Apocalypse Viva (Finland)

[ApocalypseViva]

Hello!

Greetings from Finland!

First off, warning, many pictures.

I found myself a Cedar Green Viva here in Finland in 2020, the car had no paperwork (still doesnt) but apparently when I get it inspected/mot'd in the future, the paperwork is still somewhere in the historical records, so I can get it under my name. The previous owner had the car parked in the grass behind his warehouse for years, so I got it for 200 euros.





We towed the car to my parents place at the time, since I didnt still have a house and lived with my girlfriend in an apartment. I think the dolly tow thing was still legal to use here, but thats not the case anymore.



I tinkered with the engine to get it to run finally during the same winter that I got it. The only problem was that there was a loud high pitched clonking noise when the engine finally ran. I thought first that it might be just the water pump bearing going bad, but replacing the water pump didnt do anything to the noise. I also replaced the coil and got an electric fuel pump.



Since there wasnt a wide variety of rims available with the Viva pcd, I found a bunch of cheap 4x100 rims that I thought of getting redrilled at a machine shop to the Viva pcd.



Redrilled and one rim starting to polish out nicely.



After looking at the car for for a while I thought the stance looked a bit lazy, so I got some Opel Ascona A/B 70-81 shocks, and Peugeot 207 HB springs to get the rear up, the Ascona shocks had a tad too small lower hole, so I drilled that out to match the Viva bolt.



Fitted under, the spring cup is a trolley rim split in two.



So the stance was looking a bit better with a little bit of rake, I thought It quite fit the look. At the time tho I still didnt have a direction where I would go with the build, so I started drawing.



As a fan of Mad Max I came up with the above drawing, I thought the general shape of the car would go nicely with the Yellow Interceptor coloring, with all the accessories, spoilers etc.



So, the obvious thing to do was buy some police lights...



...and a PA system.



And started on a rear roof spoiler, which obviusly looks bad, and I have since destroyed that version.



I started on a front spoiler mock up with some plywood, tested a pair of fender flares on the car, also I found a Magnum mask from some Viva guy here in Finland, so this was just to see if my vision was going to work, and if you squint, it actually could, with a bunch of modifying and paint and all. So the vision was starting to form in my head from the drawing, with using a bunch of imagination of course.

The engine just wasnt working, and I didnt see a point in taking the Viva engine out and opening it up. So I found a bigger front axle for a 1800/2300 Viva and bought it.



Not really sure on the differences to the original axle that I still have on the Viva. (This coming weekend Im going to try to take out the old axle.) So I guess Ill see how different they are.



As Im a logistics engineer, Ive got a few contacts with bigger machinery, I ended up buying a Ford 20m with a 2 litre V6 engine. The car was delivered to my parents house.



Working on cars is really nice here in Finland, since the weather is always on your side!
The Ford engine ran good, even tho the body of the car wasnt in the best shape.

So at this point me and my girlfriend bought a house, I think it was early 2021, and we started renovating it. The summer pretty much went on the house, time and money wise.



At the end of summer I again had a bit of cash so I bought a motor hoist and took the engine out of the Ford.
We ended up getting married at the start of 2022, still working on the house with all the spare time and money we had. The Viva was buried in snow for the whole winter at my parents house.



Finally getting back to it, I found a cheap but good looking tyre for the rims that I had polished.



The rims and tyres look pretty nice on the car.



Pulled the engine from the Viva, and sold it to some other Viva guy for 50 euros. He told me he was going to use it for parts so I imagine it went to a good home.



The summertime again went in renovations to the house, but I did manage to get the Ford engine home from my parents house.



But now I had my own garage where to put all my stuff, on the wall are the retro seats that I again found for cheap somewhere online, I like how they will fit the aesthetic of the car.



At the end of 2022 I had again a small amount of cash, so I used my contacts to get the Viva home.



I finally had the Viva in my garage, the picture doesnt really do justice to the size of it since theres all kinds of *Bleep* around the car, anyways, the build was underway once again, I bought a Corvette L88 hood scoop, just laid it on the hood again to get the general idea.



It was time to start buying parts for the engine. I bought a Kent Cams V6T3 cam.



Another mock up with the seats to see how they fit.

[ApocalypseViva]

As the front fenders had a bit of damage, I figured I could pull the dents out somehow.



So I welded some nails to the fender, warmed up the metal with a torch and pulled the nail at the same time with pliers.



I still do have to probably pound the panels a bit from the inside after i remove the front axle out of the way. I think they still became a bit more straighter than they were before.



I began trying to find the Mad Max colours for the car, I think i got pretty close to the right colors



But just out of curiousity I ended up ordering another yellow rattle can of a different shade and I think its much closer to the original Mad Max colours.

The Blue is RAL 5013
The right side Yellow is RAL 1018
The left side yellow is RAL 1016
The Red and White are just generic colors.
I feel these are the closest to the real colors i can get.

Aaaaand guess what, summer went renovating, actually painting stuff (Mainly the kitchen cabinets) with a spray gun in the garage, so that was off limits for a few weeks.



I again somehow found a bit of cash gathered up to get the whole set of bushes for the Viva, the doggo is inspecting the goods.



I bought a straight sided barrel to get the new roof spoiler started.



I cut it up, taped and fibreglassed it on the roof to an approximate place, then cut it in to shape.



And It came out like this, much better than the previous version of the spoiler. I still need to get a bunch more of fibreglass on it to keep it nice and sturdy.



Side by side comparison of the Interceptor and Vivaceptor.

But I felt something was still missing, the shape was coming along, but I noticed that the Interceptor had a nice wide fender flare on it, so I went looking online. Apparently the flares are for a Holden Torana, fitted onto a Ford Falcon.

I found a guy in Australia willing to ship his rear flares to me, but he didnt own the front ones, so I was in a pickle. But, to my surprise he told me he saw an ad for front flares somewhere and they were 40 minutes away from his house, so of course I was interested.



After a while he sends me this picture, he had driven all the way to the guys house and bought them for me, and he still hadnt gotten payed by me for the rear flares either, mind you. So of course I asked to pay everything, I think he told me to pay after he shipped them, so the total price for the flares would have both the rear, front, and shiping. I was pretty surprised how much he trusted that I would pay him, which of course I did. I think the price of the flares came up to a bit over 300 euros with shipping and tax.



What would the car be without a cb radio, right?



I shortened the L88 scoop to fit better to the Viva hood, which of course needed to be modified to get it on there, and of course I wanted a real working scoop with the hole and all.



So this is the kind of mashup I came up with, I also painted the hood with gray primer so in the future when I still fix some of the dents that were on the hood too, I can see them better.



Here the hood is just layed out on the car, no hinges attached.



The gaskets to the engine came, also new valve springs, I dont have a picture, but I also ordered new tappets and other stuff for the engine.

At this time it was winter again, the garage has a sink, which of course had a waterpipe freeze and burst, then our daily car broke down on my work trip, that then got towed to an impound lot from the side of the road, because of heavy snowfall and was damaged at the impound lot even further, before I finally got it towed back to our house.

So that was a bunch of money down the drain. Thankfully the daily car got claimed by the towing/impound companys insurance after fighting them for 8 months.

That brings us to this summer. (still renovating by the way.)



New parts for the engine. The good thing about the Ford Cologne V6 is that the timing is geared, no belt or chain, I of course went with the steel gears, partly because theyre supposed to last and partly because they have a supercharger sounding whine to them.



New colours for the garage, Gulf inspired, probably not the right blue for it, since we had a lot of this blue left over from the renovation inside, I thought Id use the rest in the garage.



There I sat for a couple of days to tear the engine apart.



Starting to build it all back together with new parts.



Valve covers before.



Valve covers after, the colors were great, they however hadnt yet dried fully and I smeared the paintjob after the photos, practice run, thats all i can say, but this is how theyll be when i paint them again in the future.



The Holden Torana flares mounted on the Viva, with no modification as of yet, I'll have to see what the future holds before modifying anything.



I started to fibreglass the front spoiler too, but I may redo it, I have some ideas to make it better.



And the engine, ready. But as you may see that some hoses are kinked, I did replace those with different hoses before running in the engine.

That is pretty much all the pictures that I have to share at the moment.

I did run the engine for quite a while but the water pump failed, which I then had to wait for a few weeks to get and install.

Mostly a lot of time has gone into renovating the house to our liking and the rest that I have, I spend on this project. It will be done one day, but as i am only one man, i can only do so little at a time. And of course parts are a *Bleep* to come across, so waiting for them takes time.

Heres the latest video of the engine running, subscribe to the channel If you want me to make them in english in the future too.

https://youtu.be/EfngQ31n8WY?si=nFFfkldwUkzhlflp

Plans:

- Next weekend, take the front axle off and start refurbishing the bigger one.
- A lot of bodywork and rust repairs, but that will be left until the mechanical side is all done.
- Paint
- Interior will be quite bare apart from the front seats
- I found Aero Race Wheels have a nascar style 15 inch 4x4pcd pattern (55 Series), that would make nice wide rear wheels(10 inch wide?), Bassett makes 14 inch wheels which would go nicely up front. But theyd have to be bought from the states, so that really racks up the price.

I guess we'll keep on working and see where this all goes in the future, in the meantime, any comments and views on the youtube channel are apprechiated!

Thanks,
Ma(x)rkus Vuortio

[HC Fairley]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Nice to see plenty of photos.

There is very little difference in the 2 front axles. The engine mounts are different and the brakes are bigger but that is it really. However you now have the benefit of a front Anti-roll bar.

[jpsmit]

welcome - that is an utterly bonkers project! I love it! please keep us posted as you go.

[ApocalypseViva]

Thank you for the warm welcome!

Heres my youtube channel, if you want to follow, I'll try and post videos about the car as well: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkusVuortioOfficial

welcome - that is an utterly bonkers project! I love it! please keep us posted as you go.

I like to do things a bit differently.



A little update; I got wall cabinets and more drawers + the workbench top and installed them during the weekend. There is a tool wall thing too, but Ill need my wifes help to get it on the wall, since I dont have enough hands to mark all the holes for the wall anchors while holding the metal frame up on the wall. Ill be painting the cabinet and drawer doors to match the wall colors eventually, but I just dont have the space to do it at the moment. At least I have a place to store a lot of the stuff now, might finally see the floor again. I'll also need an electrician to come and make me a new outlet next to the workbench so I can get my tools charged, and of course the sound system needs electricity too, I'll be using the cable channels to run the speaker wires on the ceiling so theyll be hidden from view.



The front axle has finally departed the car. I was going to do this before last winter, but life got in the way. Almost didnt have the time to do it this year either, as its supposed to start snowing tomorrow maybe, so the car will get buried in snow before too long.



The axle in the warmth of the garage. I'll have to get rid of all the cardboard that the cabinets came with, theres also a bunch of styrofoam that i'll need to fit in our garbage bin.



So now the car is on jackstands and I'll build the bigger axle for the V6 engine when I have time. I have no idea if I need parts etc, other then the polyurethane bushes that I have waiting. I guess thats a part of the fun with building cars, you never know what you need until you need it.

Will the original brake master cylinder under the hood work with the bigger front brakes?

I'll keep you posted.