My ever-after Ute

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Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Ok some reading up front then will post photographs and probably some questions, a lot of ranting and the odd sob or two along this journey. Yes I have restored a car or two before.

Background:
I grew up in New Zealand- keep reading it gets better. My father was into cars and for a long time had a two door pillar less '57 Chevy. With little 283 V8 We lived next to the American Antarctic resupply base (Woodbourne Blenheim NZ) and those servicemen we allowed to bring their own cars into the country as personal belongings. At that time in NZ all you saw on the streets was &*#@ Zephyr's, Morris Minors, Cortina's, Rovers and of course Holden's. So a Yank muscle car was a real novelty. Back then our little town became populated with corvette stingrays, mustangs, thunderbirds and god knows what else..... The yanks would sell this cheaply bought yank metal at exuberant prices to us locals and buy up all the vintage tin in thr district to ship home when they went home at the end of their tour. Many a model A coupe was snapped up in a swap for a fibre glass wrapped V8.... I digress

The old mans Chevy was my, and his, pride and joy. He often raced it in the quarter mile on the air strip at Woodbourne base against the other yank tanks. It was my first driving car. In those days in NZ you could get your licence at 15years of age.- I did and set out to prove that it was way too young an age to hand someone over half a ton of lethal weaponry. The cops in those days had HK -HQ Kingswoods which were a match for the Chev, so I was always I trouble.
Ever since those days I have just loved that 55, 56, 57 shape and as we all know Holdens are only scaled down re-jigged chevy's, so I always had a soft spot for the Aussie version FB EK and to a lesser extent FE FC's.

For many years after I came to this great brown land (30 years ago now)I made do with just a car as couldn't afford the time or expense of something like a muscle car let alone a '57 Chevy. Closest I came was an LX Torana. V8 and all.



Once my kids grew up and I had some cash I got back into cars and bought a project car. The first choice was a '57 but anything that didn't require an complete re-build was seriously out of my budget still. A mate knew a bloke in Wynum (Brisbane) who was selling old holdens from his back yard. He was buying and selling, doing the minimum to make a buck. (Yanks call it flipping I think) I bought an EK ute from him and so began my love-affair with these beautiful cars.

I fixed that one up and drove it every day for 12 years, on the southside of Brisbane, until selling it to my daughter when I had to go back to NZ because there was no one else left to work the family farm. I made my daughters, then boyfriend, promise that if they were to resell by precios baby I would get the first bibs
Yeah well they split up and she let the little prick take my baby. Bastard.
If anyone out there sees a ute with a sunroof running around Brisbane driven by a weedy little white guy with sandy hair please flip the prick the bird for me.

Ok that is enough of all this blather .

I have spent many years working as a maintenance fitter and for a time in NZ had my own wrecking yard so have a reasonable handle on how things work, but we will see.

This project is going to be my retirement project - yes I am an old bloke - I moved to Tassie 4years ago and live on 12 country acres with a nice big shed which was an old packing shed. It is good workshop. Good power outlets, concrete floor with lots of benches and separate storage rooms.
I found the car on Guntree and the owner has made a good start. He is a blacksmith boilermaker and has made a good job of the panels-a few things are missing but hey that is half the fun.

To date -
Stripped the head - found it has cracks in 3 places
Bought new complete grey motor- stripped that and found 5 pot rusted from the top, so suspect head trouble. Can't see anything so will take into a good Reconditioner/motor shop in Launceston for them to give me a verdict.
I have another head lined up (Never have too many parts eh?)
Had the devils own job getting a thin tube socket to fit the cam shaft retaining bolts. Ended up with a cheap and cheerful 1/4 inch drive $10 special set hat fitted like a glove.
Then the impact driver I have had for years decided to only work clockwise. My bad it took a while to work that one out.
The motor that came with the car had the harmonic balancer welded to the crank. Not a good sign. Tried to grind the weld off internally and lost my temper and ended up taking to the puller with an angle grinder. It is off but bit worried about the crank now. No I didn't put a mark on it but still need to have it ground back and balanced if it is to be of any use- fingers crossed for the motor I bought.
Found the retaining bolts on the camshaft were missing-sorry shorn off. Not sure what was holding it n place- no damage to the lobes that I can see.

So tomorrow I am taking the second grey motor into the reconditioner to get sized up and hopefully get the news that he can make a good motor from the two I have.

Next is to start on the pant. temperature in Tassie only get up to acceptable levels in the summer so I will need to get stuck into the prep so I can spend my Xmas Holi's painting.

Enough of the bull here she is:
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Devilrod
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Devilrod »

Great yarn there Tasek! Welcome to the forum and can't wait to see how the ute comes up.
Speed and Style........... One day I'll get the speed bit.
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Devilrod wrote:Great yarn there Tasek! Welcome to the forum and can't wait to see how the ute comes up.
Thanks for the welcome Devilrod - I can't wait to see how she comes up but she is fighting me all the way.

Is there a rule against naming vehicles after bad things does it bring down a curse on it? Just wondering because I started calling this one "Tina" short for Tinawha (pronounced Tin-e-far )Maori for She devil, supposedly living in the sea, lakes or rivers looking like dragons. Cos even though I have only just started with minor stuff it has been hard work.
Have I brought it on myself?

Today: 14/12/15
Guy I bought the car from had stripped it down - put an HR front end under it - over hauled the diff which he paint a terrible red :dohh: and chip/stone guarded underneath.
He completed all the panel work and given it a coat of etch primer, mostly. This turned out to be just the bits he could see, so all the joints had slight surface rust. So I removed what panels were re-installed, he said he was just getting the gaps right and perhaps he was. So there will be some sanding to be done.

He mentioned that the motor had been running but was in pieces in the tub so I never checked. When I unloaded everything to see what was what and what I need, I found the head with a lot of surface rust so I took it to a good local re-conditioner to upgrade it for unleaded. He found 3 cracks and suggested it passed it used by date.

Sorting through the parts there are many parts missing or worn out, but I did expect that for the price I paid $3000 all up.

As luck would have it a grey motor popped up on Gumtree shortly after and I purchased it. It came out of an EJ so I figured it was an up grade.

My recon guy suggested I strip down both this motor and the short block I now have since the head is no use and he will see if he can make one decant motor for me. Sounds straight forward but this minks Tinawha has other ideas.

Bloody "Tina" she got me again- Talked to my recon guy yesterday and this EJ head is cracked, hence the leak.
Bugger looks like I have wasted 200 bucks. On the up side both blocks measured out ok. He has cam shells for both. Looks like these didn't get the Repo production line grind everything treatment.
Just finished measuring the oil pumps from both motors and both are pretty worm- Body clearance .008" and the backlash about the same. Need some thinking time now.

On the upside I got a lead on a couple of heads so will have to go on the hunt-
I had hoped to start painting over Christmas cos the temp down here in Tas doesn't leave a great window of opportunity, but socializing got in the way.
Damn my liking for the amber stuff.
I was going to post pictures but nothing has happened worth showing.
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
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Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Ok Tina is proving quite the trickster - bitch !!!!
I found another head - story about that was - guy in Colebrook Tasmania purchased an original Phil Irving alloy head for his grey motor. (http://www.thegreymotor.com/2013/05/rep ... heads.html)
Nice set up with twin SU's. He had it mounted on an engine stand and we got talking about cars and parts etc Then asks if I would like to see his car. In the shed up the back was a sweet FJ with nice paint and mags.
He bought the car when he was a young apprentice and worked on it then. It was his daily driver back then but had garaged it to swap out the head, some years back and only just finished assembling the motor.
This car has been his baby for about 40 years. He is now looking at retirement.H still has that look in his eye when he talks about it. You all know the look.

Anyway the head I walked away with was ok when he took it out but it is from an FJ so fingers crossed yet again.

I take this new head (Number 3)into the reconditioner and he says "Oh there is some more bad news. Some one has given the cam a strange grind in the past and I am not sure it is any use".
Great!!!! Tina strikes again, good thing I have a spare block, crank(Kinda) and cam. I will drop the cam in when he has had time to check out the head. There are only so many things you can cross at once.

Meanwhile I have been chasing a left side bumperette on Ebay for a while as the current one is rusted through. Whoever designed these obviously didn't see mud and road junk collecting and forming rust in their natural little colcting shelf. I am amazed at the prices these fetch. A set went for $375 a couple of months back. So when I put a bid on one for $100 and got it I thought it a steal. However I am having issues cos the guy wanted pick only -to be fair he has been good about posting- but still more trips to town and banks and remembering bank account numbers. I had a similar but bad experience recently when I bid $100 on a set of Jellybeans and won- seller said pick up only and since he was in Adelaide and I am in Launceston something had to be arranged. I contacted a courier and was just waiting for contact details, still waiting. He doesn't answer my messages and I am guessing wanted much more for those rims.

I decided to box on and start sorting the hydraulics out. The ute came with HR front end fitted but the calipers were in a box. I cleaned them up but am damned if I can get the pistons to move. Welded in solid. Scratching my head on what to do. I have tried a blast of compressed air, no luck. Left them soaking in brake fluid for a week. No movement Not sure if there is a trick I am missing.
I have a similar problem with the brake master cylinder. I bought one on ebay which is in good working order but the ones that came with it will not come apart. The piston comes to a point but wont go any further. I am thinking the spring might be welded on to the piston. So another half finished project

I moved on to the petrol tank - cleaned it up and removed the sender to ensure there was plenty of ventilation- then took to it with some heat brazing rods and a variety of hammers, anvils. Much noisy heating, hammering, pushing, pulling and grinding later I managed to get most of the big dents out of it without blowing myself up. Checked for leaks and it is water tight. So happy with that and next will probably add a sealant and be painting and installing that.
One small step forward :clap:
Blacky
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Blacky »

Ya gotta love working on old cars ...... but progress is progress , at least you are moving forward :thumbsup:
When you're faced with an unpleasant task that you really don't want to do, sometimes you just have to dig deep down inside and somehow find the patience to wait for someone else to do it for you.


Foundation member #61 of FB/EK Holden club of W.A.
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WayneXG95
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by WayneXG95 »

Yes forward is the way to go!
I'm surprised no tassies have joined in yet?... :problem:

Must be that bloody 'Faceache"..sorry book... :think:
Wayne Chambers
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FB EK Holden Car Club of N.S.W
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Rusty EK
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Rusty EK »

I am watching , don't know where the other Tassie guys are .
Just keep plugging away Tasek you will beat her into submission :vecctor:
Blacky
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Blacky »

How is yours going Rusty ? Time for an update ?????
When you're faced with an unpleasant task that you really don't want to do, sometimes you just have to dig deep down inside and somehow find the patience to wait for someone else to do it for you.


Foundation member #61 of FB/EK Holden club of W.A.
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Rusty EK
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Rusty EK »

Dead in the water at the moment Blacky , will put a little update on my thread so not to distract from Tasek,s build
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Blacky wrote:Ya gotta love working on old cars ...... but progress is progress , at least you are moving forward :thumbsup:
Yes thanks. Each journey starts with a step- small steps maybe more accurately a shuffle.

Every time I go into the shed where Tina lurks I remember the old question "How do you eat and elephant? - one bite at a time"

Although I think she is doing the majority of the biting, right in my hip pocket :esmile:

But that is the understanding you have when you take on a project, especially if you are going to do it right. In my case that won't be show standard but s good as I can get.
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

WayneXG95 wrote:Yes forward is the way to go!
I'm surprised no tassies have joined in yet?... :problem:

Must be that bloody 'Faceache"..sorry book... :think:
I did get a warm welcome when joining the Forum and lets face it hearing other woes isn't everyones idea of entertainment.

As for facebook where does everyone find the time?
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Rusty EK wrote:I am watching , don't know where the other Tassie guys are .
Just keep plugging away Tasek you will beat her into submission :vecctor:
Thanks rusty, she won't beat me but victory maybe a while off.

Did you get to the swap meet at Old Beach last weekend. Did it happen?

There is the Bi-annual swap meet at Launceston in March 15th I think.
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Quick update- I found some posts on this forum about freeing a stuck or ceased brake caliper piston - I believe Harv's advised to pump it up with grease. I tried it tonight and it works a treat.

I am not a tech-head computer guy but since doing this I found the youtube clip that explains better than I can how to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ05kOFsgAA
So the forward momentum has begun.
Blacky
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Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Blacky »

Good stuff mate, one step at a time 8)
When you're faced with an unpleasant task that you really don't want to do, sometimes you just have to dig deep down inside and somehow find the patience to wait for someone else to do it for you.


Foundation member #61 of FB/EK Holden club of W.A.
Tasek
Posts: 346
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:43 am
State: TAS
Location: Launceston, Tasmania

Re: My ever-after Ute

Post by Tasek »

Yah wet weekend in Tassie time for some tango-in' with Tina .

The usual two steps forward one back tango.

Cleaned up the disc caliper bodies. As I have now removed the pistons, and removed the all grease from the sticking set, I decided it would be a good time to clean them up and paint them with black paint before re-assembling.
Before doing that I thought it best to remove the bleed screw from the set that the piston popped out of with no trouble. (No grease required) The bleeder was rounded off so I tapped on a slightly smaller metric spanner. Flooded the little bugger with CRC and left it over night. Next morning more CRC and into the vice, followed by a gentle tap on the spanner with the the heal of my hand - nothing- slightly harder tap with a fist- still nothing but a slight stinging in my hand- so gave it a good whack with a hammer and it seemed to move - Great !!!! Began to turn the spanner by hand and the little sucker snapped off clean body on the caliper. :sickk:
I don't have any easi-outs so will have to pick some up and a high speed drill or two. - Anyone else done this in the past and have a trick for it?

So that disaster put to one side I thought since there was good news on the motor front- reconditioner says head is crack free and has begun modifying for the hardened valves. oh and the spare cam was only .005" out and there are plenty of shells in stock. Result - I would sort the gearbox out which has been sitting in the back of the shed waiting to see which motor Tina would end up with.
I dragged it out and first up it is not an early model box, but rather EJ EH HD HR jobby so good news I think - secondly and by now you will know this will be the downer, someone has been hacking the splash cover and it no longer fits. I mean there has been 1' gaps either side. Weird what some people will do but why would you want road rubbish spraying into the Clutch throw-out area???????? So the bellhousing to chocker block full of sand and grease/oil - the slave cylinder completely frozen and white powdery corrosion throughout it. I will need a new one of those, luckily they are relatively cheap online.
Read my manuals to work out how to dismantle this vital part - I have 3manuals, GM Service manual for FB Series and MaxEllery's manual confirmed it isn't an FB EK box but my Scientific Publications 1948-53,FJ-HR reckons it is the later type with the detachable bellhousing.
Reading through all the work I am thinking I might need some help and a little more research, so have settled on cleaning the outside of the body up until I can get my head around the whole dismantling process.

So two tasks neither complete.

Got my bumperette (Left side)which is in pretty good knick. I sanded out the in side rust back to metal or chrome and sprayed these with rust kill undercoat will finish with rust proof paint. So something achieved.

Next weekend I have a long weekend to myself as Mrs Tasek is off to Hobart on a girls weekend. :thumbsup: I will be having a boys toy weekend with Tina and no questions about whether there isn't something else I should be doing instead of playing around with that old car again.
Last edited by Tasek on Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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