THE REBUILDER STORY
This is the story of the Holden one tonner iam rebuilding.
The "rebuilder one tonner" is a 1977 Holden one tonner , green in colour with a 3.3 litre inline six cylinder , column shift 3 speed automatic and a bench seat. It started life as a builders one tonner and had well entrully earnt its money serving its owner until the body gave up . I had been looking for a project for some time and i happend to be driving past a car yard not far from my house when something caught my eye right at the back of the car yard was this very sad looking green one tonner, looking like itd been through the wars still eager to serve even though it looked ready to retire very tired from its battles.It had just been traded in by its owner on another one tonner , it had just run out of registration and had some dents and rust , but when i looked over it the parts of the body which matter where perfect the rust and dents had only effected mostly the bolt on panels which could be replaced , the main thing was it had every thing i was looking for no rego as i was planning to rebuild one from the ground up,the trims and badges were all there, it was all original with no modifications what so ever and the price was right $1000.00. so i bought it and had it towed home.
The plan is to rebuild the one tonner into an original looking one tonner on the outside complete with factory commercial front and bumper but have a big block chev V8 motor up front running straight lpg, ford 9" diff and manual gearbox to really give some of those factory special vehicles a scare....nice thought hey pulling up at the lights next to a stock looking one tonner and being blown away by it....only up to the speed limit of course....(thats for the people who would have emailed me with speeding complaints....) my word i can imagine it now the sound of that big block chev V8 going up through the gears great sound hey, who needs a stereo.....
Once at home i started to strip it down and get a good look at the rusted and damaged areas. it looked pretty good with only the guards , floor, radiator support panel and the windscreen cowl panels having to be replaced.all the rest of the vehicle was solid without rust or damage.
The rebuild starts, having stripped the vehicle down to a shell and with the whole front end off it i started to cut out the effected and damaged areas replacing them with metal and welding them back into place. Iam have currently replaced the old radiator support panel with a perfect one found at a wreckers after 4 months of searching , replaced the two front guards with original factory guards found at a wreckers seemingly the last pair on earth and i have cut out and replaced the windscreen cowl panel corners one which iam not happy with will be redone until it is perfect and full metal no filler to be used this truck is to be all metal not filler hard task but being extreemly fussy will meet the challenge.
The plan has changed ....i was not able to weld the new floor sections properly (or maybe iam too fussy) from underneath so the cab is now ready to be taken off with all the brakes etc diconnected so it can be lifted off , i am fabricating a fixture that the cab will sit on and enable me to rotate the cab inside the workshop when iam welding it. I have in the meantime removed all the tail light , number plate and all other brackets at the rear of the tonner and sand blasted them free of rust and paint and had them powdercoated black , they came up looking like brand new and should look good once bolted back together with new bolts. I have also had the cab bolts re zinc plated so as they also look like original and should last another 20 years...once finished painted i will have the tray acid washed to restore it to its former state.
until next update keep on cruisin !!!!
Well the last update i was waiting for the garage to built ...well thats changed again we actually moved houses so the tonners had to be sold ...bummer hey....well its a question of didnt have any room at the new place until we organised everything and the offers were to good so out they went .....the future plan is to buy one finished then shoe horn a big block into it very very soon
