A couple of weeks back I took the 64 to Albury for Chryslers on the Murray. It is the biggest show in the southern hemisphere about 3 ½ hours drive from Marong. We went in convoy with Tim’s VG ute towing the 64, my friend from Adelaide also had his VG ute and Jeiger drove his 69 VF 318 Coupe. We rented a house for three days and had a great time. I won best Competition car and had hundreds of lookers and photos taken. They have a dyno on site and I got talked into giving the old girl a run. The biggest crowd of the day gathered around and I sat in the car while the operator spun her up to 6500 rpm and 191 hp at the wheels. She sounded great and got a lot of people talking as there were some big blocks that only just made 200 hp.

Hi Rob
Seymour Pederson tells me you have a 64 two door post Valiant for sale. Could you please send me some details about the car? He mentioned it was in Tucson and that you may be able to get it to Long Beach. How about Oakland? I am building a car for our Historic Touring car competition (road racing), so I'm not looking for a show car, or even a runner, just something with a clean complete body.

I finally took delivery of the car on July 28, 2000. Boy the importing business is a slow frustrating one. She sat in Oakland, California for two months! I was really happy with the car when she arrived. Aussie 64 Valiants are not the same. We didn’t get a two door until 1969 or a four speed until 1972 and that was behind a Hemi six. I had Doug Dutra send me some 170s and an A-833 four speed because we only ever got the 225 over here.

As soon as I got her I got busy getting her running for a 'Final year of Plymouth' run. A group of us got all the Plymouths we could find in the local area and went on a run followed by a show where there were about 200 cars of all types. The old girl went like a charm and certainly created some interest. It took a fair bit to get her going as it must have been a long time since she last ran. I drained the fuel tank, replaced fuel hoses and filter, cleaned out the carb, bled the brakes, replaced core plugs, spark plugs, rocker gasket, water pump and oil filter, changed the oil, rebuilt the steering column using local parts, made new gear linkages, repaired the seat, removed the window tint, made some tail light lenses, lowered the rear and fitted some 14" alloy wheels from another car. Looking at that list, a bloke has to be mad! All that for one weekend!

Once the initial fun was over it was time to get serious building her into a real race car.

I started by buying myself a MIG welder and replacing the floor with one from a 1964 AP5 Valiant (AP stands for Australian Production). I measured up the floor pans and compared them and they were the same. I was not keen on patching it up as you don't have floor coverings in a race car. I spent a solid week cutting, welding and grinding, followed by a bit more cutting, welding and grinding. The floor looks bloody excellent and you have to look pretty close to see where the new sections are. I modified the tunnel to fit the four speed. I cut out a section of the floor hump and the crossmember from the Aussie Val and bolted it up to the gearbox on an engine stand. This made it easier to see what had to be done as I made my own gear linkage rods for the four speed out of 4140 alloy steel. I used rod ends to try and minimize slop for more accurate shifting. I finished up this job by fabricating a sheet metal cover for the rods and shifter. I tried to make it look factory, but only had a couple of photos to go by. I had a full competition roll cage installed. It looks great. I am really happy with the job. It is very well made and very neat.

I would love to run disc brakes, but the rules don't allow it. I have to run what was available in 1964 i.e. 9" drum brakes all round. You can see now why I am running the 170 slant and not the 273 V8! I decided to make what improvements I could and started by making a wooden pattern to have some heavy drums cast at the local foundry which I machined myself with cooling fins. I also have to run the 4"stud pattern. I read about the beefier spindles and upper control arms that were available on the later A bodies in Mopar Action, so I had a set sent over from the U.S. The knuckles and hubs are very beefy, they make the stockies look like match sticks. Getting them shipped over took almost three months, but it was worth the wait.

I made a set of headers and talk about a nightmare! The combined factors of the narrow A body, triple Webers, starter access, clutch Z bar, torsion bar and steering box on the 'wrong' side certainly made it a challenge. As if these things weren't enough, I made the primaries equal length. I bent the tubes in 3/4" and then got them copied and mandrel bent out of 1 5/8" tube. I bent three tubes three times each and they still weren't quite spot on. After much work they look mighty good and are within 30mm of each other in length. I would have liked a bit more clearance, in most places there is 10mm. I had them ceramic coated as I couldn’t stand to have them rust after putting so much time and effort into them.

Since the car will be raced on road courses and not just in a straight line, some steering and suspension modifications were in order. I got a 16:1 steering box and some other suspension stuff from 'Firm Feel'. I fabricated some brackets to attach a front sway bar. I strengthened the K-member by welding in extra gussets around the steering box mount in several places (you could actually see the steering box move up and down when turning). There are also plates behind the strut rod location holes to turn the C-section into a box section. I hope I haven't just added extra weight. It was just guess work on my part. I converted the 64 stud mounted idler arm to the through mounted variety with roller bearings. It looks pretty trick and was a lot of work.

I made and welded some sleeves to the upper control arms for extra bushing support and fitted a strengthening plate to the lower control arms. Then I had them powder coated and fitted off-set bushings for more caster and camber. I also added some extra strengthening to the upper control arms, fender wells and fender apron as well as some diagonal members across the radiator support panel and two plates under the front roll cage mounts. I also strengthened the clutch Z bar.

You have to run FIA approved seats and period style wheels no wider than 1"over stock so I had some14x6 Torque Thrust D type alloy wheels sent off to have them 'cut and shut' from 6" to 51/2".

I took her to the panel shop in mid October 2004 and was told it would be finished by Christmas. I picked it up the last weekend of June 2005. Some how, two months turned into eight. There was plenty of high drama along the way and the so called ‘quote’ was blown out of the water, but the end result is pretty damn good, not perfect, but pretty damn good. I had all the bumpers, door handles, tail lights and badges re-chromed and stainless strips, headlight bezels and grille all polished