Ohhh god… I feel a sense of dread wash over me but at the same time I’m compelled to answer. Gun shy I suppose after the gang up on the Chassis thread.
I feel like ..
Im Alice, this is your wonderland!
Come on everybody my roller coaster is almost leavin'
oooh whoohoo...
And we could take a ride through the night to my magic kingdom
oooh whoohoo...
Your own castle in sky, where it feels like you just died and went to heaven
oooh whoohoo...
And theres milion reasons why you choose to say behind, but just forget 'emmm
oooh whoohoo...
Follow the leader, into the rabbit hole, im gonna lead ya into another world, where the lights don't matter, stars all gather
Ok then, lets start with the shades of grey…. We will use a HZ as an example because a HQ is way tooooo easy.
Case 1.
Some pissed off bikies come out of the pub and see a Sandman Panel Van in 1980, decide they will recreate a scene from Mad Max and jump and hack at the roof and sides of the body until spent… The car is rolled into the panel beaters by an anxious Insurance accessor. GMH provides a replacement shell which has no defining features like Kingy tabs welded on the body but importantly never had alternative tags attached. Fred, the panel beater, grabs his angle grinder hacks off the console mounts, the strips along the inside back sides to hold the pinch weld at the top, and the toothed headlining strip at the back and rebuilds the car from scratch. Lucky for the owner, Fred is really handy with a welder and the whole shebang looks like it rolled out of a plant. He faithfully re-attaches the tags and orders factory stickers.. all good. Every component other than the body shell is 100% original even the grill and headlight surrounds.
Case 2.
Jim really wants a Sandman Panel Van. He has been lurking on mySandman for a year and is keen on a project. He sees the add for the aforementioned white HZ Sandman that was Atlantis Blue. He buys the rust-bucket for way more than he should of and follows the advice given to him on this forum. He goes in search of a HZ Panel van from roughly the same time ie body number has a A to indicate it’s a HZ in 77 built at the same plant as he has been told to. He finds either a Kingy or Holden van and in whichever case either has to hack the above features off the old body or grind the tabs off the sides. He finishes his project and rolls into the inaugural mySandman Nationals. Blocker hands him the Byron Rich Concours trophy and a signed copy of the “History of Sandman” book. Later at the bar, Jim is getting loose and mentions to Agro that if it wasn’t for the information he received here he would never of attempted the project in the first place… an appeal is forthcoming.
Case 3.
Take the previous situation and Jim can’t find a HZ shell to match. He uses a late HX one out by a couple of months but hay it came with RTS and the sway bar mounts on the chassis so it’s ok isn’t it?
Case 4.
Harry also reads our forums. He just decides in good faith to follow our advice as well. He gets a HJ shell and faithfully rebuilds it. Unfortunately for him he doesn’t do a very good job. The stick welder he uses leaves splatters and dags all over the shell. He just uses tech screws to re-attach the plates. He hacks pieces of the firewall out like the engine plug mount and welds up the rat-trap clutch holes. While he is in the line waiting for the Rego inspection, the Engineer comments to him about the plate’s attachment. He replies “Yeah mate, I used another body I found”. The Engineer grabs the biggest screwdriver he can find and shoves it under the plates and pops them off. Harry is left with a pile of parts and decides to instigate a civil action against mySandman for bad advice.
Case 5.
Lastly there is Manuel .. He picks up a beautiful replica shell that is faithfully restored but is a Kingswood. He decides to send away to trimtags.com, who won’t reproduce the long VIN tag but will print him new ones for the other two. He gets the trim codes, gmv and might as well upgrade it to a L31/M41 while he is at it. He hasn’t changed the vin/chassis numbers but just upgraded the options. Lists it on ebay and makes a handy profit.
Which case is ok????
They all deceive in some form or another whether it be intentionally or un-intentionally if you keep in mind the court case recently involving the XY GT rebodyed using the Police Special shell, you may be liable.
Where I’m at with this is, us as a community are actively encouraging illegal activity every time we suggest or encourage fellow Sandman enthusiasts to re-shell a rusty heap off ebay. We know it happens but actively supporting it is different matter entirely. What are we doing here!!! Telling someone how to re-body and it's ok if you do it our way you wont get cought.
How would you feel if you brought a matching number resto (which its hard to pull apart while inspecting it to buy to examine say the console mount welds) and eventually took the side panels off the back and seen the tab spot weld marks from the side strips inside???
Mauser
(hiding under the table awaiting the flames) haha
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