What is terminal rust?

[Absinth]

The beauty of having a standard van and not a genuine Sandman is you can build it up to whatever you like... ie doing up a HJ as a HZ Sandman... You can put GTS gaurds on it, a woodgrain dash if you like and all sorts of other goodies and the "purists" won't pick the eyeballs out of it..

Why do you want to put a HZ chassis under it? What is wrong with the HJ chassis?

The chassis number dictates model and what ADR's it complies with.... your State rego dept. will have these on file...
EG..
CHQ00345S

C= third ADR change in the HQ model run.
HQ= obvious I think....

$900 is a good buy for a windowless van and the beauty about restoring it yourself is you can gradually restore it as you have the funds available rather than one big initial outlay..... plus it is fun to do, you learn heaps about your car and you can look back and be proud of what you have achieved.....

[wbute]

It should be pretty straight forward to repair the chassis around the mounting points. Cracks around the front controll arm mounting points is a more serious area to check.
HZ wil have RTS but no doubt you can make the earlier chassis handle pretty well with spring and sway bar upgrades. Depends why you want the HZ chassis.

[sstevo05]

Thats important to me too Absinth - i would NEVER interfere with a genuine and the colour/engine/transmission combo i am after i would never be able to find anyway.

Plan is to make it as original as possible without it being original. Other than being lowered and having a decent stereo. Having said that im not the type to officially pretend its something its not and this will be obvious by the dogs breakfast of I.D. tags on the body and chassis by anyone who bothers to look. This vehicle will be built for me and to impress me, no one else! Non original gives me freedom and piece of mind.

I remember seeing an original blue meanie brock commodore that some moron had installed roll cages, hornet bonnet scoops and pink interior. I was livid! Should be outlawed. Im a huge fan of the original look classic cars, with perhaps just a slight lowering.

I am after a HZ chassis as they are cheap and the body has to come off for the rotissere anyhow, and the HZ had the RTS which from all accounts is a vast improvement on driveability so its an improvement for not much outlay. Although sticking with the 74 chassis would allow me some more freedom with pollution gear etc

I will be scrapping the HJ chassis unless anyone here would like it. (i'm in Melb)

As i say when i get a dry day i will wheel out the van and take some more photos and get your opinions. $900 two years ago for a windowless was quite good i thought too.

It may well turn out that it is too far gone, but hey i learnt heaps by stripping it.

We shall see.....

[adam perth]

grind off the HZ chassis number and leave it blank.
then your rego will have to be compliant with 1974 ADR's (your exisiting tags)
i.e no pollution gear

i am not saying that the rust is terminal, but , wizz it back and see what you find.
generally what i have found is the the further you strip, the more your find!!

[Absinth]

Dave, RTS on HZ is greatly over rated and many people don't fully understand what it actually is....

Basically most Holdens before HZ came out standard with cross ply tyres. HZ came standard with Radial tyres and the suspension "tuning" was basically upgraded bushings, a thicker front sway bar and the addition of a rear sway bar... If you are doing a body off restoration you would upgrade all the bushings with good aftermarket ones and fit some good aftermarket front and rear sway bars and shock absorbers... most if not all car tyres these days are Radials so your HQ to HX will handle as well if not better than standard HZ RTS anyway...

If I was doing a standard van build I'd go for a HQ chassis..... no rego problems fitting a 350 chev (particularly in Qld.) into one and you don't have to run it on gas only...

[ozbox]

stick with the hj chassis,rts chassis isnt what its cracked up to be as absinth said..
the mount holes rusting is very common and a real easy fix...get a big arsed washer and weld it in or put a plate over it and holesaw a new hole.
double check that chassis for cracked sections before you use it if you went that way but.