Background:
I grew up in New Zealand- keep reading it gets better. My father was into cars and for a long time had a two door pillar less '57 Chevy. With little 283 V8 We lived next to the American Antarctic resupply base (Woodbourne Blenheim NZ) and those servicemen we allowed to bring their own cars into the country as personal belongings. At that time in NZ all you saw on the streets was &*#@ Zephyr's, Morris Minors, Cortina's, Rovers and of course Holden's. So a Yank muscle car was a real novelty. Back then our little town became populated with corvette stingrays, mustangs, thunderbirds and god knows what else..... The yanks would sell this cheaply bought yank metal at exuberant prices to us locals and buy up all the vintage tin in thr district to ship home when they went home at the end of their tour. Many a model A coupe was snapped up in a swap for a fibre glass wrapped V8.... I digress
The old mans Chevy was my, and his, pride and joy. He often raced it in the quarter mile on the air strip at Woodbourne base against the other yank tanks. It was my first driving car. In those days in NZ you could get your licence at 15years of age.- I did and set out to prove that it was way too young an age to hand someone over half a ton of lethal weaponry. The cops in those days had HK -HQ Kingswoods which were a match for the Chev, so I was always I trouble.
Ever since those days I have just loved that 55, 56, 57 shape and as we all know Holdens are only scaled down re-jigged chevy's, so I always had a soft spot for the Aussie version FB EK and to a lesser extent FE FC's.
For many years after I came to this great brown land (30 years ago now)I made do with just a car as couldn't afford the time or expense of something like a muscle car let alone a '57 Chevy. Closest I came was an LX Torana. V8 and all.
Once my kids grew up and I had some cash I got back into cars and bought a project car. The first choice was a '57 but anything that didn't require an complete re-build was seriously out of my budget still. A mate knew a bloke in Wynum (Brisbane) who was selling old holdens from his back yard. He was buying and selling, doing the minimum to make a buck. (Yanks call it flipping I think) I bought an EK ute from him and so began my love-affair with these beautiful cars.
I fixed that one up and drove it every day for 12 years, on the southside of Brisbane, until selling it to my daughter when I had to go back to NZ because there was no one else left to work the family farm. I made my daughters, then boyfriend, promise that if they were to resell by precios baby I would get the first bibs
Yeah well they split up and she let the little prick take my baby. Bastard.
If anyone out there sees a ute with a sunroof running around Brisbane driven by a weedy little white guy with sandy hair please flip the prick the bird for me.
Ok that is enough of all this blather .
I have spent many years working as a maintenance fitter and for a time in NZ had my own wrecking yard so have a reasonable handle on how things work, but we will see.
This project is going to be my retirement project - yes I am an old bloke - I moved to Tassie 4years ago and live on 12 country acres with a nice big shed which was an old packing shed. It is good workshop. Good power outlets, concrete floor with lots of benches and separate storage rooms.
I found the car on Guntree and the owner has made a good start. He is a blacksmith boilermaker and has made a good job of the panels-a few things are missing but hey that is half the fun.
To date -
Stripped the head - found it has cracks in 3 places
Bought new complete grey motor- stripped that and found 5 pot rusted from the top, so suspect head trouble. Can't see anything so will take into a good Reconditioner/motor shop in Launceston for them to give me a verdict.
I have another head lined up (Never have too many parts eh?)
Had the devils own job getting a thin tube socket to fit the cam shaft retaining bolts. Ended up with a cheap and cheerful 1/4 inch drive $10 special set hat fitted like a glove.
Then the impact driver I have had for years decided to only work clockwise. My bad it took a while to work that one out.
The motor that came with the car had the harmonic balancer welded to the crank. Not a good sign. Tried to grind the weld off internally and lost my temper and ended up taking to the puller with an angle grinder. It is off but bit worried about the crank now. No I didn't put a mark on it but still need to have it ground back and balanced if it is to be of any use- fingers crossed for the motor I bought.
Found the retaining bolts on the camshaft were missing-sorry shorn off. Not sure what was holding it n place- no damage to the lobes that I can see.
So tomorrow I am taking the second grey motor into the reconditioner to get sized up and hopefully get the news that he can make a good motor from the two I have.
Next is to start on the pant. temperature in Tassie only get up to acceptable levels in the summer so I will need to get stuck into the prep so I can spend my Xmas Holi's painting.
Enough of the bull here she is:

