HSV showing its age
Discussion
Mine is number 11 of the VT2s.
The underside is well sealed. I had some welding done around the left rear wheel arch and that has been resealed. The obvious rust is at the lower edges of the bodywork e.g. some bubbling at the front wheel arch at the bottom edge of the wing. Inside the doors where rain runs through the little drain holes at the top and bottom. It is clearly going to deteriorate and could do with stripping and repainting. Whilst doing that I thought might as well get various perished bits of rubber replaced, the front fogs are broken (stones) and the air circulation is stuck on windscreen. So I wondered if anyone had experience of getting rid of all these little problems.
The underside is well sealed. I had some welding done around the left rear wheel arch and that has been resealed. The obvious rust is at the lower edges of the bodywork e.g. some bubbling at the front wheel arch at the bottom edge of the wing. Inside the doors where rain runs through the little drain holes at the top and bottom. It is clearly going to deteriorate and could do with stripping and repainting. Whilst doing that I thought might as well get various perished bits of rubber replaced, the front fogs are broken (stones) and the air circulation is stuck on windscreen. So I wondered if anyone had experience of getting rid of all these little problems.
Sounds like there ware 2 parts to what you need here.
1 - a quality bodywork outfit. If you are paying for paintwork then you need someone you can trust to do the repair and de-rusting properly. If they just grind the top off, slap some filler on an paint it, it may look fine when you collect, but in a couple of years, you'll be back where you started from (well - plus 2 more years of rust).
I can't recommend anywhere, but beware places that are used just to bolting on new panels to crashed cars. I would look for a word of mouth recommendation for a more garage used to "classics" cars.
2- obscure trim and body bits. Monkfish are surely your best first port of call. I don't know how much they hold or can get. After that more tricky. I assume the mods won't censor requests to this forum to ask if anybody is breaking or has anything suitable? Parts common with the Monaro are more likely to be available than GTS specifics. I expect many people here have a few bits and pieces accumulated over the years.
On older cars, I occasionally used to be able to source things like rubber body seal direct from suppliers. That was in the days of generic rubber strips and seals. I suspect there isn't much mileage in that now
After that, then I guess you may need to source from Oz. I don't have an contacts here either but the Commodore and HSV sold in reasonable numbers, so there must be sources of parts there.
If you end up ordering parts from there, I guess it would be worth posting here. Most parts like this on my car are pretty good, but I might be interested in sharing shipping costs on some trim parts?
Does anybody have any experience of getting parts direct from Oz?
Good luck.
1 - a quality bodywork outfit. If you are paying for paintwork then you need someone you can trust to do the repair and de-rusting properly. If they just grind the top off, slap some filler on an paint it, it may look fine when you collect, but in a couple of years, you'll be back where you started from (well - plus 2 more years of rust).
I can't recommend anywhere, but beware places that are used just to bolting on new panels to crashed cars. I would look for a word of mouth recommendation for a more garage used to "classics" cars.
2- obscure trim and body bits. Monkfish are surely your best first port of call. I don't know how much they hold or can get. After that more tricky. I assume the mods won't censor requests to this forum to ask if anybody is breaking or has anything suitable? Parts common with the Monaro are more likely to be available than GTS specifics. I expect many people here have a few bits and pieces accumulated over the years.
On older cars, I occasionally used to be able to source things like rubber body seal direct from suppliers. That was in the days of generic rubber strips and seals. I suspect there isn't much mileage in that now
After that, then I guess you may need to source from Oz. I don't have an contacts here either but the Commodore and HSV sold in reasonable numbers, so there must be sources of parts there.
If you end up ordering parts from there, I guess it would be worth posting here. Most parts like this on my car are pretty good, but I might be interested in sharing shipping costs on some trim parts?
Does anybody have any experience of getting parts direct from Oz?
Good luck.
Gassing Station | HSV & Monaro | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff