'New (?) Cruise

HQ LS Monaro

Heres the after shots. After the 8 months of pulling down and building up again.
Unfortunately the thing never had a radio or any kind of sound machine fitted to it, otherwise we would be getting alot of Daddy-Cool's Eagle-Rock type music.
Eagle Rock was No. one when this car came out of the factory.









All in all, its a fun ride, not too thirsty with big windows when the weather gets too hot. Theres not alot around either, so the old blokes who see it reminiss and tell us ' Now thats a real car!". Young fellas say "Cool wheels!".
Anyway, we packed up the prezzies and headed in the freashly painted and registered HQ to Grenfell for Xmas, 50 km down the road a good sized roo jumps out of nowhere in front of us and had a real good swipe down the passengers side of the car. Sooooooo lucky... no dents, a small scatch and the roo bounded off down the road. It could have been all of our Xmases come at once!
The Monaro performed well on a 400km round trip, so by New Year and the mercury hovering in the mid-thirties (C), we packed up and pointed the big bonnet toward Phillip Island, Victoria. A planned round trip of over 2000 km. Long story short; the HQ never missed a beat. (I love it when things work out that way).

A case of the Monaro

Well, once again the corrogated iron stable is full and this time around the project was a 1973 LS HQ Monaro. We purchaced it as a one owner (deceased estate) from a fella down in Melbourne($3000). Finally got it back up into NSW and then proceeded to tear it to pieces to find out just what we had purchaced sight-unseen. What we found was good bits and bad bits, but over-all, the car was worth having a go at doing up. (Heres the 2 "Before" photos)
Winter passed, spring and then summer.... and many many late nights and weekends. This is all in adirt floor shed running off solar power and a noisy petrol generator.

The Interior, all pannels, engine and drive train were removed. I rebuilt the trusty 6 cylinder 202 (thats right people, not all Monaros have to be a stonking 350 chev!), cleaned and recoloured the interior, checked and relayed the wiring, cut the plenum tray out and replaced it with a new one (if you dont know where the plenum tray is, trust me it is a mongrel of a job). The sills were replaced, new/ old guards, new wheels, polished stainless and all those fidly little bits that take hours from your life (like refitting window glass.... there goes 3 years off my life).
Right before Xmas we spent a few runs to get everything checked and blue-slipped for rego and by Xmas day, we were on the road to Grenfell NSW for the family gathering.

Have a gander at the upcoming ' after' photos. Note that I will have cleaned up a bit of the rubbish off the floor, got rid of the brown interior and the dent along the sides had to go too!.