fbekholden.com

well i've had a very productive last week and weekend .... got the brake booster and pedal in there and all ready for brake lines now .....



and my kinky brake pedal to clear the column.


and once i broke my flaring tool die i couldn't work on the brakes anymore so i decided to make the passengers seat brackets.


please disregard the seat covers, they came on the donor car and im only leaving them on to protect the seats, honest!

very happy to have both the seats finally sorted .... now to work on a set of retractable seat belts.

G'day Sammy.

Not knocking your work as such, you are doing a fine job, but safety sake your brake pedal hook up is very unsafe. Although the heim joint or rose joint (which ever you like to call it) is quite strong, there is no safety in the event of the bolt coming loose to still apply the brakes, That why all brake push rod actuators have a U mount to clevis pin arrangement. If the pin wears, breaks or even falls out, cause someone forgot to fit the circlip the brakes will still work.
Just bringing this point to your attention.
You may even find the engineer will not like the set up.(thats only if he looks)

Regards John

no offense taken, its something i will raise with the engineer, thanks.

it wouldn't be hard to use some flat bar and a suitably sized nut to make it into the arrangement you mention, so if the engineer says no go then i might just do that.

how close are the runners on the seats to the hump in the floor as i was thinking of putting VN seats in my van, but looking at yors i'de like mine to sit lower

yeah thats one thing i was worried about, the inside runner is about 5mm from the floor, so really can't go any lower, but i sit low enough in it that i have plenty of head room so i was happy with that.

is there any chance you could take a photo of the seat from the other side of the door showing the seat to floor height thanks

ratbox, i wont post the pics in the forum but heres the links to them for you.

outside bracket - front support is about 95mm from floor to seat runner and about 75mm at the rear - http://www.oldholdens.com/images/cars/f ... 017765.JPG

inside bracket look from the other seat - as you can see when you compare to the size of the bolt head its about 4-5mm gap - http://www.oldholdens.com/images/cars/f ... 017767.JPG

this one is looking diagonally sorta from the door hinge angles - http://www.oldholdens.com/images/cars/f ... 017769.JPG

if you want anymore info - measurements or specific pics just email me sammy @ oldholdens.com

thanks sammy

geez it feels like its all slowly coming together now, i have just finished working on the handbrake which isn't finished, but it now works.

back on page 2 of this thread you can see the handbrake i welded into the floor which was from a commodore, so i wanted to use all the commodore brakes (VN rear discs) aswell as the handbrake cable if possible. I didn't think about the problem i would have when i welded the handbrake into the floor, but oh well, some time lying under the car thinking got a good solution sorted.

the problem with the commodore setup is that it has a two piece tailshaft and as a result of that the handbrake cable can go under the front of the tailshaft without any problems - unfortunately that wouldn't work in my case .... but being that the commodore handbrake cable is a bit too long anyways means that i can change its route slightly so now on the drivers side it goes from the wheel up into the diff arch and across the top of the diff then it comes out on the passenger side in the right spot to allow the cable to connect up to the lever properly.

pic below of the cable where it will be secured to go above the diff


some custom brackets to secure the cable under the floor and viola!


so in the above pic you can see the cable that is near the top of the picture is the drivers side cable which has come across the diff, so its a bit shorter, i then located the passenger cable to be in such a spot that the cable is able to be tensioned properly.

so the handbrake works fine now and the screw to adjust it is about in the middle of how far it can go - and the best bit about it is that its all off the shelf parts used from a VR Commodore!

i've also got the new flaring tool die so i have been able to run the rear brake line up to the booster, so thats the entire rear brake system done, i have been looking at the fronts and scratching my head a bit at the moment as im not sure the best place to route the flexable brake line with the hopper stoppers twin piston setup, but once i work that out i will be able to make the front brake lines then that will be all the brakes done!

Hey Sammy,

Mate it looks like your on the down hill road now. You cant have much more setting up to do, then the fun starts I guess with the body work.
Have you decided on a colour yet or are you playing your cards close to your chest like Greg.
What did you end up doing with the rear springs? reset or lowered. I've just had mine done with an extra leaf and lowered 2 inches, now I'm just hoping its going to sit right.

Keep up the good work.

Mal

i dunno if i would say down hill run but im getting closer to being able to get an engineers cert, thats the main thing i want firstly. I still have to fit retractable seatbelts (should be fairly straight forward), sort out the front brakes, some extra support for the steering column and then sort out the steering intermediate shaft then im just about done with the engineering....

mind you things like the engine mounts still need to be fully welded and gussetted but they are all where they need to be etc

paint i am going for toyota royal blue which is the same as my first car below. but im unsure as to weather i go white roof or not .... im thinking i will ...


springs were done by dad before i bought the car, all i know is they have had an extra leaf added (6 in total) had all new bushes between the plates and have been re-set ... im pretty happy with the stance at the back, im not looking for super low as the engineer wont let me and also i want it to be practical.

well as you've all probably seen on the news we've had a shitload of rain here lately....

we didn't fair to well ... copped 40cm of water in the house, just high enough to get all the beds and stuff like that .... so we're out of home at the moment ... but probably the worst part for me is the shed, all the cars that are projects etc arn't covered by the contents insurance so im left to salvage what i can before the water kills it all ....

the house was mild compared to the shed and back yard which was about 60cm lower, so all the cars and the shed copped about 1mtr or more of water.

needless to say everything in the shed is pretty much stuffed. i've been flat out the last few days stripping motors and pumping water dispersant into them to stop the rust etc .... the vr is probably going to be a write off, but its covered so im not so worried about it .... but the fb ute, torana and my 140rwhp 6 out of the torana were all under water.



this is the level when we left the house friday night at about 8pm


you can see about 3/4 up the side where the water came to


spot the brown!


anyways ... all car stuff is on hold for the forseeable future, gotta find a place to live in the long term and get the insurance stuff all happening so we can get stuff replaced....

and to think i had planned to spend the long weekend in the shed porting some heads for the VR!! :/

man sorry to here about it....

you were making some awesome progress was really starting to take place!

best of luck sorting stuff out!

Cheers
NoMAD

Wow Sammy,

That sux big time, good luck to you and family on the clean and insurance etc.

Regards, Smooth

sorry to hear that sammy as smooth said that sux
i was wondering how the people up newcastle were going as there seems to be quite a few of you on here
i'm a little to far away to offer any help but if i could i would