The End

This weekend we made up our mind to sell the little Corona.

A great project, that turned out awesome, I hope I did the original owners proud. I know they'll be a little disappointed that it's gone, as am I but the new owners seem like good people. They're not too cluey about classic cars, but are really keen for an easy low-maintenance vehicle so they can participate in car shows and runs.

I put the car on Gumtree at around 9am in the morning. By 5.30pm it was gone!

Goodbye little mate, be good for your new owners :)

Bay to Birdwood Day 2015

My absolute favourite day of the year! Bay to Birdwood day!

Early start in the cool air down to West Beach, we met and cruised with a light green RT40 that I found lives about 5 minutes away from us.

The breakfast at West beach is my favourite part of the day to chat cars and so on.

The route this year was great, A slight modification from previous years, and way better than the disaster of 2013 where it went up the freeway. 

Today's probably the longest drive we've had in the Corona and it's starting to make me realise that the vehicle is pretty... well... boring to drive. Low on power, you really have to think about traffic gaps and hill starts, AM only radio, and compared to my other classics, quite pedestrian. A real shame as the renovation has been a real labour of love and I'm ecstatic by how it turned out, but I'm considering now that it's done a show, a cruise and the Bay to Birdwood I may move it on to another loving family.

Thanks to Epsom Road Studio for the photos.

Rundle Street Bay to Birdwood Display

Some weeks back a post went out on the Bay to Birdwood page Facebook page asking for submissions of interest to participate in a display on Rundle Street for Sunday September 13 to promote the upcoming Classic Run.

To my knowledge this was the first time. I sent an email in explaining the story of the Corona, and a little anecdote about my wife's interest in the car with a couple of photos. Lo-and behold The Corona was selected to participate. No mean feat as the cars selected were of supreme quality and a real cross section of society. Cars (like ours) that everyday people owned, up to the mayor's Jensen Interceptor and everything in between.

So tickled with our story ABC 891 called for an on-air interview about the event and our little car! Probably the highlight of my year!

They blocked off the entire bottom half of Rundle Street for the whole day and had local bands play era-appropriate music. There were around 100 vehicles in total. Awesome to be included!

Thanks to Car Runs of Adelaide for this pic.

Shovelnose Corona Club cruise

Some months back I'd joined the Shovelnose Corona Restorers and modifiers Facebook group. A worldwide group, there are a lot of Australians, and more than a handful of Adelaidians on it.

A meet and greet and cruise was organised for September 6 starting at the Scenic Hotel in Norton Summit. Hilly area for such gutless cars, but would make for some interesting drives. Alas the weather turned sour pretty soon and it was a wet and woolly day.

I caught up to this one on the way up to Norton Summit. Knew I was in the right place.

The early arrivals including an RT80

The full crew at Lobethal

Fuel issues?

Th previous post mentioned the odd misfire, which I had put down to old dirty fuel, which is partly correct. What I hadn't noticed was the sealant used on the fuel lines when I reinstalled them had reacted with the fuel and little blobs had made there way into the fuel system.

I had rebuilt the fuel pump, the fuel filter bowl and redid all the lines and was still having problems to the point where the Corona died going up North East Road, and not in the three lane area, but  up past the Fox n Firkin where there was nowhere to pull off! Managed to swing across into a driveway before in totally died.

Assuming still fuel pump I pulled the original off and took it down to be rebuilt. Alas no kits are available! Gah! Managed to procure an aftermarket one, which I'm not happy about, given how original the rest of the engine bay presents.

Anyway after this, the problem was still not cured! I totally stripped down the carburettor to find tiny blue particles of sealant inside. After a thorough blow out and clean, resintalled the carby and we were purring! So good, it hadn't run that well before. Hooray. And not a day too soon as tomorrow is the inaugural RT40 Corona Adelaide cruise!

Birdwood trial run

The Bay to Birdwood Classic is next month, and although I'd already entered with another vehicle, I'm considering changing my entry vehicle to the Corona. In order to do that, I thought I'd better check that it would get there ok as the road to Birdwood is extremely windy and hilly.

I needn't have worried, apart for the odd misfire, which I still think is residual dirty or contaminated fuel on steep ascents, and the lack of power when reaching the peaks, it performed very well and the handling was excellent. I'm not surprised they raced them back in the day (well the manuals anyway).

I quickly stopped for a photo at the Big Rocking Horse on the way back.

Seems the cold weld on the radiator has blocked that pinhole too, which is good.

Gawler trip

Following the wheel alignment, The Corona was ready for it's first longer-distance trip. So far I'd not travelled more than 10km from home, mainly as I wasn't too confident on the reliability and I didn't want to scrub out the tyres until properly aligned.

Weather was reasonable so I decided to visit my parents in Gawler which is a 70 km round trip with patches of 90kph along the way. I'd not had it over 70 at that stage.

Trip up was generally trouble free, although at times I noticed a bit of a haze emanating from the front of the car when I stopped. I did investigate but came up with nothing. It managed to keep up with traffic, generally, bit slow off the lights but 90kph seemed quite doable. It did rev quite high by then so I'd not think 100 would be advisable for long periods if even possible.

Here we are after arrival: 

Back to the odd mist, I checked around and found a tiny pinhole in the top radiator tank. Quite vexing given I had that radiator totally rebuilt. Alas that was maybe 4 years ago so warranty would no longer be valid. It hadn't lost much coolant at all so I left it at this stage.

The trip home was pretty uneventful except for a number of misfires along the way. Might need to investigate that. I have since pulled the plugs and leads and so on to find all are perfect. I hope it's not a burnt valve. I used some cold weld on the radiator so I'll see if that holds pressure, before pulling it out for a pro to solder it.

I've also been considering entering it in the Bay to Birdwood this year. Back in 2010 I posted about maybe making it to the 2011 B2B Classic - totally daft in hindsight, only now 4 years later is that even slightly possible. I'm going to do a test run to Birdwood and back on Saturday morning before deciding.

White walls and wheel alignments

Recently I emailed the original family of the Corona. I still had their email address on a scrap of paper with all the documents when I first bought it. They were delighted to hear about it and see some pictures of it back in action.

They sent me this photo from when it was brand new:

The paint was so nice when it was new!

Anyway this pic has whitewalls! Something I was considering doing so on a whim I called the local whitewall guy who came out the very next morning and did them for $90. His price hasn't changed in 10 years I reckon. I didn't want to wear the tyres out more than necessary so I finally had it  wheel aligned. On my birthday or all days.

Saturday cruising

Today we went on our first official outing in the Corona.

Fittingly it was down to Supacheap to buy a small socket/spanner set to keep in the boot. We also detoured past the friend's place again.

The car ran beautifully, smooth, responsive - well, as responsive as a 45 year old 1.5L 2 speed auto can manage, which isn't much, and rode pretty quietly.

Upon returning home I noticed a small coolant leak due to a lack of sealant around an outlet from the water pump (it's a screw  in attachment), which has been fixed.

One of the trans lines was oozing near the radiator, which I since sealed and added a new clamp.

And then the contact points closed on me so it took a good 20 minutes to locate why it wouldn't start. Reset them and we're good again!

Exhausted after a trip around the block

Finally we're ready for some cruising!

Clean, running, interior in, lets go.

Did a few trips around the block, up to a friends house not far away home again, and then to get fuel and then the exhaust blew. Not surprising really given I suspect it's actually the original exhaust from the factory. Whenever I started it in the shed, a shovel full of rust and crap would blow out of the pipes.


Shortly after the exhaust let go. Looks great, sounds awful, runs a bit rough.


Today it went for it's longest trip, running a little rough, down to the exhaust joint near my work.



I knew there was still some fuel issue as when you plant the foot it hesitates and sometimes bogs down, but after some discussion with the exhaust bloke we agreed it's probably the ancient fuel in the tank. I topped it up with a jerry can some months back, but the fuel in the tank is probably 10 years old (last registered in 2006) and the fuel in the jerry can is probably at least that old if not more! I added $20 worth of fuel the other week, but obviously not enough to dilute the gunk.

Anyway, on the way home I filled it totally - to overflowing actually which unfortunately softened the paint under the filler pipe. However within about 5 minutes of driving it was suddenly running smooth! 

More Interior

After the carpet was installed, it really showed how awful the headlining was looking. Initially I didn't think it was too bad, but I gave it a thorough scrub and it was clearly evident that it had significant sun damage. Some of the vinyl had even cracked and come apart on the passenger A pillar. I glued in a patch of vinyl to cover the cracks and then sprayed the A pillar with dull-white vinyl spray. It suddenly looked a million times better and I knew I had to do the whole thing.

Being mid-Winter it was risky, but we were having a sunny day so I bit the bullet and careful masked the whole interior and then gave it many light coats, using two full cans in the end. There was two runs which I managed to spot early enough to clean up and recover with paint. I was pretty happy with the result, vinyl spray can really be hit and miss, but this turned out awesome. To the casual observer they wouldn't be able to notice.

The crashpad in these things are notorious for self-destructing from the Aussie summers. I don;t think I've ever seen a non-restored one in one piece. This one had a huge crack right through the middle about an inch wide where you could see the metal below. It had curled and peeled and was a write off. I have no idea how they repair them. I had started cutting off the worst bits and was going to bog it until I read online about a guy making a new one out of foam and vinyl. They are dead straight with no contours or many curves so I thought I should give it a crack. It was pretty easy actually, make a template from newspaper, cut foam to suit, test, then glue on vinyl, then fit. Although the corners that fold down into the sides of the dash don't quite look right, the rest looks very neat.

 

 
 

Carpet install

Every recent post seems to be 'a couple more things and we'll be done', which never ends up being the case.

The carpet arrived, here's a review.

Rear: The rear was pretty much a perfect fit. The moulding lined up exactly with the tunnel and finished an inch in front of the seam between the front and rear floor. Just enough overhang to provide a clean fit along the sides, I trimmed about 2 inches off each side. 9.5/10 for fit

Front: Front was a reasonably good fit, I've done maybe 5 carpets before from various manufacturers and not one has ever been a snug perfect fit over the trans hump area.It'll settle down a bit and it is cold out in the shed these evenings, so with some good warmth I think it'll be a little more pliable and fit a little more snugly. A fair amount needs to be trimmed from the sides, about 3 inches. Some issues with lining up the dips to clear the steering column. This doesn't line up exactly, but it's pretty close. The carpet doesn't quite reach the factory velcro on the firewall so I'll have to remove that, but it does covers all of the factory underfelt. It did foul on the air box in the centre and has no provision for the accelerator mount like the factory one did. I just unbolted the accelerator mount and rebolted it over the top. Probably about a 7/10 for fit for the front section.

Issues: I ordered loop charcoal, but it's several shades lighter than the factory charcoal. However nowhere as bright as the photos show, that's just poor camera lighting causing that.

There's simply not enough offcuts large enough to cover the outer seat mounts as shown in the last picture. I'm not sure if earlier models have them but they have strips of carpet glued directly to them. I'll have to clean these as well as possible. The only part of those visible is between the seat edge and the doorjam. 

There is, of course, no press studs in the carpet that would attach to the ones in the floor, but I didn't really expect that.

The fouling on the airbox and the not quite right lining up under the dash, was slightly irksome, but I wonder if that's from changes of the models over the years. Perhaps the original mould was taken from a '65 and the '70 has some differences? Not sure...
All up maybe 7.5/10

Final bits...

Not much left to do on the Corona now. Yesterday I gave it a thorough scrub inside, it hasn't been cleaned in years and there's a fair bit of ingrained dirt in the vinyl. Alas the hood lining has been sun damaged quite a lot, I may do a vinyl spray repaint. Awaiting new carpet to arrive from Knox Carpets, I had expected it today, but it didn't show.

The small stitching split in the passenger seat has totally let go now and the drivers side is starting to go, so they will both need to come out and go to the trimmer for repairs.

Still once that's all done and a wheel alignment, I reckon we'll be in a good place.

And driving!

Today I finished readjusting the brakes, topped up the gearbox and decided to do a few laps of the driveway! I was smiling all afternoon. It's been 5 years to get to this stage (yes I know much of that was procrastination) but we're not far from going on the road now!

I ordered new rego plates many weeks ago, not realising you can't collect them from Service SA if the vehicle is unregistered, so it still has no plates. I might do a quickie repaint of the old plates to keep me going until I get around to collecting the new ones.


I love registering on the internet. It's been off the road for 9 years, unregistered for maybe 4 but you just enter the details on the net and bam, registered vehicle. Just insured it on the phone and we might go for a bit of a drive around the suburb later on to iron out any bugs. I do anticipate it'll need a thorough wheel alignment given nearly every steering and suspension component is new.

As the original plates were R issued series (RFR-299) I assumed they'd be non-slogan replicas, however I since found as I wasn't actually signing up for new issues R plates and just replacing mine, they come with the 'South Australia' slogan at the bottom. 

Carby rebuild

Poor photo of the rebuilt carb

 In the previous post I mentioned that the carby was being difficult. I've rebuilt carbs in the past, but generally only simple things like Holden Strombergs and not something like the complicated Aisans found in these vehicles. Also it's almost impossible to find a kit for it. I ended up biting the bullet and taking it to Adelaide Carb Services. They rebuilt it (also noticing it was missing a couple of bits and replacing them) for a reasonable $280. Plonked it on and the car started and idled immediately! Well worth it. 

The gearbox wasn't selecting either, which was concerning given I'd had it completely reconditioned. Rookie mistake, seems I'd simply forgotten to finish filling it up! It only had about 2L of fluid and requires 4.5L from dead empty. Filled it and we're back in business.

Last weekend I managed to potter up and down the driveway a few times, noticing that it still needed a little more gearbox fluid and the brakes needed re-adjusting. I had almost no brakes it reverse, which was slightly concerning when backing down my steep driveway.

Slowly getting there

2R cleaned up, some new gaskets and reinstalled.
Not quite accurate decal, but I like it.

The previous post indicated I may be driving soon, which didn't end up being the case, just yet. No real reason apart from some real life getting in the way again.


But today I fired up the Corona tonight for the first time in around 3 or 4 years! Started really easily, I guess all the hand cranking I did the other week helped prime everything.

The carby still has a few problems, I put some new gaskets in it, and it'll run and idle fine for about a minute and then starts surging before it dies. Not sure why at this stage, but I'll work it out.

Reconditioned master cylinder, it's nice to have pressure behind the pedal again. With that in, every brake component is brand new except the distribution block, some of the steel lines and the front shoes.

All wiring is spot on, lights all work perfectly, warning lights, original radio works which was a plus.

Carpet still to go, the passenger seat needs a very small repair, and then I think it's time for rego.

Getting close...

The final days are upon us. Yesterday I refit the bonnet after a quick sand. It still needs a buff, actually the whole car needs a thorough rub down to flatten out some of the orange peel further.

The transmission lines were a nightmare, they should have been installed when the motor and gearbox were out of the car as they are mainly steel tubing that needed lots of massaging to snake back into place.

Bonnet back, grillle in, almost ready

The new water pump fits properly and I used a NOS fan belt! Woo. Ahem.
I'm still waiting for a pair of radiator hoses and a fuel filter to arrive, the fuel filter needed to be found online as some of the disposable parts are now deleted. I found a distributor cap at Blair Athol parts, but they want $75 for it! I cleaned up the existing one, but if I were to keep the car long term I'd have to toss the Lucas distributor and fit a Bosch one just so I can get parts.

The grille had been painted flat black, so I sanded that back and returned it to almost the correct dark grey.

Remaining work to get it back on the road:
- Radiator hoses, and coolant
- gearbox fluid
- fuel filter
- Battery
- Brake Master cylinder and bleed
- Rego and license plates
- test all wiring
- rebuild and refit the rear licence plate light. These units rot out really quickly. 
When I bought the car there were literally dozens for sale on eBay all the time. I kept thinking, eh I'll get it later, there's no shortage of supply. They sold for $29 with free postage from Thailand. Now it's 'later' and they stopped selling them about a year ago. Nowhere to be found anywhere. The odd second hand one of ebay goes for upwards of $80 plus shipping! I've missed out on two. I'm just going to have to make mine presentable again.

I suspect I might be able to start it and possibly drive a little over Easter, but given the all new front end, I'd be loathe to go too far without an alignment.

Engine back in

March is re-assembly month. It's now the last few days and I only have the last few things left to go.
After reattaching the body trim, the bumpers and lights, and after searching for one small piece of trim from the front right guard that went missing for about two weeks, it was time to put the mechanicals back in.

Close enough mirrors for now

But first to mirrors! You may recall in the first posts that I struggled to find suitable mirrors. Well I still am, I bought these aftermarket ones which are similar to the originals, but still not quite tall enough.

I am so glad I bagged and labelled nearly every nut and bolt as this made life so much easier when finding the correct bits. I admit I do have a jar of random stuff which I keep finding the perfect bolt in now that I've exhausted the bags I had labelled.

I stored most of the parts in the one cupboard too, so nearly everything was on hand.

The cleaned and painted 2R motor with gearbox reattached.

I attached the rebuilt gearbox to the original motor, after giving it a thorough clean and repaint (the motor that is) and tracking bits of engine grease throughout the house :/

Most of the engine back
together and in place

This entire unit went back in very smoothly and easily I was quite surprised, especially given the hassles when removing it. I guess cleaning everything makes life a lot easier.

I bought a replacement water pump off ebay some years ago only to find when putting the ancillaries back on, that it's got the wrong shaft on it, way too long, the pulley doesn't fit and the fan would hit the radiator. Off to ebay to find another, which fortunately arrived this week.
I found engine enamel that is pretty close to the original rocker cover/air cleaner cover colour so gave them a squirt.

Next up is the rest of the motor accessories and radiator.

Time for paint

2  more months have passed and it's been full steam ahead.
January was front end and brake rebuild, February was respray time. 

Sanded and ready for primer

A fair amount of prep went into the body work, from some bog wipes and plenty of sanding and priming. All chrome was removed and the rubber was carefully taped up. All surface rust was rubbed out. There was a fair amount on the roof, but the rest was pretty normal.

A couple of prime coats done

I used Proform brand primer, which was excellent. Smooth thick coverage and a pleasure to sand (well as pleasurable as sanding can be). I choose off white primer too as it would mean less top coats to get full coverage as opposed to a dark primer.

Painted, sanded, buffed and with some chrome back on.

Top coats were with the Pro-tec paint I bought 5 years ago. 5 years of sitting the paint had separated in the tin to a yellow colour. Upon first opening I thought I'd bought the wrong code! After ages stirring it finally blended back together top the correct colour.

I wasn't particularly pleased with how the paint when on. I admit I'm pretty rusty with spraying (it's been 15 years), and the hot weather probably didn't help but some areas were very powdery and full of orange peel. I rubbed back with 1500 and then again with 1200 and then a machine buff and it's smooth and shiny, but the orange peel is still evident in several areas. I'll give it a hand cut next, but if it were a concours resto I'd be starting again.

3 years later...

The HG wagon at a club event 

Has it really been 3 years?

Shortly after my last post in early 2012 I purchased a HG Premier wagon to replace my ute. This vehicle became the primary focus for several months, getting it up the scratch, both in appearance and reliability to become my new daily driver. It's actually pretty nice to drive, and looks awesome from a few feet away. Up close the paint is old and patchy, but it's a cool machine. 

New tie-rods and ball joints
can be seen here.

Anyway then I got sick. Pretty much all major projects were put on hold until I got to a better place with my health which took a couple of years. The Corona sat still gathering dust supported on axle stands as I'd taken all of the front end out.

2 weeks ago I was cleaning the shed and suddenly decided to get back into it. And a busy fortnight it's been! Back in 2012 I'd had the control arms rebuilt, new pivots, bushes and ball joints. Given the rarity of parts it ended up costing over $700 for the four of them, mainly because the pivots were so hard to come by. So I re-installed these, rebuilt the front brakes with new cylinders and cleaned them up. The shoes are still at about 60% so I refitted them after a clean. New tie rods, idler arm, and sway bushes and after a grease up we were back on the ground after 3 years!

Bootlid repaired.

In between this I had been attacking the body work. You may recall I had some 'pinholes' in the chassis rail. Well as always this was actually worse than it looked, and I had a friend weld them up with new sections installed. He also welded up a split in the engine bay, and some mild repairs to the guard. A swipe of body filler and the guards are pretty smooth.

All of the doors have pin holes in the corners. I've treated these, but I've chosen the fill them, rather than cut and weld. Only one of them I think would warrant a cut and weld, but at this stage I'm looking to get it back on the road and looking neat. It's not a concours resto.

Tomorrow I will start the pre-painting rub down. Once resprayed I'll refit the motor and gearbox. The gearbox was rebuilt back in 2012 by the same person who did the diff, probably unnecessarily now in hindsight. The rebuilder told me it'd gone on for another 10 years like it was, worn from age, with 1960's tolerances, but serviceable. I still got it completely rebuilt, so there's probably 40 years of life in it again.
The motor however, I'll probably just do some gaskets and give it a clean. A compression test was done when I bought it, with readings over 130 on every cylinder, so it's probably unnecessary to pull down. I might get the head redone for unleaded later down the track, but just dose it with lead replacer in the mean time.