw in a standard centre console.

 

[benzor]

And this worklog now comes to an end...

RIP ABE-34R.. You were a good ute.. ****ing vandals and theives.. ****s sake.

 

[eurekamad94]

your joking right stolen or vandelised ? why cant they just steal all the xd-xf falcons

 

[88GreenVN]

Have a joy ride Ok. If you have to but to burn the car....Y Y Y:cry:

 

[rch-13z]

mate that sux, insurance?