Our 1975 GC Hardtop (pic heavy and epic read!)

[Draff]

looks amazing! you can tell endless amounts of hours went in to this restore job , love the color as to suits it really well

[Tj.]

Haven't been on here for a little while as the car has been of the road for about 6 months.
The water pump shat itself and I figured it was time to pull my finger out and do the engine conversion I've been talking about for ages.


In a way i wish i'd just fixed the water pump

Because this sucker's proving a little difficult to fit


I am consulting some people much smarter than myself this weekend so hopefully I'll have some news in the next few weeks! (or at least before december when the rego and pink slip are due )

[shuggy]

[Nath76LA]

That's a very nice hardtop you have there. Are going turbo or N/A.

I bought my LA also of Carlos about 5 years ago, unfortunately he hasn't got as many early Galants and Lancers as what he used to have.

My dad's also got a red hardtop which you may have seen around the area or around Castle Hill.

[Tj.]

N/A. Sensible road car this will be. In fact the engine is stock for now. Still an improvement.

And no I haven't seen a red hardtop around castle hill, I work in there! Tell him if he sees a bloke driving a fluro orange focus xr5 turbo gawping at him with a shocked look on their face, it'll be me.

[A112H]

I really, REALLY like this car, you have done a fantastic job and I like the conversion.
What are the probs it is giving you? I ask as I am considering converting my sohc 63 to dohc in my Galant and any heads up would be a bonus.

[Tj.]

Well if you've got the engine in the car that's half the battle won.

The issue I'm having is the engine mounts won't quite line up to the cross member and now the gearbox is bolted on, it fouls on the drag link.

I've used a narrow block (it's actually a Hyundai sonata G4CP but shhh ) with starwagon mounting brackets and sigma rubber mounts. Starion and starwagon mounts were too big but the sigma ones look good.
I need to move the engine back so the drag link clears, but the cam angle sensor is already hitting the fire wall.
Ideally the engine needs to come forward but the drag link won't clear. I'm seriously looking at a rack and pinion conversion.
Once it's bolted in I'm home and hosed.
I'm going to see Stuart Wilkins at SWR this weekend (my sister and brother in-law get their rally cars worked on out there) hopefully he can figure it out.


As for converting an existing wide block sohc to twin cam, the austarion guys have it covered in detail.

[Tj.]

More progress!

I solved the clearance issues. I was using the wrong gearbox sure, it was a narrow block box but it was about 60mm too long. The little "tower" where the gear stick bolts in was hitting the floor behind the hole and making the back of the engine and gearbox sit at a downwards angle (towards the firewall and draglink)

The solution? put the 4 speed back in
But it will work.

Now, the engine bay has been repainted as well as a few bits and pieces that i thought i may as well clean up while i had the engine bay empty the motor is about 90% complete (complete enough to put back in the car anyway ) but before I do i need to clean the crap out of the inside of the bellhousing.
I think the old engine had a leaky rear main as the inside of the bell is about 20mm thick in black gunk. Dont wan't that getting in the new clutch.

Oh and i had an absolute blast laying out and installing the fuel pumps and surge tank but its done.


I have some time off over the next few days so hopefully i'll get some photos up and make a solid push to get the old girl across the line!

[Nath76LA]

Shame about not being able to use the 5 speed. keep up the good work.

[75wagon]

Why does the box hit?
Which 5 speed box do you have?

The top one is the early 5 speed narrow block
the middle is the late 5 speed narrow block
and the bottom is a 2.6 Sigma 5 speed wide block

I heard recently that some of the late narrow block 5 speeds came with the shifter location of the wide block. Which location do you have?

Dave...

[Tj.]

Definitely the one in the middle. Well, that's going by looks. The shifter isn't that far back as it is on that widey but there is a plate on the top just like that middle box.

One other thing i failed to mention is that the mounting bolts (that is the bolts to which you bolt the mount and cross member to) on the gearbox are further back. I'll get some photo's side by side and take some measurements to confirm tomorrow. I did measure it briefly some time back and it was definitely longer.


I think i do have a shorter 5sp in amongst my collection but it's in bits. Some butt hole gearbox mechanic pulled it apart when i asked for a quote and then wanted to charge me $100 to reassemble it after taking 6 weeks to pull a few bits out of it and tell me the selectors were worn and that it'd cost me $900 to get the faces re-welded.


The four slotter is going in for now just to get it back on the road and in the mean time i'll keep an eye out for a shorter 5sp

[Nath76LA]

Tj,

Maybe try and get in contact with this guy and find out how he got around fitting his 5 speed. Is he on S-G?

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3104018/1 ... risbane-au

[75wagon]

Is he on S-G?

No, but I have his email address.
he is interested in a cruise but there are none up in Qld. Why?

Dave...

[woops]

Yeah the last cruise we had up here we only ended up with 4 members at it. There a few members up here with pretty decent rides but it's just difficult to organise everyone for a single date as many aren't frequent users of this site.

Jamie's coupe is done pretty nicely and I meant to ask him what engine mounts he used. I'm pretty sure his box is a 2L sigma one from what I remember.

[Tj.]

ooo0o0o0o it's all getting exciting now!

I've been maintaining a steady head of steam and making slow but gradual progress.

From where I left off in my last post, the engine bay had been repainted to bring it in line with the rest of the car. The GF and I tackled the rest of the detailing by cleaning and painting anything that looked old and shitty.
We tidied up the brake booster, painted all the fuel and brake lines black to make them contrast (they hadn't come our too neatly after paint) as well as painting the chassis rails black too. It sounds like an odd thing to do but it really dressed the engine bay up and it also seems to "fill" the empty spaces in. It's hard to describe but I'll post a photo when I can.

Before paint, I blanked off the old hole for the heater hoses. The dreaded CAS sits right over where they went through the firewall, luckily, the car used to have A/C in a previous life theres two round holes on the other side of the engine bay that will conveniently fit the bill.
On that note, i still need to plumb the heater lines up and modify the transfer pipe going from the water pump to the heater and find a heater tap.

Also, importantly, I GOT THE BLODDY ENGINE BOLTED IN PROPERLY AND PERMANANTLY!!


Ain't it purdy.

For those of you who tune in regularly you may remember that this car used to be an auto and that the bolt holes for the manual cross member didn't have any captured nuts?
Well, that was a headache. But after a combination of twisting a length of wire around a nut, super glue and enough profanities and thrown spanners to leave a bikie shaking I finally got the sucker to bolt up.

As for the CAS, this is how much clearance I had:

Yikes...

I gave the CAS a bit of a turn to see if it was rubbing and at first it felt as though it was slightly. That was until I heard the paint scraping off the firewall and then the back of the CAS (i got bored, pulled it apart and painted it... I'm pedantic like that ) after that little bit of paint scraping it turned freely.
My mate who was giving me a hand at the time put it quite well, he shrugged and said "it'll make it's own clearance". We shall see.

The next thing on my "oh christ thats filthy!" list was the brake master cylinder. I looked at replacing it as it had leaked at one stage (turned out it had a loose fitting somewhere and hadn't leaked in quite a while) plus it was pretty gunked up inside at first glance.
I priced one (Blacktown Autos actually had one listed for a GC coupe [incidentally the same part number as a GD with a vacuum booster] and even had one on the bloody shelf!! ) $165 even at trade discount
So I figured I better pull the old one apart and make sure that it was actually worth replacing. Turns out.....

...it wasn't.
The rubbers were like new, if a little covered in crud. Even the reservoirs cleaned up nicely!
I gave the body a coat of paint and put it back together. Good as new!

One of the little jobs I've had patiently waiting for me was reco-ing the tailshaft. Now that i've determined that the engine and gearbox line up with the original mounts I knew that I didn't have to shorten it.
I did however have to address the uni joints

Uhh.... yeah. We'd been driving with that for a little while without knowing. What makes it scarier is that it was the front uni too.

After that it's just fiddly little stuff like connect the clutch cable, speedo cable mount the radiator and I started looking at a bracket for the throttle cable. Haven't fabbed it yet but it's coming.

Probably the most exciting part is that it's currently up at Charlstone exhaust in Blacktown getting a new custom zorst made for it!!!

That's actual, noticeable progress!!


Not long now kids!

[75wagon]

Maybe if we ever get these cruises happening again I'll get to see it?

Good to see your having a win with it, and I hope things continue smoothly for you.

Dave...

[A112H]

Very nice mate, I love the attention to detail. Nice and neat

[Tj.]

The only major hurdle left is the wiring which I'm leaving to a friend who is a professional auto sparky. Just hoping he's available to do it.

In the mean time, I've still got plenty to loose ends.

[Nath76LA]

it's coming along great TJ.

I priced one (Blacktown Autos actually had one listed for a GC coupe [incidentally the same part number as a GD with a vacuum booster] and even had one on the bloody shelf!! ) $165 even at trade discount

My dad uses Hardparts up at Marryong a fair bit as he's mobile mechanic. They're fairly well priced with most of their stuff.

Good to her you got the gearbox sorted out.

Nath

[aussiedave]

Great read TJ

Makes me so keen to do a full rebuild on the Colt but funds will put a stop to that unfortunately. I think ill just get a season of racing done and see what happens in the off season.

Keep up the good work m8

[77galantv6]

i am a massive fan of this coupe and it just keeps getting better and better

love what you have done with it, will make it all worthwhile once its done

[GC75]

this is one of the best coupes ive seen fore sure...

love the paint down to the minor things like badges, engine is awesome to!

[Tj.]

Naw shucks guys, thanks for the encouragement.
The paint is unfortunately a little shabby now. It was a bit of a rush job done on the cheap so not quite enough preparation was done.
In the not too distant future we'll strip it right back and do it properly. Just gotta save the $$$

[Tj.]

It came back from the Exhaust Shop today!!
And they've done quite a nice job of it too.

I couldn't quite justify the $$$ for ceramic coating, and as much as i would have loved to have had a set of polished extractors in there I had to settle with black high temp paint.
The extractors are fairly impressive, not tuned length but not just slapped together either...




They were going to make 4 into 1's but the collector was a little too big to fit in next to the pitman arm on the steering box. So they went for 4-2-1's instead.
You can just see the heat shield I made for the steering box. It wasn't the easiest stuff for someone of dubious sheet metal skills to work with. It looks like the steering box is paranoid and is wearing a foil hat to stop the government stealing it's thoughts

But here's the kinda cool part...



They extend all the way back just past the cross member. Supposedly to create more torque
Oh, that's a high flow cat you see in there too.

The view from the cat back..



Maintaining a fairly straight line over the diff and out through a nice slash cut tip.




That's the camera operator with the list to starboard, not the car
I'm pretty chuffed with the job, although they did put a sticker on the car.... i kinda have a thing about that.

No matter, I've actually got a better sticker lined up...



For those of you that don't know, it's a Koreisha Mark. Used in japan to signal the car is being driven by an elderly driver (...hang on, hang on, I know what you're thinking.. lemme explain) You'll probably recognise it's opposite, the Wakaba mark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark that all the tuner kids run around with on their Honda Civics. Usually accompanied by a JDM AS FUCK sticker
Anyway, the Wakaba mark is actually used to distinguish novice or beginner drivers (makes you kinda giggle at the JDMAF guys a little huh? ) just like our P-plates.

Now like I said the Koreisha Mark is used as the opposite, to distinguish elderly drivers. But outside of japan it's sometimes used to represent an elderly japanese car. And you'll find one in the blog/magasine Japanese Nostalgic Car's logo. It's where I got the idea http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/20 ... -redesign/

I think it's a rather fitting and subtle statement, don't you?

[Tj.]

Slowly making more progress.
Unfortunately I lost my job about a week and a half before Christmas so cash flow is on hold at the moment but that doesn't mean there's not work to be done.

I took the fuel rail to an EFI specialist and had them fit the 3/8th barbed fitting into the rail properly. The one I used had a tapered thread and there wasn't enough room inside the rail to tap a thread that far in so the EFI place lathed it out for me and re-taped the thread. It's still crooked but that's from the thread I started
Anyway, the injectors are serviced and all the fuel lines are hooked up which means the fuel system is complete!

The tailshaft is reassembled with new unis and is waiting to go in, the clutch cable is in, I've run all the vacuum lines from the TB to their various destinations and continued cleaning and repainting parts like the headlight bowls and the horns as per my "oh christ that's filthy!" list I mentioned earlier.

One big-ish job i've done this weekend is mount the thermofan.



That is actually the bigger of the two fans that came out of the hyundai sonata i pulled the engine out of!!!
Waste not, want not

That's a GH sigma rad that I had laying about that's been recoed along with two bungs for the sonata's temp sensors. I've also fitted an expansion tank after reading decrepit's thread about his 4G63T'd galant purging it's coolant on the drive home ( http://www.sigma-galant.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5713 )
It may not be needed, but it's there. I kinda hope it's not needed because it's fugly
The fan's offset to one side because the motor on the back of it is pretty large and runs close to the water pump pulley.

That reminds me, i need to modify the water pump pulley. I've used a Starion water pump and the PCD is different to the sonata pulley (triton and L300 use the same pulleys as well) so i either need to track down a starion pulley or get someone to re drill the bolt holes and make a spacer to move it forward about 7mm. I tried drilling the holes myself but they're not centred and the pulley gets the wobbles I'm worried it'll chuck a belt.

I've also been busy today making a template for the throttle cable bracket but I'm not real happy with it. Anyone have any photos of what they've done, I'm interested to see some other ideas.



Not much to go now. Need to mount the airbox which is nearly done and then it's on to plumbing the heater and rad then its off to the sparky!
Stay tuned!

[A57C]

very cool thread!
like that you relocated the thermostat housing (you must be reading zerog?)
is the cas still fouling the firewall? or did you pound it a "little"?

ps, dam you guys pay a lot for brake masters

[Tj.]

Yeah I did pick that idea up off zerog but it's not completely faultless.
And yes I did have to beat nine shades of shit our of the firewall for the CAS because I'm too cheap to run an aftermarket ECU

Update coming in a few minutes! Unemployment has given me a wealth of spare time

[Tj.]

Progress progress progress!

So with my abundance of spare time I've managed to modify the airbox and get it bolted in!



It is the original airbox out of the Sonata and because, as I just mentioned, I'm being a tightwad and using the original ECU, i have no option but to use the original airflow meter. It's a big chunky SOB that resides inside the barrel shaped filter itself rather than a straight through tube job like many other cars. And because I have to use that stock AFM, i gotta use the stock airbox. It's as ugly as a hat full of half chewed arseholes but I want to run a closed airbox for now and this is my only option.

Not a real biggie as it tucks neatly into the space where the battery tray used to be. That's been relocated to the other side of the engine bay to make things a tad easier.



Also, I've been making a swag of different templates for a bracket to hold the throttle cable in place and I settled on this design and bent it up yesterday. Whatdya reckon?




It's not final and it's bodgily held in with one bolt at the moment, I need to finish the top of it to hold the cable but I'm waiting until I have a new, longer cable to make sure I get it right and don't have to make it again.

While I'm waiting I'm going to get some tubes bent up to use to plumb the radiator in. Rather than use flexible hoses, which I hear don't last too long, I'm hoping I can get the exhaust place to bend up some short lengths of stainless and use straight pieces of rad hose to connect it up. Should be nice and neat and reliable.

While I'm on the topic of bending tube I'm going to source some tube to run a vacuum line over to the brake booster. The outlet for it is on the manifold facing the wheelarch up near the charcoal canister completely on the opposite side of the engine bay (it's the bit sticking out with the blue tape on it).
Rather than run a thick ugly hose across the top of the firewall that'll stick out like a swollen pair of dogs cags I'll run a solid line across and tuck it up under the seam along the top of the firewall hopefully hiding it. It'll be a much smaller diameter and wont perish like rubber hose. And I'll only need two short lengths of rubber hose hopefully keeping cost down.

Just gotta figure out how to bend it without pinching it or fatiguing the steel.

Then it'll be ready for the sparky and then it'll be tearing around the streets again!
It's getting exciting! I haven't been able to heel-toe in a car since it came off the road!

[GB_BB4C]

While I'm on the topic of bending tube I'm going to source some tube to run a vacuum line over to the brake booster. The outlet for it is on the manifold facing the wheelarch up near the charcoal canister completely on the opposite side of the engine bay (it's the bit sticking out with the blue tape on it).
Rather than run a thick ugly hose across the top of the firewall that'll stick out like a swollen pair of dogs cags I'll run a solid line across and tuck it up under the seam along the top of the firewall hopefully hiding it. It'll be a much smaller diameter and wont perish like rubber hose. And I'll only need two short lengths of rubber hose hopefully keeping cost down.

Just gotta figure out how to bend it without pinching it or fatiguing the steel.

Got a friend who is a plumber?? if so ask to borrow his pipe bending tool.

[dwlee]

Nice work, are you sure you are going to get full throttle opening with the throttle cable bracket as shown in the photo or is the throttle half open in the photo rather than closed?