HZ panelvan resto

[DuncanM]

Hi guys

Ok - I've been stalking the site mostly for about 18 months, some great info and some great projects on here!

My background is in Chryslers - restored about 9 Chargers and decided I wanted to travel around Australia with my pup and so wanted a van. So, after looking for a Valiant van, preferably a Drifter, I realised they are rare as rocking horse shit for half decent ones!! So I went to my next option which was a Holden van. Always liked them as a kid and young teenager, seeing them drive past...

So, I ended up picking up a mostly rust free HZ van from a nice guy in Mildura. 308 4 speed and original paint being Volvo Driver's Beige (original colour name... ;), with a Dog Shit Brown (again original colour name) interior. Bench seat etc...

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GTS guards, pretty much no interior except the worn out bench seat and two buckets. Mechanicals are generally done, but I'll be going through them myself anyway. I was sold on the lack of rust in the gutters and van roof/quarters seam

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Also, the floor pans were excellent.

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So, I'll be updating as I go. The plan is to go with Papaya (yes I know not an HZ colour, but I love it) with a black interior, although the black headlining does concern me a bit with just looking like a mine in the back, but we shall see how we go The other thing I plan on doing is welding up the rear windows and putting the bracing in to make it windowless. I've done a lot of mig welding on my other restos, but this will be a challenge not to stuff it up given the potential for heat distortion.

However, I've got a lot of stripping to do first, and I'm sure (as with all restos) I'll encounter a HOST of issues along the way that I can't see yet, but that's part of the fun, right? (I say in jest...)


EDIT - I should note that I've started stripping and the primer is just sitting on top of the original paint - not upset as I plan on stripping it all back to bare metal anyway....