'63 Buick. . .

 Dave and Johnny fitting up the huge rear bumper on the big Mexican. Funny thing id the owner was that happy with the results that he rang up and gave Andrew the go ahead to commence the rust repairs to the boot area, which means that bloody big bumper has to come off again. . .

Good looking unit when she's all together, It will be a sensational car when the rust has been removed and the air-bags are free to bounce her up and down like a pair of honeymooners. . .

Nigel's Firebird. . .

 What is there that's left to say about the superb running gear of Nigel's Firebird? This thing is just perfection with front and rear running systems from Chassis Systems in America.

 The beast, 582ci punching out 794horse power at the rear wheels. . .

This is what happens when one of your $750usd coil-over shocks decides to seperate at speed. The diff also had a major trailing arm ripped from its mount and damaged one of the wheel wells. Vari-shock has offered to replace thetwo front shocks, AT COST, to help out with the rebuild. This is a shock failure and should be replaced free of charge and cover the repairs to other damage. . .

Johnny's Trike. . .

Further upgrades to Johnny's trike now see's the fitment of the passenger seat for his long suffering, life's partner Carol. . .

'63 Buick. . .

 Have a look at the condition of this section that Dave has removed from the rear of the Buick. A picture tells a thousand words. . .amen!

 This view shows the new rear boxed section already welded into place and also gives a glimpse of the aftermarket tail-lights that Arthur identified earlier in the week, or late last week. . .

Driver's side chassis rail now in place with a few minor rust rpairs to the boot to follow. . .

This section of chassis had to be hand fabricated by Andrew because of its multiple bends/angles.
Now that it is in place you can see the rust repairs that are also necessary to the boot floor on this side as well. The serious work of re-doing the air-bag mounting system is next on the agenda, the prior system was a fatality waiting to happen. . .

It had to Happen. . .

 The Big Fella was never really happy with the straight out pipes that were hanging out the rear of his cyccle, so it was only a matter of time before the complete system was relaced and finished of with some fishy looking tails. . .

A bit closer to give you a better idea of the fishtail tail-pipes now adorning the Big Fella's daily ride. No doubt the things make a friggin noise. . .

'99 Suzuki 'Intruder LC' . . .

 This big VL 1500 Suzi is in for a major shake-up and will be going on a diet to lose a fair bit of extra baggage. First to fo will be the side bags and dickie seat, no pillion passengers for this Lone Ranger. All non-essential parts and chrome will be removed and then it will be smashed into the weeds for that low slung look.

Front end will see a change to a 21inch wheel and white-walls front and rear just about take care of the cosmetic changes while the serious stuff will include a maor exhaust system change-over with pipes running out each side instead of a dual system down one side. The bars and risers will be replaced so that the handle bars don't crack you in the nuts when you pull it into a roundabout. Keep an eye on this one. . .

'63 Buick 'Wildcat'. . .

 Thanks go out to Arthur for the i.d. of this Buic monster, Arthur also spotted that it was running aftermarket custom tail-lights. . .

By the time that you read all this, the rusted rear chassis sections have been removed and Dave and Andrew have started boxing/fabricating all neww sections into place. Not an easy job considering the multiple uni-directional bends that make up the chassis rails around the rear end of this big cruiser. . .

HJ. . .

Your scribe continues to rebuild his HJ Project at a cracking pace. . .hehe Two inch drop spindles, power steering unit and all new steering arms are now in place. Seems to be a lot of holes drilled and tapped into the new drop spindles causing a bit of confusion for yours truly, not to worry we'll get it sorted. Tomorrow's job looks like rotors, bearings and braking system, bring it on, woohoo. . .

Big Arsed Buick. . .

Serious rust to be found in the rear chassis, the easiest repair would be to reove whole of rear chassis and fabricate a new one. . .

 Rust can also be found in and around lower sills but these are an easy repair. . .

 This is where the rusted chassis becomes a problem, if too much pressure is put onto the mounting bolts it can rip the whole section from the rear of the car. Careful consideration needed before progressing. . .

Dave's done his best to remove and release as much of the running gear as possible and this has allowed access to the chassis sections in need of replacement. Won't be long and she'll be looking good as new. . .

Big Arsed Buick. . .

Apologies for the washed out colors folks but it was minus two in Ballarat and a complete whiteout. Anyway this Buick is the next big job for the boys to tackle coz it's got major rust in the chassis and bouncing up and down Mexican-style on the airbags ain't doing it any favors either. This job will be carried out in piece by piece format so keep an eye on the results. . .

Any Buick fans out there actually know what this Big-Arsed 2 door actually is, apologies from your scribe, coz he ain't got no idea, dumb fukker. Just click on the pencil logo and it will pop up a comment section, by the way, this is open for everyone at any time to leave a comment on any build at anytime. . .

HJ. . .

Well for all you folks that have been emailing and ringing in asking for updates on the HJ, here we go. Finally the superbly painted sub-frame has been put in position and the upper and lower control arms have been re-installed into place. Have a look at all that gloss black paint, and nope the car is certainly not being painted in any shade of gloss black, I've now run out of money for any more pretty paintwork and the body should be a nice rattle can orange or whatever is on special at supercheap. I will wait for the next round of V8 supercars and cash in a few credits and that should bring the price right down. . .

Buick. . .Big arsed Buick. . .

This crazy big Buick has been put into the shed for some major rear-end repairs. Should be able to follow this one along for a while. . .

VW. . .'Manx'

 This is the running assembly that arrived the other day, loosely attached to the Manx fibreglass body as seen below. . .

 No good Manx is ever turned out without a 'SuperBug' rear end and this looks like a pretty good option for a transplant, droop snoot and all.

And this is what the transplant is all about, a SuperBug rear end. The original running gear and floor assembly is always shortened by about a foot for the Manx conversion, so we''ll have to wait and see how the two measure up for the rebuild. . .

'48 Buick 'Senator'. . .

Dylan wasn't feeling the right level of creative genious when he moulded up the first trans tunnel for this beast, so he closed down his creative side and unleashed his inner artistic self and again turned his hands to the metal and filled the void with a metal marvel that transcends any earthly creation and truly reveals his understanding of the metallic form of art. . .

HJ. . .

Trev has completed his magic on the firewall and now it sits in a lovely shade of gloss black, no blacker, just black. How do you photograph gloss black? Stuffed if I know looking at these results!
Should see a bit more of this ride in the forum now that the firewall is done, as you will remember, Trev did the subframe in gloss black a little while back. It will all start coming together now. . .slowly.

Metal Madness. . .

 What's Kazza been up to? For those of you who don't know, Andrew's sister Karen is a metal magician and continues to turn out outstanding statues as can be seen by these cats and solitary peacock. . .

Colorado 4door Ute. . .

Hodgey and Dave worked quickly on this one and had the Colorado ute around at True-line  by lunchtime. As can be seen from the pic the rear end has been legally lowered by 6inches and True-line will fit the front torsion bars and new lowered springs to the original struts. The simple task of fitting the lower Commodore springs to the Colorado struts will bring the front end down to the same height as the rear. . .

Volkswagen 'Manx'. . .

 Yep, this is one for all you Hippies out there, straight out of the seventies comes this Manx. This is the way she arrived and I'm not sure if the new owner has had too much hippy-weed or what, but she now looks like she's set up as a trike? All jokes aside folks, this is going to be one ball-tearing ride after it's been slammed right down onto the ground and rebuilt from there up.

 As you can see she's a bit of a jig-saw puzzle at the moment and Hodgey is the right bloke to put all the pieces back together seeing as his old man drove one of these around the streets terrorising the hell out of young girls waaay back when 'peace' was the 'in' word and your flares were that skin tight that the girls knew in advance what you were packin. Anyway back to now and the first port of call is to purchase a 'super bug' rear end so the boys can drop the suspension with no problems from the old geometry. . .

That explains where the missing wheel is. . .
She's gonna need some loving but she's in the right shed for the right mods. . .

Colorado being dumped on its bum. . .

Yep this bloke has been dropped in to be lowered as much as legally possible without going via the air-bag route. Diff will be swung around so that it sits up on top of the spring work and a couple of other little trade secrets will be carried out to give this bloke the sinister ride that his owner is looking for. Front end will be carried out with a torsion bar interchange. . .

'48 Buick 'Senator'. . .

This big arsed monster has been sitting in the shed running up 'frequent non-flyer points' for ages and it's time for the finalisation of its artistic development. The big rig belongs to and artistically defines Marcus from Tikki Beat, famous Tikki carver from Queensland. Dylan has been refitting all the wiring under the dash after the right hand drive conversion. The trans tunnel has to be raised to allow for the new, considerably lower, ride hieght. Nothing small on this job. . .

'39 Studebaker. . .

 Three down and one to go, funnily enough the inside workings haven't been transferable with each door being a slightly different shape to the next. . .

You can see from this final door the complete skeleton that Andrew has to deal with. Each door is a slightly different profile and Andrew has to hand measure then hand make each section to allow the installation of the internal workings. . .

Serious storm clouds brewing. . .

There's more than a storm brewing at the shed, I saw Johnny pacing around near the back door looking for the footprints of the offender who pushed his trike outside to make room for more projects into the shed. . ."Just get your bike started and it's pushed out into the friggin rain." If you know Johnny, you would know that his tracking skills are second to none and I wouldn't like to be leaving my boot prints anywhere near the back door. . .could be fatal!

Chev truck / HZ Tonner changeover. . .

This one has been on the boil for quite a while now, but persistent problems with the power steering change-over has kept it on the hoist longer than expected. The Holden rims are now back from being re-drilled and look fantastic sitting under the tray in their new tubs. . .

It Has Risen: From the ashes of hell comes Johnny's Trike. . .

Andrew has a final check of the trike before handing it over to his dad. Seven months ago it was a pile of pieces on the workshop floor  and just a suggestion, now after three incarnations, it lives. . .

Plenty of 'expert' advice here. Johnny doesn't care he just pulls it into gear and cranks on the throttle. . .

The dream finally realised, man and beast are one!

Johnny bringing back this brutal machine to park it in the only suitable location, right alongside that other savage beast of the mechanical graveyards, the junkyard dog. . .

'39 Studebaker. . .

 In closing yesterday, I reported that Andrew thought that it would take an average of one and a half days to complete the inside of the doors, this is the result at closing time yesterday. . .

Electric window winders, check. Inside door openers, check. External door openers or poppers, check. Window glass pane dummied up for cutting, check. Intrusion bars and framework installed, check. Check, check, check, not a bad afternoon's work in anyone's language. . .

'39 Studebaker. . .

 You can see here that Andrew has re-installed the internal window surround, why the hell these were removed in the first place is a complete mystery. When Ziggy arrived with his Studie Project, all four doors had been completely skeletonised and were only the external skin with hinges fixed. . .

The only possible positive of the doors being stripped is that Andrew has complete access to all areas and a 'blank canvas' with which he can paint his magic. Bailey channels have to be hand made and fitted as well as electric windows, door poppers and side intrusion bars. Glass will have to be carefully measured and custom cut as the front quarter windows have been removed to give the front doors that longer, leaner, sleeker look. Andrew expects a day to a day and a half on each door, hopefully. . .