It might not be trophy quality but after our five year journey together my 66 VC Valiant will win the gold medal every time in my eyes. To grow up and not be interested in cars would be nearly impossible. As a teen dad did his spray painters apprenticeship and went on to do his panel beaters trade also. His first car was a VJ R/T Charger but he also did up a FJ Holden as a project and still drives on club days and the annual trip to Wintersun. He also raced a HR Holden but ditched that for a VH Charger (I’m led to believe that it was in bad condition which makes what he did with it somehow ok). So with all this motoring history in my blood it was highly doubt full that I would be pulled away from the world of cars. I learnt to drive in my cousins Datsun 1600 race car, thing had been rolled a couple of times (he has a trophy giving him the nickname flipper) but thanks to safety regulations the roll cage did the trick every time, this took some of the worry about bumping into something while I was learning away from me … a little bit. Mid 2004 dad was given a fairly “rustic” looking valiant. At the time he decided, as he already had a VC it would be a good asset to have in case he had a bingle in his or for parts when he had time to restore it. Well I had other ideas, I hated doing homework and this looked like the perfect excuse to get away from all that and be able to learn something that could possibly help me in future years. So with surprisingly little prompting I convinced dad to let me have it. With his guidance I stripped it back to a bare shell which was later sand blasted to reveal some nasty bits. Some panel steal and hammer became his teaching tools, along with the grinder and the mig welder. After all the bad (which there was a surprisingly small amount of) was replaced the bog and sanding was my next lesson. We didn’t receive and engine or gearbox with the car which was a good excuse to upgrade just a tad. A tad being forty cubic inches to be exact, out with the 225 slant and in went the 265 hemi. A four speed box and a shortened down ford borgwana LSD diff helps put that power to the ground. The disks brakes on the diff helped stop but later model Chrysler disks were added to the front to give it that extra grip. But one mod led to another the manual gear box meant good bye bench seat which really didn’t bother me. So a pair of buckets where sourced, re-trimmed and fitted. Living in the country there is numerous wrecks in paddocks so it was easier to go clear some country side then chase parts elsewhere. They also came in handy as I didn’t listen to every bit of dads advice for instance labelling all the buckets of bolts, so something is missing mehh the wreck won’t miss that one bolt. So the car “SLOWLY” went form a car shape hidden by the grass that had grown through the bonnet and boot to what it is now, and the way it turned out I couldn’t be happier.
MY 66 VC VALIANT ( 5 YEAY PROJECT )
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looks s*#t hot dude!
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YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKSHb ... akJ04sOYjw
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