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yea thats what the phasing is refering to but the commodores run their phasing so the unis are not aligned its odd. so when i put it back together i figured id just align the uni joints but when i had a look at another stuffed manual tail shaft that i had and didnt have a vibration when it was ok the yokes arent aligned at all there about 35 to 45 degrees out from each other. i would try the clamp trick but im very particular about this old girl so i want to do it right.

so this is the other toy if got VQ series II statesman picked it up for $800 engine running but no drive so pulled the trans out found the torque converter bolts have been thrashing back and for and finally sheered taking out the flex plate and damaging the bolt mounts for the torque converter. so i sorted them out gave the trans a good service and clean and new seals while out stuck it back in and all ran sweet. also while doing the trans i saw it had a knock sensor fitted to it but wasn't plugged in and the IAT is not in the manifold but fitted into the air filter box so got the engine number and ran it through holden. turns out it is a 1998 series 3 maloo engine roller block so that's a score. since doing the transmission i've rebushed the front end new master cylinder caliper kits fitted series 3 vs alloy radiator fitted au thermo fans heap of new trims and clips and interior stuff front wheel bearings dont know how they didnt just collapse as soon as i move it there was basically no hard facing left on the inner race. searched down a set of impossible to find front abs rings. al thats left ot do mechanically is fit the new intake manifold gasket (leaking from front) move the IAT sensor sort out the exhaust has genie extractors (worst created extractors ever for a 5ltr) 3" system with single muffler in front of the diff and a resonator in the back and the drone is incredible. last long trip i did i had to wear ear plugs because i was deaf last time i arrived were i was going. got a new IRS LSD to build up for it and a T5 box that ive gotta build. picked one box with crapped reverse gear and the vs housing with no bellhousing for $50 then found a mate selling his vn one with bellhousing complete but the input shaft and counter shaft are buggered for $200 and i found a rebuild kit from US including new syncros, bearings, detents snap rings and seals for 300 including shipping so for around $600 should have a rebuilt v8 t5 good to go. i know it doesnt look particularly nice at this point in time but eventually ill give it to my mate to repaint spend a good weekend on it together and give it a respray back to original colours

nice work on the flex plate!!

Yea the only conclusion I can come to with that is either they were loose for a very long time and he gave the car a boot full and it failed or he was doing roll backs with it last owner was some crack head lol so I'm going with the latter he reckoned he was just idling along is what he told me

had the stato running sweet for months now needs a new harmonic balancer as its spun but today the missus decided to go to work got a call 20mins later
and theres a puddle of coolant everywhere got it home and this is what i found pumps leaking the seal on the bearing has come off and leakinf out and some major cavitation and to top it all of the clutch in the wagon failed the diaphragm failed between one of the fingers on the out side so while its apart pull the engine back out new sump gasket new rear main skim fly wheel clutch spigot bearing balance tail shaft and new diff pinion seal

been a while since an update but have had a few things happen 2015 ended with reversing a truck into the side of the wagon which gave me the incentive to get a few rust repairs done lost the photo of the original damage but my mate started on it and found this under the rear window then he promptly sent me this saying he decided he was going to respray the entire car instead of tail gate sills and the damaged quater
ended up it looking pretty good again this took about 8 months to get done as he was doing it as a love job for me only thing i had to pay for was insurance excess of 500 definitely more than the insurance claim amount worth of work and materials on it though
and the poor old statesman finally started to come to the end of its life body was degrading faster than i could fix it so it has been decided it with donate its extra 2 cylinders worth for the wagon now have a t5 i need to do a little bit work on to fit it and ive also had a v6 t5 input shaft shortened and modded the v8 bellhousing to suit the v6 and v8 t5 casings make it a bit cheaper for gearboxes or use up the couple of v6 t5s ive got laying around not going to be doing anything drastic with this old girl so box doesnt need to handle a 1000hp
and while this is all happening through out the year the missus is pregnant due end of feb 2017 so i used this to my advantage before little one is here and convinced the missus that if im fitting the 304 may as well make it a bit safer and upgrade the brakes a bit as well for bub of course also managed to find a c4 corvette being wrecked 5mins away from my place so got my self a set of rear calipers off of it and got the all 4 of the calipers sand blasted so vt front calipers and c4 corvette rears so i can run the thicker vented group a rear discs and gave them a coat of paint match them in with the other new gear just waiting on the caliper kits and wheel bearing kits to come then it can all go together

calipers waiting on the kits to come

The wagon looks good now.
I'm considering doing the brake upgrade on my VS wagon. What size are your rims?

wagon looks awesome mate, well done.

Thanks guys. The rims I have are 15s or 16s keep forgetting which ones but I figure if you can fit a set of 15 steel rims on it I should be ok