314 replies to this topic

[dirtbag]

Hello chaps and chapettes. This car has been hovering around the shed for a while now but it's finally getting a little bit of attention.

It's an Opel Monza, obviously, and will be getting VH commodore front and rear and a Group C bodykit. It'll also be getting a new Holden V8 heart : )









The owner supplied me with a good VH front cut with all hanging panels, so that's going to be a big help.





I picked up a rear cut from a VC so I can install VH tail lights, as the monza ones look like crap! Plus the more recognizable the car is as a commodore the more people will realise it's a 2 door. At the moment it looks a bit like a retarded celica : )





So first things first, get it in the shed. Of course all the other times I've started it there were no dramas, but the time it's going inside it wouldn't start. This is when you find out it's a heavy bugger to push : )





It has some rust issues. Both sills, front guards (which I'm not using anyway so it doesn't matter) rear quarters and wheel arches, boot floor, a bit around the hatch, the hatch itself, the front strut towers, A pillars, doors, sunroof, radiator support and chassis. Apart from that it's really solid : )













It has this cool sticker on the windscreen too.





Well now it's time to start tearing it apart.

[YELLAcakeu308]

sweet!

[dirtbag]

Well even though it's a fairly basic car as far as getting to the nuts and bolts, it fought me the whole way! I snapped about 15 bolts getting the front apart. The rust has worked it's way into most of the bolts, so they're really tight. I even managed to open up a couple of knuckles when some bolts broke. That's always fun hahaha.





The motor mounts have a little shock absorber on each side. These things are COOL!





Getting the factory oil cooler out took ages, but it's out now!





The drivers side A pillar has seen better days, but it's fixable : )









This is the drivers side chassis rail. It's lovely : )




The drivers side headlight housing has this big seam around it, which I'm pointing to. I can push it backwards and forwards with my finger, and it makes a nice crunchy sound : )





I know it looks like nothing, but I could have thrown a party at this point! The seats were held in with fairly long allen head bolts, that were rusted in, and it took me about 45 minutes a seat just to unbolt them!





Under the carpet in the rear, there are two steel flaps that make the floor when the rear seat is folded down. The pic doesn't show it but the paint on them is amazing! It's completely untouched and they look brand new. That's good, because nothing else on this car does : )







There's a few small bits of rust around the rear hatch. Nothing to major but they'll still need to be cut out and fixed.





This is the rear of the drivers side rear wheel tub. The intersection of where the tub meets the floor is pretty knackered.





Drivers side rear quarter.







The rear of the boot floor doesn't look that bad in the pic, but it all needs to be replaced.





This pic is just because : )





Passengers rear quarter is a bit crusty too, but we already knew about these areas. So far there's been no real surprises.







I know I'm posting a lot of boring rust pics, but these are more for the owner to see than anything else.




It's amazing how much better it looks already just by pulling the bump strip crap off the sides.





Doing a quick test fit of the rear flare, just because I wanted to : )





It's going to need a bit of work to make it fit properly, but it's going to look awesome when it's done.





The front bar/spoiler.





I'm not really sure why there's these clumps of poo on the bolts holding the rear side glass in, but it's there anyway : )







Getting the interior out was a bit of a mission, but there's enough out now to keep me happy. The only thing left that I haven't done yet is remove the sunroof, but that's for another day.





Time to yank the 3 litre monster and getrag 5 speed. The 5 speed will be going back in, but not with this engine









Well that's it for now. It's taken just over two days just to get to this point! The owner also has another one of these so I've been trying to be as careful as possible when removing opel parts, even though we're not using them on this car they can be spares for the other car.


Next job will be to strip the paint and get some etch on it. Then the chopping can begin : )

[MRLXSS]

Oooohhhh, this is going to be an interesting build!

Man there is a shit load of rust in this thing though!

[A9X]

subscribed !

i have an interesting concept for a project , if you are keen to talk about some paid work.

[Potta]

Fr0ck me this will be awesome when its done.

[Neils LX]

Looks like a mash of VH commodore and UC hatch. Looking foward to watching this build come together.
Any chance of it being painted up like a Brock group c racecar?

[UCgazman]

...... At the moment it looks a bit like a retarded celica : )

hahaha
Awesome project, cant wait to see more...

[MictheAussie]

Its so nice to see another Dirtbag Thread. I didn't realize how much I've missed it.
Looks like a fun project.

[r2160]

I cant believe how much rust it has. Was this an english car originally?

cheers
Glenn

[Shtstr]

looks like just as much rust as there is car left. I'm sure you will do a bloody good job of it tho drit bag cant wait to see the end result.
I say this as i have seen photos of the protype one HDT did in the 80's and it look fantastic.

[YELLAcakeu308]

artworxfx : thats a cool pic, can you do one with the group 3 bonnet scoop?

[MONZA1]

British car = rust. I look forward to watching the build.

[dirtbag]

Well I did a bit of digging on the old beast yesterday. I attacked some of the bits with a wire wheel, and used 24 grit discs for the rest.















Time to start hacking paint : )





I don't know of aussie commodores have these lovely joins at the front and rear of the roof like this does, but geez for a production car the finish is amazing. Pity they couldn't put the same effort into keeping the rust out : )







Obviously the sills are knackered.







The rear wheel arches have defnitely seen better days, but seeing as the big flares are going on a lot of this can get cut away.





I was able to snap the lower front edge of the rear wheel arch off with my hands. That's always a good sign hahaha.















With the outer panels stripped I covered the lot in rust converter.







Well that pretty much took care of yesterday, and what a fun day it was too : )