| This page is all about my EK wagon restoration. I bought it from a wrecking yard and drove it for about 6 months before deciding to do a full rebuild. So far it has an LJ Torana front end with a TE Cortina power rack and pinion, a modified Gemini steering column, slotted DBA Leyland P76 front discs, VS Commodore rear discs and calipers, Castlemaine Rod Shop 50mm dropped stub axles, Castlemaine Rod Shop chassis kit, VN Commodore diff shortened with V8 axles, Centura radiator and Koni adjustable shock absorbers all round. Originally I planned to run a grey motor with a toyota gearbox but I decided to go the whole hog and use a VN Commodore V6 and TH700 auto so it'd have plenty of power and still good economy. The body of the car only had one small dent in the back gaurd but it had rust in all the usual places so the tedious job of cutting it all out and welding new bits in has begun. I've cut the humped section from under the front seats down 2 inches to allow the Toyota 4 Runner seats to be mounted at a reasonable height and modified the center of the floor to take an LJ Torana handbrake lever. The only other floor pan mod is the Castlemaine Rod Shop transmission tunnel which will have a B&M Quicksilver shifter mounted on it. In the engine bay the battery box has been removed, all unused holes have been welded up and I have welded in the front section of an HZ Holden brake booster to make the bolting on of the HZ master cylinder simpler and neater. The front section of the engine bay had to be removed so I could get to the rust hiding between it and the firewall and it has been boxed out to fit the Centura radiator. The wheels are 15x6 and 15x8 American Racing Torq Thrust II with 205/50/15s on the front and 225/50/15 Sumitomos on the rear. To make it handle better the engineer (Derek Kooistra) recommended we fit an LJ Torana front end so we could get the camber and castor adjustment we wanted. So it was out with the second HR front end I'd tried, and up onto the hoist for some major surgery. The front end worked out 10 times better than I expected and I even ended up with a great power steering rack! (see page 2 for more pics)Anyway, that's where I'm up to at the moment, I'll add more pics with each stage as it happens. |
