Torana SS

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Of course all that required removing the front guards to get access, and a through cleaning of the inner guard area. So, while I was there...

Cleaned up the wiring under the driver side and made some brackets for the cable ties so they sit straight instead of just through the speed nuts.


Tidier and hopefully doesn't trap dirt quite as much.


Keen eyes will also notice the clean speed nuts and bolts; they were filthy and generally looked pretty bad. Came up well with a lot of cleaning and a coat of black zinc though.

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Another long-standing fitment issue was the driver side flare position. It was OK at the back, but pointed down with the front sitting nearly half an inch too low. Doesn't sound like much but if you hit a driveway too fast with too much right hand down the tyre actually touches the flare and had cracked the paint. Moved this to match the passenger side.


Somehow this also lead to re-finishing both flares, which have had a few modifications in their lifetime.


And while I was at it, may as well replace the last few bolts that didn't match with stainless hardware and rivet nuts. This included the front spoiler, so that ended up being re-finished too.


Spent more time cleaning the paint gun than painting. One day I'm going to buy a decent one...


I have no idea what weird shade of off-white this car is. The paint I have was colour-matched years ago, but still isn't a very good match. If I ever get around to re-painting the whole car it will be straight white. But I think the flare looks a lot better now - it's straight, matches the passenger side, and I have a few extra mm of clearance.

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Another thing I couldn't leave alone was the front anti-roll bar brackets.

The bracket for the links on the lower arm is a fairly long piece of angle to clear the steering. This flexes itself, as well as having the fasteners in a position where the lower arm does the same. Over time this has accumulated quite a bit of dirt packed in between the arm and the top of the angle bracket.


Resolved with some additional bracing of the bracket, including a third bolt at the top.


Along with a threaded doubler plate that all three bolts screw into, instead of just individual nuts. The thread does actually go all the way through, just can't see from this angle. There are split washers under the bolt heads.

This should reduce flexing stress on the arm and make the bar more effective.

The original U bolts that hold the main bar are also not ideal. These are the only thing holding the side brackets and the bracing bar together, but they can't be bolted up solid because that would squash the bushings. The bushings are distorted somewhat regardless.


The factory style clamps are a lot better idea. They bolt up tight to the mounting surface without squashing the bushing, and support it better for minimum distortion. To make them work I had to widen the bolt spacing slightly.


Made some threaded bosses and welded them on, upgraded to 3/8" hardware. The side brackets and centre brace are a solid assembly.

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Sprung a significant coolant leak last night... turned out to be the cheap heater tap. I always run coolant purely for the anti-corrosion benefits but yes, that's a hole right through the bottom of it as well as part of the hose nipples rotted away.


I had a new spare VN unit, still has a thin metal component but mostly plastic so perhaps it will last better. Not quite configured correctly off the shelf though.


Made a suitable cable bracket along with a small nylon bushing to suit the cable end. The only modification to the valve itself is to bend the arm to a more suitable angle.


Assembled view.


Painted and installed. It's actually slightly smaller which is nice, and as an added bonus doesn't need as much effort to open and close.

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Have also been trying to improved the general driveability of the tune, but wasn't getting far with the areas where pulse width is minimal. The Deka 60lb injectors were always a bit overkill but they were available (and black), and I was still above the advertised minimum pulse width. But I was starting to get the impression that there was just a bit of a lack of control at low pulse widths; tried swapping out the factory 19lb injectors to test the theory a few weeks ago and was able to make some improvements. Those are definitely too small though so I managed to find a set of supposedly genuine Bosch 36lb.

These needed the additional groove cut for the retaining clips. This can be done with a hacksaw but I wanted a nicer result so made a small clamping sleeve to mount them ever-so-gently in the lathe (the blue injector was for testing before ruining the new ones!)


Ground down a tool to 1mm wide and cut the grooves, happy with that.


Installed. Unfortunately they're not black, but at least they're not blue or green or some such either.


So far so good, I need to do some more tweaking but I think a definite improvement. Only problem is now I fixed the heater tap, the top tank on the radiator has starting leaking...! Great.

[immortality]

Nice.

[vlad01]

I find the plastic on the heater taps, particularly the valve itself rots over time but mainly depends on the quality of the coolant. I've had good success with the Penrite 50/50 green stuff but also really good success with inhibitor only Tectalloy stuff. Cheap no name coolants eat plastic like no tomorrow and dislodge sludge and gunk from the block and makes the coolant go sludgy and brown in no time. It's like the cheap stuff is acidic or something?

Never had issues with metal rotting unless the car already had water only from previous owner/s.

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So the leaking top tank on the radiator had never been right from new, it opened up in one particular spot where the solder join was a bit average (just out of warranty, of course). I'd done a quick and dirty repair previously which surprisingly lasted a few years. Easy enough I thought, just remove the top tank and clean everything up properly then re-solder it. Nope. Cleaned everything really well and somehow that same spot still acted contaminated when I put it back together and it just wouldn't seal up.

While everything was out I figured a trim and tidy up of the folded chassis rail flanges was in order. Managed to keep the chassis number intact with some very careful welding.


Hunted around for a replacement that looks of reasonably quality, and was actually available (a difficult combination). Found this universal one which looks OK and is very similar dimensions to HQ, a little thicker.


New radiator, new mounts. Decided a small amount of rubber isolation was a good idea, made up some shoulder bolts to suit standard rubber grommets.


Mounted.

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Side-tracked again... now the wiring that was hiding beside the radiator had been exposed, it needed tidying up. Looked around for a mini fuse block and couldn't find anything even remotely neat, they all seem to have ugly spade connectors and are generally huge. Found some OEM fuse box terminals and 3D printed a holder which also has provision for a relay holder to clip on.

The relay and one fuse is for the cooling fans, there is another fuse for the fuel pumps (relay closer to the ECU) and one for the ignition box.

Back to the radiator. Fans cover the core nicely, well perhaps a bit more than that.


Started making sheet aluminium mounting flanges which wrapped around the ends of the fans, following by much swearing at the tig welder and giving up. Switched to thicker angle flanges which are more within my current skill level.

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Checking all the fittings on the radiator to make sure everything is sealed up... the overflow hose tail had been forced in and broke on removal.


Leaving a chunk of aluminium stuck in the filler neck which needed drilling out on an awkward angle. Found a super long drill bit and managed to get that done... along with damaging the cap seat! Crap.


This is another one of those times the lathe gets me out of trouble, this incredibly simple chunk of steel has a small ring of sandpaper super-glued to it for fixing the seat.


Fixed, phew.