Ive had the car since i was 18, before that it had one original owner, my late grandpa. Its a 1980 GH SE sedan. Interior is blue velour and and in mint condition. been garaged most of its life so had no rust.
First thing I did to it was the stereo, speakers ect, since it only had two 4" cones, broken tapedeck and AM radio. Soon after that i got new tyres and 14" rims. finding 4 stud rims that would fit was hard, but im managed to find some 'Performance' brand ones that fit 14" by 6" with 195's (any wider would rub on the rear tyre wells), as it is the fronts grab the guards if you turn to quickly. I also replaced the shocks and put in some KingSprings.
I Painted up the brake drums and calipers Yellow with VHT caliper paint, and thus began my Yellow theme I also debaged it and removed the ugly rubber strips along the doors. Luckily there weren't any holes or pegs in the metal to hold them on so it looked fine once they were off, however you could see a noticeable paint difference on one of the doors (dodgy painters must have just resprayed up to the strip at some stage...tsk tsk tsk)
I also had to replace the head lining. I got this done at Axion in Dadny for just over $100, They used felt instead of the original vinyl and embossed flames into it too, looks nuts. Picture to come...
Later on I put Extractors on with a 2" pipe since the original exhausts had rusted out. Upon removing them though, after having been driving it for about a year, a noticeable crack appeared on the 2ltr block and I decided to upgrade. (apparently cracks in the 2lts are common) I purchase another GH for $500 no RWC but i didn't care, all i wanted was the engine and gear box.
This lil guy had a bit of rust, and the interior smelt funny, but the engine had been degreased and looked fine. It was a slightly larger 2.6ltr and a 5 spd manual seemed to have alot more power than my lil 3spd auto. In hindsight it would have been good to keep the panels and windscreen, but there's are only so much crap you can store in your old mans garage. The plan was to to put my old cracked engine and 3spd into the silver GH, but apparently the floor plans are different and the bell housing wouldn't fit. So off to scrap it all went.
I took the car to JPC performance up in Tomas town with the engine new engine and gearbox. After picking it up I continued the Yellow theme and painted the engine.
What was done on the engine?
Head shaved
Bored out to almost a 3ltr 4
New cams
ACL race pistons
Tighter springs on the valves
Fuel pump removed replace with electric
Clutch fan removed replaced with a 12" Thermo fan installed
Inlet manifold modified to suit double barrel weber carby
Got alot of stuff chromed, including the rocker cover, alternator
The new engine and chrome parts installed. Unfortunately i lost my Aircon during the engine swap
After that, I picked up a couple of gauges for and an under car neon kit (yeah thats right) for $100, an absolute steal since they had the chrome casings for external 'come steal me' mounting. I instead mounted them on the interior dash, right on top of where the AM radio speaker is. i removed the speaker and mounted them with a few zip ties to secure them. sounds dodgy, but they look great.
I also change the steering wheel to a smaller woodgrain one from my bro's old VK commodore, it made steering heaver, but gave me more leg room since my knees almost touch the dash. I also painted up the dash and made some custom white gauges. unfortunately they perished in the heat/sun after a few years. would like to revisit this mod one day.
After that I put some flames on it using vinyl. I was hard to put on and looked ok... the best way to apply these is to use a spray bottle with detergent and water, that way you can slide the vinyl around to place it, then use a credit card or license like a trowel to slide the water out and make it stick (the detergent prevents the water effecting the glue) but i didn't not know this at the time and damaged the paint a lil bit. after a couple of years i got sick of the dodgy
flames and ripped them off, taking some paint with em.
I also tinted the windows at TopTint down near Frankston. It was also around this time that we put the bonnet scoop on. A mate of mine picked up for $3 at a swap meet. its and after marked Ford GT scoop from a XW i think. its made of fibre glass and looked pretty scummy, but we put some filler on it, sanded it and sprayed it. literally took a jigsaw to the bonnet and cut a 5" 6" hole. Screw it down and sealed it with Sicaflex.
A few years after that my mum backed into it while I was parked on the drive and dinted in the drivers door, I managed to find a new door and decided to get the car resprayed. Not the whole thing just the doors, guards and back. the roof n boot n bonnet were ok, I mainly wanted the 2 colour door fixed and a few scratches covered up. The spray painter said it was a nightmare job to match the paint as it had faded unevenly, but I thought he did a really good job. you can see in the pic below that the paint on the bonnet vs the guards n scoop is slightly off.
So that was that for about 3 years. just been driving it and enjoying it. I got into motor bikes and wasn't driving the car as much anymore. After the engine mods it gets around 14-15 liters per 100kms so not the cheapest to run. I haven't had any issues with it though, other than the diff collapsing, which i managed to replace for $80.
A few years later though, rust appeared.... a lil bubble here, a lil bubble there, and before you knew it it was every where, some on the bonnet from where i had pulled the flame stickers off, some around the chrome striping around the windows. Could be since I moved closer to the bay... since I've had it, it hasn't been garaged and the 'half' respray job probably just masked the rust that was lurking beneath the surface. After 6months of deciding what to do about it, and not wanting to spend anymore money on it. I decided to have a go at fixing it myself... how hard could it be?
I planned to cut and patch the major rust and sand and respray the whole car in the 2 weeks off over Xmas. That didn't quite happen, as I removed the chrome around the front n back windows the rust was huge. the closer I looked the more I found but i spent months sanding, filling, fibreglassing until it was ready to respray.
The first part I did was the under side of the bonnet and boot. Since I'd never used the spray gun before I thought this would be a good place to start since it wouldn't matter too much if i got runs.
I bought 3 or 4, think it was 3 litres of paint form Milsoms Automotive up in Nuddawadding, off a recommendation of a private mustang restorer. It cost me about $375 once you include the Clear coat, spray suit, sandpaper, respirator, 1000's of rubber gloves, plastic sheeting and masking tape i used it was probably closer $600. Not too bad since most spray painters wouldn't wanna touch it.
I Also purchase a FireBird decal for the bonnet, just like a Trans AM, why? coz why not? it looks cool.... well I think so anyways... got it off ebay for $50 including postage from the states. It went on better than the flames, but I didn't use the spray bottle method this time either. It was in in 2 pieces and took about 1 hour to apply trying hard to get the 2 wings to align and not get any bubbles under it. I put this on before applying any clear coat to the bonnet.
I also sprayed the mirrors and front grill, I resprayed inside the door jams too, basically everything except the engine bay and used every last ml of paint, so if your going to respray a sigma don't buy any less. better to have more left over for touch ups than try n match colours later on I recon.
So that's pretty much that, took almost 9 months to a year to finish respraying it since I was only able to work on it on weekends. The clear came up pretty good. I wasn't sure if i could do it in stages or not, but I did, and some over spray landed on parts I had already cleared, then dried leaving a rough dull feel to it, but I think a good cut n polish/buff could fix this, just haven't gotten around to it. Next time I would cut the rust out myself and spray the colour myself but get a pro to do the clear. All in all im happy to have it back on the road n look nice n neat. There were some more pics of the major rust on the parcel shelf I cut out n welded new steel into, but I can't find them, might post them on a separate thread about panel work if i can dig them up.
After the enging was warn in a bit i too it to the drags and ran a high 15. I think if went back now, and maybe lowered the weight a lil I could get closer to 14's but the engine isnt as hot as I'd hoped. I might convert to fuel injection in the future, maybe a turbo, but it all comes down to money really. for now im just happy driving it...
Hope you found it interesting any questions let me know.
---Chris---
and for a first time at spraying not to bad at all.
And you tend to, somewhat sadistically, buy the el-cheapo ones which rip when they come into contact with, well, anything!
