Ballbags TE

[Ballbag]

So I thought it would throw together a thread for the slow build of the mighty TE
I got the car off a mate for the sum of 0$, she needs plenty of work, but hey, gives me something to do and keep busy with!

In its current form, it's a stocker 81' TE. Its had more hits than Elvis, and after going through the car looks like it was owned by a chick P plater. (never seen so much lipstick and makeup under a rear seat before!) So the head gasket is blown but apart from that the engine and driveline looks really good! Most of the parts are new, so someone has had it regularly serviced and maintained.
The interior and body, not so much. interior is a mix of black door cards, blue slx front and rear seats, all of which have seen better days.
the body has a little rust, plenty of decent dents, but ill work through it all slowly.

My plans are to build a nice streeter, but keeping the body and interior relatively stock. most likely head down the efi g180 turbo path. But for the moment, get it running and driving, so I can cruise it around whilst I build a g180 for it

so, let the fun begin!

Cheers!
Ben.

[Ballbag]

Had a good laugh at this sticker aswell haha! someone enjoyed a few too many drinks haha!

[Jonno]

Awesome welcome to the forum!

Anything left of that interlock system?

Look forward to the progress

[Ballbag]

Thanks Jonno!
Nah nothing left of it. Just holes where it was screwed in.

So I spent a few hours today tearing out the interior looking for rust. Safe to say I found some.

Left hand front door jam/sill:



Left hand brace. It's rotted right through to the engine bay


Right hand rear floor pan


Left hand rear floor pan


Passenger front floor pan




The left hand front fender is shot, so pulled that off. As was the passenger front door. Had a fair amount of rust in the bottom and round the frame aswell.
There rust in the boot aswell, plus it's had a small hit (think there backed into a tree or a maybe a pole) so plenty of fun to be had.
So I'll be on the hunt for some new panels and see how we go.

I'm wondering how much more rust I'll find

[Ballbag]

Forgot to add, here's my helper



His name is boost. He loves it. Take him e erywhere with me. His favourite is car shows. As soon as he sees all the cars he goes nuts!

[Holden202T]

lol petrol head dog

your rust takes me back to when I first got my gemini!

[Jonno]

It's fixable!

Good puppy. Probably more helpful that mine. One chases flies for hours the other jumps in the back seat and goes to sleep!

[Ballbag]

lol petrol head dog

your rust takes me back to when I first got my gemini!

Yeah there's plenty of it lol.

It's fixable!

Good puppy. Probably more helpful that mine. One chases flies for hours the other jumps in the back seat and goes to sleep!

Yeah its fixable. I don't know if its because Gemini's were built s*#t, or more so I think this has sat for a while in the weather. all the door seals were f*#@ed so my guess is the water has just sat in there.

haha! yeah after a while mine does the same, just lays on a seat somewhere. Tried to teach him to bring me tools, started off ok, then decided that the ends of the screw drivers looked yum haha!

[Ballbag]

So haven't been doing a great deal on it lately. Currently storing a car for a mate so not a lot of room, plus I'm not keen on showering it with grinding sparks lol. I have it wedged in the corner just until this cars gone which shouldn't be long. So I just spent a few hours making a whole bunch of patch panel templates. Time consuming, but it has to be done at some point, so grabbed a few beers and knocked some up.
Here's one I done for the passenger side guard brace thingo:







So with all the parts taped together looks something like this:


So with it taped together I can flatten it out, cut it as one piece, add 10mm on the sides, and fold it up. Beats making 100 different pieces!

[Holden202T]

yeah totally agree, one piece will look a lot nicer if nothing else!

[Jonno]

Yeah exactly.

Those templates are a good idea to.

[Ballbag]

yeah totally agree, one piece will look a lot nicer if nothing else!

Amen! also, you're on the pcmhacking pages yeah?

Yeah exactly.

Those templates are a good idea to.

Just makes life easy, if you can make it out of paper you can make it out of metal. Plus paper will act like metal, so if the paper scrunches up you know the metal will need to be shrunk/stretched.

Will finish knocking up a few tonight, and hopefully get cranking on it this weekend.
I need to replace the section behind it (engine bay) as well, so ill knock up a template for that and then roll the bead around it (its that "squared" section).

[Jonno]

Cool! Look forward to updates.

P.s what side of the country are you?
Should work towards this

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=48423

[Holden202T]

yeah totally agree, one piece will look a lot nicer if nothing else!

Amen! also, you're on the pcmhacking pages yeah?

Yeah mate I'm Holden202T on there.

[Ballbag]

Cool! Look forward to updates.

P.s what side of the country are you?
Should work towards this

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=48423

Im in east Melbourne (yarra valley). f*#k that would be good! see how I go I guess. I'd like to have all the rust done, and body straight by the end of the year. but now that I've said that, it wont happen haha!