Inspired by Grunt's amazing effort on the rebuild of his HX Sandman Panel Van, I have recently decided to have a crack at restoring the large clump of rust that has been sitting dormant beneath my house for the past five years.
The aforementioned rust pile loosely takes the form of a 1967 Holden HX Panel Van. Bought from a friend of a friend for the lowly price of $700 dollars, this classic piece of Australian motoring history has clocked up over 600 thousand kilometers in its time. During this period, Mother Nature has done its best to convert the once proud and mighty form of steel into nothing more than pure oxide rust.
It is with great fondness that I recall one of our last outings. It was a return trip from the Falls Festival in Lorne, during which we encountered a prolonged spell of rain. I can still vividly recall the sound emanating from the water filled doors, surges of water rushing back and forth every time the brakes were applied.
The doors were literally half full of water. This may have been practical had I been stuck in the Simpson Desert, however this was not the case.
The fist-full clump of silicon that had been pumped into the windshield cowl by one of the previous owners had long given up on any hope of retaining water, and to keep the drive interesting, a water feature had formed on the passenger side of the car. A pictures water stream was stemming from the kick panel and amalgamating in a lagoon which had at one time been the floor panel of my vehicle.
Shortly thereafter, the van was parked under the house, placed in the ‘too hard’ basket and largely forgotten.
That is until late April of this year, when I had decided to wash the years of dust from the Vehicle.
Well, I’ve started now…, what next?
Over the past three months, with the aid of my father, the time invested in this vehicle has snowballed from that point on and we find ourselves in the midst of a full restoration project.
The vision is to restore the body to a full metal skin and ditch the old 202 motor and tri-matic transmission for a more modern V6 and manual gearbox setup.
The front brakes and suspension will get an upgrade and the banjo differential will be swapped out for a Salisbury.
The exterior will be finished in a gloss black with chrome trim, with the intention of giving this shadow of a once proud van a new tuff and mean (evil) look.
To ensure maximum evilness, the van will be blasted with copious amounts of Heavy Metal music during its construction.
I would like to share the long, hard, arduous (and hopefully rewarding) journey with the My Sandman community.
So, without further ado, project Evil HX, here we go……
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Originally Posted by Vombil
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