ddt's 1979 GE sigma wagon 'LIL RED WGN'

[ddt]

I guess i should make up a page for 'LIL RED WGN' ..


This is the car as it looked when i purchased it from a nice old lady. The odometer showed a healthy 490,000km but been well taken care of.


First thing i did was give it a turtle wax- came up very nice.
Next was the replacement of the vacuum tubing for the carby, replace the vac advance and free up the dissy. Pulls much better now.
Changed out the SE grill for the GL one and sorted out the head-lamps which were mismatched etc.


Sorted out some rear hatch seal issues which were allowing fumes in. Ordered some replacement plates as the originals are quite ratty now. I'll pick em up this week.


The SE interior still in pretty good nick.
5 spd Jap box
good tinting
working AC
rubbish stereo
collapsing roof-lining (yay)


plans are to lower with king springs soon and either fit white-walls to the 13in cheviots or get some 15in wherrets.. or something.
Diff sounds like it should after 490K and so needs attention (rebuild, replace? need to get some advice there.)

it's got some rust here and there- but as i don't plan on taking it out in the rain and it looks neat enuff, i will leave it for now.

hopefully i've got a set of venetians coming my way soon and i have a chrome roof-rack i want to fit up also to complete the 'look'!

[shuggy]

this is a beautiful car
well done

[woops]

That car looks really neat and tidy. Makes me a little dubious about the odometer reading being genuine. I would have expected more like 100,000 to 200,000 km's max. Could the instrument cluster been swapped out at all in it's lifetime. What does the drivers side carpet and the pedals look like?

[75wagon]

It seems to be in awesome nick for the km's? Look at the drivers seat, I would expect it to be in way worse nick for those km's.

collapsing roof-lining (yay)

My dad's GE did this with 100000km's on it. And it was kept in the garage all it's life too. I think it started doing it in about 1990? The problem is common.

Dave...

[ddt]

That car looks really neat and tidy. Makes me a little dubious about the odometer reading being genuine. I would have expected more like 100,000 to 200,000 km's max. Could the instrument cluster been swapped out at all in it's lifetime. What does the drivers side carpet and the pedals look like?

hmm well the carpet looks ok -but the lady had carpet off-cuts throughout.. seats are really good nick but had lots of weird lint on them when i bought it so it may have had seat covers most of the time.

When i 1st looked at the car i assumed it was a 5 digit odometer like my old 1978 GE wagon (the 6th was 100m) so i was surprised to find it was a 6 digit one. Anyone else have a 6 digit GE odometer? if not- it may have been modified from a GH cluster or something. i have noticed the trip-meter doesn't reset anymore which may be evidence of tampering?

[ddt]

I haven't had much time to spend on the wagon lately, I haven't even started it up for months. Battery needed a charge but started fine. I went and did some stuff while I let the engine warm up. Later i return about to put the bonnet down and go for drive and i notice a fine jet of fuel hitting the radiator hose (killing a mosquito that happened to be there). Yep leaking fuel line!
Definitely a wake-up call for me. Check your fuel hoses guys/gals mine had gotten hard and started cracking. If i hadn't found it early, I could have been the owner of a smouldering lump of metal at a traffic light.

Decided to fix the sagging vinyl roof. Noticed the ceiling itself had started sagging in places so i screwed a bar of galv iron to give it some back-bone. It improved it but didn't fix it completely. i suspect it will get better over time as the bar acts like a leaf spring under tension so eventually the particle-board/masonite ceiling will start to sag up instead of down.

Next i brushed off all the loose foam backing and brushed on some adhesive (surprised that needed the entire 1L can!). I did one side first and made sure the white felt was in position before gluing up the second side.

Whilst i had lots of the trim out i took advantage and gave em a good clean with metho and then a few coats of tan coloured vinyl paint. Look like new again! Here's the headlining refitted.

[ddt]

Put on a set of turbo rims (Globe Montego) that i got from Smithy. They were fairly rough but had all the centre caps. I hit em with heaps of 120 GRIT wet and dry, making sure that the final passes were in the same direction and did a once-over with 400 grit. I didn't want a 'chrome' finish as i think the Montegos look better with a rougher brushed look.


the tyres here are shagged 195/60r15s which are a tad big for the GE. Will try 195/55r15s and 185/60r15 and see which i prefer.
Definitely needs lowering now. Still considering to lower the front only or to lower all round and keep the typical 70s era nose-up stance.

[75wagon]

Nice improvements

Well done.

Dave...

[ghuphill]

the wheels make the car look real good as for the size of the tyres,195/60/15 is the correct size tyre on the pws and gh turbos,so even if lowerd a little should present no problem,being a ge i would suspect its the same as a gh , i like the fact you didnt go for the polished theme on the wheels ,

[ddt]

thanks for the comments. The GEs had a smaller rolling diameter than the GHs -i think 175/75r13s so 195/55r15 is closer to original. 185/60r15 is a bit bigger but is a bit narrower less chunkier tyre. I might keep the 195/60r15s on the back to give me more legs but put the narrower ones on the front.

Actually the RH front rim has a really old Pirelli P6 on it that i like the look of. The other tyres are all Kumhos and even though they are supposedly the same size; the Pirelli is definitely narrower -you can even tell in the photos.

[1979GE]

I love this thing, i did like it better with the factory rims on it but it looks good with the turbo's, clean GE's look unreal, i need to do my roof linning so this post will be very helpfull, Thanks, its looking great mate :-)

[ddt]

I love this thing, i did like it better with the factory rims on it but it looks good with the turbo's

I'm still keeping the factory cheviots as they have good rubber (but have to do something about the corrosion). I've got some pepperpots to clean up that i picked up for $50 too, but have outrageously large rubber on them (shagged).
I also want to track down some steelies with SE hubcaps and fit some whitewalls. I think she'll look good rolling on a set of those.
All self respecting ladies have a large shoe collection, right? lol

..though the wifey is not digging the piles of tyres in the backyard -i've got a set of 16in Verada rims to get rid of too.

[ddt]

Test fitting some 2nd hand venetians i got a while back. The tint is quite dark so effect is subtle.
Anyone fitted venetians before? It looks as though they were glued in place -probably using that glue made for sticking up rear vision mirrors to windscreens?
I don't really want to commit that far though as the tint would get damaged when removing.

[1979GE]

the blindes look awesome!!! and white walls on GE steel hubcaps would look unreal :-)

[75wagon]

Venetians usually have tabs that are jammed into the rubbers.

The tabs are fitted to the uprights and are held in place with grub screws.
I find it hard to believe that they don't have them. Have a close look.

Dave...

[ddt]

Venetians usually have tabs that are jammed into the rubbers.
The tabs are fitted to the uprights and are held in place with grub screws.
I find it hard to believe that they don't have them. Have a close look.

Ah OK -that's exactly how i had mounted the one in the pic! But there's definitely some kind of glue residue on each of the ends and it's only on the sections that would face the glass. But anyway, I'll just jam them in then! Thanks for that.

[75wagon]

Thanks for that.

No probs. I have a pic of the one's on my Bro-in-laws Commodore that was here today if you need it (what's the chances he had his venetian off just as I read this question?)
BTW, I like 'em. They look good

I wish they made them for Galant wagons? (they don't. I've tried) I might have to make them, if I really want them

Dave...

[ddt]

I wish they made them for Galant wagons? (they don't. I've tried) I might have to make them, if I really want them

That reminds me when i had my 8 seater TS magna wagon and was thinking how to make up venetians for the rear sides by butchering up an old set of wooden blinds i had. Never got round to it though and i (regretfully) sold it anywayz. lol

[ddt]

Ok, fitted venetians. Keeps the rear shady but rear visibility is slightly affected.
Tyres are now Pirelli 195/55r15s all round (they weren't keen to let me have 195/60 on the rear). They ride very nicely.
Also fitted some SE rear mudflaps (previous ones didin't have the chrome trim -maybe was only available in '78?).

Next step is to lower it with King springs (any other alternative?). I'll probably go the lowest i can for the front (30-35mm, i believe) and if i can, about 20-25mm for the rears.

[ddt]

Got LIL RED WGN lowered with King springs all round earlier this week but as outlined on a different thread; the fronts came down lower than specified and the rears almost unchanged which results in a pronounced rake front to rear.
King springs part number for rear lowered springs for a wagon is actually the standard height spring used for the sedan. There's only about 50kg difference between the sedan and wagon so I'm guessing that extra weight wasn't enough to compress the standard spring 30mm? Going to ask them to swap out the rears for lowered sedan springs which should drop the rear down to something reasonable. Pics below; top is current stance of the car, bottom is with the rear photoshopped ~25mm lower.




The suspension guys changed the ball joints and combined with the steering box tightening i did last week and the stiffer springs has made a huge improvement in the general handling.

[ddt]

Took my old rear springs (standard height Pedders springs) to get reset 20mm lower as the lowered Kings i had fitted all round didn't do anything at the rear(though the front came down 50mm).
Fitted em this afternoon. It was my first time to fit rear springs -was surprised how quick and easy and it was. It took less time than i usually take to do an oil change.

it looked like there had been some rubber in the bottom spring seats at some point -was only a little bit left. I'll have to see if i can find some rubber or old hose i can cut up..


car came down probably 25mm like in the photochop a couple of pics up. So pretty happy now.

Next items on the agenda
-fix diff whine and driveline play
-fit decent stereo

[75wagon]

Looking good.

I have an idea that I don't know if you'll be interested in?
Because you have tinted windows, have you thought about painting your venetians black?

Dave...

[ddt]

have you thought about painting your venetians black?

i hadn't actually. Actually i could only find 1 picture of a wagon fitted with black venetians -looked better than i thought it would but i need to see it on an old school car to be convinced.

[cvnewboy]

Wow what a fantastic car!
I'm convinced the turbo wheels or the pepperpots will be the least trouble for mine, if I can find some cheap somewhere
Called nearly every wrecker in melbourne, no luck finding series 1 scorpion wheels yet, hopefully will pop up one day.
Your wagon looks fantastic lowered, definitely an option I'd consider doing myself.
Keep up the good work!

[A112H]

How much do you want to pay for a set of early Scorpion wheels? I have a set of 4 in mint condition but not sure if I want to sell them, my arm could be twisted with the right offer

[ddt]

Wow what a fantastic car!
I'm convinced the turbo wheels or the pepperpots will be the least trouble for mine, if I can find some cheap somewhere
Called nearly every wrecker in melbourne, no luck finding series 1 scorpion wheels yet, hopefully will pop up one day.
Your wagon looks fantastic lowered, definitely an option I'd consider doing myself.

Thanks .
By 'early scorpion wheels', do you mean like on the left or right?

[A112H]

I have the GE 4 spoke style. The others were around for years and litter most wrecking yards

[unique10]

thats one good looking wagon, height suits it real good. got any engine plans for it?

[ddt]

got any engine plans for it?

I'd like to stick to the 2L as it's still the original motor but would like it to pull harder.
I'm not *too* interested in top end so i expect some pacemaker extractors and a well tuned weber carby (like the refurbished ones on Ebay) would do the trick. I imagine there's no value in any cam or head-work for sub 4000rpm power gains?

[unique10]

carb and extractors are what you need to do mods like the cam and headwork. alone they help but they are not the biggest boost. im only speaking from a number of valiants that ive put pacemakers with 2.5 inch exhaust and holley 350 on and it really wansnt a world or gain, they sounded alot better but that was about it.

of course theres alot to factor in since these engines were tired and old and the 2L engine might be a totally different story, so you just gotta wait to hear someone elses experiances and just go off that.