ozbox shed

**ozbox** · 07-04-2011, 07:23 PM

looks like i filled up that post with pics so i have had to move along....

where we are at with the van is....

it is legally registered in nsw as a wb van with a 350 in it...how i achieved this from a utility was to do a blue slip for a body variation and a wieght variation hence i did not have to put it thru new registration as the chassis between ute and panelvan is the same...
we have just changed the diff from 3.55 to 3.08 ratio and i have just cut the nose to give it that squared off look like the premier/statesman nose cones...

my next step with the van is to replace the upper and lower control arms with some from a wb statesman i just purchased to wreck that has brand new bushes and ball joints that have never been down the road..
at the same time i will be replacing the stub axles with stubtech 2 inch drop stubs which i just purchased...
i like my vans low and i decided this time i would like some suspension unlike the last van i had..

received my drop stubs today,nice lookin and they should be for the bucks...

**ozbox** · 07-04-2011, 07:24 PM

i thought it may be an idea to do an ongoing post on the rebuild of our promo business van...
we started with 2 wb vehicles..one van which had been run over by a truck....:eek:.we paid $875 for it..

and one ute which was a rusty piece of crap but had good running gear as in 350 chev turbo 400 and running on gas with 7 months rego..we paid $1150 for it....

we removed the body from the ute but left all the running gear swinging including things like the booster etc...

we stripped the van and only left the front doors on and the windscreen in..everthing else including wiring was removed..

next we cleaned and painted the chassis and the underside of the van to make em pertie...this isnt going to be a show van but will be a daily driver promo van for classic oz wreck our business..

.
the van had dealer fitted a/c so we stripped everything inside and replaced it all with good clean parts from an hx i was wrecking..weused an unbutchered hx harness and had a customer patch in the gas and tailights...thanks agro..
we fitted all new body to chassis bushes from rare spares which as per usual with there stuff we had to modify them to fit..
we fitted new engine mounts and gearbox mount while the body was off..
we pinched the best of what i had in panels and mixed up a bunch of hj hx hz parts for the front end..
we purchased a spoiler from rares which was a right pain in the arse to fit and i still havent finished fitting it properly yet so i will take some pics down the line of how badly they fit and what i have to do to get it to fit..
we have used a hj statesman grille which was cracked and broken and i massaged and glued it back together and then recessed the chev badge into it..
some little bits that i ahve collected over the years are being dug out of the box for use..we fitted a pair of remote cable controlled mirrors like used in hq to hz not wb..
i had a pair of bubble tailight covers which we have used and also a bubble rear window..

**ozbox** · 07-04-2011, 07:27 PM

ok ..i have managed to drive the van a couple of times..first time it spat a fuse for wipers and heater demister fan which i believe had somethin to do with the main power wire to the coil falling out of the dissy...rebuilds like this always have teething troubles..

anyhow i have had a new exhaust fitted,old style full twin system..sounds good...i have also been doing some more bodywork which is now in hifill primer putty..

**ozbox** · 07-07-2011, 07:27 PM

ive been driving the van on and off for a while now sorting its bugs out,purchased some number plates and hence named the van sinbox...we put heavy duty lowered front springs in to replace the sagged out things that were there..a pair of new/second hand monroe shocks and a 28 mil front sway bar..i purchased a rare spares radiator shroud as chevs like them for cooling but it would not fit so i ended up sending it back and got an original fibreglass one but it wouldnt fit either..had me scratchin my head for a while until i realised that hq bonnets have a different frame to hj to wb and only hq was released with chev so thats why it would not fit..more on that later...i decided to use the yellow needle gts dash from the hz sandman i bought from adelaide to wreck..got my mate agro to play with wiring to make it all work good....put a cd player in...i am half way through the body work.. this is a drive it while you finish it job and im not rushing as its a bit cold to be painting but some things must be done...
seeing as the rolling chassis was from a ute that had been worked and carried loads all the springs were suspect,it drove like a boat..once we had replaced the front suspension with new stuff it gained a list to one side..turns out left rear spring has collapsed so that is being changed in the next week or so..its ok to drive just has a slight lean which is only annoying to me ...i have fitted my faithful brown gts wheel which i have had on a few of my cars and also have 7 and 8 inch csa magnums on at the moment but will probably change to something else down the track..

sunday 18th july 2010.i decided to go to work to repair a couple of commodores i have for resale..sinbox used to have racks on the inside and she had a couple of woeful outward dents which had been bashed back in.these were right where front windows would have been in the sides..i had already shrunk and repaired the dents and they were in primer like the front end.for some reason the primer bits on the sides were annoying me so in between doing repairs to the commos i did the sides and blew some paint in [painters term for blending colour in so its not noticed]..

well the sides looked so good i said to myself.....self can you do the rest in 3 hours?
it was 1.15 pm when i decided to do a quick paint job and make sinbox all the 1 colour...needless to say what i have done is not the finished product as its too cold at this time of year to do an outdoor[non heated] paintjob thats decent.
so into the shed and a quick stripdown,rubdown and mask up and this is what the end result is....looks great from 5 foot which is all that matters at the moment...sinbox doesnt look like a neglected ferral anymore..

**ozbox** · 08-07-2011, 12:27 AM

this blog is about my mates wb caprice van which i purchased from him..he had owned it for 15 years and transformed it into a show n go van..i had sold dave the caprice front,the 9 inch diff,the turbo 400 the original bore short 308 motor and a bucket load of other stuff in the 10 years since i met him..dave was the second owner and the van is just one of those freaks that never seemed to get rust.generally it has always been used as a weekend toy..dave built it to play burnouts at shows so he built it tough...click on the link for a burnout video

the 308 got scat rods,crank girdle,custom grind cam etc etc..injection was also in his plan as was a side mount blower so it got haltech programmable computer and pro comp spark adjuster..the turbo 400 is a full manual with b@m shifter and 3500 stall converter..the shortened nine inch was a 3.88 ratio with full spoil and custom modified 1 tonner axles..
the interior got vt ss electric seats retrimmed in black leather and door trims too match..the back got the full carpet treatment and all removable panels got the leather to match the front seats and trims..
underneath and all through the engine bay has lots of chrome or polished alloy..wheels are 15x6 and 15x10 weld stars..
dave had spent 40k [with receipts] over the years but his desire to own a monaro of hktg vintage was getting the better of him..i knew where there was a damaged one owner base model hg monaro which was also owned by another mate so i put the 2 of them together and they struck a deal..
anyhow december 09 dave has gmh884 for sale for 25k so he can purchase the monaro and had a couple of people interested but being close to xmas and with the economy being a bit crap his sales didnt go through..
now dave is an impatient man and when he makes up his mind to sell something its gunna get sold even if its a huge loss.so he walks into my business one saturday and says someone had offered him x amount and he was selling it ..i told him he was nuts but he gave me this cats bum pout and said na its goin.
so thats the story to how i got to own my mate daves wb pano..part 2 of the blog will be about what i am modifying and what i am changing...couple of things i have never liked...
heres a couple of pics of dave and the van at a show...

so part 1 left off with me buying the van...the first few months of ownership i was too busy with work to do much..dave had never gotten around to doing an engine number change from the original 253 that was in it so i had to get a blue slip for that and a pink slip for rego..no biggie but still a pain..driving the van was painful as it had the 3.88 ratio full spool in it which meant there is no such things as a sedate right hand turn let alone a u turn..it had to be driven with the right foot..i went on a search to borrow a nine inch centre so i could keep it mobile and be able to get the gears changed out..took me a while to find one but byron had one in his collection he lent me..its a 3 to 1 slippery,he said he had no idea what it was like but the gears looked ok so i tossed that in..turns out its got real good slip action...so i pulled the 3.88 spool and dicsovered that the left axle was twisted and the right axle looked like someone took to it with a dremel...the beauty of buying a car from a friend is you can get the story on things..left axle is twisted from the spool and abuse..right axle was modded to fit in with the spool apparently,not a very proffesional job i must say..

so ive had it 6 months and i only got around to doing the diff 1 week before the june long weekend..even though the axle was twisted i gigured stuff it i can still drive it local ..if it breaks i just have to trailer it back.so anyhow i finally got to enjoy driving it around on the long weekend..put around 400 k on her which is the most its done in a short time frame in years..
the diff centre was taken to langs diffs in hornsby 94824738..lang has been doing diffs for me for over 10 years and is a one man show..the centre i took out now has 3.25 gears and a fresh slippery centre..much more suitable to the street and to the 3500 stall converter.
next step was to rid myself of the horrible blue plastic rooflining and blue painted bits of trim..i have always hassled dave about this and wanted to know what sort of acid he was on when he did it...:sick:
this is where im at right now,dash removed and trimmer has possesion of roof lining template..all being done to compliment the black leather trim that is the door trims and seats.

**ozbox** · 08-07-2011, 01:27 AM

this hq van was purchased by me early 2009 but has been like this since 1999..it was displayed at rickshaws hotrod show in newcastle in 99 as an unfinished project and it won best unfinished and best paint..the lady that owned it came in one saturday and was buying parts to finish it off and we got talking and she told me about it..
i actually remembered it from the show in 99 because it was so far left field for the car scene then..muralled vans were out of vogue,they were so 80s..but i do remember standing there looking at the detail in the paint and shakin my head at the amount of time spent in airbrushing...93 hours is what the artist says on his website http://www.exquisiteairbrushing.com/cars.htm
anyhow...a couple of weeks later im checkin out ebay and i see this van on there,so i hads a couple of bids and then forgot all about it...until the nest tuesday and i get an email saying reserve wasnt met but offering it to me for x amount which i couldnt refuse pending looking at it..needless to say i looked and i bought..she came with the b45 simmons which i have since sold and a set of recaro seats and a new rubber kit which is partially installed..tribal warrior as she has been called needs trim,wiring,motor,gearbox and diff and a couple of other bits like nice bars and grille..so basically she is done in the body and paint but needs everything else..
this will be hitting the hoist in the next 4 weeks so i will be updating the blog then with an ongoing story...

**ozbox** · 08-07-2011, 02:27 AM

ive had this for about 3 years now and its stored until i get to it..
i fell across this when i went to a wrecking yard to buy some wb utes off a guy that rented space there.it was in a little petitioned off area and as soon as i saw it i recognised that it had hq coupe doors...

story goes that the guy i bought it from did this mod in 1980..the van itself started life as a l31 m41 hj and could well have been a sandman,byron has looked at it and is fairly sure it was but it aint no more other than its tags..
what he did was take an hq coupe and cut the windscreen pillars and roof support chanels to behind the doors and then graft them into the van..hq coupes roof line is radically different to a van and there windscreen is 2 inches shorter..so in doing this he has had to cut the roof down to meet the screen which has resulted in what appears to be a slightly angled roof chop of between 4 to 6 inches across the length of the van...

its very noticeable when parked next to another van,my old wb van which was lowered to the bump stops in the front and 2 inches down in the rear..the chassis the chopped body is sitting on has standard springs..

this van is earmarked for a fairly radical build and will be getting a 455 pontiac motor with either a muncie or full manualised t350..the front will be put back to hq along the styles of pontiac with a split grille but only 2 headlights...i may get a start on this early next year..i already have most of the running gear and now its just time involved..