1973 Holden Monaro GTS

Since the Ute got trashed I've been searching high and low for a quarter panel to replace the crushed one. Nobody reproduces these panels so my options were pretty limited. That is until I saw an ad in The Trading Post (made famous in the iconic Australian movie The Castle) for an NOS left side quarter panel.

So I called up Greg from Classic Oz Wreck and told him he was dreamin'. Actually I didn't. I said how much and how soon can you get it here. Shipping it is going to be a bitch. It is a full quarter panel from the door all the way back and its going to have to be crated up and sent by boat. Greg is on the case however, and I hope we can make it work. Picture below is of the actual panel.

Since the Ute debacle there have been several things going on, none of which involve the Monaro unfortunately. Look for more progress on that as the weather turns sour in a couple of months.

Tom and I bought an 86 RX7 for $1000 with a blown motor, not blown as in supercharged but blown as in thrown a rod, camshaft broken into 3 pieces, cylinder block cracked, a real mess. However, for our $1000 we got a very clean body and interior, full set of Autometer gauges, B&M Shifter, 18" wheels, aftermarket suspension and brakes, aluminum radiator, MSD 6AL and coil, TH350 trans and the small block conversion kit. The motor had Procomp aluminum heads, roller rockers and valve covers, all of which we traded for a newly rebuilt 350.

The guys who put this together were real amateurs with more money than talent. I found loose head bolts, substandard wiring, just generally sloppy work. To date I have fabricated a new radiator mount and will redo all the wiring and fuel system before putting it on the market. Its been a fun project and it should be a very nice and quick little car when its done.

Amazing. Just when I had the Ute where I wanted it, new front brakes, motor running nice, everything was coming together on a Saturday cruise when CRUNCH, a woman in an SUV decided to overtake me as I was turning left into a driveway. Never mind that I was indicating, never mind that there were double yellow lines, no, she wasn't going to wait for me to turn and instead put her right front into the quarter panel of my car. And then she had the gall to blame me for the accident. The pictures below clearly show her skid marks starting on the wrong side of the double yellows. Michigan is a no-fault state meaning there will be no wrangling over blame with the insurance companies, but COME ON, really?

Its warm, its not snowing, I can see the sun and the roads are dry, it must be Spring in Michigan. Its dust off time, time to get the cars out of storage and go cruising and racing. Lilian and I took the Torana up to the car wash and hit it with the soapy brush and high pressure rinse. The paint is still holding up nice. Still runs like a scalded cat on the street. It looked so damn mean today I had to take some pics of it. Jeremy from Top Gear would call this automotive porn. Pics are high res so be patient and use the back button to come back!

This video is of the Monaro at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin Michigan. At the time the Monaro had a 427 big block Chevy with Rons Flying Toilet injection, powerglide and Dana 60 rear end. The heads were home ported 049 large oval chevy iron castings. You can see I was dialed a 10.93 and ran 10.936. That combination was deadly consistent. That engine ended up dropping an intake valve and destroying itself. From the date of the video file I believe this to be from 2004.

This next video is my first race car, a 1981 Camaro. When I first started racing it I had a tired old 350 in and it ran 15's. After getting the bug I went big block and low 11's before selling it and putting the big block into the Monaro.

Chris, if you're reading this, please don't take it personally, but I gotta vent. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I bought the Ute, and would do it all again, but this car/truck was just a mess and needed some serious TLC. My first clue was when it wouldn't start in freezing temps in St Louis, requiring the winch to get it into the trailer. When I got it home and checked the oil, it looked like mud and was actually full of gas I assume from excessive cranking. So the first thing I did was replace the oil and filter. To try and resolve the cold starting issue I have replaced the plugs, leads, coil, dizzy cap and rotor, coolent temp sensor, and installed an MSD 6AL. The plugs that were in it were the wrong ones and two of them were loose. The TBI 350 is from a 93-95 truck or suburban as is the 4L60E trans. I'd say its a high mile unit, but when running seems to run good and make good power without smoke. It still has the cold start issue and smells of gas when running so I have a used TBI unit on the way from Ebay as I suspect the regulator.

While I had it up on the lift I checked all the basics and could tell the front U-joint was shot so I replaced that. The old one was so badly rusted that the needles were practically dust. Try walking into an auto parts store in the US and asking for a front U-joint for a Holden HQ...but I was able to get one thankfully. I also noticed that the transmission crossmember was not bolted in and was just resting on the chassis mounts so I put some bolts in. There is rust in the rocker panels but the floors are solid. The right rear tyre had a nail in it so I plugged that. The water pump was shot so that was replaced. All the accessories have been relocated to move the power steering pump to the right side, but unfortunately this means that the serpentine belt only contacts the crank pulley for about 1.5" and the belt slips. I have ordered a longer belt and I hope I can reroute it to get more pulley contact as the squeeling is driving me crazy. There was a coolant leak from the back of the intake because the rear two intake bolts were missing. Oh and the serp belt was cutting into the lower radiator hose so I replaced that as well. The bench seat is trashed but I have a pair of grey leather buckets from a Honda that may fit nicely. None of the gauges work with the exception of the tach.

So what else...? The two tie rods are bent, the lower ball joints were installed with a sledge hammer, the left exhaust manifold is cracked, the speedo needle is missing, etc etc. Still, how often do you see one for sale in the US? And I sold the Probe for $600, a nice profit.

Felt like taking a break from fabrication today and doing some wrenching so I assembled the rear end. The Ford 9" rear end has 4 main components, the housing, the center section (pumpkin, pig, third member, center chunk, etc, etc), the axles and brakes. As you know from previous posts my housing is a Chassis Engineering fabricated 9" with old style Ford housing ends, Moser supplied the center section and axles, and the disk brakes are from Strange. A word of advice here when ordering your axles, have your brakes selected in advance as the Strange brakes come with brackets that need to go on before the axle bearings are pressed on.

Using some gasket sealer and a gasket I dropped the center section into place. I had to hit the hardware store for 10 3/8" 24 tpi stainless nylock nuts as they were not suppled with the housing. The housing did come with axle seals that get installed into the axle tubes. As I dont have a seal driver I used a big socket and buggered up one seal so I had to get another one from Napa. Lube the seals with some oil and insert the axles. Bolt them in with the T-nuts and brackets from the Strange kit, install the disks and calipers (both are directional) and voila, you're done.

I opted for the 4.11 gear ratio with a Moser steel spool and nodular iron case. In hindsight the extra $150 for an aluminum case would have been money well spent as the iron does weigh quite a bit. The 4.11 gear is the "pro" gear which uses harder metal than "street" gears and is made to hold up to a transbrake and high horsepower. Using the TCI calculator for RPM, assuming a tire size of 29.3", 135mph trap speed, 5% converter slip, the 4.11 gear gets me out the back door at 6684 rpm.

Its been over a month since my last confession. I've been busy with work, putting a tune up on the Ute, messing with the Probe, servicing the Truck, putting a hitch on Nicoles minivan, playing with my new ATV and other stuff. I put a lot of Stryker hours in over the weekend so I decided to take the afternoon off and get back on the Monaro. NHRA has started up again for the year and watching the new ProMod class inspired me to resume work on the rollcage.

I turned once again to Bend-tech EZ to design the halo. As with the main hoop the goal is to keep it up tight and high to the roof. Its a pretty easy piece as there are only two bends and they are both 90 degrees, so the only measurements required are width and length. Leaving 2" of "swag" or added pipe at either end (Bend-tech EZ has a setting for this), my cut length is 93" with the first bend at 21.5" and second bend at 61".

Multiple bend pieces can be tricky as it is critical to make the second bend in the same horizontal plane as the first. I use an angle finder to ensure the piece is level for the second bend. Even so, after laying the piece on flat concrete I could see that one leg is sitting about an inch higher than the other. Its not much but after test fitting I can see that the halo is not going to sit level from side to side. Securing one leg to the welding table and using a big bar on the other leg I was able to flatten out the halo and it fit much better on the second try.

This is the first piece (of many) that requires notching. My notcher is from JD Squared and really does a nice job. Its worth investing in BiMetal hole saws as they will cut better and last much longer than cheap hole saws. After adjusting the angle for where the halo meets the main hoop, I cut the tubes. A couple of things to note when notching, get your angles right and when you go to cut the opposite side, make sure your notch goes the opposite way.

I got some help from the wife to put the halo in place, and after some swearing got it up using a rachet strap to retain it. The picture on the right is from the rear viewing forward and I think I achieved my goal of keeping it high and tight, and also keeping the rear view mirror functional. Next I have to cut out the remaining dash sheet metal to make clearance for the A pillar bars, coming soon.

A local sandwich shop here sells sub sandwiches they call Grinders. The story goes that they were sold to shipyard workers building Liberty ships during WW2, and the workers were called Grinders, so the name stuck to the sandwich. Today I was a Grinder, a job that is dirty, noisy and definately not fun or as tasty as the sandwich.

I was hoping to get the halo and A pillars of the rollcage in but first the old rollbar tubing had to be removed from the 6x6 1/8" plate welded to the floor by the kick plates. When I put those bars in I was much less experienced and frankly did a pretty horrible job of fitting the tubing and tried to fill large gaps with the welder. The end result was a lot of weld metal to be removed. I cut out as much I could with the plasma, but ended up spending two hours with the angle grinder, on my knees, eating sparks. Picture is of one of the cleaned up floor plates.

Before that grinding experience I painted the rear housing with Duplicolor truckbed liner. It comes in a spray can and leaves a nice mottled finish and its supposed to be tough as nails. It definately looks the part. One tip I learned off TV is to take a piece of cardboard and use a hammer to punch the studs through, then overlay the gasket and cut around the gasket. This masks off the area where the third member installs. Very nice!