HC turbodiesel estate.

[bikingnutcase0]

I've been planning on doing a 1.7td Isuzu conversion for a few years now. Last July I took the plunge and purchased a moderately ratty 1973 HC estate. (I say "moderately ratty", probably depends on your perspective. Having been browsing my friend's extroardinarily crusty Capri restoration/build just now I'm leaning more towards "reasonably clean with some small amount of rust", but others might say "basket case" lol!").

Having seen a couple of builds recently I've been inspired to post my progress so far.

I'm putting this in the "Modifications" section, as I'm intending from the outset to do a number of modifications, even though at the moment all I've done is restore the shell a little bit.

As advertised on the dreaded online auction site-

after collection

I was expecting some corrosion, and began trawling eBay for repair sections. A seller near my parent's house in Stroud, glos, had a front panel and an estate rear panel for sale, which I purchased. (I got somewhat carried away in fact, I knew the front panel was comprehensively Donald-Ducked, and just snapped up the rear panel as it was availiable, without looking to see if I needed it! Ergo- if anyone requires an estate rear panel, P.M. me and a deal could possibly be done......)

All this is about five months ago, bear with me while i "Catch up!"

[bikingnutcase0]

So, after blowing 600 notes on a project car, and some panels, and a few more notes every month on somewhere to store/work on it, I thought I'd best find some time to actually get on with it-

First asessment-

I had a good look, noted the rusty areas, the ones at the base of the windscreen pillars causing me the most concern, but decided not to get too despondant and just crack on! The right hand inner wing was absent all round the bonnet hinge, so that was where I thought I'd start, so at least I could open the bonnet without damaging it.

inner wing hole. the hinge was in the boot!

Cutting the wings off was awful! I think it's probably had at least five wings during it's life, as the ones on it were brazed on in a fairly horrific fashion, and underneath there were witness marks from what looked like a previous mig-welding based wing replacement. trying to remove them sympathetically was pretty much impossible.

inner wing unveiled

[bikingnutcase0]

I was fortunate with the peice of steel I chose for this panel. I used one I'd previously cut a cone out of for a two-stroke expansion chamber, and because it was really a bit too thick I'd kinked it in the process. Co-incidentally this kink was exactly right for the inner wing profile!

fabricated inner wing repair

I also removed the scuttle panel, intending to take it to work and replace the bottom 1" that was rusted away. In doing so I discovered that the heater had been home to a family of mice, and was full of ammonia-stinking torn-up paper and mouse sh*t.

mouse B&B!

The fins in the matrix have been destroyed by the passage of many tiny feet. If anyone has a non mouse-tainted replacement availiable I'd be keen to hear from them! I do have an old Subaru MV pick-up one that could be adapted, which is thicker and possibly more efficient, but would be time-consuming to adapt to fit. we'll see.

Anyway, having done that I began removing the front panel. the old one was a bit crusty to say the least!-

crusty front

[bikingnutcase0]

So I painstakingly drilled out the spot welds all round the front panel

drilling spot-welds

And prised it off. With some effort, lol!

front panel off.
I think it looks like a Cadillac with the rad poking out!

And then plug-welded the replacement N.O.S one I bought in. It was a motor factor item, and in twenty years floating around in storage had got a little bent in places, but hopefully I straightened it out reasonably well. God knows it cannot possibly be worse than the holey tinworm-riddled original!! Paint is something encouragingly entitled "Rust Killer"!

I'm gonna have to nip off to bed now, I'll post some more soon. I've gotta be honest, I've held off posting what I've done until I had some progress to show, as I didnt want everybody to think this would end up being yet another abandoned project sent to the crusher.

I'm aiming for it to be on the road before my current car runs out of MOT. Because ironically, despite being 21years newer, its actually rustier than my Viva!

[bikingnutcase0]

I've done my best to make good all the small patches of rust on the inner wing, including replacing the front edge so I actually had something solid to plug-weld through! It's never gonna win any concours competitions, but I'll be happy with "ugly but strong and sound"!

inner wing botching

inner1.JPG (54.88 KiB) Viewed 4094 times

Now, at this point I concluded that the location I was storing it, 18 miles from my house, was just too far away, and the money i was spending in rent just wasn't justifying itself. So I moved it to my place of work, a motorsport engineering college. I used an A-frame, as I didn't have access to a trailer. Was an interesting, but fortunately uneventful trip!

A-frame

towing.JPG (45.01 KiB) Viewed 4094 times

I perched one of the Honeybourne Mouldings replacement wings on there to see how it was gonna fit. With difficulty I think is the answer there!

balancing the wing on for a look-see

wingdangle.JPG (38.13 KiB) Viewed 4094 times

And that's about where it stands now, in the grand scheme of things I've done approximately bugger all of what needs doing, but I'm hoping during the quieter college summer holidays I can make some more progress. I'm owed some time-off-in-lieu, so I might spend an entire week still coming to work, but just working on my Viva. Then I'll bloody get somewhere!!

[1972nail]

Interesting project. Are you using the Manta gearbox? There is a Minor Van around somewhere with the Isuzu 1.7 TD in it he used a Fait Miafiora box. Here's a couple of photos I took at the MMOC National in 2011 - Billing was on the same weekend!

[pbottomley]

You could do well to speak to Si

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17508&p=65380#p65380

[bikingnutcase0]

Hi gents!

Wellll, I WAS intending to use a Manta 'box, however I found they seem to have been hoovered up by anybody/everybody putting a vauxhall engine in a rwd application, and I watched five or six sell for 2-300 pounds, and would require a 600mile round trip to collect.

So I got impatient, and bought a Vauxhall R22 gearbox from a Carlton instead. I've heard many people say it won't fit as it's too big, and I can't cut the trans tunnel without having an IVA test and possible Q-plate. However others have said it does fit. Wether this is due to differet tunnel dimensions (somebody told me they were different) in 1256 Viva and 1800/2000/2300 Magnum or what, I don't know.

However I have some confidence It'll work, looks very much to me as if the extra "meat" is all below the output shaft level, so I might lose a bit of ground clearance but hopefully it will still work. I need to whip the Viva engine and 'box out and offer it up I think.

If not I might try getting a vauxhall/ford bellhousing adapter from the likes of SBD motorsport and use a Ford Type 9 'box, of which there is a spare knocking around at work. Should still cost less than a Manta 'box of dubious origin.

The van looks a neat conversion, I wonder if they made some sort of bellhousing adapter plate to achieve that with the Fiat gearbox?

Thanks for the link there, I've seen Si (aka B8D)'s build on the forum. It probably looks like I've stolen his idea! I didn't though, I promise (lol!) came up with it a couple of years ago, thinking of doing a chevette, but then discovered Viva's were equally/more availiable, and offered better aesthetics and more character! Then whilst googling gearbox (or possibly clutch) options, I stumbled across Si's build. I think I may have sent him a PM a while back (or mabye posted a comment, not sure), but he's obviously a busy chap and didn't reply. He's only about thirty miles from me, perhaps I'll send him another.

As far as the rest of the trans goes, I've got a Vauxhall magnum axle and upper tie-bars (from a Jensen Healey!) and bits of carlton/transit/jensen healey propshaft I'm gonna build a two-peice prop from.

Owain.

[1972nail]

There are a lot of myths about different tunnels across the HC range - Viva E Coupe having the larger HPF tunnel etc. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!

The gear lever hole is in a different location on OHC cars but this was achieved by having one big hole and using different blanking plates to suit either OHC or OHV. The HPF had a bit cut out of the gear lever hole to allow the higher remote turret on the ZF' box poke through - thats all.

I've owned a Viva E Coupe, a 1256 4 door a 1256 Auto and a 2300 Sport SL and all had the same tunnel. Vauxhall always made things as simple and universal as possible so one size fits all.

[bikingnutcase0]

Haha! I had wondered if it was an "urban legend", especially when I saw the covering plate you refer to, thanks for the clarification!

Owain.