> Rotted : A few neglected Chevs

One of my friends picked up this 48 Chev pickup as a project, but resold it shortly afterwords.

New bin was made


FORD 351 in a Chev! yes its true


Van had new fenders, cab was rough


This is a 57 bellair that is being converted from RHD 4 door to LHD 2 door....

big block motor

supercharger






Also in this guys yard was an opel captian, waiting for a buyer, has full jag suspension.





Also residing with the 57 bellair was a GMC truck...

350 chevy engine.....

It had extensive bodywork done, reprofiled bonnet, shaved doors, moved filler cap and lowered.

My friend who owns the 48 Chev went to Port Shepstone to find some parts, the guy who had the spares had this 48 Chev and a later C10 chassis

> Spotted : Pair of 3000GT capris

So i go over to Classic ford spares to find some parts for my capri, the owner there also likes capris alot. He had a gold metalflake one with a V6 which he used for burnouts.

So i rocked up and see that he had resprayed it almost the same color as mine! With the same rims even! Looks good though ;-)

There was also a shell sitting in the yard, which had just had its paint done, very straight body with orange paint with sparkle in it.

Not sure whether the car is for sale or whether he is going to be taking it as a personal car.

> Spotted : 77 Ford Escort Panelvan

One of my friends built this as his personal car, but decided later to sell it as he ran out of space. Its a 77 MK2 escort panelvan, it was totally redone including an engine rebuild. Its a real eye-catcher.

> Spotted : 72 Ford Ranchero

This is really abit of an old update, but i found this pic going through my memory card. This 1972 Ford Ranchero was also up for a sprayjob at the panelbeater i sent my car to.

It has a 351 cleveland motor with a dressup kit. It has a pearl blue paintjob.

> Spotted : 57 Chev C10

My friends uncle from up in Johannesburg imports chev parts, and came down to durban to pickup a pontiac he had bought. He came with his "Towing" van.... a 1957 Chev C10 pickup with a 8.6L big block V8!

It started off as a bare shell, now sports yellow pearl paintwork, with pearl green flames. It has a disk brake conversion from the USA.

All chrome work was redone, still sports the Chev 3100 badges! Has a custom interior complete with sound system

Alot of detail went into the car, just look at the enginebay.

Rear lights imported from the USA with Chev emblems. Custom airbrushing on tailgate.

> Project : Carpeting and details

So continuing from where i left of with the interior a few weeks ago, i lined the body with felt, where i did not use the sound deadening material....

Got the carpets cut to size and sewed.

Glued in the carpets, trimmed the edges and made stainless steel sills and fitted them in, as well as the refurbished kick panels.

Swapped over seatbelt mechanism from my dads MK2 escort, looks like it came out factory. Test fitted doorpad for fit of other panels.

Refitted center console, sprayed trim black and fitted the MK2 escort seatbelt clips.

I got a really interesting gearknob from the Karmann Ghia in the rotted section.

Boot was looking abit plain, had some carpet left over......

So i carpetted the floor...

Fitted a homemade bracket to mount the spare wheel.....

I mounted an LED strip over the sparewheel also, so i reflects and illuminates the sparewheel as a center piece of the boot.

Brakes did not work the last time, so out they came....

Turned out the rod was too short, had to extend it so the brake pedal would come up in line with the other pedals and offer more travel on the pedal.

Made a section to go between the parcel shelf and the split seats as there was a gap showing, this was covered int black carpet.

One piece that was hard to get was the clutch fork dust cover, ended up using a universal gear gator as an alternative, hope it lasts.

Had to remove all the locks and get keys made up, as the keys that came with the car did not work!

New rear number plate was made, in standard size to replace the square plate.

Oil pressure gauge on the dash was not working, the original plastic pipe was damaged, so i made a new bent steel pipe.

Pipe runs from the engine into the cabin, and to a plastic section and into the gauge cluster.

Next up the seats.....

> New section Added

I managed to find some cool articles and writeups on the net about the ford capri, from the design stages upto wiring diagrams, you will find all the information in the new section in the navigation bar, just click on READING or the link below.

Technical Articles

> Project : Wiring,Interior and Brakes

So 1st off on the interior, the dash was stripped to see how bad it really was under the vinyl was carpet...

...which was hidding a really badly cracked dashboard, this was sent of to be recovered in black vinyl.

Also sent off the backboard to be recoverd along with the dashboard. It was made of fiberglass so no real damage there.

Had to source some special brackets to hold the backboard down.

So while the interior stuff was send for recovering, the wiring was done, battery now located in the boot, we had to run power cables to the front.

Dashboard required new switches, could not locate capri switchs so used MK2 escort switches as they are the same size.

Engine bay wiring was refitted and cleaned up and encased in plastic sleeving, new plug leads fitted.

Fuse holder cleaned and repainted. Also replaced the shocks, so repainted the strut tops...

...and put new alan-key bolts to match those on the heads.

The rear brakes where jamming on one side and leaking on the other. The plungers where leaking on the driver side.

The passenger side had a siezed adjusting nut which caused the pads to jam.

Bought some new brake cylinders, matched them to datsun laurel cylinders, they still need to be fitted.

Trim panels for the dash being rubbed down, holes need to be fixed and then reprimered and resprayed black.

Oil pressure pipe needs replacing, as it was badly damaged.

The dash was put back piece by piece after the electrics were all tested and working ok, used vinyl spray to repaint the indicator stalk, steering cover and passenger side dash facia.

Interior light, headlights and fan hookedup.

Pedals were removed and cleaned, and the pedal stalks where cleaned and repainted.