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.
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