Known as "SOS pads" or "Brillo pads" in the North American market. They're quite useful!

Do you know the oven cleaner trick? Spray oven cleaner (regular lye/sodium hydroxide type, not "fume free") quickly and easily removes paint, grease, crud, decals, and all manner of other corruption from any metal except the light alloys (aluminium, zinc diecast, magnesium…those, it dissolves).
That's a Bosch direct-drive starter. Interesting, thought they'd gone to the Bosch gear-reduction unit by VE; guess it wasn't 'til VF. See the Bosch gear-reduction type here. I'm fairly sure your full black spray is more factory correct than the image you show.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I used oven cleaner as the first line of attack on all the front end steering gear, left it for a few hours to do it's work then rinsed it all off. The amount of crud that came off was insane. I then gave it a hit of degreaser which I left for an hour followed by a scrub down with those steel wool soap pads. By that time, the K-frame and steering bits was back to bare metal, no paint stripper was required. Obviously I masked everything in the engine bay extremely thoroughly before using the oven clean but boy it was effective to break down hardened grease and dirt build up. After that, I sprayed it all in gloss black. The oven cleaner was a real winner!

They may have gone to the Bosch gear-reduction unit sometime in the run of VE manufacturing. Mine was very early in the run, so it may have got one of the older direct-drive starter motors.

From looking at my starter motor before it was painted, it was pretty much a bare metal finish..... with it's fair share of surface rust making it look pretty average. I treated the rust but it still looked a bit scrappy so that's why I opted to paint the whole starter in 2 pack black, a good solid protective finish.

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Almost ready to Giggity Gigitty!

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Interesting fuel filter -- who made it, and where?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Based on the little decal I made for it, Chrysler Australia LTD! It's an after market filter I picked up from a local spare parts joint. I could have gone and bought a "Mopar" brand period filter but to be honest, $50 to $60 for the privilege of having one doesn't appeal to me. This one I bought was about $8.

I'll get the name of the manufacturer for you. Strange thing is, when I bought the car in 2009, it had the exact same style of fuel filter and up until this rebuild, I couldn't find the same kind. It sort of looks old skool, I like it.

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I'm skittish about plastic fuel filters especially with parts increasingly coming from zero-quality-control China and fuel formulations changing as they are.

Make mine metal, please and thanks!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Beauty! VERY nice job on your Valiant. Can I pay you to fly to Washington State and do my brother's Duster?

Wow, thats some nice work!

Cheers for the kind words fellas!

The Slant started a few days ago and ran like clockwork with a lovely idle. No leaks so far except a small one at the flange of the exhaust manifold and down pipe but it was easily sorted. The only delay in starting the thing was the oil light not coming on when the ignition was turned on which had us stumped for about 45 mins. Not wanting to start it without an oil light signal to confirm oil pressure, we weren't sure if it was the original oil sender being faulty or the wire to the sender failing but after using a multimeter, we were left with the only variable being the oil light bulb... and indeed it was blown. New globe, oil light works. Simple things sometimes get ya! I do need to get a new battery and terminals as the original terminals look light crap, even after cleaning them up. Apart from that, all that is needing to be done to make the project finished is to put the wiper motor and horns on, put the headlights in, the headlight surrounds and grill on and last but not least, when the engine has run few a few days, paint all the nuts on the gearbox bell housing and touch up all the small scratches from when the engine was installed. I can't tell you how good it felt seeing this thing breathe to life for the first time in 10 months! More pics to come but in a few days time.

Cheers Gordo

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Finished! Only a few little adjustments, touch up painting and it's all done!



















24,108 is the new zero.

In reality it has reset to zero twice so before the rebuild it had 224,108 miles on the odometer.

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Is that in miles or kilometers?

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Looking at speedometer would have to say miles.

Richard

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

Yes, it is miles. Australia switched from miles to kilometers in 1973 which was six years after my Valiant was made. The odometer reading suggests low mileage but it resets to zero after 99,999 miles. Looking at the original log books, I'm guessing it has reset twice before the rebuild so it is 224,108 miles.

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BEFORE




AFTER


OK here are my first impressions:

I was expecting a little more 'zing' from the engine when I drove it for the first time and I found it a little disappointing because it really wasn't all that much of a different feeling from before the rebuild. If anything it felt weaker. The carby needs some fine tuning and the timing will also need adjusting which will give it a little bit of something extra I'm sure. There is definitely more get up in first gear, much tighter there but the top end is flat compared to before the build. I'm sure that will pan out when the carby is addressed and the engine is run in a bit. As there is way more compression now with everything being so tight, the engine temp sits much higher than it did before the build. It temp gauge used to sit on a quarter when warm and never go over half way unless it was a hot day or had been running at 70 miles per hour for a few hours but now it gets up to 3 quarters within 10 mins of driving it calmly. Simon reckons the temp will settle down when the engine has been run in. My bonnet release doesn't work anymore, while that is a little thing, it really bugs me. The cable is just so tight that the knob pops of and I have to use pliers to pull it. I'm sure it's just a fine adjustment, some lube and it will come good. The grill and headlight surrounds aren't as "neat" as they were and loads of little things have gotten scratched in the process but that part and parcel of putting things back together I believe. There was almost a near disaster after we had taken the VE around the block a few times to bed the bearings and cam. While letting it idle in the driveway to see how high the temp gauge would go, one of the fan bolts worked loose just as I was looking in the engine bay. I saw it slowly work out, at the same time the fan started vibrating and I got Simon to kill the engine just before the bolt would have buried itself in the freshly rebuilt radiator. We were probably seconds away from farking the new core. If it had happened when driving, I wouldn't have seen it and it would have been disastrous. We both wondered how the fark it had worked loose being so vigilant with all the fastenings and came to the conclusion that the 2 pack black paint on the fan had softened up under the heat and allowed the bolt to move slightly then eventually work loose. We checked the other three bolts and they were loose also so Simon gave them all a heavy tightening and I will keep an eye on them. On a positive, the reconditioned master cylinder has made a big difference, the brakes feel better. There are no leaks so far which is great. There was nothing at all under the car a few days after running the engine for the first time.

Today I finally drove the car from where the engine was put together near Penrith back to my folks place on the Nth Shore of Sydney (where it resides) which is about 50 mins on two motorways at 50 miles per hour and it felt pretty good, just a little gutless. It's running a little rich and ran fairly high on the temp gauge. At speed it runs smooth but towards the end on the journey, it started idling a little rough at traffic lights but it got to it's home without a breakdown which is all I could ask for at this stage. After parking it up for a few hours, I went to look for leaks and apart from coolant coming out the radiator over flow, there was no sign of oil leaking or any sign of carbon from an exhaust leak so that's something to be happy about.

All in all, it's a non performance rebuild to factory specs (stock standard cam) except the pistons which are 40 thou oversized so it was never going to be a bolter but I'll admit, I really expected more noticeable power after having all new internals and the machining done. Time will tell and I do feel much better after cruising on the motorway for nearly an hour incident free.

Cheers all
Gordo

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You, ah, do realise your "before" engine bay is still way nicer than most, right?

Once the engine's run-in you'll like its performance better. What sort of ignition system are you running? How rabidly original do you require the engine bay to be? A good(!) electronic ignition system is heaps better than points-condenser.

Obviously timing and carburetion have to be adjusted correctly.

What kind of thermostat are you running?

Good catch on the fan!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.