Vlad's rides thread

[vlad01]

Last thing on the S for now was an oil change, I couldn't get the oil filter off by hand and I didn't have any tools I could use, except a heat gun! A few min on low heat was enough to soften the O ring and turn it off by hand.

I was amazed how clean the filter and adapter was, even the oil looked pretty fresh.

All done for now, looks heaps better! Probably will do the brake fluid next, just so the lines don't rot out at least.

To keep myself sane from this relentless illness, what turned out to be some axolotls and a small empty 2 foot tank my son wanted, quickly turned into a bit ordeal and we needed to get a filter with live nitrifying bacteria since all the bottles and brands sold here weren't even alive, we bough a still in use tank setup with canister filter that had all live bacteria in it, tank basically was free with the filter for the price. Few months later keeping busy which has been good for me to keep me distracted from symptoms, turned into a restoration project, then a phd in chemistry and biology, so now we have a semi successful cold water planted aquarium with axolotls happy living in there.

I'm going to be redoing the whole tank when we move house as the sand has been the nearly the sole source of problems due to high limestone content and basically causing a calcium toxicity state that can't be fixed or really countered, thanks fb groups for the awesome advise on the sand! If anyone ever considers getting axolotls, don't even attempt to get advice from the net or fb, bad info and toxic people.

I feel sorry for the animals being put through hell with common miss information being the accepted guidelines for keeping them.

This is my baby girl, had her for over 10 years from a calf, I got 2 boys as well but both are kind of jerks, she is the best though.

The 22 and 23 summers were wet and green ones, first ones in their lives, the last we had like this was 2011 but they were born 2013 and 2015 for the other boy, so they only experienced dry summers with less feed. The recent wet summers caused a growth spurt in all 3, and as a result, she got split hooves, then it led to seedy toe (bacteria and fungus type hoof rot infection) I have been treating the infection for nearly 18 months with some success, but they still kept splitting badly, so about a month ago or so, I randomly googled what makes hooves grow better, I found that there is heaps of supplement, most use biotin to promote good and strong hoof growth, mainly for horses, but works on cattle as well.

I got some locally and been dosing it to some chaff with molasses every day! It had helped enormously and is slowly coming good, I expect this probably will take over a year to completely grow out. First time I have seen her coat on her neck go all thick and wavy like that and look shiny, much like other cows get, but I now think she may have been deficient in these vitamins for a long time and just though it was her breed being different to the others.

Bit of an off topic, but having animals to look after helps look after yourself too.

[vlad01]

Also forgot to mention that the brand new KC thermostat housing would not bleed, I found this. Pretty typical quality and workmanship of KC products.

[vlad01]

Haven't done an update in a while.

My health is starting to improve a bit and I am finally not so shit I can do stuff.

I had this VN wagon as a job given to me to get running and a custom tune.

it had a mildly hotted up VR v6 with a crow stage 3.
The whole thing was a mess, mismatched looms from VR to VN body that had signals and grounds going places it shouldn't causing the ECU to lose it's mind, bad grounds everywhere, broke fuse contacts, wrong relays (blew the cooling system to kingdom come from a wrong relay preventing the fan from working!)

Lots of duplicate wires, PS problems, the list went on and on. No thermostat was also found.

Anyway, after a few days I had it all sorted and started on tuning. Thanks for Dylan for a few refreshers on larger cam tuning.

I tell you, this although small cam, was the one I was waiting for to throw me in the deep end for crank, warm up, AE and cold start and idle. It was very hateful cam It hated anything to do with fuel below driving load and speed, it wanted lean, it wanted virtually no cranking pulses, virtually no AE, wanted more decay for DE, all cold tables wanted lean as. This took me the longest to sort with starting, then leaving over night and rinse and repeat to iterate on all those factors.

I finally feel I have got my tuning skills mostly filled now as nearly all engine, from mild to more wild were lucky enough to have little change needed for cold and start up, not this one though and I believe it's maybe from the wide LSA as most engines I have touched were much more narrow.

Anyway, the crow cam stage 3 is a sad cam, not much in it, and sounds pretty stock at idle and not much more power either, it loses lower and mid end which is weird where all engines I have tuned gained down low too with big cams, I put it down to the wide LSA again. I think the Buick just doesn't like wide ones as evident in their historical cam selections from factory to race. Ecotec change this from what I can tell, but the older engines all have tight LSA comparatively speaking.

I didn't take many pics, here is one of some harness rebuilding/modding and a video I put up.

At revs it sounds great though.

https://youtu.be/sC-1On-D9Os


While I was on that, I started on picking a donor T5 for the white VP, both had no complete good gearset. So I picked the newer one with reverse brake and it also had the much better input shaft while keeping the older box for the VP that has a much nicer casing and luxury features like rev brake isn't needed for something that is going to be basically a road race car White car is my replacement daily, so the brake should be a nice comfort feature.

I opted to go with all new gears and kit from the mustang 068 set and bits from the states from Tony aka Astro T5.

[vlad01]

Fuck I hate how iphone pics always post sideways or upside down online only.

So much wasted time rotating pics, saving, and then rotating them back, saving again to the same orientation you began with to work around this bug.

Anyhow, these a couple of my new T5 parts. I needed a new 5th gear and they are so $$, but after a failed attempt to get a good used one here from a gearbox specialist in Sydney, I was disappointed to find a perfect gear that was ruined by them sand blasting it. That gear is now at the tip I found a NOS one locally for $500 which is a little less than landed here from the US. They really are $$, most expensive single component for sure. I got the entire rest of the gear set for 380 USD, overhaul kit genuine was nearly 600 USD. So yeah, 5th gear is pricey compared to the rest.

I still yet to find someone who can repair the nose cone, my gearbox place's 3rd party mob's machinist quit between the few days from ordering the gear to picking it up and attempting to drop off the nose cone. last time I had one done was in 2016 and it was the same machinist. I swear my luck sometimes...

No rush on the box, so this I feel will be more of a summer project to built it.


Oh, you might recall me having issues with thermostat gaskets. I had the white car have no issues and I worked out that it was the one time I couldn't find my genuine stash, so I had to go buy one from Holden. Well this turned out to be the answer, the new gaskets don't leak, the old stock ones do and they are 100% idential to the eye.

In this pic, bad are on the left, good are on the right. I still don't know why. It's the same manufacture to Holden, same model of material and water marks.

[vlad01]

Finally got the white car polished, only took 6 months. Could only do a few hours every few weeks due to how physical it was and it would often make me crash for days each time.

Before it went back to the shed, I also removed all the rust that appeared after I modded the rear exhaust mount last year but didn't have it in me or the time to paint up the grinding and welds. The rust got pretty bad surprisingly, so bit of effort but it came up mint!

Started on the rear end at the farm shed, quite proud of myself, getting really good at pressing in the bushes and these coke can sized ones in the diff have always been my hardest ones, and they both installed awesome without a hitch.

The upper arms I did late last year/ earlier this year are in just finger tight until all the arms are in an fresh loctite before I can tighten with the toque wrench with the wheels laden and not hanging like this, so that any moment in the crush tubes can settle to a more natural position.

Also, with no springs installed, I was able to exercise all motions of the rear suspension and as suspected, the padhard bar is virtually touching on full compression onto the bump stops, so a superpro bar is in order when I have funds saved up. I was also able to confirm that the max wheel width is 215 as I always said and it's pretty close in some range of motions and 205 is more comfortable but still even that is tight when hard cornering is considered. So many of those know it alls on FB say 255 fit with ease, I have no idea what "with ease" they are referring to.

That will do me for tonight, will add the rest tomorrow.

I don't know why some pics refuse to display the right way, I have rotated those several times and they are still posting wrong with no change. Maybe the work around of rotating and saving doesn't work in win 11? Never had this work around not working on my main win 7 desktop.

[vlad01]

Hopefully the pics are the right way. Trying opening them in paint and then saving out as a different format, so hopefully ridding any what I assume are duplication meta data on image direction.

Since I already had the upper arms blasted and bushes done last year, the lowers were in order, plus I also rigged up my cruise control safety cutout in the improved version. Did the drilling and tapping as necessary prior to blasting/paining.

I found that someone bashed the brake pedal pin and closed up the safety clip groove from the deformation. I glued some sandpaper on the back of a 9mm razor blade, so that A. it fit in the slot as a micro file nor a hacksaw blade would not. B. not to sand the ID of the groove nor the good side, only where the metal was squashed in. C. the metal was so hard that file or hacksaw would not touch it anyway.

It opened up that the clip fit properly and rotated about without sticking which it did really bad.

Results speak for themselves, the finish looks fantastic, however I ran out of the Upol top coat, so the one remaining control arm is still im primer. My partner got me some in Bendigo after taking her car there for hail damage assessment. They has some travelling specialists that travel the country following large hailstorms and they setup shop and do all the insurance jobs for the hail damaged cars over a few months and then move to the next hail damaged areas. Never heard of such a thing, apparently normal smash repairers don't get involved in hail damage.

[vlad01]

While I am doing the rear end, I found the handbrake cable boots all perished and the cable is rather stiff with all the dust inside. So last time I got a cable from Auto cables now as Retro Spares, they didn't have the plastic cotton reels then but otherwise a good quality cable, so I thought I'd see if the Rare Spares ones were any better, confirmed they had the cotton reels. So I ordered one, I believe the only one they had in stock.

Well as you can see, the boots on them are a bit shite. So on the return label went.

So as my last conversation with Auto cables re the cotton reels, they could do them if I gave them my old cable. I confirmed the boots were still mint on the red VP all that time, 2017 I think is when I got the cables.

So I rang them explaining this and how they said I can supply the old cable, but they said before I could finish, yeah all our VN to VS cables have them now. So had I called them first, I could have avoided this waste of time with the Rares one.

Anyway, so when my money comes back, I'll order the Auto cables one and be done.

I have ordered and paid for 2 sets of rear and 2 front sets of VT pads from Intima brakes which should be similar or slightly better than the Forza FP3s I had, they will be manufacturing those around November. So hopefully I can save up a little to get caliper kits and hoses, and rotors for the rear and do all that too. Then it's just the Bilstein shocks and the superpro panhard bar to clear the exhaust remaining for the rear, oh and to replace the new tyres that were on the car when I bought it to Maxxis ones, it has those dreadful supercats on there, I don't want to die the first drive.


While I was on the theme of rear suspension, remember how I replaced the bushes on the rear of my shitbox around this time last year and had issues? Well look at those beutiful "OEM" style McKay bushes now lol. Should have just paid extra for superpro, didn't even take my own advise.

I also have been working on my nephews 4Runner (4shitter as I call it).

Engine out once again. Mark's 4x4 junk strikes again. Now I know why his original starter died. How can someone make such an obvious mistake.



We got the Dellow conversions gear now and tossed most of the Marks 4x4 stuff, I had the personal pleasure of hauling as far as I could at the local tip on a scrap metal/recycling run with the trailer we have borrowed for a while.

Started testing and measuring it all out and so far it all seems to allow stuff to fit heaps better, however we need to have a custom sump made, this one otherwise needs to offset forward 75mm more than it already is, and the engine mounts are a mess, they would offset some 125mm by the time everything is done, but this car has another engine mounting points farther to the rear by 200mm, and this would line up much closer given the engine now moves back 75mm with the Dellow bellhousing, they are miles different though, higher up too and different angles, so I don't know where to start with those yet.

I have been taking to ASR oil pans in Pakenham, they do one for the rear for the live axle version of this chassis, but this is IFS, so Monday they should reply where we left off on Friday arvo email trail. I hope they can fab the other stuff too, like the mounts and dust cover that need modding.

We plan to have the engine rebuilt by Dandy engines, hopefully all in one go with the car likely to go down to ASR as the two are all in proximity to each other, so might as well try.

[vlad01]

Does anyone know what the OD of the Holden V8 T5 front retainer is?

I am going have an engineering mob that make other retainers do one for the V6 T5 and they will sell them from that point on, but to make it easier for them I wanted to know if this OD for the V8 is the same as the V6, so that it will make it easier for them to program and spit out either part as the V8 one I am hoping is the same, just the end tube is shorter than the V6. So if they make V6 ones, then a V8 one is only one alteration in one dimension and the V6 ones can be turned down after the fact as well.


But the v8 one might be the GM based retainer, the V6 one is based of Ford and I am pretty sure they are different ODs. But then Malwood say that both V8 and V6 are Aussie only which could mean both are the Ford type with either long or short versions.

[vlad01]

Pedals are done ready for install at some stage.

I used my local mechanic's lathe to trim down the crush tube until I got a nice firm tolerance, the float on the pedal was huge, so it would have destroyed the optical sensor.

I also turned down while I was there an old rack end rod to make a drift to punch rivets flat on my shifter that I have all the bits done to rebuild and assemble.
The rack end rod is very hard metal, so it should work hopefully, needed to be 8mm at the end to fit between the plate and the forged socket, but hefty enough at the top to strike with a big fuck off hammer.

Still had dramas with the handbrake cable. Auto cables/Retro spares said they did the cotton reels on them, but sent me old stock predating them even though I literally had that conversation with them.

So 3rd time lucky, finally got a cable that was good. Only complaint is they are about and inch short on the inner cable, and I confirmed that was the case with the red car as well, so the adjustment for the relay rod is on the bare minimal range, where ideally it should be in the middle to give leeway in either direction. Still fine, but just an annoyance that no one seems to be able to just simply reproduce simple parts as per factory.

Once I had the cable, the rear end went back together.

I torqued up the bolts with the rear normally laden and also slightly preloaded the diff with the jack in the pic so that it simulates the direction the bushes want to move upon acceleration, so this should prevent the crush tubes suddenly slipping and banging forward when I do my drivey thing When tightening them without doing this, they can be in random positions that with enough force jump forward to where they want to be. When that happens, the tensile load drops off a little and is a catalyst for things working loose and flogging out bolt holes and mounting points.

This is pretty much all I can do for a while. My hands are stuffed all of the sudden from bad carpel tunnel and like a fluke, my mum just had her hand done about 8 weeks ago. Hers was ok until just this year, mine was really bad in my early 20s and late teens, but was fine all these decades until about 2 months ago it just flared up and hasn't improved much at all, even when not doing anything.

So I am going to try to get the same surgeon to do mine, hopefully both at the same time as I do not want to have two operations for the same thing.

[vlad01]

I redid the thermostat gasket now the 3rd time on the S now that I know fresh genuine ones straight from the Holden dealer works.

But look how crap the KC stuff is, that's brand new, warped and the metal is soft as plastic, just look how much the bolt heads sink in at 25Nm.

Now it's not leaking... so far.

Made a start on mocking up crap for the 4Shitter.

That is roughly were it should be in the bay, so there is some space at the rear near the diff, but will be a complex shape to get the max amount of oil.


Also, I can't recall if I mentioned it already, but I found a place in Broadford that do CNC stuff and that already make gearbox front retainers. I should have a T5 one specific to the V6 ready prob around the end of the month or so. I supplied all the bits for them to repro from and confirm fitment.