OddlyShaded's GA Galant

[75wagon]

With all of that crap in there, I'd just be pulling the head off for a look.
The most you'll be up for is the price of a head gasket, but if it's more of a problem, then you might save yourself more coin buy not trying to get it going without looking inside first.

Dave...

[VGJONO]

Well its official, the engine is seized and seized good, we tried to get it unstuck today by dragging the little GA up and down the road behind my dads hilux, sadly no matter what we did we couldnt free the up the motor, essentially it was just getting draged up and down the road with the rear wheels locked up so we are going to rebuild the 1600 bottom end i have in the shed then drop that in there with the head off of this motor (providing all is good with it) so until we get that started we will just tackle some small odd jobs here and ther, first up will be converting the speedo to kph. then just collecting bits and peices that we will need.

[VGJONO]

The first part has arrived, only something small, but something I feel is essential

[Scorpma82]

metric speedo???

Was urs originally in MPH???

[VGJONO]

Yep the GA Speedo is on mph

Not so much car related but my little sister got her P1 license today, she is already sick of the Commodore so I guess she will just have to get to work on the GA

[ripthesystem]

I wonder if the speedo sticker comes in white

Nice work!

You should force her to fix the engine and then take it for your own

[Scorpma82]

I would've left it in MPH....keep that nostalstic presence

[VGJONO]

I would leave it if it were my car, but she is going to be driving it, she only has 4 points on her license for the next 3-4 years, so its necessary so she can tell the correct speed. now i would have really liked to have found a dash similar to 75glnt's GB dash which reads both MPH and KPH.

And it is now getting the 1600 out of the GD Hardtop since that motor runs so sweet, for those that havent seen the video of that motor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYYSRv73hU0

And it also looks like i might have to get this thing thrown together faster than i thought, My sister went for her first drive by herself in the crummydore, and sure enough as she pulled into the carpark of the local shopping centre it died so i will take the motor out of this in the next week or two and drop it into the GA, then we will work on fixing up the interior, im thinking of just buying some cheap carpet to replace the shredded stuff in the car at the moment, just cut sections to size and they can work out until she can afford proper carpet for it.

Cheers
VGJONO

[ripthesystem]

Hey jono,

I bought carpet-like material from spotlight and used that as the flooring in my old mazda 1300

I later decided to upgrade to that 'plush pile' crap off ebay and when it arrived it fitted almost to suit but still wasn't as good as i thought it would be for $200

I'd say if you have the time to spend on cutting some carpet perfectly into shape then do that and save $$

Besides, the carpet in galants aren't too intricate anyway

[A112H]

Yeah, I have the ebay shit in my hardtop and have never been happy with it. It will do until I can afford or care enough to get a pro to make and fit some proper stuff.

[75glnt]

Tip for the carpet? Heat gun/hair dryer if you wanna be there for hours! And then press it to the floor.

Even tru-fit carpets are the same

[VGJONO]

Well school holidays have started so my sister is getting stuck into the GA, she is quite excited to get it on the road, managed to drag me outside to do some stuff today after work. may have only been changing the wheels, but its progress none the less





essential to do list is:
- Engine swap
- new carpet
- front seats (dyed and fitted)
- rear seats (replaced)
- make new door cards (unless someone has a set for cheap)
- check brakes and suspension
- repair rust, and sand and paint surface rust
- replace dash and glove box (converting the dash to kph)

Maybe list:
- Respray the roof
- paint some odd bits and pieces
- stereo


More to come soon
Cheers
VGJONO

[75glnt]

Looks kinda cool with the new wheels

If you and I got into the engine. It should be out, new one in and running in a couple hours easy

Lookin good guys

[VGJONO]

ill be doing it during the week, i know what im doing this time around, so i will be extracting the motor from the hardtop myself with the assistance of my sister if needed, but taking the motor out, and fitting the new one in the GA will be done primarily by my sister, i will help of course but the idea is so she can learn a thing or two. should take no longer than a day, to day and a half before the old one is out, new one is in and its back together ready for some test drives

[75glnt]

No worries

Good to see some progress though

[VGJONO]

done some shopping thismorning, went and got stuff to make up new doorcards, also got vinyl dye for the new front seats and green wiper blades, apparently the car needs to be orange, black and green meaning the brake calipers and drums will be green, aswell as the rocker cover.

[Scorpma82]

I went down the exact same path with the door cards......believe me.....get some 2mm underlay and use that before the fabric.....if you dont use it.....the cars will sound very cheaply made....and wont have that soft feel to them!!!

[VGJONO]

cheers mate, will look into that

Also converted the dash to KPH using one of my NOS stickers

[75glnt]

How hard is it to dismantle the cluster? See the pattern on the right of the speedo? Kinda like a corsair? Well. I'm gonna drill the centre out to fit a 2mm led light for a shift light

[DriveBy]

WoW the difference from the wash alone would keep me stoked for weeks. Swapping in a good motor sounds a lot less work for now and then with the old on out you can strip it and see just how badly pitted with rust the bore might be.
She's gonna have a great little car when you're done!

[VGJONO]

@75glt we didnt have to pull the cluster apart, all we did was take the facial and perspex off so we could put the sticker on it, but i know what you are talking about, from what i can see you can remove that entire section to replace it with a clock or something, i would say it wouldn't be hard to sort out a shift light in there.

@Driveby Cheers mate, thats the plan, sadly it comes up alot better in photo's, there are alot of chips in the paint from where it has had a light collision, and a few other chips just from sitting so long (you know careless people walk past and ding/scratch stuff kind of thing) once its touched up it will hopefully be an awesome daily for her, she already says it will never be sold

So its been stinking hot and i was silly enough to say i would help someone collect a civic today so not much progress, we will tear the front end down tomorrow and take the old motor out, hopefully by monday afternoon we will have a running car so we can attend other matters. also does anyone have any idea where i could get black carpet?

[75glnt]

eBay. $140 for the moulded carpet..

Or just flat carpet?

Try a embroider or something?

[VGJONO]

flat carpet, we are doing this on the cheap

[75glnt]

Ipswich (yamanto) have a warehouse that throws carpet away. So it's free. Then black paint from Wayne's world

[VGJONO]

Well work has begun, we should really have taken the motor out of the hardtop before starting this, but my sister got a little excited and wanted to work on the GA



after removing the exhuast manifold i can see that the port for No.3 cylinder is extremely corroded, i would think it is safe to say that it would need extensive machine work to ever run again.
Also managed to read what the sticker on the rocker cover says, apparently this engine is a reconditioned engine by "Gem motors"(i think that was the name)

[VGJONO]

Well motor is out, sister has called it for the day, but got the engine out and now we just need to get ready for round 2 with the hardtop
after some of this

we get this


not healthy




i plan to make a start on the door cards so i have some indoor stuff to do over the next few days incase it rains or is extremely hot again

Cheers
VGJONO

[VGJONO]

Bit more of this went on today but we got the engine out of the hardtop to go into the GA tomorrow

I have also cut out some new door cards, havent got any photos yet, things have slowed as my sister has been volunteering at a horse school so she can get lessons ect.

Cheers
VGJONO

[VGJONO]

well new motor was in, took all day (long story) but with the help of 75glnt and his father, my sister and another of my mates we got it in, also filled the gearbox up with new oil (was empty)




To do list for fire up:
- Fit clutch cable
- alternator
- fan + belt
- exhaust manifold
- fuel lines
- starter motor and wiring
- radiator and water

we will get these done during the week of an afternoon, so we can have the engine running by the weekend, then we can concentrate on making it pretty

Cheers
VGJONO

[75glnt]

[VGJONO]

Got some more work done to it today

List includes:
Fit clutch cable
fit earch cable
new fan belt
new oil + filter
new fuel lines and fuel filter
new -ve wire from coil to dizzy
radiator + hoses fitted and filled with coolant
rad support fitted
throttle cable fitted

Heres some pics from today, only took us 3 hours to have it ready to run, then another 2 for me to trouble shoot some wiring gremlins





Heres the video of its first short run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... aIefm2v79Q

we gave it a quick run around the yard and discovered a few more problems, the brakes dont work, no fluid in the lines at all and the front right shock absorber collapsed.

More to come
VGJONO