Another EK Ute on SA Roads

[In the Shed]

Greetings,

After owning my Dads FB sedan for 30 yrs (he purchased it in 1962) I decided to upgrade to an EK. I purchased this EK Ute around 6 months ago. A reasonable amount of work had been done by the previous owner/s but it still needed some finishing and tidying up. It came with 5 new tyres/rims, re-cored radiator, new water pump, new brake hoses/shoes/wheel cylinders/rubbers, seat belts (receipts worth around $1600). Asking price was $5500, but managed to get it for a bit less.

After spending a few days checking it out in the shed, fixing the brakes I got a permit and took it for a spin. Didn’t get too far and discovered there was no 2nd & 3rd gear!! Anyway I have now located the other gears. Seems to go quite well with a stock 138 & crash box but still needs some attention to fix an oil leak from the harmonic balance and output shaft of gear box. So far no big surprises though!! Have now got it registered so hope to get some road time. Will post some more pictures as I continue to tidy it.


Regards
Stephen

[Blacky]

Nice

[In the Shed]

nice ute looks to be quite original still. Is it still original upholstery?
Welcome
Tim

I think the upholstery is original, but in need of some TLC.

Numbers are as follows:
Body EK2106-1635M
Trim 545-1035
Paint 535-1588

I have had some chroming done (rear bumpers, bonnet bar & bonnet bird) and added them on. I have knocked up some clips and fitted the fender strips. Swapped the indicator housings over with some recycled units which has given the car a bit of a face lift and added some baby moon caps. Still more things to do but it's running OK.

Stephen

[VooDoo]

Looks awesome!
I liked the chrome bits that were painted gloss white, different!
But the chrome is always good too, Nice one

[Marty K Bird]

That's a very nice looking ute! And its nice to see you putting the old girl to work too!
Awesome~

[Woody01]

i want a ute like that!!!

very cool ute mate, keep the updates coming!!

[OldMan's Lacky]

Sweet

It's cool that there are so many utes still out there! Anyone know how many FK utes were made?

[mr.jones]

PS, I can't find the paint code listed in my records. THis probably means it is a fleet colour - Dr Terry or Leeroy who come on here have a good list, if you PM'd either of them I'm sure they'd be happy to help out.
Tim

545 makes the paint code 4588 Seaforth Green

[In the Shed]

Tim, Thanks for the pointer on the painted bits, I wasn't aware of them all.
Mr J, appreciate the confirmation on the paint colour.

Done a bit to the wheels including fixing an oil leak on the fuel pump and getting a wheel alignment. It handles much better now. I have also fitted a VDO clock. Unfortunately not the original accessory but a clock out of a VB / VC Dunny Door. I scrounged a piece of aluminium for the face plate and managed to squeeze it in where the radio goes. For $20 it works well and keeps good time.

Regards
Stephen

[In the Shed]

Been a bit slack in the shed department but a couple weeks off work allowed some shed time. The outer sun visor brackets that came with the car which appear to have been made from a genuine coke can have been annoying me so I thought I would have a go at making some. Fortunately I had an original pair of brackets on Dad's FB to use as a sample. The original ones are 0.5mm stainless steel. Since the brackets are just decorative I decided to make the replacements from 0.8mm aluminium.

A bit of wet & dry paper, Brasso/steel wool and then Autosol gave a reasonable finish in the end. The only problem now it has made the aluminium edge of the visor look rather tatty. Might have to give that a hit? Hope to get the car down to Glenelg for the All Holden Day.

Regards
Stephen

The Coke can brackets

Image014.jpg (17.36 KiB) Viewed 5493 times

Original stainless steel bracket at the bottom and my aluminium version above.

Image046.jpg (73.23 KiB) Viewed 5493 times

The end result

Image053.jpg (29.41 KiB) Viewed 5493 times

[MeFB]

Those brackets came up a treat

[Mick Jagger]

nice job looks $*#@ great

[In the Shed]

Hi All
Been a while since the last post but have done a bit of work, put a new floor in the ute. I used 15 mm ply but as the floor set down in the ute is only 12 mm the underside had to be skimmed around the perimeter with a router. That enabled the floor to sit flush with the body floor. I have secured the floor into the ute using rivet nuts then installed polished aluminium cargo strips over the floor screws so they are concealed. The timber has been stained then had 5 coats of clear floor finish.

As there is a heap of wasted space under the floor we cut a trap door in the timber floor. A recycled stainless steel hinge was used off an old chip fryer! I have wired up a LED strip light under the floor operated by a door switch so I can find what I am looking for. All secured with a lock.

I have also installed some recycled stainless steel eye bolts in the floor to secure my bike. To get the bike in the ute I have fitted a 12 volt winch under the parcel shelf with a remote control. This makes it easy to pull the bike up into the ute.

Regards
Stephen

[Blacky]

some clever ideas there, thanks for sharing .

[In the Shed]

Hi Folks,

To keep the ute on club rego I had to remove extractors as they aren't original which is fair enough. So pulled extractors, found a manifold in the spare parts dept and soaked that in a molasses bath for couple weeks. Whilst I had the spanners out I decided to fix an oil leak on the harmonic balance. So pulled the cover and balance and noted the balance had a grove in it. At this point decided to put a new timing gear on it and harmonic balance.

Cleaned up the manifold, painted it and fitted it up with a new gasket. Off to the exhaust shop to fit a new engine pipe, muffler & tail pipe. All good except it sounded like a truck! Had a closer look and it was leaking between manifold and head.

Pulled the manifold for a closer look. With a straight edge I had a 35 thou gap on the ex port for cylinder 2/3 & 4/5. I was going to take it in and have the manifold machined but thought I would have a go myself. I used a large rasp, steel ruler and feeler gauges to file the other ports down to close the gap. I set the manifold up against a white board with light to assist in guiding my progress. When close I glued some 120 grit paper on a board and then lapped the manifold on the emery paper. The end result was I got the gap down to 5 thou.

Reassembled the manifold up with a new gasket and it runs nice and quiet. A good outcome and saved myself a few bucks.

Regards
Stephen